Xenophon, Greek historian, miscellaneous essayist, and military commander (c. 435–354 B.C.), was son of Gryllus, an Athenian knight. The biography by Diogenes Laertius, and the scattered notices of him found in other ancient writings, together with the data supplied by his own Anabasis, are the only materials for his life. Little or nothing is known of the first thirty-five years which he spent at Athens, except that he came under the influence of Socrates from an early period. The tradition of his having been rescued by that philosopher at the battle of Delium, 424 B.C., which would carry back the date of his birth to 444–443, is probably apocryphal; at any rate it is inconsistent with his own statement about himself in the Anabasis (III. i. 25). In 401, the political situation of Athens offering no scope for his activity, he accepted the invitation of Proxenus of Boeotia—an old guest-friend and adventurer in command of a regiment of Hellenic mercenaries under Cyrus—to join him at Sardis and take service under the Persian prince in his military enterprise, directed ostensibly against the Pisidians, a refractory vassal tribe, but really against his own brother, King Artaxerxes Mnemon; but he went in a civil rather than a military capacity. It was only after the failure of this bold scheme of usurpation, and the death of the rebel prince in the affray between the two brothers in the plain of Cunaxa (Babylon), September 3, 401, that Xenophon became one of the regular officers, and finally the successor of Proxenus in the supreme command of the Ten Thousand Greeks left alone in the centre of the Persian empire, when five of their generals and twenty subordinate officers had been treacherously massacred in the enemy's camp, and there was a general break-up of the Cyreian Asiatic insurgents. Xenophon thereupon became the life and soul of the army in its march of 1500 miles, as they fought their way against the ferocious mountain tribes through the rugged highlands of Armenia and the ice and snow of an inclement winter, and conducted them with such skill, foresight, and prowess that in five months they were able to reach Trapezus (Trebizond), a Greek colony on the Black Sea, and ultimately Chrysopolis (Scutari), opposite Byzan- tium, on the Bosphorus, in October 399. After further adventures and difficulties, they accepted service for a short time under Seuthes, a Thracian chief, who wanted their aid in recovering the kingly power, and finally recrossed to Pergamum, where Xenophon provided them with permanent service in the Lacedæmonian army under Thibron, who had been engaged to continue the war against the satraps Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes, for the deliverance of the Æolian Greeks from the Persian yoke. It is not certain what became of Xenophon after Thibron's recall—whether he went back to Athens, as it appears from vii. 7, 57, he intended; but the evidence seems to show that he continued with his successor Dercyllidas, and that the sentence of banishment for 'laconism'—in other words, attachment to the cause of a traitor in alliance with Sparta—was passed against him in 399, the year of the execution of his old friend and master, Socrates. If he did go back to Athens, he must have returned to Asia in 396, when a new epoch in his life began with the arrival of Agesilaus in command of a new Spartan army. With this great king Xenophon, who saw in him the ideal of a Greek hero, formed the closest friendship. He accompanied him in his eastern campaign, and was in his suite when he returned to Greece to conduct the war against the newly-formed anti-Spartan league of Athens, Corinth, and Thebes (394), and witnessed the battle of Coronea, of which he gives a graphic description (Hell. IV. iii. 16 ff.). Such disloyal and unpatriotic conduct may be explained, if not excused, by his political sentiments. Xenophon saw no hope for Athens, except in league with Sparta. If Athens and Sparta combined, then might Greece be mistress of the world. Hence his aversion for the democratic party at Athens, which was the chief hindrance to such an union. Xenophon accompanied the king to Sparta, where he resided on and off, until, in compensation for the loss of his country and in recognition of his services, the Spartans presented him with an estate at Scillus, one of the Triphylian towns taken from Elis (400), lying on the road from Lacedæmon to Olympia. Here in 387 he went with his wife Philesia and his two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus; here he spent some twenty years of his life, careless of war and politics, indulging his taste for literary work and the pursuits of a country gentleman. Here, too, were penned most of his important books. But the break-up of Spartan ascendancy after the battle of Lenæra (371) drove him from his tranquil retreat to seek a home elsewhere. The Athenians, who had now joined the Spartans against Thebes, repealed the sentence of banishment against him, but he did not avail himself of this act of grace to return to his native place; he travelled towards it, but no farther than Corinth, where he took up his abode and lived to c. 355.
