{"id":46568,"date":"2019-01-18T03:00:31","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=46568"},"modified":"2020-01-19T14:25:19","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T19:25:19","slug":"xenophons-anabasis-memorabilia-and-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/01\/18\/xenophons-anabasis-memorabilia-and-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Xenophon\u2019s Anabasis<\/em>, Memorabilia<\/em>, and Symposium<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve read an English translation of Xenophon’s Anabasis<\/em>, but I only know a little bit about the Memorabilia<\/em>, so Eve Browning<\/a>‘s essay at Aeon<\/em> was quite interesting:<\/p>\n

The Anabasis<\/em> is the first military memoir in the history of Western literature, and it recounts Xenophon\u2019s experiences in the Persian campaign of Cyrus against his brother King Artaxerxes, and the long march \u2018up country\u2019. Since Xenophon waited several decades to commit these memories to writing, some have argued that they cannot be accurate. But as anyone who has listened to combat veterans will know, there\u2019s a lot about the remembrance of past tours of duty that time cannot soften nor the years wear away.<\/p>\n

Xenophon also wrote histories, portraits of leaders, practical treatises on horse training, hunting and running a household, among other things. An enduring theme that runs through much of his writing, and which has received scholarly attention in recent years, is that of leadership. What makes a good leader? What kind of leader can induce humans to endure hardships and expend effort toward a common goal? What exemplary traits mark out a leader and allow him or her to execute the requisite tasks with skill, induce a harmonious fellowship among those for whom he is responsible, maintain loyalty and mission clarity among the \u2018troops\u2019, whomever they might be? It is not difficult to see the formative roots of these questions, and of Xenophon\u2019s answers to them, in that literally death-defying, embattled 2,000-mile march up-country to the sea.<\/p>\n

Xenophon also wrote down his remembrances of a local philosopher named Socrates. Those who know Socrates mainly through the writings of Plato \u2013 Xenophon\u2019s near-exact contemporary \u2013 will find Xenophon\u2019s Socrates something of a surprise. Plato\u2019s Socrates claims to know nothing, and flamboyantly refutes the knowledge claims of others. In the pages of Xenophon\u2019s Memorabilia<\/em>, however, Socrates actually answers philosophical questions, dispenses practical life advice, provides arguments proving the existence of benevolent gods, converses as if peer-to-peer with a courtesan, and even proposes a domestic economy scheme whereby indigent female relatives can become productive through the establishment of a textile business at home.<\/p>\n

Socrates\u2019 conversation, according to Xenophon, \u2018was ever of human things\u2019. This engaged, intensely practical, human Socrates can be refreshing to encounter. Anyone who has felt discomfort at how the opponents of Plato\u2019s Socrates suffer relentless public refutations and reductions to absurdity can take some comfort in Xenophon\u2019s Socrates who \u2018tries to cure the perplexities of his friends\u2019.<\/p>\n

For instance, what could be more enchanting than a Socrates who solo-dances for joy and exercise, so unlike the Socrates we know from Plato? In Xenophon\u2019s Symposium<\/em>, Socrates asks the Phoenician dance-master to show him some dance moves. Everyone laughs: what will you do with dance moves, Socrates? He replies: \u2018I\u2019ll dance, by God!\u2019 A friend of Socrates then tells the group that he had stopped by his house early in the morning, and found him dancing alone. When questioned about it, Socrates happily confesses to solo-dancing often. It\u2019s great exercise, it moves the body in symmetry, it can be done indoors or outdoors with no equipment, and it freshens the appetite. <\/p>\n

Another surprising side of Xenophon\u2019s Socrates is shown through his encounter with a person who not only doesn\u2019t honour the gods, but makes fun of people who do. To this irreligious person, Socrates presents a careful and persuasive line of reasoning about the designed usefulness of all elements of creation. For humans and many other animals, there are \u2018eyes so that they can see what can be seen, and ears so that they can hear what can be heard\u2019, eyelids, eyelashes, molars and incisors, erotic desire to aid procreation; all these are \u2018the contrivance of some wise craftsman who loves animals\u2019. And what about the cosmos as a whole? \u2018Are you, then, of the opinion that \u2026 those surpassingly large and infinitely numerous things are in such an orderly condition through some senselessness?\u2019 Human beings even have the spiritual capacity to perceive the existence of gods, \u2018who put in order the greatest and noblest things\u2019, and \u2018they worry about you!\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Never Yet Melted<\/em><\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve read an English translation of Xenophon’s Anabasis, but I only know a little bit about the Memorabilia, so Eve Browning‘s essay at Aeon was quite interesting: The Anabasis is the first military memoir in the history of Western literature, and it recounts Xenophon\u2019s experiences in the Persian campaign of Cyrus against his brother King […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1526,7,370],"tags":[572,1101,576,1347,1346,134],"class_list":["post-46568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-greece","category-history","category-middle-east","tag-leadership","tag-persia","tag-philosophy","tag-plato","tag-socrates","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-c76","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46568"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54381,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46568\/revisions\/54381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}