IV. XENOPHON…

IV. XENOPHON

[Side-note: Xenophon--his character--essentially a man of action and not a theorist--the Sokratic element in him an accessory.]

There remains one other companion of Sokrates, for whom a dignified place must be reserved in this volume--Xenophon the son of Gryllus. It is to him that we owe, in great part, such knowledge as we possess of the real Sokrates. For the Sokratic conversations related by Xenophon, though doubtless dressed up and expanded by him, appear to me reports in the main of what Sokrates actually said. Xenophon was sparing in the introduction of his master as titular spokesman for opinions, theories, or controversial difficulties, generated in his own mind: a practice in which Plato indulged without any reserve, as we have seen by the numerous dialogues already passed in review.

I shall not however give any complete analysis of Xenophon's works: because both the greater part of them, and the leading features of his personal character, belong rather to active than to speculative Hellenic life. As such, I have dealt with them largely in my History of Greece. What I have here to illustrate is the Sokratic element in his character, which is important indeed as accessory and modifying--yet not fundamental. Though he exemplifies and attests, as a witness, the theorising negative vein, the cross-examining Elenchus of Sokrates it is the preceptorial vein which he appropriates to himself and expands in its bearing on practical conduct. He is the semi-philosophising general; undervalued indeed as a hybrid by Plato--but by high-minded Romans like Cato, Agricola, Helvidius Priscus, &c. likely to be esteemed higher than Plato himself.[1] He is the military brother of the Sokratic family, distinguished for ability and energy in the responsible functions of command: a man of robust frame, courage, and presence of mind, who affronts cheerfully the danger and fatigues of soldiership, and who extracts philosophy from experience of the variable temper of armies, together with the multiplied difficulties and precarious authority of a Grecian general.[2] For our knowledge, imperfect as it is, of real Grecian life, we are greatly indebted to his works. All historians of Greece must draw largely from his Hellenica and Anabasis: and we learn much even from his other productions, not properly historical; for he never soars high in the region of ideality, nor grasps at etherial visions--"nubes et inania"--like Plato.

[Footnote 1: See below, my remarks on the Platonic Euthydêmus, vol. ii. chap, xxi.**]

[Footnote 2: We may apply to Plato and Xenophon the following comparison by Euripides, Supplices, 905. (Tydeus and Meleager.)

[Greek: gnô/mê| d' a)delphou= Melea/grou leleimme/nos, i)son pare/schen o)/noma dia\ te/chnên doro/s, eu(rô\n a)kribê= mousikê\n e)n a)spi/di; philo/timon ê)=thos, plou/sion phro/nêma de\ e)n toi=sin e)/rgois, ou)chi\ toi=s lo/gois e)/chôn.]]

[Side-note: Date of Xenophon--probable year of his birth.]

Respecting the personal history of Xenophon himself, we possess but little information: nor do we know the year either of his birth or death. His Hellenica concludes with the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.C. But he makes incidental mention in that work of an event five years later--the assassination of Alexander, despot of Pheræ, which took place in 357 B.C.[3]--and his language seems to imply that the event was described shortly after it took place. His pamphlet De Vectigalibus appears to have been composed still later--not before 355 B.C. In the year 400 B.C., when Xenophon joined the Grecian military force assembled at Sardis to accompany Cyrus the younger in his march to Babylon, he must have been still a young man: yet he had even then established an intimacy with Sokrates at Athens: and he was old enough to call himself the "ancient guest" of the Boeotian Proxenus, who engaged him to come and take service with Cyrus.[4] We may suppose him to have been then about thirty years of age; and thus to have been born about 430 B.C.--two or three years earlier than Plato. Respecting his early life, we have no facts before us: but we may confidently affirm (as I have already observed about[5] Plato), that as he became liable to military service in 412 B.C., the severe pressure of the war upon Athens must have occasioned him to be largely employed, among other citizens, for the defence of his native city, until its capture in 405 B.C. He seems to have belonged to an equestrian family in the census, and therefore to have served on horseback. More than one of his compositions evinces both intelligent interest in horsemanship, and great familiarity with horses.

[Footnote 3: Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 37. [Greek: tô=n de\ tau=ta praxa/ntôn] (i.e. of the brothers of Thêbê, which brothers had assassinated Alexander) [Greek: a)/chri ou)= o(de o( lo/gos e)gra/pheto, Tisi/phonos, presbu/tatos ô(=n tô=n a)delphô=n, tê\n a)rchê\n ei)=che.]]

