Xenophon

c. 430 - c. 354 BCE · Greek (Athenian, exiled; Scillus and Corinth) · Socratic Philosophy, Political Thought, Military and Household Ethics

I have often wondered by what arguments those who indicted Socrates could have persuaded the Athenians that his life was justly forfeit to the state.

Xenophon (c. 430 – c. 354 BCE) was an Athenian gentleman who followed Socrates, rode with Cyrus the Younger against the Persian king, and, when Cyrus fell at Cunaxa and the Greek generals were murdered at a parley, found himself elected to lead ten thousand mercenaries home through Kurdistan and Armenia to the Black Sea. He wrote it all down in the third person. The *Anabasis* is the first war memoir, and the only one in which the author argues with the gods, the soldiers and himself in front of the reader.

Topics Xenophon addresses

• the Socrates of the Memorabilia
• the indictment of Socrates and the divine sign
• self-control as the foundation of virtue
• usefulness and the gentleman
• the Anabasis and the march of the Ten Thousand
• the general's speech to the soldiers
• sacrifice before decision
• the Cyropaedia and the education of Cyrus
• willing obedience and the art of ruling men
• the last chapter of the Cyropaedia and Persian decline
• Cyrus the Younger and the Persian court
• the Oeconomicus and the wife's partnership
• Ischomachus and the order of the house
• farming as the gentleman's art
• Hiero and the unhappiness of the tyrant
• Agesilaus and the encomium of a king
• the Spartan constitution and Lycurgus
• the Hellenica and the end of the Peloponnesian War
• the Thirty and Theramenes
• Leuctra and the decline of Sparta
• Ways and Means and the peace of Athens
• the Symposium and Socratic play
• the Apology of Socrates and his lofty speech
• the Cavalry General and the Art of Horsemanship

Questions to put to Xenophon

Socrates: Piety, Self-Control, and the Useful Life

• What's the most important thing you want people to understand about who Socrates actually was?
• How do you argue that Socrates was pious rather than impious toward the gods of Athens?
• What did Socrates mean when he said he knew only that he knew nothing?
• How does your Socrates differ from someone who just teaches people to be practical and get ahead in life?
• Why do you think Socrates chose death rather than asking the jury for mercy?

The March of the Ten Thousand and the Art of Command

• How did you come to find yourself leading the Ten Thousand after the generals were arrested?
• What does it take to hold an army together when it is stranded in hostile territory with no clear way home?
• Why do you consult the sacrificial omens before every major decision — what do you think the gods actually tell a general?
• You write about yourself in the third person in the Anabasis — why tell your own story that way?
• What's the difference between a commander who is obeyed because he is feared and one who is obeyed willingly?

Cyrus and the Education of a Ruler

• What made Cyrus the Great such a compelling model of leadership for you?
• How does a ruler get people to obey him willingly rather than just out of fear or compulsion?
• What's the argument behind the idea that a good ruler must make it his subjects' advantage to follow him?
• At the end of the Cyropaedia you describe how Persian virtue collapsed after Cyrus died — does that undercut everything the book argues?
• How is the kind of rule Cyrus exercises different from tyranny?

Sparta, Agesilaus, and the Question of Good Laws

• What did Lycurgus get right that other Greek lawgivers missed?
• How do you answer those who say your admiration for Sparta was shaped by the fact that Sparta gave you a home after Athens exiled you?
• You praise Spartan discipline and equality, but you also note that Sparta no longer lives by its own laws — how do you hold both things together?
• What made Agesilaus worth writing an entire encomium about?
• When Sparta seized the Cadmea by treachery and was later punished, what did that episode teach you about the limits of Spartan virtue?

Household, Farming, and the Gentleman's Life

• What is it about farming specifically that you think makes a man fit for both peace and war?
• How do you see the wife's role in running the household — is she a partner in authority or a subordinate being managed?
• What's the argument that managing a household well and governing a city well require the same skills?
• Why do you think a master who wants to be obeyed must know how to do the work himself?
• How does the life of the gentleman farmer and hunter compare, for you, to the life of someone who pursues philosophy in the city?

Athens, Empire, and the Uses of Peace

• In your last work you argue Athens should fund itself through silver mines and resident aliens rather than empire — what changed your thinking?
• What's the case for saying that peace is more profitable for Athens than dominance over other Greek cities?
• How do you think about the trial of the Arginusae generals — was Athens capable of judging fairly under pressure?
• What do you think the rise and fall of Theban power after Leuctra reveals about how Greek politics actually works?
• You never wrote a word against Athens even after your exile — what did the city still mean to you?

Converse with Xenophon on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Xenophon's own writing, cited to the page.