The writings which Xenophon has left behind him are not a bad index of his character; they give us the idea of having been written with great singleness of purpose, modesty, and love of truth. The leading feature of his character seems to have been an active susceptibility and admiration for all that is noble and beautiful. This trait will account for his faithful attachment to great personalities like Socrates, Agesilaus, and the younger Cyrus, and explain why in his narrative of particular actions or description of individuals he makes a point of presenting the bright side of things and concealing the dark, while in his philosophical works he brings on the scene almost exclusively noble and pleasant portraits. With this lovable trait he unites on the one hand a natural kindness and mildness of disposition, and on the other good sense, firmness, and courage. While his intercourse with Socrates and his studious habits stimulated and elevated his higher nature, his lower nature was invigorated by gymnastic and warlike exercises, so that he realised in a high degree the Greek ideal of perfect manhood in the symmetrical development of his bodily and mental powers. Nor did age obliterate his youthful impressions. He retained the strong religious sentiments and profound conviction of a divine mediation in the government of the world throughout life, and turned to account in his own practical way the splendid teaching of Socrates, although he had no capacity for pure philosophical speculations. They have a direct or indirect relation to some particular period of his life, in their outward circumstances, their political and civil bearings, and their spiritual tendency. They may be conveniently distributed into four groups: (1) Historical—the Hellenics, Anabasis, and Encomium of Agesilaus. (2) Technical and didactic—on Horsemanship, the Hipparchicus or 'Guide for a cavalry commander,' and the Cynegeticus or 'Guide to Hunting.' (3) Politico-philosophical—The Lacedaemonian Polity, The Cyropaedia, Athenian Finance. (4) Ethico-philosophical—Memorials of Socrates, Symposium, Oeconomicus, Hieron, Apology of Socrates. The Polity of Athens is now commonly regarded as an anonymous work written about 415 B.C., which was incorporated in the collection of Xenophon's works only because of its analogy to the Polity of Lacedaemon. The style and language of Xenophon is unaffected, simple, and clear, without any attempt at ornamentation; it is well described by Dionysius, the greatest of ancient Greek critics, in his Letter to Pompeius, as 'sufficiently pure and clear; in the choice of expressions he prefers those which were ordinary and suitable to the actions, and he arranges them in a pleasant and agreeable manner'—and this judgment is confirmed by Quintilian, the greatest of Latin critics. The dialect he uses is the Attic, but not the purest; his long absence from Athens and intercourse with Ionians and Lacedaemonians familiarised him with many foreign words which he does not hesitate to employ if they serve his purpose.
The Hellenica comprise the history of Greece during a period of forty-nine years, in three parts, of which Book i. and part of Book ii., in continuation of the work of Thucydides, centred on the affairs of Athens from 411 B.C. to the reconciliation of parties after the expulsion of the Thirty (403). It presents distinguishing features, which go to prove that it was compiled at an earlier period than the ensuing five books, contemporaneously with the events, and under different impressions, before the author's undue Laconism prevailed over his Attic patriotism. The second part, comprising Books iii.-v., is almost exclusively taken up with the history of Sparta from her war with the satraps of Asia Minor (399) to the peace of Antalcidas (387). The third part comprises the general history of Greece to the battle of Mantinea (362). The historian is silent on domestic topics between 403 and 399—the years in which the events recorded in the Anabasis took place. We learn from an allusion in the text (VI. iv. 37) to the death of Alexander of Phæra that the work was not embodied in its present form before 357. The unaffected ease and simplicity of Xenophon's language, his vivid sketches of tragic and striking scenes, and the lively and appropriate speeches which he has introduced in his narrative will always secure him admirers, but they do not entitle him to a place among great historians. He has no such reflections on the causes and consequences of events as are found in Thucydides, nor any of those profound views which tell of the power of generalisation in the author. There is, moreover, a disproportion between the importance of events and the space they occupy in his narrative. Thus the peace of Antalcidas—an event which changed the essential relations of the Hellenic confederacy—is recorded with excessive brevity. Decisive battles, as those of Leuctra, Arginuse, and Ægospotani, are dismissed with a brief notice, while the greatest men of the age, Epaminondas,
Pelopidas, and Conon, are thrown in the background. To a certain extent this may be accounted for by the circumstances of the age in which Xenophon lived, when the individual was entirely merged in the state, and it was not yet the fashion, as it became in a later period, to connect great events and achievements with the names of the actors in them. When, therefore, Xenophon speaks of the Thebans generally, it does not follow, as a matter of course, that he wishes to belittle Epaminondas. His credit as a historian has been impugned for allowing his judgment to be warped by his political likes and dislikes; but the charge of garbling or suppressing, distorting, or colouring details according to his sympathies and of a general want of veracity cannot be sustained, as has been recently shown by A. Holm in his Griechische Geschichte (1891).
