Persian boys were .
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forced to begin military training at the appalling age of five or six (Michal). This was .
.
needed because both civilizations were at a constant war with someone. The citizens of .
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Sparta always faced the threat of rebellion from the helots, or slaves, and the Roman .
.
Empire, as well as the Persian Empire. Persia was always fighting off the Greeks, .
.
especially Sparta. All of this military training did have an end result, as both Sparta and .
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Persia were thought to be two of the greatest military forces in that time period. Sparta .
.
was the leading Greek military, and although the Greeks kept beating Persia, the Persian .
.
military was still thought highly of, (Phil. of Hist.). "By 401, the Persiann army had .
.
become much weaker, but were still heavily feared in their clashed with Greek cities," .
.
(Ancient Greece). Both cultures were forced to maintain a strong army because they were .
.
always at war with others as well as each other. It also changed their religious outlook. .
.
Both cultures were Polytheistic but the gods they prayed to were different. Sparta .
.
worshiped many gods, but none was more important than Athena, (Classical World). In .
.
Greece each city-state worshiped a specific god or goddess who they gave the most .
.
attention to. For Sparta, it was Athena. Persia was polytheistic, but unlike Greece, they .
.
did not worship a specific god or goddess the most. The Persian state religion was a .
.
specific sect of Polytheism: Zoroastrian. The importance of religion within society was .
.
very different from each other. Religion, while important in Sparta, had more to do with .
2.
the temples that were built, than the gods they worshiped. In the Greek city-states, the .
.
temple would become the pride of the city, and the cities competed with each other for .
.
the greatest one, (Egypt). For Persia it was different, "The religion of Persia itself was .
.
Zoroastrianism, and the unity of Persia can be attributed in part to the unifying effect of .
