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Document Details :

Title: Between Babyka and Knakion
Author(s): STIBBE, Conrad M.
Journal: BABESCH
Volume: 69    Date: 1994   
Pages: 63-102
DOI: 10.2143/BAB.69.0.2005942

Abstract :
In the oldest constitutional document of ancient Greece, the so-called Great Rhetra, quoted by Plutarch in his Life of Lycurgus, we find, among other things, a topographical indication of much interest. The Spartan assembly, so it says, should meet every month between Babyka and Knakion. Commenting on this passage, no less an authority than Aristotle explained, again according to Plutarch, that Knakion was the name of a river and Babyka the name of a bridge. In later times this topographical definition seems to have become so popular that it could be used as a substitute for the name of Sparta itself.

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