The Anabasis, from a strictly historical point of view, is inferior in real value to the Hellenica, the event from which it takes its title, 'a going up country,' being merely an incident in the history of Persia, and of no political importance. But it is, upon the whole, the best composed, as it is the most popular, of Xenophon's writings. It is essentially an autobiography of the most eventful part of his life, and combines much of the charm of a historical romance and many elements of ethic interest with its character of authentic history. The first of the two integral parts into which the work resolves itself contains the expedition and death of Cyrus, which occupy but six months of time and less than a sixth part of the text; the second, the Katabasis or adventures of the Greek mercenaries on their return after the battle of Cunaxa, which extend over eighteen months and form the principal source of attraction. In the former part Cyrus is the principal actor, in the latter Xenophon himself. The whole may be regarded as filling up the gap between the second and third books of the Hellenica, the latter of which begins with a statement which has supplied matter for much speculation among commentators—that 'the story how Cyrus collected an army, with which he marched up the country against his brother, and how the battle was fought and how he was killed, and how after this the Greeks effected their retreat to the sea, has been related by Themistogenes of Syracuse.' It is impossible to say what motive Xenophon had for passing off his own work as the production of another. It can hardly be that, not having yet composed his own Anabasis at the time when he published this portion of his Hellenica, he could only quote an entirely different work, for it is not likely that there was already published and in circulation a second narrative besides that of Sophænetus, known to us by quotations in the geographical lexicon of Stephanus of Byzantium (472 A.D.). Plutarch, the only extant ancient writer who refers to this mention of Themistogenes, says that Xenophon's object was to secure greater credit to the record of his own exploits than might have attached to it were it known to have been composed by himself. It is remarkable that neither Diodorus Siculus, whose account of the Anabasis is the longest next after Xenophon's, nor Plutarch, in his occasional quotations of Xenophon—both of them honest though uncritical writers—awards him even a moderate amount of the credit which he claims for himself as its foremost hero. The Anabasis was not published until after the battle of Leuctra (371), as appears from the references in the fifth book to the author's past life at Scillus.
The Agesilaus is a separate memoir in praise of the Spartan king, the author's idol, reproducing the notices of him from the Hellenica, with added observations on his expedition to Egypt and death (360). The three technical treatises on The Art of Horsemanship, Cavalry Service, and The Chase are on subjects with which the author had a thorough practical acquaintance. The first is written in a graceful and lively strain, and, so far as it goes, with great accuracy and completeness. The Hipparchicus is a less valuable manual of the duties of a cavalry general. The third tract enters with the zest of an enthusiastic sportsman into minute details of harriers and hounds, their breed, points, and method of training, their collars, couples, slips, of the snarer and his apparatus, of the natural history of the hare.
In the Lacedaemonian Polity Xenophon has illustrated what he regarded as the best form of a mixed government. M. H. Bazin, in his study on the work (Paris, 1885), thinks that it is an écrit de circonstance, written 394 B.C., with a political object, at a time when Sparta was divided between two parties, the innovators, at whose head had been Lysander and whose views were set forth in a pamphlet by Cleon of Halicarnassus, and the conservative party, led by Agesilaus, who were bent on restoring the real or fancied political virtue of bygone days. This latter tendency Xenophon set himself to help by writing a reply to Cleon. It dwells on those points which the known or supposed plans of Lysander threatened most, as the powers of the kings. It recommends the old-fashioned Spartan virtues by discreetly supposing that every one already practises them. It appeals indirectly to the military spirit of the Spartiate by ignoring the Perioeci and the Helot soldiers, and by mentioning mercenaries with contempt—an attitude which on any other theory is incomprehensible.
The Cyropædeia, or 'The education of Cyrus,' which is not properly a history, but a didactic romance with a historical groundwork, is of great interest, as being the first work of the kind in Greek literature. It was highly prized by ancient critics, and, in the opinion of some modern scholars, ranks highest among Xenophon's works in point of literary merit. Xenophon adopted this form of composition as a vehicle for setting forth his own theory of government and his views of law and society in accordance with the writers of the Socratic school—to exhibit the model of a good and wise governor, and to show how citizens can be formed by such an one to be virtuous and brave. He chose for his exemplar the Persians and Cyrus the Great, the founder of their empire, whose life he divides into three sections, two of which, concerning his education as a boy and his training as a youth at the court of his maternal uncle, Astyages, king of Media, together fill but one book, which has given its name to the whole eight, the influence of the national system of education on his hero's character being the mainspring of his own subsequent greatness as founder and organiser of the empire, and of the ascendancy which the Persians under his auspices acquired over other Asiatic races. In its details the biography is pervaded by the Socratic spirit. Though the East supplies the background and colouring of the picture, only a few vestiges of Oriental usages and methods of thought are to be met with, for the writer had very little knowledge of them, and made that little go a long way. His materials were borrowed from Sparta. There is no dramatic plot in the work, but a string of successive situations, each calling forth and displaying the hero's aptitude for the art of command, without which hearty obedience is impossible. The episode of Abradatas and Panthea—our earliest sentimental romance—shows much simple pathos, and the striking address of Cyrus to his sons on the immortality of the soul was made large use of by Cicero. The epilogue, on the decadence of the Persians, being the eighth chapter of the last book, could not have been written before 362 B.C., because mention is made in it of two events which, as we know from other sources, took place in that year.
