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IV. The City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2024

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Extract

Although Xenophon spent much of his adult life living outside Athens and the polis framework, Athens itself and the city as the basis for achieving the good life were central to his thought, both philosophical and practical. He keenly observed the practices of other communities, especially Sparta, long a source of fascination for Athens’ elite. He compared the impact of different customs and forms of rule on cities such as Sparta (Constitution of the Lacedaimonians, Agesilaus), Syracuse (Hiero), and his imagined Persia and Babylon (Cyropaedia). Some of his thought on constructing political communities is contained in his politeia texts (LP; Cyr. 1.2), but his most sustained and systematic engagement with the topic is through Socrates’ conversations with Athenians in Book 3 of the Memorabilia.

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Chapter
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 48: Xenophon , 2018 , pp. 51 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2024

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References

1 See e.g. Ar. Vesp. 462–76; Critias fr. DK 88 B6, 34–7. See also Bonazzi 2020: 133–4.

2 On the Cynegeticus passage, see L'Allier 2008.

3 See Chapter 6.

4 Ochlos: Hell. 1.3.22, 1.4.13, 1.7.13, 2.2.21, 3.3.7, 3.4.7, 4.4.8, 11, 6.2.33, 6.4.14; Mem. 1.1.14, 3.7.5; Symp. 2.18, 8.5; Cyr. 2.2.21, 7.5.39; Hiero 2.3, 6.4; and frequently in the Anabasis to refer to the camp followers. plēthos referring to the dēmos, in a pejorative sense: Hell. 1.7.12, 5.2.32; Mem. 1.2.43. On Xenophon's sympathy with democracy, see Gray 2011c; Christ 2020.

5 Dillery 1995: 186–94; Sedley 2007: 78–86.

6 Johnson 2005a.

7 Moore 2015: 216–35.

8 L. Strauss 1972: 94; Pangle 2018: 166–7.

9 On Plato's depiction of the elenchus, see Vlastos 1994: 1–37; Benson 2010. On Xenophon's depictions, see Danzig 2017; Lachance 2018.

10 On whether there is a genre of philosophical ‘protreptic’ to which this dialogue belongs, see Collins 2015: 16–34.

11 Some have assumed that this section is an interpolation: see L'Allier 2008.

12 See Bonazzi 2020: 1–10.

13 Bordes 1982: 70–1, 176–203; see also Atack 2018c.

14 Humble 2022: 49; this would place Lycurgus in the very distant past, while others position him in the more historical eighth century bce. See Plut. Vit. Lyc. 1; Hdt. 1.65.2–66.1; Pl. Leg. 3.691d–692c.

15 For ‘Republican’ readings of Xenophon's Persia, see Newell 1983; Nadon 1996.

16 Berlin 1969.

17 Danzig 2009. For more on this scene in its monarchical context, see Chapter 6.

18 Cartledge 2002: 67–9, 234–5; Gish 2009.

19 Thuc. 2.35–46. See also Lysias 2; Loraux 1986; McNamara 2009.

20 See Humble 2004, 2022: 52–61, 188–97.

21 Miller 1914: 438–9 brackets the whole chapter. See also Gera 1993: 299–300; Nadon 2001: 139–46; Dorion 2010; Gray 2011b: 246–63.

22 On links between Aristippus and the Socratics, see Tsouna-McKirahan 1994; Tsouna 2020.

23 Pangle 2018: 63. See also L. Strauss 1972: 32–9; Sansone 2004; Johnson 2009.

24 Lampe 2015.

25 Gray 2006.

26 Glazebrook 2009, Murnaghan 1988.

27 Carter 1986; Christ 2006.

28 Nails 2002: 90–4.

29 Mirroring Plato's Crito, in which Crito advises Socrates on his legal situation.

30 Cawkwell 1979: 161; Gish 2009.

31 Dillery 1995: 146–63; on Xenophon's work as political thought, see Gray 2007.

32 Christ 2020: 26–31.

33 Dillery 1995: 147.

34 Brock 2013: 69–82; see also Brock 2004.

35 Dillery 1995: 9–11; Rood 2004c.

36 See Andrewes 1974; Due 1983; Pownall 2000; Christ 2020: 17–26.

37 R. Parker 2007: 458–61.

38 Hell. 1.4.19. See Gray 1989: 83–91; Nails 2002: 150.

39 Pownall 2000: 500.

40 Hansen 1999: 205–12.

41 Rhodes 1972: 16–30; Hansen 1999: 250; and Cammack 2021 on active and passive roles in Athenian decision-making bodies.

42 Xenophon's account of events is contradicted by the other ancient source for the episode, Diodorus Siculus 13.101, who emphasizes the personal dispute between the generals and the commanders Thrasybulus and Theramenes; see Andrewes 1974.

43 Tuplin 1993.

44 See Chapter 2.

45 Thuc. 8.1.1; Rood 2012a: 78–80.

46 Krentz 1982: 34–7; Dillery 1995: 23; Christ 2020: 32.

47 Azoulay and Ismard 2020: 63.

48 Higgins 1977: 108–9; Shear 2011: 180–7; Christ 2020: 26–7.

49 See Fuks 1971; Rhodes 2006; Shear 2011: 167–75.

50 Dillery 1995: 146–8.

51 Xenophon does not explain that the peace settlement mandated the return to an ‘ancestral constitution’ ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 34.3); see Rhodes 1993.

52 Krentz 1982: 67–8; Dillery 1995: 146–51.

53 Dillery 1995: 146–63; Pownall 2019; Wolpert 2019.

54 Christ 2020: 30.

55 Thucydides had described the Athenians as ‘conducting political life well (eu politeusantes) for the first time in my experience’, on the basis of a mixed regime (8.97.2).

56 Azoulay and Ismard 2020: 70–1.

57 See also Schofield 2021 on the LP as unwritten law.

58 Baragwanath 2017: 280.

59 Matching Pl. Ap. 22de.

60 Clearly engaging with the discussion of mimesis in Pl. Rep. 10.

61 See Dorion and Bandini 2000–11: i.clx–clxix, 103–9; Danzig 2014; Johnson 2021: 95–8.

62 See Connor 1977; Morgan 2003 (esp. Kallet 2003; Raaflaub 2003; Osborne 2003). Also Hoekstra 2016; Lane 2016; and on tyranny more broadly, Luraghi 2015.

63 This echoes the presentation of political conflict as intergenerational conflict, with the older generation as the more radical, seen in Aristophanic comedy.

64 Xenophon's presentation of Hippias echoes that of Plato; see Plato Hippias Minor.

65 The Straussian tradition views classical Greek thinkers as part of the natural law tradition (see L. Strauss 1972; cf. Horky 2021); others attribute the theory of natural law's origins to later Stoic thinkers (see Long 2005).

66 See Harvey 1965; other accounts include Arist. Eth. Nic. 5.3.1131a10–b24; Pl. Leg. 6.757b–c; Isoc. Areopagiticus 21–2. See also Chapters 5 and 6.

67 Christ 2020: 28.

68 Tuplin 1993; Dillery 1995. See also Chapter 5.

69 Christ 2020: 72–3.

70 For fourth-century context, see Whitehead 2019; Cartledge 2016.

71 Whitehead 2019: 7–12; Bloch 2004.

72 Gauthier 1976: 21; Christ 2020: 143.

73 Whitehead 2019: 38–9.

74 Farrell 2016; Whitehead 2019: 7–12.

75 Whitehead 2019: 21–30 contra Cawkwell 1963; cf. Gauthier 1976: 223–31.

76 Whitehead 2019: 42–52.

77 RO 91 = IG II2 337.