[Footnote 4: That he was still a young man appears from his language, Anabas. iii. 1, 25. His intimacy with Sokrates, whose advice he asked about the propriety of accepting the invitation of Proxenus to go to Asia, is shown iii. 1, 5. Proxenus was his [Greek: xe/nos a)rchai=os], iii. 1, 4.

The story mentioned by Strabo (ix. 403) that Xenophon served in the Athenian cavalry at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.), and that his life was saved by Sokrates, I consider to be not less inconsistent with any reasonable chronology, than the analogous anecdote--that Plato distinguished himself at the battle of Delium. See below, ch. v.]

[Footnote 5: See ch. v.]

[Side-note: His personal history--He consults Sokrates--takes the opinion of the Delphian oracle.]

Our knowledge of his personal history begins with what he himself recounts in the Anabasis. His friend Proxenus, then at Sardis commanding a regiment of Hellenic mercenaries under Cyrus the younger, wrote recommending him earnestly to come over and take service, in the army prepared ostensibly against the Pisidians. Upon this Xenophon asked the advice of Sokrates: who exhorted him to go and consult the Delphian oracle--being apprehensive that as Cyrus had proved himself the strenuous ally of Sparta, and had furnished to her the principal means for crushing Athens, an Athenian taking service under him would incur unpopularity at home. Xenophon accordingly went to Delphi: but instead of asking the question broadly--"Shall I go, or shall I decline to go?"--he put to Apollo the narrower question--"Having in contemplation a journey, to which of the Gods must I sacrifice and pray, in order to accomplish it best, and to come back with safety and success?" Apollo indicated to him the Gods to whom he ought to address himself: but Sokrates was displeased with him for not having first asked, whether he ought to go at all. Nevertheless (continued Sokrates), since you have chosen to put the question in your own way you must act as the God has prescribed.[6]

[Footnote 6: Xenoph. Anab. iii. 1, 4-6.]

[Side-note: His service and command with the Ten Thousand Greeks; afterwards under Agesilaus and the Spartans.--He is banished from Athens.]

The anecdote here recounted by Xenophon is interesting, as it illustrates his sincere faith, as well as that of Sokrates, in the Delphian oracle: though we might have expected that on this occasion, Sokrates would have been favoured with some manifestation of that divine sign, which he represents to have warned him afterwards so frequently and on such trifling matters. Apollo however was perhaps displeased (as Sokrates was) with Xenophon, for not having submitted the question to him with full frankness: since the answer given was proved by subsequent experience to be incomplete.[7] After fifteen months passed, first, in the hard upward march--next, in the still harder retreat--of the Ten Thousand, to the preservation of whom he largely contributed by his energy, presence of mind, resolute initiative, and ready Athenian eloquence, as one of their leaders--Xenophon returned to Athens. It appears that he must have come back not long after the death of Sokrates. But Athens was not at that time a pleasant residence for him. The Sokratic companions shared in the unpopularity of their deceased master, and many of them were absent: moreover Xenophon himself was unpopular as the active partisan of Cyrus. After a certain stay, we know not how long, at Athens, Xenophon appears to have gone back to Asia; and to have resumed his command of the remaining Cyreian soldiers, then serving under the Lacedæmonian generals against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. He served first under Derkyllidas, next under Agesilaus. For the latter he conceived the warmest admiration, and contracted with him an intimate friendship. At the time when Xenophon rejoined the Cyreians in Asia, Athens was not at war with the Lacedæmonians: but after some time, the hostile confederacy of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, against them was organised: and Agesilaus was summoned home by them from Asia, to fight their battles in Greece. Xenophon and his Cyreians were still a portion of the army of Agesilaus, and accompanied him in his march into Boeotia; where they took part in his desperate battle and bloody victory at Koroneia.[8] But he was now lending active aid to the enemies of Athens, and holding conspicuous command in their armies. A sentence of banishment, on the ground of Laconism, was passed against him by the Athenians, on the proposition of Eubulus.[9]

[Footnote 7: Compare Anabas. vi. 1, 22, and vii. 8, 1-6.

See also Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 33 C, and Plato, Theagês, p. 129; also below, vol. ii. ch. xv.

Sokrates and Xenophon are among the most imposing witnesses cited by Quintus Cicero, in his long pleading to show the reality of divination (Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 25, 52, i. 54, 122). Antipater the Stoic collected a large number of examples, illustrating the miraculous divining power of Sokrates. Several of these examples appear much more trifling than this incident of Xenophon.]

[Footnote 8: Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 6; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 18.]

[Footnote 9: Diog. L. ii. 51-69. [Greek: e)pi\ Lakônismô=| phugê\n u(p' A)thênai/ôn kategnô/sthê.]]

[Side-note: His residence at Skillus near Olympia.]

