Xenophon's World

Through one of the many narrow streets of ancient Athens a very handsome--but nevertheless modest and unassuming--young man was returning home with produce from the market. An ugly, bug-eyed man of about sixty coming toward him with the gait of a pelican raised his staff across the path, barring the way. He questioned the young man about where he might obtain various market wares and was given respectful answers, as was appropriate from a younger man. Seemingly satisfied with the replies, the ugly one then asked where men might obtain honor and virtue. To this question the young man admitted he had no answer; the older man said simply, "Then follow me, and learn."

The date was about 410 B.C., the beautiful young man was Xenophon, and his questioner was Socrates.

TXenophon the Athenian, the son of Gryllus, was born c. 428 B.C. into a wealthy and well-connected family, but he grew up in turbulent times. Perhaps all times have turbulence, and the fifth-century Athenians had their fair share of it, although they had enjoyed a period of relative calm and peace for twenty years before Xenophon was born, under the leadership of Pericles (b. 495 B.C.) who dominated Athenian politics from about 463 until his death in 429 B.C.

The Persian Wars

Over the preceding centuries, the Greeks--or the Hellenes, as they called themselves--had grown in numbers, prospered, expanded, and, over a long period of time, met the boundaries of other peoples. They had settled in Ionia, along the coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and this brought them in contact with the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great, who ruled from 559 to 529 B.C. Cyrus defeated Croesus of Lydia (546 B.C.), who had subjugated many of the Ionian cities, and as a result, according to the historian Herodotus, there occurred the first formal clash between the Persians and the Greeks. Cyrus was a wise and good monarch and was held by some Greeks to be the model of the upright ruler, but he died in a most bloody manner, fighting the Massagetae, a Scythian tribe. We shall return to him later.

Cyrus was succeeded by his son, Cambyses, who conquered the Egyptians but seems to have gone mad; it is reported that "he killed their god Apis with his own hand," presumably meaning the monarch or priest representing the god. He died in 522 at Ecbatana.

In the absence of an heir, the throne was seized by Darius, who reigned from 521 to 486 B.C. He was the true heir to the policies of Cyrus the Great and spent some years restoring order in his lands and providing an efficient administrative and tax structure. But the Greeks along the Ionian coast were restive under Persian rule, and in 499 B.C. the Greek cities formed a league, issued coinage of their own, and revolted against Darius. They were successful, capturing Sardis and spreading the rebellion from Byzantium in the north to Cyprus in the south. They even took Cyprus itself from the seagoing Phoenicians, who were allies of the Persians. But disunion and insubordination within the Ionian League allowed the Persians to recover; they invaded Thrace and Macedonia, and planned to invade Greece proper.

A Persian army of probably twenty thousand men led by Mardonius, a son-in-law of Darius, invaded Greece but was soundly defeated at the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.), about twenty-five miles from Athens, by ten thousand Athenians, helped only by a contingent of about a thousand men from Plataea. The Greek cities were well aware of the danger Persia presented, but unity was difficult to achieve. The Spartans (or Lacedaimonians) were very conservative and reluctant to involve themselves, and in addition they were contemplating making war on another city, Argos. The Athenians sent their best runner, Pheidippides, to Sparta asking for help; he covered the 150 miles in two days--the original Marathon run--but the Spartans would not move until it was too late.

To be a Marathon man (as was the dramatist Aeschylus) was a distinction greatly prized, comparable to the less than three thousand, the Few, who defeated Hitler in the Battle of Britain, and the Athenian conservatives never tired of harking back to the days of Marathon, when men were men and the young were respectful of their elders. But the fact was that the Athenians--Greeks--had defeated the Persians in a pitched battle for the first time. Soon after the Persian defeat at Marathon Darius died, and the Greek cities, their various ways of life assured, joined themselves together under the joint leadership of Athens and Sparta.

Darius was succeeded by his son Xerxes, who reigned from 485 to 465. He was as determined as his father to crush Greece and in 480 he sent an enormous expedition--five million men, according to Herodotus (less than a tenth of that number by modern estimates), with one thousand ships--across the Hellespont, which separates Asia from Europe. Xerxes built a rope bridge across the narrow straits from Abydos to Sestos, but a tremendous storm destroyed it. At this the Great King (as the Persian monarch was called by the Greeks) commanded that the Hellespont be lashed three hundred times, and that a pair of fetters be cast into its waters, so that it should know its master. The bridge was then rebuilt with protective moles made out of ships, and the army passed into Europe.

