The “Revolutionary” <i>Basileia</i> of Nabis

• Main Author: César Fornis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Nacional de La Plata 2016-06-01
• Series: Sociedades Precapitalistas
• Subjects: Nabis; Esparta; Basileía; Filopemen; Liga aquea; Flaminino
• Online Access: http://www.sociedadesprecapitalistas.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/article/view/6407

In ancient literary sources King Nabis of Sparta is characterized as a tyrant having undertaken a series of radical reforms, which especially in their social content, attacked the established order and threatened the supremacy in the Peloponnese of a conservative Achaean league sustained in the propertied classes and backed by the unstoppable Roman legions. It is the purpose of this article to analyze the basis of this “revolutionary” monarchy of Nabis and the scope, objectives and final fortune of its measures, which represented an attempt to accommodate the reality of the Hellenistic states without relinquishing the Spartan identity and cultural heritage. The ultimate aim was to recover part of its past military splendour and to achieve a worthy, if not hegemonic, place in the complex and unstable Peloponnesian geopolitical chessboard, but the Achaean elite did not cease until it had silenced any socioeconomic claim in Lacedaemonian society.