How long he served with Agesilaus, we are not told. At the end of his service, the Lacedæmonians provided him with a house and land at the Triphylian town of Skillûs near Olympia, which they had seemingly taken from the Eleians and re-colonised. Near this residence he also purchased, under the authority of the God (perhaps Olympian Zeus) a landed estate to be consecrated to the Goddess Artemis: employing therein a portion of the tithe of plunder devoted to Artemis by the Cyreian army, and deposited by him for the time in the care of Megabyzus, priest of Artemis at Ephesus. The estate of the Goddess contained some cultivated ground, but consisted chiefly of pasture; with wild ground, wood and mountain, abounding in game and favourable for hunting. Xenophon became Conservator of this property for Artemis: to whom he dedicated a shrine and a statue, in miniature copy of the great temple at Ephesus. Every year he held a formal hunting-match, to which he invited all the neighbours, with abundant hospitality, at the expense of the Goddess. The Conservator and his successors were bound by formal vow, on pain of her displeasure, to employ one tenth of the whole annual produce in sacrifices to her: and to keep the shrine and statue in good order, out of the remainder.[10]

[Footnote 10: Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 8-12; Diog. L. ii. 52: Pausanias, v. 6, 3.

[Greek: phêsi\ d' o( Dei/narchos o(/ti kai\ oi)ki/an kai\ a)/gron au)tô=| e(/dosan Lakedaimo/nioi].

Deinarchus appears to have composed for a client at Athens a judicial speech against Xenophon, the grandson of Xenophon Sokraticus. He introduced into the speech some facts relating to the grandfather.]

[Side-note: Family of Xenophon--his son Gryllus killed at Mantinea.]

Xenophon seems to have passed many years of his life either at Skillus or in other parts of Peloponnesus, and is said to have died very old at Corinth. The sentence of banishment passed against him by the Athenians was revoked after the battle of Leuktra, when Athens came into alliance with the Lacedæmonians against Thebes. Some of Xenophon's later works indicate that he must have availed himself of this revocation to visit Athens: but whether he permanently resided there is uncertain. He had brought over with him from Asia a wife named Philesia, by whom he had two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus.[11] He sent these two youths to be trained at Sparta, under the countenance of Agesilaus:[12] afterwards the eldest of them, Gryllus, served with honour in the Athenian cavalry which assisted the Lacedæmonians and Mantineians against Epameinondas, B.C. 362. In the important combat[13] of the Athenian and Theban cavalry, close to the gates of Mantineia--shortly preceding the general battle of Mantineia, in which Epameinondas was slain--Gryllus fell, fighting with great bravery. The death of this gallant youth--himself seemingly of great promise, and the son of so eminent a father--was celebrated by Isokrates and several other rhetors, as well as by the painter Euphranor at Athens, and by sculptors at Mantineia itself.[14]

[Footnote 11: Æschines Sokraticus, in one of his dialogues, introduced Aspasia conversing with Xenophon and his (Xenophon's) wife. Cicero, De Invent. i. 31, 51-54; Quintil. Inst. Orat. v. p. 312.]

[Footnote 12: Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 20.]

[Footnote 13: Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 5, 15-16-17. This combat of cavalry near the gates of Mantineia was very close and sharply contested; but at the great battle fought a few days afterwards the Athenian cavalry were hardly at all engaged, vii. 5, 25.]

[Footnote 14: Pausanias, i. 3, 3, viii. 11, 4, ix. 15, 3; Diogenes L. ii. 54. Harpokration v. [Greek: Kêphiso/dôros].

It appears that Euphranor, in his picture represented Gryllus as engaged in personal conflict with Epameinondas and wounding him--a compliment not justified by the facts. The Mantineians believed Antikrates, one of their own citizens, to have mortally wounded the great Theban general with his spear, and they awarded to him as recompense immunity from public burthens ([Greek: a)te/leian]), both for himself and his descendants. One of his descendants, Kallikrates, continued even in Plutarch's time to enjoy this immunity. Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 35.]

[Side-note: Death of Xenophon at Corinth--Story of the Eleian Exegetæ.]

Skillus, the place in which the Lacedæmonians had established Xenophon, was retaken by the Eleians during the humiliation of Lacedæmonian power, not long before the battle of Mantineia. Xenophon himself was absent at the time; but his family were constrained to retire to Lepreum. It was after this, we are told, that he removed to Corinth, where he died in 355 B.C. or in some year later. The Eleian Exegetæ told the traveller Pausanias, when he visited the spot five centuries afterwards, that Xenophon had been condemned in the judicial Council of Olympia as wrongful occupant of the property at Skillus, through Lacedæmonian violence; but that the Eleians had granted him indulgence, and had allowed him to remain.[15] As it seems clearly asserted that he died at Corinth, he can hardly have availed himself of the indulgence; and I incline to suspect that the statement is an invention of subsequent Eleian Exegetæ, after they had learnt to appreciate his literary eminence.