The expedition was, in some ways, successful, and several cities sent Xerxes earth and water, the traditional symbols of vassalage. But the Persians were held up by a small rear guard of Spartans, under Leonidas, and some Thespians at the narrow pass of Thermopylae. The story is told that one Spartan, Dieneces, on being told that there were so many barbarians that their arrows would darken the sun, grimly replied, "Excellent, then we shall fight in the shade." An ignoble Malian betrayed the Spartans by revealing the way through the mountains that guarded their flank, and they were surrounded. Three hundred Spartans remained and fought nobly, buying, at the cost of their lives, time for the rest of Greece to prepare itself for invasion. They were buried where they fell, and an inscription set up in their honor read:

Go, stranger, and to Lacedaimon tell

That here, obeying her commands, we fell.

All central Greece was lost, and Athens was burned. The Athenians, however, had evacuated their people to the islands and retained their fleet, and with it the command of the seas, for they decisively defeated the Persian fleet at the battle of Salamis in 480. The dramatist Aeschylus also took part in this battle, commemorated in his play The Persians.

The Persians withdrew only to return the following year (479) but were defeated on land at the battle of Plataea (where Mardonius was killed) and by sea at Mycale. The Greeks counterattacked, pushing the Persians back, and finally making a peace in 449--448 that kept Persian warships out of the Aegean Sea. This protected Ionia as well as Greece proper.

The outcome of those Persian Wars, recorded by "the father of history," Herodotus, was that the Greeks were free from the threat of the Great King and could rejoice in their awareness of being free, of being Greek. It was time of creativity, and the manpower and energy made available at the end of the war were used to good effect--for example, in the rebuilding of Athens under Pericles, including the new Parthenon (designed by Ictinus and Callicrates, under a master plan by Pheidias, between 447 and 432) to replace the one destroyed by the Persians.

But the happy and prosperous times did not last long, for Greece was again divided internally as old jealousies and ambitions were inflamed, and soon Athens, the great democratic sea power, was at odds with Sparta, the great oligarchic landpower. While Athens and Sparta might possibly have coexisted peaceably for a time if they had been left alone, smaller allied cities would appeal to one or the other for help, which would provoke hostilities, helped along by the fear of Persian power and the greed for Persian gold. Athens, first under Themistocles and later under Pericles, actively sought an empire, and it was well understood that this would entail a confrontation with Sparta. And thus began what came to be called the Peloponnesian War, recorded for all time and in all its bitterness by the Athenian historian Thucydides.

The Peloponnesian War

Connected with the main part of Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth is a peninsula named for a mythical ancestor, Pelops. The Peloponnese contained a number of important Dorian cities, principally Sparta, Argos, Messenia, and Corinth. They found themselves threatened by the expansion of Athens, which had at first headed a league of free cities--the Delian League--but then, as the threat of Persia receded, became an enforcer against cities reluctant to pay the tribute that supported the Athenian fleet that guarded them. The league became an empire. Subjugated cities appealed to Sparta, and war broke out in 431.

While Sparta and its allies were irresistible on land and could invade Athenian territory at will, Athens itself was protected by defensive walls (including the Long Walls built by Themistocles connecting it with its port, the Peiraeus), and it maintained supremacy at sea. Under the strategy adopted by Pericles, the Athenian population withdrew into the city, provisions were brought in by sea, and a virtual stalemate ensued.

But in 430 a plague broke out in Athens, overcrowded as it was, and in the following year a quarter of the population perished, including their leader, Pericles. The Athenians had had some victories, however, and in 425 Sparta sued for peace, but eh Athenian demagogue Cleon persuaded the people to reject it. The Spartans were compelled to fight on, and the tide of battle turned in their favor under a brilliant general, Brasidas. But in 422 both Brasidas and Cleon were killed at Amphipolis. A peace was signed that effectively recognized the state of affairs before the war had begun.

