Xenophon, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Both, and I do not think the two can be pulled apart. A man who tells you he felt no desire for the command is lying; I wrote that I felt it. When the soldiers wished to elect a single leader and the officers came to me, pressing me to accept, I would partly have liked to do so, believing it would win me higher repute among my friends and that my name would be reported to the city written large.1
That is not the portrait of a man polishing his statue. I put the ambition in plain view, beside the doubt that followed it: the future is uncertain to every man, and I might lose what reputation I already had.1 A man building a reputation does not record that he wanted it. What I did with the doubt is the piety you ask about. I did not settle it by my own cleverness.
I led two victims to the altar and sacrificed to Zeus the King, and the god gave me a sign, as plainly as might be, neither to demand the generalship nor, if chosen, to accept it.2 So when the army met and was ready to elect me, I stood up and refused. The sacrifice cost me the very thing I wanted. If piety were a device for dressing my wishes in the god's authority, it would have told me to take the command.
Socrates taught me this order of things. When Proxenus wrote inviting me to Cyrus, I asked Socrates whether to go, and he sent me to Delphi. He then blamed me because I had asked the god how best to make the journey and not whether it was better to go or to stay; since I had put the question so, he said, I must do what the god enjoined.3 I tell that against myself too.
I took the matter on myself and asked the wrong question. A man who consults the gods only for confirmation has not learned what Socrates meant, and I learned late. The same habit appears when the army broke apart. The Arcadians and Achaeans set up ten generals of their own, and Cheirisophus, sick at heart, left matters to Neon. I would gladly have been quit of the whole expedition and sailed home, but I sacrificed to Heracles the Leader and asked whether to continue with the soldiers who remained faithful or to depart.
The victims told me to continue.4 A man who knows he does not know the future had better ask one who does. That is prudence, not superstition. As for the third person, the matter was the army's, and I wished the reader to weigh what was done and not who did it. Notice what else the book records. Neon wished to reach the Chersonese so that, under the wing of the Lacedaemonians, he might step to the front and command the whole army.5
I set the ambitions of other generals beside my own and let the reader see what each man was after. Judge the leader by what he does when the soldiers are hungry and the gates are shut; that is where the book places him.
Nothing goes well without the gods, and the general who consults them before he acts and obeys the sign is not superstitious but prudent, for a man who knows that he does not know the future had better ask one who does. He was chosen because he spoke when others were silent, led from the front, shared the cold and the hunger, refused the sole command when the omens were against it, and kept the army together by argument and example; when the soldiers accused him he answered them in the assembly and they acquitted him.
He wrote it in the third person because the matter was the army's and not his, and because he wished the reader to judge.678
Xenophon partly would have liked to do so, in the belief that by so doing he would win to himself a higher repute in the esteem of his friends, and that his name would be reported to the city written largeAnabasis
Thus Xenophon sacrificed, and the god as plainly as might be gave him a sign, neither to demand the generalship, nor, if chosen, to accept the office.Anabasis
he, when he heard, blamed Xenophon that he had not, in the first instance, inquired of the god, whether it were better for him to go or to stay... 'Since, however,' continued Socrates, 'you did so put the question, you should do what the god enjoined.'Anabasis
on offering sacrifice to Heracles the Leader, and seeking advice, whether it were better and more desirable to continue the march in charge of the soldiers who had remained faithful, or to take his departure, the god indicated to him by the victims that he should adopt the former course.Anabasis
When we are under the wing of the Lacedaemonians,\" he thought, \"I shall step to the front and command the whole army.\"Anabasis
If secrecy were desirable, it would be easier to keep matters dark, or if again expedition were an object, there would be less risk of arriving a day too late, since mutual explanations would be avoided, and whatever approved itself to the single judgement would at once be carried into effect, whereas previously the generals had done everything in obedience to the opinion of the majority.Anabasis
But with your own idea that under a single general there will be less factiousness than when there were many, be assured 29 that in choosing some other than me you will not find me factious. I hold that whosoever sets up factious opposition to his leader factiously opposes his own safety.Anabasis
Whereas he would have appeared to be both, supposing the God-given revelations had but revealed his own proneness to deception. It is plain he would not have ventured on forecast at all, but for his belief that the words he spoke would in fact be verified. Then on whom, or what, was the assurance rooted, if not upon God? And if he had faith in the gods, how could he fail to recognise them?The Memorabilia
The first war memoir and the first study of leadership by a practitioner; read as a manual by soldiers and as self-fashioning by scholars, and it is plainly both.