The breed originating in Laconia, a region of Ancient Greece, famous for its city state, Sparta.

Laconians were famed throughout the ancient world for their hunting skill and swiftness,[1] and were widely depicted in classical sculptures, mosaics, gravestones and drinking cups.

[2][3][4] They were famed for their hunting skills,[5] with their speed, stamina and olfactory tracking abilities often praised by contemporary writers, including Pollux,[1] Xenophon,[5] Sophocles,[6] Aristotle,[7] Plato,[8] Theophrastus,[9] Oppian,[10] Horace,[11] Claudian,[12] Pliny the Elder,[13] and Petronius.

[1] Denison Bigham Hull and other scholars[16] noted this contradiction and theorized that both observations may be true if either 1. kastorides and alopekides interbred and, over time, became indistinguishable,[5][17] or 2. one of the sub-types became extinct.

[15] In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus brags, “My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind”,[24] which is sometimes interpreted to be a reference to the Laconian breed.