146 Notes to Pages 3–4
heart of the matter, and, from the outset, the term was also employed more narrowly as a synonym
for that.
- The prose and poetic polıteíaı Critias penned concerning the Lacedaemonians survive
only in scattered fragments. If these are typical of what he wrote, his account of Spartan practices
and institutions was even more detailed and precise than that provided by Xenophon; and al-
though he may well have misjudged Lacedaemon, he did not misrepresent her form of govern-
ment and way of life: Lipka, XSC, 19–20. - Spartan king: consider Ephorus FGrH 70 F118 (ap. Strabo 8.5.5)—a badly corrupt snip-
pet, where with Ephraim David I read perì rather than katà—in light of Arist. Pol. 1301b19–21 and
Paus. 2.19.1; note Xen. Hell. 3.5.25, Diod. 14.89, Plut. Lys. 30.1, and Paus. 3.5.6; and see Ephraim
David, “The Pamphlet of Pausanias,” PP 34 (1979): 94–116; Hodkinson, PWCS, 28–29; and Lipka,
XSC, 23–24. See also Daniel Tober, “POLITEIAI and Spartan Local History,” Historia 59:4 (2010):
412–31. Cf. Massimo Nafissi, La Nascita del Kosmos: Studi sulla storia e la società di Sparta (Naples:
Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1991), 57–62; Hans van Wees, “Tyrtaeus’ Eunomia: Nothing to Do
with the Great Rhetra,” in SNS, 1–41; Andreas Luther, Könige und Ephoren: Untersuchungen zur
spartanischen Verfassungsgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Antike Verlag, 2004), 21–59; and Ducat,
SE, 42–45. - Thibron: consider Arist. Pol. 1333b17–19 in light of Xen. An. 7.8.24, Hell. 3.1.4–10, 2.1,
4.8.17–22; Diod. 14.36.1–37.4, 38.2, 99.1. Xenophon is said by Plutarch (Mor. 345e) to have pub-
lished his Anabasis under the pseudonym Themistogenes of Syracuse, and there is reason to think
that this claim may be true: Xen. Hell. 3.1.2. It is, therefore, perfectly possible that he did some-
thing similar when he released his Lakedaımoníōn Polıteía to the copyists. But I doubt that he
would have appropriated the name of Thibron, a man whom he despised; and I have trouble be-
lieving that, had he done so, such a maneuver would have fooled Aristotle, who knew the world of
the Socratics rather well. No one else even mentions the work Aristotle attributes to the Spartan.
Cf. Marcello Lupi, “Tibrone, Senofonte e le Lakedaimonion Politeiai del IV Secolo (a Proposito di
Aristotele, Politica 1333B),” in La Politica di Aristotele e la storiographica locale, ed. Marina Polito
and Clara Talamo (Rome: Edizioni TORED, 2010), 131–55, with Lipka, XSC, 22–23. - Cf. Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), 136–37, with Ellen G. Millender, “Spartan Literacy Revisited,” ClAnt 20:1
(April 2001): 121–64. We do not know whether Spartans were taught their letters privately or by
instructors supported by the city. There is no evidence bearing on this question. Like Paul Car-
tledge, NECJ 34:2 (May 2007): 149–50, I find it hard to believe that the teaching of a skill necessary
for the performance of a Spartan’s duties as a citizen was left to private initiative. Cf., however,
Ducat, SE, 119–37. - See Giovanni Parmeggiani, “Isotimia: Considerazioni sulla storia e sulla storiografia su
Sparta in età arcaica e classica,” RSA 34 (2004): 73–127, and Paul Christesen, “Spartans and Scyth-
ians, a Meeting of Mirages: The Portrayal of the Lycurgan Politeia in Ephorus’ Histories,” in S B P,
211–63. In this endeavor, Ephorus drew on the pamphlet of the king Pausanias: Strabo 8.5.5 with
David, “The Pamphlet of Pausanias,” 109–11. - See Edmond Lévy, “La Sparte de Platon,” Ktèma 30 (2005): 217–36. Lacedaemon is a
constant presence in Plato’s Laws: see Glenn R. Morrow, Plato’s Cretan City: A Historical Inter
pretation of the Laws (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960); Anton Powell, “Plato and
Sparta: Modes of Rule and of Non-Rational Persuasion in the Laws,” in SS, 273–321; Ducat, SE,
53–61; and Mark J. Lutz, Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws (Dekalb: Northern
Illinois University Press, 2012), 54–89. - This is especially true of his account in that work of Sparta: see Eckhart Schütrumpf,
“Aristotle on Sparta,” in SS, 323–45.
17.See Tigerstedt, The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, I 283–84. - See Ephraim David, “Aristotle and Sparta,” AncSoc 13/14 (1982–83): 67–103, and
Thomas J. Figueira, “Spartan ‘Constitutions’ and the Enduring Image of the Spartan Ethos,” in
CASPTP, 143–57. Even if one accepts at face value the argument advanced by David L. Toye, “Ar-
istotle’s Other Politeiai: Was the Athenaion Politeia Atypical?” CJ 94:3 (February–March 1999):
235–53, that Aristotle’s sources for the political development of most of the Greek cities he studied
were grossly inadequate, this argument does not apply to Lacedaemon, as he readily concedes.