Xenelasia

Xenelasia (Ancient Greek: ξενηλασία, Ancient Greek: [ksenɛːlasía]) or xenelasy was the practice in ancient Doric Crete and Lacedæmonia of expelling foreigners deemed injurious to the public welfare. The isolationist customs of Sparta (which included discouraging Spartan citizens from traveling outside the commonwealth) may also sometimes be referred to as xenelasia. The majority of ancient Greek authors attribute the codification of this practice to Lycurgus.

Application of Xenelasia laws

In Lacedæmonia

Xenelasia is most famously associated with Sparta. Lacedæmonian magistrates had the authorization to expel any person who posed a threat to public order and morals, for they considered their state a family writ large. While foreigners were allowed in for religious festivals and missions of state, they were generally not permitted to live in the environs, though special exceptions might be given to friends and allies (laconophiles), like Xenophon. Xenophon himself wrote about xenelasia in his Constitution of the Lacedaemonians:

There were alien acts in former days, and to live abroad was illegal; and I have no doubt that the purpose of these regulations was to keep the citizens from being demoralized by contact with foreigners; [...]

Thucydides wrote a speech attributed to Pericles in his History of the Peloponnesian War, which portrays xenelasia as a characteristic of Athens' enemies during the Peloponnesian War. These opponents included the Lacedæmonians:

If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts (ξενηλασίαις; xenelasiais) exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens...

Concerning xenelasia in Lacedæmonia, Plutarch wrote:

And this was the reason why he (Lycurgus) forbade them to travel abroad, and go about acquainting themselves with foreign rules of morality, the habits of ill-educated people, and different views of government.