[Footnote 15: Pausan. v. 6, 3; Diog. L. ii. 53-56.]

[Side-note: Xenophon different from Plato and the other Sokratic brethren.]

From the brief outline thus presented of Xenophon's life, it will plainly appear that he was quite different in character and habits from Plato and the other Sokratic brethren. He was not only a man of the world (as indeed Aristippus was also), but he was actively engaged in the most responsible and difficult functions of military command: he was moreover a landed proprietor and cultivator, fond of strong exercise with dogs and horses, and an intelligent equestrian. His circumstances were sufficiently easy to dispense with the necessity of either composing discourses or taking pupils for money. Being thus enabled to prosecute letters and philosophy in an independent way, he did not, like Plato and Aristotle, open a school.[16] His relations, as active coadjutor and subordinate, with Agesilaus, form a striking contrast to those of Plato with Dionysius, as tutor and pedagogue. In his mind, the Sokratic conversations, suggestive and stimulating to every one, fell upon the dispositions and aptitudes of a citizen-soldier, and fructified in a peculiar manner. My present work deals with Xenophon, not as an historian of Grecian affairs or of the Cyreian expedition, but only on the intellectual and theorising side:--as author of the Memorabilia, the Cyropædia, Oekonomikus, Symposion, Hieron, De Vectigalibus, &c.

[Footnote 16: See, in the account of Theopompus by Photius (Cod. 176, p. 120; compare also Photius, Cod. 159, p. 102, a. 41), the distinction taken by Theopompus: who said that the four most celebrated literary persons of his day were, his master Isokrates, Theodektês of Phasêlis, Naukrates of Erythræ, and himself (Theopompus). He himself and Naukrates were in good circumstances, so that he passed his life in independent prosecution of philosophy and philomathy. But Isokrates and Theodektês were compelled [Greek: di' a)pori/an bi/ou, misthou= lo/gous gra/phein kai\ sophisteu/ein, e)kpaideu/ontes tou\s ne/ous, ka)kei=then karpoume/nous ta\s u(phelei/as].

Theopompus does not here present the profession of a Sophist (as most Platonic commentators teach us to regard it) as a mean, unprincipled, and corrupting employment.]

[Side-note: His various works--Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, &c.]

The Memorabilia were composed as records of the conversations of Sokrates, expressly intended to vindicate Sokrates against charges of impiety and of corrupting youthful minds, and to show that he inculcated, before every thing, self-denial, moderation of desires, reverence for parents, and worship of the Gods. The Oekonomikus and the Symposion are expansions of the Memorabilia: the first[17] exhibiting Sokrates not only as an attentive observer of the facts of active life (in which character the Memorabilia present him also), but even as a learner of husbandry[18] and family management from Ischomachus--the last describing Sokrates and his behaviour amidst the fun and joviality of a convivial company. Sokrates declares[19] that as to himself, though poor, he is quite as rich as he desires to be; that he desires no increase, and regards poverty as no disadvantage. Yet since Kratobulus, though rich, is beset with temptations to expense quite sufficient to embarrass him, good proprietary management is to him a necessity. Accordingly, Sokrates, announcing that he has always been careful to inform himself who were the best economists in the city,[20] now cites as authority Ischomachus, a citizen of wealth and high position, recognised by all as one of the "super-excellent".[21] Ischomachus loves wealth, and is anxious to maintain and even enlarge his property: desiring to spend magnificently for the honour of the Gods, the assistance of friends, and the support of the city.[22] His whole life is arranged, with intelligence and forethought, so as to attain this object, and at the same time to keep up the maximum of bodily health and vigour, especially among the horsemen of the city as an accomplished rider[23] and cavalry soldier. He speaks with respect, and almost with enthusiasm, of husbandry, as an occupation not merely profitable, but improving to the character: though he treats with disrespect other branches of industry and craft.[24] In regard to husbandry, too, as in regard to war or steersmanship, he affirms that the difference between one practitioner and another consists, not so much in unequal knowledge, as in unequal care to practise what both of them know.[25]

[Footnote 17: Galen calls the Oekonomicus the last book of the Memorabilia (ad Hippokrat. De Articulis, t. xviii. p. 301, Kühn). It professes to be repeated by Xenophon from what he himself heard Sokrates say--[Greek: ê)/kousa de/ pote au)tou= kai\ peri\ oi)konomi/as toia/de dialegome/nou], &c. Sokrates first instructs Kritobulus that economy, or management of property, is an art, governed by rules, and dependent upon principles; next, he recounts to him the lessons which he professes to have himself received from Ischomachus.

