A note to the Spartan ban on σκυλεύειν the fallen enemies

Abstract

Attributed to the Spartan kings Cleomenes I and Leotichidas II, two Apophthegmata Laconica testimony that Sparta had a ban on the consecration of weapons taken from fallen enemies. Another ban, ascribed to Lycurgus and then summarized by Aelian, even prohibited the plundering of the adversaries. The present paper aims to focus on the artificial character of this tradition, by demonstrating its historical unreliability through a comparison with the limited archaeological evidence and the main historiographical sources of the fifth century BCE, namely Herodotus and Thucydides. It will be therefore suggested the identification of a terminus post quem, after which it became necessary the invention of tradition about the bans that later would have become part of the mirage Spartiate.