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II. Xenophon's Thought and Style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2024

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Extract

This chapter places Xenophon's systematic and comprehensive thought about the ordering of self and society in the context of his lived experience. Xenophon lived through the turbulent reordering of the Greek world as its greatest city, Athens, adjusted to its defeat in the Peloponnesian War and to the continuing contest for hegemony. In the past, he has been criticized for failings in his method, for falling short of modern disciplinary norms of historiography and philosophy. But where the scientific turn of historiography in the nineteenth century and the analytic turn of philosophy in the twentieth century caused scholars to treat Xenophon as a lesser author and thinker than Thucydides and Plato respectively, more recent scholarly developments, from the close readings of Straussians to the deployment of literary theoretical approaches such as historicism and narratology, have led to a better understanding of his distinctive achievement. The second section of this chapter uses new critical approaches to examine key features of Xenophon's prose style, ranging from its display in narrative set-piece scenes to his artful deployment of elevated rhetorical registers of language and dramatic irony. It explores his use of exemplarity to inform and educate the elite, the kaloi kagathoi, ‘gentlemen of quality’, who appear to have been his primary intended audience.

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Chapter
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New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 48: Xenophon , 2018 , pp. 3 - 25
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2024

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References

1 Gray 2011b: 5–7; on kaloi kagathoi, see Hammond and Atack 2023: xxxii–xxxv.

2 Vivienne Gray (1998: 5 n. 25) suggests the start of this range, Debra Nails (Nails 2002: 301) the end, making Xenophon two or three years younger than Plato, mostly likely born between 427 and 425.

3 Badian 2004: 35–42. Modern biographies of Xenophon include Luccioni 1948, Delebecque 1957, and Anderson 1974.

4 Aeschines Socraticus Aspasia, fr. SSR VIa 70; Pentassuglio 2017; Johnson 2021: 254–7.

5 See Chapter 3.

6 Atack 2020b.

7 Laks and Most 2016; Bonazzi 2020.

8 Christ 2020: 166–7. On rhetoric in Athenian politics see Finley 1962; Ober 1989.

9 On the lack of military training in Athens before the mid-fourth century, see Konijnendijk 2018.

10 Whether the story told is close to Prodicus’ version or Xenophon's own is much debated: see Sansone 2004, 2015; Gray 2006; Dorion 2008.

11 See Chapters 3 and 4.

12 Anderson 1974: 18–19, citing Hell. 1.6.24 as evidence for the use of cavalry; Lee 2005: 43–4.

13 Nails 2002: 301.

14 Christ 2020: 17–26; see also Chapter 4.

15 Anderson 1974: 55–8; Badian 2004: 46–7; Christ 2020: 3.

16 Hermogenes, half-brother of Callias, appears as a member of the Socratic circle in Xenophon Mem. and Symp., and Plato (Phaedo, Cratylus). Xenophon also attributes his Hellenica to the otherwise unknown Themistogenes of Syracuse (Hell. 3.1.2).