I have already adverted to the Xenophontic Symposion as containing jocular remarks which some erroneously cite as serious.]

[Footnote 18: To learn in this way the actualities of life, and the way of extracting the greatest amount of wheat and barley from a given piece of land, is the sense which Xenophon puts on the word [Greek: philo/sophos] (Xen. Oek. xvi. 9; compare Cyropædia, vi. 1, 41).]

[Footnote 19: Xenoph. Oekonom. ii. 3; xi. 3, 4.

I have made some observations on the Xenophontic Symposion, comparing it with the Platonic Symposion, in a subsequent chapter of this work, ch. xxvi.]

[Footnote 20: Xen. Oekon. ii. 16.]

[Footnote 21: Xen. Oekon. vi. 17, xi. 3. [Greek: pro\s pa/ntôn kai\ a)ndrô=n kai\ gunaikô=n, kai\ xe/nôn kai\ a)stô=n, kalo/n te ka)gatho\n e)ponomazo/menon.]]

[Footnote 22: Xen. Oekon. xi. 9.]

[Footnote 23: Xen. Oekon. xi. 17-21. [Greek: e)n toi=s i(ppokôta/tois te kai\ plousiôta/tois].]

[Footnote 24: Xen. Oekon. iv. 2-3, vi. 5-7. Ischomachus asserts that his father had been more devoted to agriculture ([Greek: philogeôrgo/tatos]) than any man at Athens; that he had bought several pieces of land ([Greek: chô/rous]) when out of order, improved them, and then resold them with very large profit, xx. 26.]

[Footnote 25: Xen. Oekon. xx. 2-10.]

[Side-note: Ischomachus, hero of the Oekonomikus--ideal of an active citizen, cultivator, husband, house-master, &c.]

Ischomachus describes to Sokrates, in reply to a string of successive questions, both his scheme of life and his scheme of husbandry. He had married his wife before she was fifteen years of age: having first ascertained that she had been brought up carefully, so as to have seen and heard as little as possible, and to know nothing but spinning and weaving.[26] He describes how he took this very young wife into training, so as to form her to the habits which he himself approved. He declares that the duties and functions of women are confined to in-door work and superintendence, while the out-door proceedings, acquisition as well as defence, belong to men:[27] he insists upon such separation of functions emphatically, as an ordinance of nature--holding an opinion the direct reverse of that which we have seen expressed by Plato.[28] He makes many remarks on the arrangements of the house, and of the stores within it: and he dwells particularly on the management of servants, male and female.

[Footnote 26: Xen. Oekon. vii. 3-7. [Greek: to\n d' e)/mprosthen chro/non e)/zê u(po\ pollê=s e)pimelei/as, o(/pôs ô(s e)la/chista me\n o)/psoito, e)la/chista de\ a)kou/soito, e)la/chista de\ e)/roito].

The [Greek: didaskali/a] addressed to Sokrates by Ischomachus is in the form of [Greek: e)rô/têsis], xix. 15. The Sokratic interrogation is here brought to bear upon Sokrates, instead of by Sokrates: like the Elenchus in the Parmenidês of Plato.]

[Footnote 27: Xen. Oekon. vii. 22-32.]

[Footnote 28: See below, ch. xxxvii.

Compare also Aristotel. Politic. iii. 4, 1277, b. 25, where Aristotle lays down the same principle as Xenophon.]

[Side-note: Text upon which Xenophon insists--capital difference between command over subordinates willing, and subordinates unwilling.]

It is upon this last point that he lays more stress than upon any other. To know how to command men--is the first of all accomplishments in the mind of Xenophon. Ischomachus proclaims it as essential that the superior shall not merely give orders to his subordinates, but also see them executed, and set the example of personal active watchfulness in every way. Xenophon aims at securing not simply obedience, but cheerful and willing obedience--even attachment from those who obey. "To exercise command over willing subjects"[29] (he says) "is a good more than human, granted only to men truly consummated in virtue of character essentially divine. To exercise command over unwilling subjects, is a torment like that of Tantalus."

