The City of Kekrops

The Peloponnese war concluded with Athen's loss. The Spartans erected at the Greek national sanctuary at Delphi statues of the trierarchs who had fought in the battle. The inscriptions said:

These men, sailing with Lysander in the swift ships, humbled the might of the city of Cecrops
And made Lacedaemon of the beautiful choruses the high city of Hellas.

It is interesting that the Spartans, a community dedicated to war and slaving, describes itself as the city of beautiful choruses. Apparently they considered their singing as their highest cultural achievement.

The Spartans did not name their enemy Athens, a city dedicated to the Goddess Athena. Athena was an all-Hellenic deity, and they possibly considered Athens appropriating her as shameless usurpation. To humiliate her they call it the City of Cecrops, the name of the city's mythological first king, a Barbarian. Cecrops (pronounced Keck-ropps) literally means "face of tail" which refers to the ancient serpent cult in the caves of Acropolis. They represented Kekrops with a loose female dress (pic).

The Spartans were great at Laconisms.