The reason that Athens and Sparta were such brutal enemies was because of how different they're city-states cultures were. Athens was where democracy started, meaning that citizens of all classes could vote on city matters. They had a rich area with great artists and educated people who brought about and built some foundations of the western world. Whereas Sparta valued they're war value more than anything. They're government was run by a few rich families as an oligarchy, they kept very few records, and were incredibly secretive.
From 600 BC to 371BC Sparta dominated Ancient Greece. During this time as well as time before their domination if you were a Spartan man when you reached age 18 it was required that you would become a soldier (it was illegal for a man to have any other occupation.) If a baby was born it had to be inspected, and if it didn't look healthy enough then it would be put to death! If you had passed the inspection and you were a boy then at 7 years old you would be taken away and have to live in the barracks with other boys your age and be trained to be soldiers.
Being miserable and uncomfortable, not having luxuries was very important to the Spartans. People say that they purposely made their food bad tasting! Something that i found very interesting was that both boy and girls were trained to be physically strong and fit, but for two very different reasons. Here is what the section says "While the main job of Spartan men was to be soldiers, the main job of Spartan woman was to have children. Spartans believed that physically fit woman had strong babies.
Sparta remained a strong city-state until Thebes crushed they're army and they never recovered. So along with its army its power faded away. Once the Romans took over during 146 BC Spartan had become quite a popular tourist attractions they went to watch "the little boys who could be whipped without showing pain." frankly i think it cruel but impressive i can't believe that someone would travel to see that.
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