[Footnote 29: Xen. Oekon. xxi. 10-12. [Greek: ê)/thous basilikou=--thei=on gene/sthai. Ou) ga\r pa/nu moi\ dokei= touti\ to\ a)gatho\n a)nthrô/pinon ei)=nai, a)lla\ thei=on, to\ e)thelo/ntôn a)/rchein; saphô=s de\ di/dotai toi=s a)lêthinô=s sôphrosu/nê| tetelesme/nois. To\ de\ a)ko/ntôn turannei=n dido/asin, ô(s e)moi\ dokei=, ou(\s a)\n ê(gô=ntai a)xi/ous ei)=nai bioteu/ein, ô(/sper o( Ta/ntalos e)n a(/|dou le/getai]. Compare also iv. 19, xiii. 3-7.]

[Side-note: Probable circumstances generating these reflections in Xenophon's mind.]

The sentence just transcribed (the last sentence in the Oekonomikus) brings to our notice a central focus in Xenophon's mind, from whence many of his most valuable speculations emanate. "What are the conditions under which subordinates will cheerfully obey their commanders?"--was a problem forced upon his thoughts by his own personal experience, as well as by contemporary phenomena in Hellas. He had been elected one of the generals of the Ten Thousand: a large body of brave warriors from different cities, most of them unknown to him personally, and inviting his authority only because they were in extreme peril, and because no one else took the initiative.[30] He discharged his duties admirably: and his ready eloquence was an invaluable accomplishment, distinguishing him from all his colleagues. Nevertheless when the army arrived at the Euxine, out of the reach of urgent peril, he was made to feel sensibly the vexations of authority resting upon such precarious basis, and perpetually traversed by jealous rivals. Moreover, Xenophon, besides his own personal experience, had witnessed violent political changes running extensively through the cities of the Grecian world: first, at the close of the Peloponnesian war--next, after the battle of Knidus--again, under Lacedæmonian supremacy, after the peace of Antalkidas, and the subsequent seizure of the citadel of Thebes--lastly, after the Thebans had regained their freedom and humbled the Lacedæmonians by the battle of Leuktra. To Xenophon--partly actor, partly spectator--these political revolutions were matters of anxious interest; especially as he ardently sympathised with Agesilaus, a political partisan interested in most of them, either as conservative or revolutionary.

[Footnote 30: The reader will find in my 'History of Greece,' ch. 70, p. 103 seq., a narrative of the circumstances under which Xenophon was first chosen to command, as well as his conduct afterwards.]

[Side-note: This text affords subjects for the Hieron and Cyropædia--Name of Sokrates not suitable.]

We thus see, from the personal history of Xenophon, how his attention came to be peculiarly turned to the difficulty of ensuring steady obedience from subordinates, and to the conditions by which such difficulty might be overcome. The sentence, above transcribed from the Oekonomikus, embodies two texts upon which he has discoursed in two of his most interesting compositions--Cyropædia and Hieron. In Cyropædia he explains and exemplifies the divine gift of ruling over cheerful subordinates: in Hieron, the torment of governing the disaffected and refractory. For neither of these purposes would the name and person of Sokrates have been suitable, exclusively connected as they were with Athens. Accordingly Xenophon, having carried that respected name through the Oekonomikus and Symposion, now dismisses it, yet retaining still the familiar and colloquial manner which belonged to Sokrates. The Epilogue, or concluding chapter, of the Cyropædia, must unquestionably have been composed after 364 B.C.--in the last ten years of Xenophon's life: the main body of it may perhaps have been composed earlier.

[Side-note: Hieron--Persons of the dialogue--Simonides and Hieron.]

The Hieron gives no indication of date: but as a picture purely Hellenic, it deserves precedence over the Cyropædia, and conveys to my mind the impression of having been written earlier. It describes a supposed conversation (probably suggested by current traditional conversations, like that between Solon and Kroesus) between the poet Simonides and Hieron the despot of Syracuse; who, shortly after the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, had succeeded his brother Gelon the former despot.[31] Both of them had been once private citizens, of no remarkable consequence: but Gelon, an energetic and ambitious military man, having raised himself to power in the service of Hippokrates despot of Gela, had seized the sceptre on the death of his master: after which he conquered Syracuse, and acquired a formidable dominion, enjoyed after his death by his brother Hieron. This last was a great patron of eminent poets--Pindar, Simonides, Æschylus, Bacchylides: but he laboured under a painful internal complaint, and appears to have been of an irritable and oppressive temper.[32]

[Footnote 31: Plato, Epistol. ii. p. 311 A. Aristot. Rhetor. ii. 16, 1391, a. 9; Cicero, Nat. Deo. i. 22, 60. How high was the opinion entertained about Simonides as a poet, may be seen illustrated in a passage of Aristophanes, Vespæ, 1362.]

