From Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaimonians to See the Instrumental Role of the Ideal Spartan Image in His Historical Writing

In 1933, French historian Olier raised the issue of the "Spartan Illusion" and believed that ancient historians' impressions of Sparta must have been artificially processed based on the author's writing purpose. Xenophon's The Constitution of Lacedaemonians is the crucial surviving material of a contemporary author who personally experienced and recorded the specific internal conditions of the Spartan city-state. It is also a concentrated expression of the Spartan illusion. As a historian of the Greek city-state crisis period, Xenophon not only paid more attention to Sparta in the process of writing "Greek Chronicles" due to his legendary personal experience, but also focused more on the image of ideal Sparta. Thinking about sex, theodicy, and political philosophy were integrated into historical writing, making the image of Sparta the focus of Xenophon's historical writing and philosophical thinking, and a tool for him to write history. Previous research has mainly focused on a series of subtle thoughts that Xenophon developed by borrowing the Spartan illusion. This article intends to formally explore and summarize the process of Xenophon manufacturing and using this writing instrument, and whether it achieves its expected results.