In the tract entitled Poroi, or 'Means,' c. 356, Xenophon suggests certain reforms in the financial system of Athens, and development of her internal resources, so as to secure a regular state support for all citizens, rich and poor, without being dependent on the tribute of the allies. He recommends that more foreign settlers should be attracted to the city, and a capitation tax imposed on them, and that more should be made of the silver-mines of Laurium; and lastly, that Athens should exert her influence in the settlement of disputes by diplomacy rather than by war.
The Memorials of Socrates have brought the author the reputation of being a philosopher; but they are really nothing more than sketches and dialogues without unity or coherence, illustrative of the life and character of his great master—a vindication of him by narrative rather than by argument, originally suggested by the publication of a declamation of the sophist Polycrates (392) in the form of an impeachment before his judges. Xenophon confines himself in this writing to the moral and practical side of his master's teaching, without venturing to enter into his metaphysical speculations, and so, as has been remarked, 'gives us less than the real Socrates, while Plato gives more.' The short allegory known as 'The Choice of Hercules at the Cross-road'—an abridgment of the famous apologue or epideixis of Prodicus—and the discourse on the evidence of a deity as displayed in the phenomena of the universe, are specially worthy of admiration. A less elaborate picture of Socrates is drawn in the Symposium, which belongs to the same group of works. The scene is laid at an entertain- ment given by the wealthy Callias in honour of a victory at Athens won by a youthful pancratiast. The table-talk of Socrates and the other guests, which turns on a variety of topics, and winds up with a philosophical disquisition by the former on the superiority of spiritual love over its sensual counterfeit, is diversified by the trifling of a professional jester, and the acrobatic and other feats of a boy and dancing girl brought by a strolling player from Syracuse. Xenophon's inferiority, as a thinker, to Plato is obvious in this dialogue, the vapid prose and the trivial commonplace of which are in marked contrast with the genial and high-flown speculations of Plato in his Symposium.
The Oeconomicus is the only Socratic dialogue that can bear comparison with those of Plato. It was intended to embody Socrates' ideas on the branch of economy which considers the relations of a family as distinct from those of a state. It begins with a conversation between Socrates and his favourite pupil, Critobulus, at which Xenophon was present, and slides off into a secondary dialogue, which is in fact only a recapitulation of another conversation once held between Socrates and Ischomachus, a wealthy Athenian proprietor, on the subject of family management, the former as the learner, the latter as instructor. The book presents an interesting picture of a Greek household, deals with the education of women, and the respective duties of husband and wife, and includes a graphic and characteristic account of the ordinary occupations of a country gentleman. In the management of labourers leniency is enjoined as preferable to harshness, and the need of active personal supervision is strongly insisted on.
The Hieron—one of the most pleasing of Xenophon's didactic compositions—is in the form of a dialogue between Simonides the famous lyric poet and Hieron, despot of Syracuse. Simonides advocates the popular view that a tyrant is, or ought to be, the happiest of men, and in spite of Hieron's arguments on the other side of the question that his lot is the most unenviable, maintains that it is quite possible for an enlightened tyrant, by a judicious and philanthropic exercise of his power, to be both a powerful and a popular ruler.
The Apology of Socrates is a short tract vindicating the attitude of Socrates during his trial and after the verdict, by showing that he really preferred death to life, and that it was his consciousness of his own innocence that prevented him from naming any punishment as due to the offence of which he was convicted.
The earliest printed edition of any of Xenophon's works is the Latin version of the Cyropædeia by F. Philifus (Rome, 1473). The editio princeps of the Greek text was that of Boninus, printed by P. Giunta (Florence, 1516), reprinted in 1527, followed by the Aldine in 1525. In the long list of subsequent editions of the whole or part of his works the most important names are those of Zeune, T. Hutchinson, Weiske, J. F. Fischer, J. G. Schneider, F. A. Bornemann, L. Breitenbach, K. W. Krüger, R. Kühner, G. A. Sauppe, L. Diindorf, K. Schenkl, F. K. Hertlein, Cobet, O. Keller (Hellenica), Zurborg, Arnold Hug (Anabasis and Cyropædeia). There are editions with notes in English of the Cyropædeia, Hieron, and Oeconomicus by the present writer, of the Anabasis by A. Pretor, and of the Memorabilia by J. Marshall. There are several lexicons, to the whole works by F. G. Sturz, to portions by G. A. Koch, K. W. Krüger, H. L. Strack, C. Thiemann, and F. Volbrecht. The work of Ad. Roquette, De Xenophontis vita (1884), and that of A. Croiset, Xénophon, son Caractère et son Talent (1873), are valuable. There is a translation by H. G. Dakyns (4 vols. 1890-99).