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Egalitarianism was inherent to the Greek polis. However, the egalitarian substratum did not inhibit the existence of social, economic and political differences. The cases of Athens and Sparta show how a different understanding of the idea of equality could lead to completely different political systems. The democratic equality in Athens was an equality of the unequal and it was limited to the political sphere, while social inequalities persisted. This discordance inevitably led to the separation between political and social realm in both theory and practice. Since for democrats the social sphere came second to the political, the demos could permit itself a wide extent of freedom in private life. The direct connection between equality and the rule of law guaranteed the political freedom of the people, because the law was perceived as an instrument of self-discipline of the demos and disciplining those who might endanger its supremacy. Thus in Athens equality became one of the principal sources of freedom in private and public sphere. Several peculiarities of the Spartan constitution (relative simple structure, causal relationship between the social and political order, identification with immutability and association of its genesis with the divine sphere) caused that in Sparta equality at no time was perceived as the outcome of a political process and was never restricted to the political sphere. Consequently, the homoios-ideal, was perceived as something above the homoioi. Since this equality of the equal (similar) at the same time covered all aspects of the Spartan way of life, it was rather a source of constraint than of freedom. In relation to the other groups in Sparta the homoioi were the ruling class, but in relation to the Spartan constitution they were “slaves”. The democratic or isotēs kind of equality can easily be identified with arithmetical equality, since in it, all citizens, whatever their value, enjoy the same equality. However the subject of Spartan or homoiotēs type of equality is not so straightforward. Spartan equality was not considered to be proportional, due to the intra-homoioi equality. Since the homoioi were identified with highest possible level of virtue, the Spartans never intended to differentiate within this group. Accordingly, the real reason behind the identification of Sparta with proportional equality is the hierarchical nature of relations among all groups in Sparta.