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Xenophon's Socratic Works demonstrates that Xenophon, a student of Socrates, military man, and man of letters, is an indispensable source for our understanding of the life and philosophy of Socrates. David M. Johnson restores Xenophon's most ambitious Socratic work, the Memorabilia, to its original literary context, enabling readers to experience it as Xenophon's original audience would have, rather than as a pale imitation of Platonic dialogue. He shows that the Memorabilia, together with Xenophon's Apology, provides (...) us with our best evidence for the trial of Socrates, and a comprehensive and convincing refutation of the historical charges against Socrates. Johnson's account of Socrates' moral psychology shows how Xenophon's emphasis on control of the passions can be reconciled with the intellectualism normally attributed to Socrates. Chapters on Xenophon's Symposium and Oeconomicus reveal how Xenophon used all the literary tools of Socratic dialogue to defend Socratic sexual morality and debate the merits and limits of conventional elite values. Throughout the book, Johnson argues that Xenophon's portrait of Socrates is rich and coherent, and largely compatible with the better-known portrait of Socrates in Plato. Xenophon aimed not to provide a rival portrait of Socrates, Johnson shows, but to supplement and clarify what others had said about Socrates. Xenophon's Socratic Works thus provides readers with a far firmer basis for reconstruction of the trial of Socrates, a key moment in the history of Athenian democracy, and for our understanding of Socrates' seminal impact on Greek philosophy. This volume introduces Xenophon's Socratic works to a wide range of readers, from undergraduate students encountering Socrates or ancient philosophy for the first time to scholars with interests in Socrates or ancient philosophy more broadly. It is also an important resource for readers interested in Socratic dialogue as a literary form, the trial of Socrates, Greek sexual morality, or Greek social history. (shrink)

Socrates (469-399 BC) is one of history's most enigmatic figures. Our knowledge of him comes to us second-hand, primarily from the philosopher Plato, who was Socrates' most gifted student, and from the historian and sometime-philosopher Xenophon, who counted himself as a member of Socrates' inner circle of friends. We also hear of Socrates in one comic play produced during his lifetime (Aristophanes' Clouds) and in passing from the philosopher Aristotle, a student of Plato. Socrates is a figure of enduring (...) interest. He is often considered the father of Western Philosophy, yet the four most famous accounts we have of him present a contradictory, confusing picture. Just who was Socrates? A brilliant philosopher, at times confounding and infuriating, morally serious and yet ironic; the ever-worldly man, sometime mystic, and uncommon martyr depicted by Plato? Or did Plato conflate Socrates' views with his own startling genius, as Aristotle suggests? Was So rates instead the less impressive, more mundane man whose commonsense impressed the laconic Xenophon? Or was Socrates the charlatan, the long-winded phony of Aristophanes' play? The Socratic works of Diogenes Laertius (3rd century AD), Libanius (AD 314 -- c. 393), Maximus of 'Tyre (2nd century AD), and Apuleius (born c. AD 125) add important dimensions to the portrait of Socrates: Diogenes Laertius' Life of Socrates emphasizes Socrates' deep ethical nature and his extraordinary personality; Libanius' Apology of Socrates is based on sources now lost to us; Maximus of Tyre's Whether Socrates Did the Right Thing When He Did Not Defend Himself makes the star ling claim (against testimony of Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates never spoke athis own trial; from Apuleius' On the God of Socrates we hear at length of Socrates' infamous daimonion: the "divine sign" only mentioned elsewhere, the sign that warned Socrates against certain courses of action. In short, from these four texts we are reintroduced to Socrates, and new wrinkles are added to an already intriguing historical figure. (shrink)

The Constitution of the Athenians ascribed to Xenophon the orator.--The Politeia of the Spartans by Xenophon.--The Boeotian Constitution from the Oxyrhynchus historian.--The Constitution of Athens by Aristotle.

In two passages from Xenophon's Memorabilia, Socrates refutes Aristippus, first by a rather brutal brand of Realpolitik , then by refusing to answer Aristippus' questions about the good and the beautiful . This article argues that the nasty politics that emerge in Memorabilia 2.1 are not Socratic, but rather the natural consequence of Aristippean hedonism. Political considerations of another sort drive Socrates' tactics in Memorabilia 3.8, where his evasive manoeuvres are driven by his desire to avoid a direct confrontation (...) with hedonism. Socrates' own views are hedonistic in some sense, as revealed by his otherwise irrelevant discussion of pleasing home plans and altar sites at the end of 3.8, but Socrates does not wish to reveal as much to companions lacking his self-control. Socrates' treatment of Aristippus has as much to do with politics as with pleasure. (shrink)

In two passages from Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Socrates refutes Aristippus, first by a rather brutal brand of Realpolitik, then by refusing to answer Aristippus’ questions about the good and the beautiful. This article argues that the nasty politics that emerge in Memorabilia 2.1 are not Socratic, but rather the natural consequence of Aristippean hedonism. Political considerations of another sort drive Socrates’ tactics in Memorabilia 3.8, where his evasive manoeuvres are driven by his desire to avoid a direct confrontation with hedonism. (...) ocrates’ own views are hedonistic in some sense, as revealed by his otherwise irrelevant discussion of pleasing home plans and altar sites at the end of 3.8, but Socrates does not wish to reveal as much to companions lacking his self-control. Socrates’ treatment of Aristippus has as much to do with politics as with pleasure. (shrink)

Plato and Xenophon: Comparative Studies contains a wide variety of comparative studies of the writings of Plato and Xenophon, from philosophical, literary, and historical perspectives.

