Laconism and Democracy: Re-reading the Lakedaimoniōn Politeia and Re-thinking Xenophon

The present paper proposes that circular reasoning colours the way that we approach Xenophon's Lakedaimoniōn Politeia and obscures its role in Xenophon's corpus. Part one deconstructs some of the suppositional evidence underpinning the longstanding communis opinio that Xenophon was innately predisposed to reject democracy, while part two offers a new reading of the Lakedaimoniōn Politeia. This perspective considers the themes of the Lakedaimoniōn Politeia alongside Xenophon's Memorabilia and Plato's Alcibiades I, and highlights the work's unity and its capacity to rebuke members of the Athenian elite accused of laconising and subverting democracy.