Ancient demographics, partible inheritance and distribution of wealth in classical Athens and Sparta : a comparative perspective

This article seeks to explain the remarkable contrast between the increasing inequalities in property ownership in classical Sparta and the remarkably equal property distributions that various scholars have observed for classical Athens. Explicitly comparing Sparta and Athens, it will focus on the impact on mortality patterns of behavioural factors, state-imposed mechanisms, and socio-economic conditions. It will argue that, although it is difficult to exclude that fertility and inheritance strategies, used in Athens and in Sparta, played a role in generating greater (in)equality, the distinctive situation in Athens was mainly the outcome of typically Athenian state-imposed mechanisms that reduced wealth disparities, and of the relatively low level of income inequality in Athenian society