The young and star-crossed Athenian aristocrat Alcibiades intrigued against Sparta in the cities of the Peloponnese, and his dangerous political ambitions again wrecked the peace. He also persuaded the Athenians to send a huge force to Sicily to subdue the island and its Spartan allies. The democracy was divided and indecisive. While it sent the flower of Athenian forces to Sicily, it would not entrust the leadership to Alcibiades alone but linked him with Nicias, a superstitious, cautions man. As soon as the army--the political power base of Alcibiades--left Athens, the dashing and ambitious Alcibiades was recalled for political reasons (and fearing for his life, deserted to Sparta). Nicias was indecisive, and the whole force was destroyed in 413. Athens was prostrate.

It is strange for us to note that in the midst of this Sicilian carnage, a few Athenians were spared because they could recite some verses from the latest plays of Euripides, who was much admired in Syracuse.

Alcibiades, although a known associate of Socrates, was unaffected by the philosopher's austere morality and continued his treacherous and impious career until he was killed in Ionia.

The Spartans renewed the war in Greece, supported by Persian money, and built ships to rival the small number of remaining Athenian craft. Food supplied to Athens were endangered. After some losses, Athens defeated the Spartan allies at the sea battle of Arginusae (406), but politics again vitiated what had been won militarily. A new peace offer was rejected, but the Athenian fleet was surprised and destroyed at Aegospotami in 405. There was nothing for Athens to do but surrender (April 404 B.C.)

While the main combatants had been Athens and Sparta, every Greek city had been affected. The internal politics of the cities, including Athens, were affected, with the two main rivals supporting opposing parties. Athens intrigued with the democratic elements, while Sparta did the same with the oligarchic factions. Internal strife was common in many cities, but Athens itself was divided, a division that became more pronounced when the victorious Spartans, under Lysander, as part of their conditions for ending the war, installed an oligarchic group, the Thirty Tyrants, as rulers in Athens and demolished the Long Walls.

But Athens recovered very quickly, and in 403 the democracy was restored with the approval of the Spartan king Pausanias, who had superseded Lysander. Autonomous again, the city successfully revolted against Sparta and by 393 had rebuilt the Long Walls, so vital to its defense, and had equipped a new fleet. By 376 Athens was again ruler of the seas, while Sparta, at war with Thebes, was finally defeated by the brilliant Theban general Epaminondas at the battle of Leuctra in 371. The Greek cities remained divided internally, as faction opposed faction, and were still divided from each other until Philip of Macedon defeated Athens and its ally Thebes at the battle of Chaeronea in 338. Then a unity began to be imposed, especially under Philip's son, Alexander the Great, who, beginning in 334, reversed the direction of Xerxes' ambitions and invaded Asia and the Persian Empire.

The Life and Works of Xenophon

It is against this background of victory of free Greeks over slavish Persians and the succeeding devastation of Greece because of the fear and lawlessness that Greek freedom itself made possible, that the life of Xenophon must be understood. Any doubt about the inhumanity that is possible without strong moral leadership can easily be dispelled by reading Thucydides' account of the revolution in Corcyra in the third book of his history.

Of course, in turbulent times strong political leadership was needed to counter anarchy, and stable rule was most desirable; the stability was of great value, but whether it was always moral was (and is) highly debatable.

Xenophon was born probably in 428 B.C. and so he grew up during the Peloponnesian War. It is believed that he fought at the battle of Arginusae (406), the last naval victory of the Athenians, after which the successful generals were tried for having abandoned, because of a storm, sailors from waterlogged and lost ships. Socrates was serving at the trial as one of the six presiding officers of the Assembly (having been chose by lot), and he claimed that he did not know how to put the vote, because contrary to law, the generals were being tried as a body instead of singly. They were condemned anyway, and the six who had not absented themselves were executed. At one stroke the Athenian democracy had deprived itself of its remaining leadership, on what was essentially a trumped-up charge. It left its mark on Xenophon.

Xenophon belonged to a class wealthy enough to provide the horse and equipment necessary to serve in the cavalry. This suggests that his political sympathies were with the oligarchic faction in Athens, band it is undoubtedly true that he became a great admirer of Sparta and the Spartan constitution, although not without reservations later in life. He wrote a book, The Spartan Constitution, around 388, and later wrote an encomium of Agesilaus, on the death of that Spartan king while returning from Egypt in 360.

