Ancient Historians · Part 10 · Xenophon · B1–B2
Xenophon II: Socrates, Cyrus and the Household
Part 10 of Ancient Historians: Xenophon wrote about much more than war. He wrote down conversations he remembered with his teacher Socrates, including the famous story of Heracles at the crossroads, choosing between an easy life and a hard one. He imagined the perfect education of a king in his book about Cyrus the Great. And he wrote a practical guide to running a farm and a household. Advice and recommendation (should, ought to, had better, it’s better to, why don’t you), and the language of choices and character, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Last time Xenophon was a soldier. Tonight he is a farmer, a philosopher and a teacher. He spent his long exile on a country estate near Olympia, hunting, farming, riding, and writing books about everything he knew.
A soldier who becomes a writer. There is always something to learn from such men.
And something to question, Philo. His Socrates is wiser and more practical than Plato’s; his perfect king is more legend than history; and his advice about wives belongs to his own time, not ours. Tonight we learn to give advice, and to weigh advice from the past.
Athens and Xenophon’s estate at Scillus, 4th century BCE
After the Anabasis, Xenophon fought for Sparta and was exiled from Athens. The Spartans gave him an estate at Scillus, near Olympia, where he lived for about twenty years, hunting, farming and writing. He wrote on horses, hunting, Spartan government, Greek history and, above all, about Socrates.
In the Memorabilia (“Memories”) he defends Socrates, who had been executed in 399 BCE, by recording his conversations. Socrates retells a famous story by the teacher Prodicus: young Heracles at the crossroads, where two women appear to him, Vice, who offers an easy life of pleasure, and Virtue, who offers hard work and lasting honour. Xenophon’s Socrates is practical and down-to-earth, giving advice about friendship, money and family; scholars compare him with Plato’s more mysterious philosopher, and debate which is…
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