[Footnote 32: See the first and second Pythian Odes of Pindar, addressed to Hieron, especially Pyth. i. 55-61-90, with the Scholia and Boeckh's Commentary. Pindar compliments Hieron upon having founded his new city of Ætna--[Greek: theodma/tô| su\n e)leutheria|]. This does not coincide with the view of Hieron's character taken by Xenophon; but Pindar agrees with Xenophon in exhorting Hieron to make himself popular by a liberal expenditure.]

[Side-note: Questions put to Hieron; view taken by Simonides. Answer of Hieron.]

Simonides asks of Hieron, who had personally tried both the life of a private citizen and that of a despot, which of the two he considered preferable, in regard to pleasures and pains. Upon this subject, a conversation of some length ensues, in which Hieron declares that the life of a despot has much more pain, and much less pleasure, than that of a private citizen under middling circumstances:[33] while Simonides takes the contrary side, and insists in detail upon the superior means of enjoyment, apparent at least, possessed by the despot. As each of these means is successively brought forward, Hieron shews that however the matter may appear to the spectator, the despot feels no greater real happiness in his own bosom: while he suffers many pains and privations, of which the spectator takes no account. As to the pleasures of sight, the despot forfeits altogether the first and greatest, because it is unsafe for him to visit the public festivals and matches. In regard to hearing--many praises, and no reproach, reach his ears: but then he knows that the praises are insincere--and that reproach is unheard, only because speakers dare not express what they really feel. The despot has finer cookery and richer unguents; but others enjoy a modest banquet as much or more--while the scent of the unguents pleases those who are near him more than himself.[34] Then as to the pleasures of love, these do not exist, except where the beloved person manifests spontaneous sympathy and return of attachment. Now the despot can never extort such return by his power; while even if it be granted freely, he cannot trust its sincerity and is compelled even to be more on his guard, since successful conspiracies against his life generally proceed from those who profess attachment to him.[35] The private citizen on the contrary knows that those who profess to love him, may be trusted, as having no motive for falsehood.

[Footnote 33: Xenoph. Hier. i. 8. [Greek: eu)= i)/sthi, ô)= Simôni/dê, o(/ti polu\ mei/ô eu)phrai/nontai oi( tu/rannoi tô=n metri/ôs diago/ntôn i)diôtô=n, polu\ de\ plei/ô kai\ mei/zô lupou=ntai.]]

[Footnote 34: Xen. Hieron, i. 12-15-24.]

[Footnote 35: Xen. Hier. i. 26-38. [Greek: Tô=| tura/nnô| ou)/ pot' e)sti\ pisteu=sai, ô(s philei=tai. Ai( e)piboulai\ e)x ou)de/nôn ple/ones toi=s tura/nnois ei)si\n ê)\ a)po\ tô=n ma/lista philei=n au)tou\s prospoiêsame/nôn].

This chapter affords remarkable illustration of Grecian manners, especially in the-distinction drawn between [Greek: ta\ paidika\ a)phrodi/sia] and [Greek: ta\ teknopoia\ a)phrodi/sia].]

[Side-note: Misery of governing unwilling subjects declared by Hieron.]

Still (contends Simonides) there are other pleasures greater than those of sense. You despots possess the greatest abundance and variety of possessions--the finest chariots and horses, the most splendid arms, the finest palaces, ornaments, and furniture--the most brilliant ornaments for your wives--the most intelligent and valuable servants. You execute the greatest enterprises: you can do most to benefit your friends, and hurt your enemies: you have all the proud consciousness of superior might.[36]--Such is the opinion of the multitude (replies Hieron), who are misled by appearances: but a wise man like you, Simonides, ought to see the reality in the background, and to recollect that happiness or unhappiness reside only in a man's internal feelings. You cannot but know that a despot lives in perpetual insecurity, both at home and abroad: that he must always go armed himself, and have armed guards around him: that whether at war or at peace, he is always alike in danger: that, while suspecting every one as an enemy, he nevertheless knows that when he has put to death the persons suspected, he has only weakened the power of the city:[37] that he has no sincere friendship with any one: that he cannot count even upon good faith, and must cause all his food to be tasted by others, before he eats it: that whoever has slain a private citizen, is shunned in Grecian cities as an abomination--while the tyrannicide is everywhere honoured and recompensed: that there is no safety for the despot even in his own family, many having been killed by their nearest relatives:[38] that he is compelled to rely upon mercenary foreign soldiers and liberated slaves, against the free citizens who hate him: and that the hire of such inauspicious protectors compels him to raise money, by despoiling individuals and plundering temples:[39] that the best and most estimable citizens are incurably hostile to him, while none but the worst will serve him for pay: that he looks back with bitter sorrow to the pleasures and confidential friendships which he enjoyed as a private man, but from which he is altogether debarred as a despot.[40]

[Footnote 36: Xen. Hier. ii. 2.]