He was also a close associate of Socrates, and for this and other reasons he invites and for this and other reasons he invites comparison with Plato, who was probably born in the same year as Xenophon. Plato refers to, mentions, or discusses the vast majority of significant thinkers, prior to and contemporary with Socrates, with two notable exceptions. One is the materialist Democritus, the other is Xenophon. Some ancient writers assumed that this omission was due to personal animosity, but there is no evidence to support this. In turn, Xenophon refers to Plato only once, and then while explaining Socrates' interest in Glaucon "for the sake of Plato [his brother] and Charmides [his uncle]."

But Xenophon, like Plato, included in his writings an Apology, a defense of Socrates, and a portrait of Socrates, the Memorabilia, discussing education and the dangers of youth; this was done in its first two books, about 381. The last two books were written later 9about 355), and deal with state and household management. The other work about Socrates (probably written about 366) was the symposium, an imaginary party held around 422.

Xenophon's association with Socrates (who seems to have been equally critical of democracy and oligarchy) must have caused some difficulties, especially in 399 when Socrates was tried 'for corrupting the youth" and "not believing in the gods of the city" and given the hemlock, although Xenophon was no longer in Athens.

After the end of the Peloponnesian War and the disbanding of armies, many soldiers found employment as mercenaries, even with the Great King. In 401 Xenophon was invited by his friend Proxenus to join an expedition of ten thousand Greek soldiers into the Persian Empire under the command of Cyrus, who governed the maritime parts of Asia Minor, that is, Ionia. Xenophon asked Socrates what he should do, but was obviously anxious to go; Socrates suggested that he should go to Delphi and ask the oracle. Xenophon followed the advice and journeyed to Delphi but instead of asking whether he should accept the invitation, he asked only to which gods he should pray and sacrifice in order to make the journey best and most honorable and to return safely.

He reported this to Socrates, who upbraided him for not asking whether he should undertake the journey or not. Since Xenophon had already decided this, Socrates told him to do as the god commanded. And so Xenophon sacrificed and prayed and set sail for Ionia. He then traveled inland to Sardis, where he joined his friend, Proxenus.

With Proxenus was Cyrus the Younger 9so known to distinguish him from Cyrus the Great), who told Xenophon that they were on a punitive expedition against some rebellious tribes. Xenophon, who was neither a soldier nor yet a general but simply an observer, agreed to accompany Proxenus. It soon became apparent that the purpose of the expedition was to dethrone Cyrus' older brother, Artaxerxes II, who had become king on the death of Darius II (405-404).

The army, made up of the Greeks (under Clearchus) and a large number of Asiatics (perhaps seventy thousand), marched inland toward Babylon. By the time the force reached Thapsacus on the Euphrates it was absolutely clear what Cyrus' intentions were. He was met at Cunaxa, fifty miles north of Babylon, by Artaxerxes and his army. Although the Greek soldiers were victorious, Cyrus himself was killed, and his army was without leader or purpose.

The Greeks decided not to surrender to Artaxerxes, but to march homeward, defending themselves as they went. There were various truces and parleys, to one of which Clearchus, Proxenus, and three other generals were invited. They were suddenly seized, conveyed to the Great King in Babylon, and put to death. This left the Greek mercenaries without leaders, and it is remarkable that the soldiers, by election, accepted Xenophon, in spite of his youth, as one of their new leaders. It seems largely through his skill in warfare and leadership that "the March of the 10,000" was successfully completed. They had marched inland from Sardis to Cunaxa and then retreated from Cunaxa northward to the Euxine (the Black Sea).

It was here that the soldiers in the vanguard cried "Thalassa, thalassa" (The sea, the sea) signifying that they would get home. The ten thousand then traveled westward to Pergamum, covering a total distance of about twenty-five hundred miles, mostly through hostile territory and over difficult terrain.

Xenophon wrote his own account of this, the Anabasis, meaning the march up-country, inland from the sea, but including the katabasis, the march back to the coast. This was composed soon after 386, when Xenophon was living at Scillus, near Olympia, by courtesy of the Spartans. This hospitality came about in the following manner.

