Sophrosyne an important topic for Plato. It is main subject of the dialogue "Charmides", wherein several definitions are proposed but no conclusion reached; however the dramatic context connotes moral purity and innocence. An etymological meaning of sophrosyne as "moral sanity" is proposed in "Cratylus" 411e. Plato's view of sophrosyne is related to Pythagorean "harmonia" ("Republic" 430e−432a, 442c) and closely linked with Plato’s tripartite division of the soul: "sophrosyne" is the harmonious moderation of the appetitive and spirited parts of the soul by the rational part (e.g., "Phaedrus" 237c−238e). For the Stoic, Zeno of Citium, "sophrosyne" is one of the four chief
Ancient Greek grammar Ancient Greek grammar Ancient Greek grammar is morphologically complex and preserves several features of Proto-Indo-European morphology. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, articles, numerals and especially verbs are all highly inflected. Another complication of Greek grammar is that different Greek authors wrote in different dialects, all of which have slightly different grammatical forms (see Ancient Greek dialects). For example, the history of Herodotus and medical works of Hippocrates are written in Ionic, the poems of Sappho in Aeolic, and the odes of Pindar in Doric; the poems of Homer are written in a mixed dialect, mostly Ionic, with many archaic and poetic forms.