The ideology of the Spartan homoioi, the ‘equals’, or rather the ‘similars’, masked vast differences in wealth, prestige and power. In such circumstances, personal patronage thrives, as decades of anthropological investigations have shown us. Yet patronage is more commonly associated with Rome, despite the fact that several scholars have shown that patron–client relationships played a role even in democratic Athens, a society earlier thought exempt from this almost universal phenomenon.

In this chapter, I discuss the role of personal patronage in classical Sparta, and the differences between unequal reciprocity in the society of the ‘similars’ and in democratic Athens. I build on the findings of Stephen Hodkinson and Paul Cartledge (Sparta), Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz (Athens) and my own research into patronage in the Roman Republic and the comparative structure of Athenian patronage, in order to demonstrate how patronage is a natural part of all ancient societies. Different systems allow for the institution of patronage to assume different scopes and work through different venues, forcing the phenomenon to adapt to various circumstances. This changes the rates of exchange between patron and client, but does not abolish the institution, as claimed by Paul Millett.

A UNIVERSAL MODEL FOR A UNIVERSAL PHENOMENON: THE ECONOMY OF GRATITUDE

In the same way that archaeologists automatically look for a theatre in a Greek city, a public bath in a Roman city, and council houses, forums/agoras and temples in either, historians should look for patron–client relationships in the written sources, no matter which city is being scrutinised. And our answer to ‘What reason do you have to look for this?’ should be the same as an archaeologist would give if asked why he or she was so sure that somewhere on the site there would be the remains of a theatre, a council house, a temple or an agora: because it would be very strange indeed to find a city without these structures. Even without any success in finding some or all of these typical features, the archaeologist would repeat the old truth: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.