After their successful return to Ionia in 400 B.C., the ten thousand, under Xenophon, fought as mercenaries in Thrace and Asia Minor, mostly against the Persians (with whom Sparta was at war) in Ionia. Xenophon served under the Spartan general Agesilaus and returned to Greece with him in 396, even fighting with him against Athens at the battle of Coronea in 394. But Xenophon had not betrayed Athens; Athens had rejected him. For in 399 Xenophon had been banished from Athens, his home, by decree and his property had been confiscated on the charge of serving under Cyrus. This was not against any law, but Cyrus was known to have given money to the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War and was therefore considered an enemy of Athens. Moreover, Xenophon was seen to favor oligarchy and was known to have been an associate of Socrates, that relentless questioner of all who sought and held power. So Xenophon was exiled, and in 394 the Spartans provided him with a home at Scillus; later in 371, he was forced to move again, this time to Corinth. Eventually, the Athenians rescinded the decree of exile, c.368, and Xenophon returned to Athens, where he lived until his death c. 354.

Xenophon wrote for much of his life, and on a wide range of subjects, but he was no recluse. He was spirited and active, and his leadership qualities were genuine, not lest because he seems to have been trusted by those he served and by those who served under him. He saw active service for the period from 401 to 394 and wrote about his experience in such works as the Anabasis. He also wrote a history of Greece, the Hellenica, continuing Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War from 411 down to 362.

Although it has been customary to regard Xenophon primarily as an historian, he was looked upon as a philosopher in antiquity. His historian predecessors, Herodotus and Thucydides, he clearly knew and they must have influenced him, but he imitates neither. Nor yet is he a philosopher in the manner of Plato or Aristotle. Perhaps he belongs to a genre quite distinct from all these, acting and reflecting upon his actions and attempting to see what principles are most useful in living an active, decent, and honorable life, devoid of that wild ambition that destroyed that destroyed the Greek world. He wrote, it appears, to influence the practical conduct of affairs, not without principle, but starting from the realities of human life as it is lived.

Perhaps his most characteristic work is the Education of Cyrus (or Kurou Paideia). It is named after Cyrus the Great, but it is impossible that Xenophon did not have Cyrus the Younger in mind, as well. It has been called an historical novel, and it is clearly not intended to be taken as history; contrary to what it reports, for example, the conquest of Egypt was not accomplished by Cyrus but by his son, Cambyses, and Cyrus did not die peacefully surrounded by his family but in a bloody battle with the Messagetae in the wilds of Scythia.

If the work is not historical, then it is written as a possible world, in the subjunctive and not the indicative mod. What if a ruler had been educated in the manner described by Xenophon? What if, after his own early, formal education, he had continued to educate himself by educating others as citizens and soldiers of a new kind of Persian empire? The fact that the old, preimperial Persia resembles in many ways the Sparta that Xenophon came to admire should not surprise us. It is not, however, a blind, faithful, political allegiance that he records, but a genuine appreciation of what discipline and courage can do for ruler and ruled alike. As Persia is transformed by Cyrus from a republic to an empire, the austere virtue diminishes.

Plato's Polity (or Republic) calls for a philosopher-king to rule it, but the irony is that by the time the philosopher has been educated he will no longer be moved by an ambition to rule. Plato, too, writes in the subjunctive just as Xenophon does, but Xenophon writes about an individual man, Cyrus, concrete if fictive, who finds himself born to rule. He cannot, must not, abdicate that responsibility, nor can he wait until he is "qualified." Or, to put it in another way, Plato's Socrates, while ruling himself, talks with rulers and ruled about ruling; Xenophon's Cyrus, also while ruling himself, assumes the responsibility for ruling others.

Xenophon the Athenian was known for his beauty, but it was not just a beauty of body. Through all the wars, battles, alliances, and politics, though all the many personal relationships with people from different cities and different cultures, through all the changing fortunes and circumstances, it is remarkable how Xenophon preserved a beauty of soul that commended itself to almost all who knew him. People trusted him and never had that trust betrayed. He went to Asia to learn and fortune made him a soldier, and the soldiers made him a general. Exiled from Athens, the Spartans trusted him. And Athens forgave him. He did follow Socrates, and he did learn, for he remained an honest and honorable man to the end of his life.