Philodorian are those people who have a love of Lacedæmonia and ancient Crete and their Doric culture and laws. It is comprised of two Greek words, "philo-" meaning "love of" and "dorian" meaning the Doric race. The Spartans and ancient Cretans were Dorians.
The ancient Cretans and Spartans engendered goodwill and honor in classical antiquity because of their valor in war, their noble and virtuous ways, the eunomia of their political life and their creation of a tripartite form of mixed government called a classical republic. "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice;..." 7 Furthermore, they were admired for their art, "not of creating things in words or stone, but of men." 14
The Seven Sages of Greece were philodorians. "All these were emulators, admirers, and disciples of Spartan culture..." 1
Socrates, a veteran Athenianhoplite, is the most famous philodorian. Even in his own time, he was known as such but not with a favorable moniker. Aristophanes lampoons him in the Birds as "Sparta-mad" as if from the verb Lakono-maneo meaning to be mad about Laconian or Spartan ways. 2 In the Crito, Socrates acknowledges his own love of Sparta and Crete, "(his) favorite models of good government".
Plato, another Athenian, is another famous philodorian; so much so that he also had about him the signature Spartan characteristic of "cauliflower ears" which are swollen, hardened, and deformed ears characteristic of wrestlers even today. The Republic is loosely based on the Spartan government and ideals. He ends his writing career with the "Laws". It is his magnum opus of political theory and the capstone of his learning. Despite the passing of fifty years since the death of Socrates, his viewpoint hadn't changed and the two main characters are a Cretan and a Spartan.
Lycurgus (Athenian statesman) , "the most just of financiers, (was) united to an aristocratical disposition (and had) an admiration for the laws of Lacedæmon." 7
Xenophon was an Athenian gentleman and aristocrat. He too was enthralled with Sparta. After his mercenary adventures in Cyrus' revolt, renumerated in his "The Anabasis", he retired to live in Sparta. He wrote the only surviving contemporary commentary of the Spartan constitution.
Polybius wrote, "My object, then, in this digression is to make it manifest by actual facts that, for guarding their own country with absolute safety, and for preserving their own freedom, the legislation of Lycurgus was entirely sufficient; and for those who are content with these objects we must concede that there neither exists not ever has existed a constitution and civil order preferable to that of Sparta." 7
Plutarch served for a couple of years at the Doric Temple of Delphi. He has recorded the sayings of the Spartans in his Moralia.
Ancient Romans of the Republic and Empire admired the Laconian state and in 454 B.C. sent a commission to Athens to study the Greek constitutions including that of Sparta. Plutarch wrote "that many Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions" 12 and Polybius wrote on the similarities between the Roman Republican constitution with the Spartan constitution. 5 Sparta became a sort of tourist destination for wealthy Romans for which they built a special hostel. Furthermore, some Romans built secondary residences there. {recommended as a philodorian 6}
Sabines "declared themselves to be a colony of the Lacedæmonians". 12
Niccolò Machiavelli took much inspiration from the Lacedæmonian Republic in his Discourses on Titus Livius. He wrote: "I think, then, that to found a republic which whould endure a long time it would be best to organize her internally like Sparta, or to locate her, like Venice, in some strong place". 15 {recomened as a philodorian 6}
John Aylmer, in his work An harborowe for faithfull and trewe subiectes (1559) compared the mixed government of Tudor England with the Spartan republic. He describes "Lacedemonia (as) the noblest and best city governed that ever was", and describes and wishes England into the Spartan mold. 9
John Hooker, author of Order and usage of the keeping of a parlement in England (1572), "refers admiringly to Spartan and Roman republicanism". 10
Presbyterianism in England used the "mixed government" argument to undermine or transform the "Lords spiritual" estate (i.e. the bishops) into a simple council of elders. They looked as models for church and state government upon the upper houses of Lacedæmon, Athens, Rome as support for their arguments. 13
The Victorian British adopted the Spartan model of hardening their boys in their public schools; cold water, bad food, and bullying toughened the boys. Victorian education was based on a "combatitive" methodology of debate, competition, prizes and humiliation. 11
Karl Otfried Müller was a German classicist whose love of the moral nobility of the Dorian race led him to champion its greatness against the traditional enthusiasm for Athens. 4
The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain, Frank Turner, New Haven & London
The Victorians and Ancient Greece, R. Jenkyns, Oxford
The Spartan Tradition in European Thought, E. Rawson, Oxford,
References
Protagoras, Plato, Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters, ed. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, l961, fifth printing l969. 342e-343c; pg 336.
The Trial of Socrates, I. F. Stone, Little Brown and Co., Boston, l988. pp 121-124
The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, Paul Cartledge, pg 253
The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, Paul Cartledge pg 24.
The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Karl Otfried Müller, trans. fr. the German by Henry Tufnell, ESQ. & Georg Cornewall Lewis, ESQ., A.M., publisher: John Murray, London, 2nd ed. rev. 1839. Vol II, pg 192.
The Portable Greek Historians: The Essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, edited by M. I. Finley, The Viking Press, NY, NY, l959. Polybius, Bk VI, sec 50; pg 494.
Dangerous Positions; Mixed Government, the Estates of the Realm, and the Making of the "Answer to the xix propositions", Michael Mendle, University of Alabama Press, 1985. pg 49.
Dangerous Positions, Mendle. pg 57.
The Church Impotent, The Feminization of Christianity, Leon J. Podles, Spence Publishing Co., Dallas, TX, 1999. pp 182-183.
Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough, The Modern Library (div of Random House, Inc). Bio on Numa Pompilius, pg 74.
Dangerous Positions, Mendle. pp 64ff.
The Greeks, H. D. F. Kitto, Pelican (div of Penguin Books, Ltd.), Middlesex, England, 1st 1951, 1970. pg 95.
"Discourses on Titus Livius", Bk I, ch. 6, The Prince, Niccoló Machiavelli, ed. by Robert M. Adams, Norton Critical Edition, NY, 1997. pg 97
