Anton Powell reveals in his text: “Athens and Sparta” that Lycurgus had a community dinner to monitor and control them: “In his constitution of the Spartans, Xenophon writes that Lykourgos ensured that the Spartans dine communally, where they could be easily observed, because he knew that when people are at home, they behave in the most relaxed manner. Given that standards of public morality in Sparta were rigorous, we might in any case have expected to find an unusually large proportion of life spent under public scrutiny. (232) The quote reveals that the fact that it was necessary for the men to all dine together shows how the government lacked confidence in its citizens to fend for themselves.