ABSTRACT
Most frequently, it means to imitate Spartan manners-to copy their distinctive style of dress and hair, to speak tersely, or, in a political sense, to act in Sparta's interest. If this were the end of the story, no expectations would be disappointed-the Spartans were represented as pederasts. It makes sense that what would seem most remarkable and different about Spartan sexual culture to Athenians would be the anomalous role assigned to women there, for Athenians practiced pederasty too, but they did not, for instance, encourage their women to exercise naked. Since 1933, when François Ollier first published his still-influential text Le Mirage Spartiate, classical scholars have been conscious of the fact that much of what people know about Sparta comes to them from non-Spartan literature, and many of these sources have the tendency to idealize Sparta. Sparta's geographic integrity was a feature replicated in its political constitution, and self-control was a quality that Lycurgus sought to imbue in individual citizens.
