"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 Spartans:" "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; and now I have no doubt that the fixed ambition of those who are thought to be first among them is to live to their dying day as governors in a foreign land."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: