The origins of philolaconism: Democracy and aristocratic identity in fifth-century BC Athens

Abstract

Copyright © Museum Tusculanum Press 2016. All rights reserved. This article attempts to trace the origins of philolaconism among Athenian elites in democratic Athens. It argues that fondness for Sparta among Athenian elites was not founded on a desire for constitutional change to the Spartan political model, and, indeed, that philolaconists were not seen as threats to the democratic order per se. Philolaconism was rooted instead in the Athenian aristocracy's need for an identity in the face of a changing Athens. Indeed, the fondness for Sparta became part of the social strategy through which the elite and wealthy members of Athenian society sought to reassert their threatened identity by adopting Spartan ways, and admiring Spartan values, in order to distinguish themselves from democratic culture. Thus, the cause of Athenian philolaconism was predominantly social not political; and as a social phenomenon it was not primarily based on the content of Spartan culture, but rather on the usefulness of Spartan otherness for the purpose of distinguishing Athenian elites from Athenian commoners.