In the Shadow of Lacedaemon: Luxury, Wealth and Early-Modern Republican Thought

Abstract

The article examines Sparta’s influence on the treatment of luxury and wealth in early-modern republican thought, analyzing three key thinkers: Francesco Guicciardini, Montesquieu and Abbé de Mably. In this view, unnecessary wealth and, particularly, consumption over a certain limited level, is a pernicious extravagance that harms virtue and leads to corruption of the commonwealth that allows it. Both the direct influence of the Spartan example and the correlative Platonic ideal, inspired by the Lacedaemonians, are analyzed; the influence of Plutarch is emphasized. Special attention is given to the distinction between the Platonic account, with the twin dangers of both wealth and poverty, and a simpler, binary opposition of virtuous poverty vs. corrupting wealth. Guicciardini’s and Mably’s views are closely examined; for Montesquieu, the article traces the decisive role Plato plays in Montesquieu’s account of luxury, and analyzes his almost unknown work,Dialogue de Xantippe, showing the importance of Sparta for Montesquieu’s idea of republic.

Machiavelli and Spartan Equality

“…In Delle buone leggi e della forza, he emphatically refers to Lycurgus' scalpel, namely the tool the Spartan legislator had employed not only to divide the property, but also to amputate a deleterious cancer, that of inequalities and richness, from the body of Spartan society: 'The good physicians should be imitated, who, when they cannot cure the disease with ointments and sweet medicines, resort to iron and fire' (cited in Guicciardini 1857Guicciardini -1867. 34 Although in his youth, as Nikola Regent (2019) has noted, Guicciardini favoured the reduction of inequalities, he was hostile to any radical and revolutionary intervention, and his moderation becomes even more evident in his later, more mature works. 35 Guicciardini's La Decima scalata demonstrates the impossibility of applying Lycurgus' scalpel to Florence, because, as he points out, the city does not have a citizen army and thus depends on mercenaries, whose enormous cost can only be supported by aristocratic wealth.…”

“…35. Regent (2019) showed that the metaphor of Lycurgus' knife derives from Plutarch's comparatio of Agis and Cleomenes with the Gracchi. 36.…”