Sparta agli inizi del IV secolo: un "sistema riformabile"?

It has been argued that Xenophon’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians responded to a number of works on military issues by Spartan authors: Cleon of Halicarnassus’ peri politeias (a speech written for Lysander), Pausanias II’s pamphlet on Lycurgus’ laws, and the less known works of Thibron and Nicocles. The paper aims at emphasizing the prevailing political nature of these works, which were part of the constitutional debate that flourished in Sparta in the period of its hegemony. Furthermore, it proposes Agesilaus as the person who buried the debate: the king, who had chosen to ground his supremacy in feigned submission to Spartan kosmos, as Plutarch highlights, considered this debate to be dangerous for Sparta’s internal balance.