从下面这一段里，可以学到什么呢？

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The direct distance between Athens and Sparta is not great – less than a hundred miles, if the sea is no barrier. Ideologically, however, the two city-states were very far apart. And this is not just an impression formed in retrospect. Beyond their historic rivalry (and occasional alliance) on the battlefield, Athens and Sparta cultivated a sort of oppositional development, with each city apparently striving to be the antithesis of the other. The written evidence suggests as much: and when we admit that the written evidence comes largely from the Athenian side, that too becomes part of the marked difference. The Athenians are eloquent, showy, studious; the Spartans, by contrast, so notoriously disinterested in verbal expression that their region, Laconia, lends its name to a general reluctance to use words beyond the minimal.