SVF I.261
- Stoic
- Zeno of Citium
- Ancient source
- Plutarchus, Vita Lycurgi, chapter 31 — Lycurg. 31
- Source language
- Ancient Greek
- Source status
- Testimonium
Original — Ancient Greek
ταύτην (Lycurgi rem publicam) καὶ Πλάτων ἔλαβε τῆς πολιτείας ὑπόθεσιν καὶ Διογένης καὶ Ζήνων καὶ πάντες ὅσοι τι περὶ τούτων ἐπιχειρήσαντες εἰπεῖν ἐπαινοῦνται, γράμματα καὶ λόγους ἀπολιπόντες μόνον.StoicOs Translation
This (the constitution of Lycurgus) Plato too took as the model of his Republic, and Diogenes, and Zeno, and all who are praised for having undertaken to say something on these matters — though they left behind only writings and words.
Context
Closing his Life of Lycurgus, Plutarch ranks the philosophers' ideal states — Plato's, Diogenes' and Zeno's — as paper imitations of Sparta's lived constitution.
Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 261, p. 61 (OCR of the scanned edition). The parenthesis identifying Lycurgus' constitution is von Arnim's editorial gloss.
What the source actually tells us
An external witness placing Zeno's Republic in the canonical series of ideal-state literature, between Plato and Diogenes the Cynic — exactly the double lineage (Academic and Cynic) his biography attests.
Philosophical meaning
Zeno's Republic answered Sparta as much as Plato: a disciplined community formed by training and law — but in Zeno's version bound by love and concord rather than drill (SVF I.263), and open to the whole world (SVF I.262).
Scholarly uncertainty
Plutarch's Spartan-model claim is his own rhetorical frame; that Zeno knew and used Lycurgan material is plausible but not demonstrable from this sentence alone.
Biographical context
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About this edition
StoicOs Ancient Library is a developing multilingual digital study edition of surviving early Stoic material. The Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta assembled by Hans von Arnim provides the traditional reference framework. StoicOs distinguishes carefully between fragments, testimonia, later reports and interpretation. StoicOs translations are prepared from the surviving ancient-language sources where available.