The commentary addresses philological, historical, literary, and philosophical issues raised by this Socratic dialogue. It is preceded by an introduction with sections on the life of Alcibiades and his reputation among his contemporaries; the depiction of the relationship between Alcibiades and Socrates in the Alcibiades of Aeschines of Sphettus, Xenophon's Memorabilia, and Plato; the structure of the dialogue and its treatment of self-knowledge; the authenticity of the dialogue; and the history of the text. It is followed by appendices on (...) stylometry, the daimonion of Socrates, and the relationship of Spartan history to the speech of Socrates at 121a-124b. Introduction, commentary, and appendices support the authenticity of the dialogue. (shrink)

Depuis une vingtaine d'annees, on assiste un peu partout a un regain d'interet pour les ecrits socratiques de Xenophon. Que Xenophon ne nous donne pas davantage que Platon un portrait historiquement fiable de Socrate peut etre considere comme un acquis de la critique du XXe siecle. Laissant transparaitre dans son temoignage des options profondement differentes de celles de Platon, Xenophon temoigne par la meme, cependant, des tensions, voire des oppositions qui traversaient le milieu socratique autour du souvenir (...) et de la comprehension de la personne de Socrate: cette seule consideration suffit a faire de Xenophon une source essentielle pour notre connaissance de l'immediat apres Socrate et, par dela, pour notre intelligence de l'histoire de la reception de Socrate dans les siecles ulterieurs. Le colloque dont sont issues les etudes rassemblees dans ce volume, organise a l'Universite de Provence (Aix-Marseille I) du 6 au 9 novembre 2003, s'inscrit dans cette perspective. Plus qu'un bilan de la nouvelle orientation des etudes xenophontiennes, qu'il est encore trop tot pour etablir, on y verra l'illustration de la diversite d'approches dont est susceptible le temoignage de Xenophon sur Socrate. Due a Louis-Andre Dorion, une bibliographie des etudes sur les ecrits socratiques de Xenophon publiees dans le dernier quart de siecle temoigne de la vitalite retrouvee de ce domaine de recherche. (shrink)

Aristippus of Cyrene was one of Socrates’ associates; he appears in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, where in 2.1.1 Socrates is said to have thought him “quite undisciplined” in matters of food, drink, and sex. Whether he himself was a philosophical hedonist or not is open to discussion; at any rate, the Cyrenaics who succeeded him are supposed to have accepted a variety of hedonism. But they are also supposed to have accepted something that looks like skepticism: we can have knowledge only (...) of our own affects, not of what occasioned them, and it is with this that the present book is primarily concerned. (shrink)

This volume contains a new, literal translation of Xenophon's Hiero, Strauss's textual analysis of that dialogue, a translation of Alexandre Kojève's comment on Strauss's analysis, and Strauss's restatement. In his Introduction, Strauss clearly draws his usual battle lines between "all specifically modern political thought," which began with Machiavelli, and classical political science, which included value-judgments. Kojève, posing as a "modern" influenced by Hegel, argues against the notion of a politically inactive philosophical elite presumed to possess "wisdom." Strauss concludes with (...) a frightening vision of the end of philosophy in a homogeneous "modern" state under a "Universal Tyrant."--W. L. M. (shrink)

Pindar’s skolion for the Olympic victor Xenophon of Corinth has received considerable attention for its subject rather than its poetic quality. For it celebrates a dedication of prostitutes to Aphrodite which scholars have considered a subject inappropriate for a choral ode. So they detected traces of a tension between the poet and Xenophon within the text. In this article it is argued that, quite the reverse, Pindar is drawing a parallel between himself and the victor and his family. (...) If we reconsider the pragmatic aspects of the skolion, its relation to Olympian 13 and the context Athenaeus provides for the fragment, we are able to see that Pindar links sport, ritual and politics, thereby serving Xenophon’s ambitions as well as his own. By practising conspicuous consumption Xenophon aims at detaching himself from Corinth’s egalitarian aristocracy, and at the same time the poet promotes himself in the literary field as a poetic innovator and authority. So, both transgress expectations and boundaries. (shrink)

Scholars have generally held that Xenophon the Athenian favoured oligarchic constitutions and was therefore opposed to the Athenian democracy. Yet Xenophon's writings often seem to display remarkable sympathy for the democracy, and the issue is complicated by the difficulty of assigning any ancient author to a definite place on the political spectrum. Using the categories that M. Walzer employs to analyse modern social critics, this study finds that although Xenophon can take an external/rejectionist approach to the criticism (...) of the Athenian democracy, he more commonly takes an internal/immanent stance. Moreover, his works sometimes seem to express a sympathy for the democracy that extends beyond a patriotic desire for the betterment of his native city regardless of constitution to a solidarity with the foundational ideology of the democratic regime. This suggests, among other things, that the ideological hegemony of the people over the traditional aristocracy in fourth-century Athens was wider than is usually thought; it is reflected not only in the speeches of the active politicians, the orators, who needed the approval of the masses to win honour in the city, but also in the writings of a politically uninvolved philosopher, who had no clear, practical motivation for supporting democratic ideology. (shrink)