Sophronein in Xenophon's Spartan Constitution (Lakedaimonion Politeia)

Xenophon's Spartan Constitution mentions the virtue sophrosune only once, indicating that Spartan teenage boys, in the Lycurgan constitution, have more of it than women (Lac. Pol. 3.4-5). This is despite its being a watchword for Sparta; a common term of praise for Xenophon, for instance in his biography of the Spartan king Agesilaus and his apologetic writings on Socrates; and its serving as organizing virtue in other instances or developments of the "Spartan constitutions" genre: the fragments of Critias' earlier Lakedaimonion Politeia; the much later Life of Lycurgus of Plutarch, and the nearly contemporaneous Politeia of Plato. I show that Xenophon uses the term sophrosune in two principal ways: it is the broad virtue of being norm- guided, and it is also the "modesty" or "quietness" of boys and women following the subset of norms connected to the avoidance of self- assertion. The questionable value of the latter way, what we find in this work, depends on the obvious value of the former. In this chapter, I argue that Xenophon's Spartan Constitution contains, even if not intentionally, helpful reflections on sophrosune, as a virtue constitutive of selfhood.