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 Greek in the Hellenistic period. Recent epigraphic discoveries in the Greek region of Macedonia, such as the Pella curse tablet, suggest that ancient Macedonian might have been a variety of North Western Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics, Ancient Greek words could end only in a vowel or ; final stops were lost, as in "milk", compared with "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in phonemic inventory: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek. Ancient Greek had long and