17 Lee 2005: 42–3.

18 On Agesilaus’ career, see Cartledge 1987.

19 On Cyrus, see Briant 2002; Mitchell 2023.

20 It is unclear whether Xenophon's wife, named Philesia (DL 2.52), was an Athenian (Badian 2004: 42).

21 On Spartan education, see Ducat 2006.

22 Humble 2022.

23 Whitehead 2019: 7–8.

24 Higgins 1977: 128–33; Christ 2020: 3–4, see also Anderson 1974: 193.

25 Schwartz 1889; Higgins 1977: 99–102.

26 Tsouna-McKirahan 1994; Vander Waerdt 1994.

27 Dillery 1995: 24.

28 Niebuhr 1827; and see below, n. 52.

29 Athenaeus found multiple anachronisms in the Symposium (Deipnosophistae 5.216d–217a).

30 Danzig 2005: 331; Gilhuly 2024, citing the detailed analysis in Thesleff 1978. See also Huss 1999a; Wohl 2004.

31 Rood 2005: xix.

32 Pontier 2018; Atack 2020a: 122–50. See also Chapter 6.

33 Bordes 1982: 165–203; Osborne 2017; Schofield 2021.

34 Humble 2004, 2022: 52–61.

35 Critias DK 88 B32 = Clem. Str. 6.9. See Humble 2022: 93–9.

36 See e.g. Erbse 1961; Due 1989; Tuplin 1993; Gray 1998.

37 Christ 2020: 156–60.

38 Atack 2022; Rood 2004a.

39 Gray 2011b: 119–78; Ellis 2016.

40 Flower 2015; Huitink and Rood 2016.

41 Pownall 2004: 66.

42 Erbse 1961; Gray 1998 illuminates the structural technique of amplification, repeating themes with greater detail.

43 Marincola 2017: xlv.

44 Niebuhr 1827; see Tuplin 1993: 12–18.

45 Hau 2016; Pownall 2004.

46 Rood 2004c.

47 Gehrke 2023: 88–9.

48 Pownall 2019.

49 Tuplin 1993.

50 DS 15.28–9; IG II2 43. See Cawkwell 1973; Rood 2004c.

51 Cawkwell 1979: 22–3.

52 Krentz 1982: 131–52, tabulating Xenophon's account against that of the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. (25.1–38.1) and DS 14.4–33.

53 Hau 2016: 219–20.

54 For Thucydidean examples, see Rood 1998: 120–1.

55 Humble 2022: 52–61.

56 The phrase often appears at critical junctures and conclusions; examples include Hell. 2.4.43, Mem. 4.8.11, Symp. 8.2, Cyr. 1.2.1, 1.2.16, 7.1.45–7, 8.6.14.

57 Tamiolaki 2018.

58 Dorion and Bandini 2000–11 (especially on Mem. 3.8–9).

59 Dorion 2004, Atack 2020a: 98–106.

60 Johnson 2009; Narcy 1995.

61 Tamiolaki 2016a; see also Berkel 2020.

62 See Chapter 2. On Symp., see Christ 2020: 102–25; Johnson 2021: 187–230; Baragwanath and Verity 2022. The classic commentary on Oec. is Pomeroy 1994; see also Christ 2020: 72–101; Johnson 2021: 31–278; Baragwanath and Verity 2022. For a Straussian reading of both dialogues, see Pangle 2020.

63 Johnson 2021: 214. See also Danzig 2005; Hobden 2005; and Huss 1999b: 415–17, with notes on parallels between Symp. 8.32–5 and erotic speeches in Plato's dialogues.

64 [Arist.] Oeconomica; Natali 1995; Nelsestuen 2017. On the centrality of the Oeconomicus to Xenophon's thought, see L. Strauss 1970.

65 Pontier 2006: 231–44.

66 On sōphrosunē as a virtue, see North 1966 and Rademaker 2005.

67 Moore 2023: 157–84. See also L. Strauss 1972; Pangle 2018; Sebell 2021.

68 See Atack 2024; Johnson 2024; Baragwanath forthcoming.

69 Tamiolaki 2018; Berkel 2020. For the wider context, see Blundell 1991.

70 Azoulay 2018a: 21–2.

71 Strauss's key contributions include L. Strauss 1972 (Memorabilia) and L. Strauss 2013 (Hiero); see Burns 2015. Critiques of Straussian approaches to Xenophon include Dorion 2001 (Mem. 4.4); Gray 2011b (focused on the Cyropaedia); and Rood 2015 (Anabasis).

72 See Chapter 5. ‘Republic to empire’ readings of the Cyropaedia include Newell 1983 and Nadon 2001.

73 See Reisert 2009.

74 Anderson 1974: 21.

75 Vlastos 1991: 101, citing Russell 1945: 83. Vlastos praised the wit of Xenophon's Symposium. See Irwin 1974 for a strong statement of this critique of Xenophon.

76 Best summarized in Dorion 2017; fully set out in Dorion and Bandini 2000–11; Dorion 2013; and Dorion and Bandini 2021.

77 Sedley 2007: 78–86.

78 E.g. Gray 1998, 2011b.

79 E.g. Pomeroy 1994; Baragwanath 2002.

80 See Gray 2017 and Rood 2017b.

81 E.g. Rood 2012a, 2012b.

82 Gray 2011b.

83 See Chapter 4 for a detailed reading of the trial.

84 Whitmarsh 2018: 62–72 on cultural hybridity in the Cyropaedia; see also Chapter 6, and Harman 2008, 2023: 117–23. Xenophon's description of the hetaira Theodote's home (Mem. 3.11) receives a similar treatment: see Goldhill 1998.

85 Huitink and Rood 2019: 27–9.

86 Huitink and Rood 2019: 31–2.

87 Huitink and Rood 2019: 34–6.

88 Brock 2004; Atack 2020c.