ELEUTHEROLACONES, or INDEPENDENT LACONIANS, a name given to the twenty-four confederate towns of Laconia, the independence of which was confirmed by a decree of Augustus. At a much earlier date, when the power of Sparta had been broken and her freedom annihilated by the tyrant Nabis, Titus Quintius had detached the hamlets from all connection with Sparta, and placed them under the protection of the Achaean league. Augustus allowed these towns to be governed by their own laws, and to form a small distinct confederation. Of these twenty-four towns only eighteen are mentioned by Pausanias (iii. p. 21), probably because the others had gradually become depopulated.