[Footnote 37: Xen. Hieron, ii. 5-17.]

[Footnote 38: Xenoph. Hieron, ii. 8, iii. 1, 5. Compare Xenophon, Hellenic. iii. 1, 14.]

[Footnote 39: Xen. Hieron, iv. 7-11.]

[Footnote 40: Xen. Hieron, vi. 1-12.]

Nothing brings a man so near to the Gods (rejoins Simonides) as the feeling of being honoured. Power and a brilliant position must be of inestimable value, if they are worth purchasing at the price which you describe.[41] Otherwise, why do you not throw up your sceptre? How happens it that no despot has ever yet done this? To be honoured (answers Hieron) is the greatest of earthly blessings, when a man obtains honour from the spontaneous voice of freemen. But a despot enjoys no such satisfaction. He lives like a criminal under sentence of death by every one: and it is impossible for him to lay down his power, because of the number of persons whom he has been obliged to make his enemies. He can neither endure his present condition, nor yet escape from it. The best thing he can do is to hang himself.[42]

[Footnote 41: Xen. Hieron, vii. 1-5.]

[Footnote 42: Xen. Hieron, vii. 5-13. [Greek: O( de\ tu/rannos, ô(s u(po\ pa/ntôn a)nthrô/pôn katakekrime/nos di' a)diki/an a)pothnê/skein--kai\ nu/kta kai\ ê(me/ran dia/gei. . . . A)ll' ei)/per tô| a)/llô| lusitelei= a)pa/gxasthai, i)/sthi o(/ti tura/nnô| e)/gôge eu(ri/skô ma/lista tou=to lusitelou=n poiê=sai. Mo/nô| ga\r au(tô=| ou)/te e)/chein, ou)/te katathe/sthai ta\ kaka\ lusitelei=].

Solon in his poems makes the remark, that for the man who once usurps the sceptre no retreat is possible. See my 'History of Greece,' chap. xi. p. 132 seq.

The impressive contrast here drawn by Hieron (c. vi.) between his condition as a despot and the past enjoyments of private life and citizenship which he has lost, reminds one of the still more sorrowful contrast in the Atys of Catullus, v. 58-70.]

[Side-note: Advice to Hieron by Simonides--that he should govern well, and thus make himself beloved by his subjects.]

Simonides in reply, after sympathising with Hieron's despondency, undertakes to console him by showing that such consequences do not necessarily attend despotic rule. The despot's power is an instrument available for good as well as for evil. By a proper employment of it, he may not only avoid being hated, but may even make himself beloved, beyond the measure attainable by any private citizen. Even kind words, and petty courtesies, are welcomed far more eagerly when they come from a powerful man than from an equal: moreover a showy and brilliant exterior seldom fails to fascinate the spectator.[43] But besides this, the despot may render to his city the most substantial and important services. He may punish criminals and reward meritorious men: the punishments he ought to inflict by the hands of others, while he will administer the rewards in person--giving prizes for superior excellence in every department, and thus endearing himself to all.[44] Such prizes would provoke a salutary competition in the performance of military duties, in choric exhibitions, in husbandry, commerce, and public usefulness of every kind. Even the foreign mercenaries, though usually odious, might be so handled and disciplined as to afford defence against foreign danger,--to ensure for the citizens undisturbed leisure in their own private affairs--to protect and befriend the honest man, and to use force only against criminals.[45] If thus employed, such mercenaries, instead of being hated, would be welcome companions: and the despot himself may count, not only upon security against attack, but upon the warmest gratitude and attachment. The citizens will readily furnish contributions to him when asked, and will regard him as their greatest benefactor. "You will obtain in this way" (Simonides thus concludes his address to Hieron), "the finest and most enviable of all acquisitions. You will have your subjects obeying you willingly, and caring for you of their own accord. You may travel safely wherever you please, and will be a welcome visitor at all the crowded festivals. You will be happy, without jealousy from any one."[46]

[Footnote 43: Xen. Hieron, viii. 2-7.]

[Footnote 44: Xen. Hieron, ix. 1-4.]

[Footnote 45: Xen. Hieron, x. 6-8.]

[Footnote 46: Xen. Hieron, xi. 10-12-15. [Greek: ka)\n tau=ta pa/nta poiê=s, eu)= i)/sthi pa/ntôn tô=n a)nthrô/pois ka/lliston kai\ makariô/taton ktê=ma kektême/nos; eu)daimonô=n ga\r ou) phthonêthê/sê|.]]

[Side-note: Probable experience had by Xenophon of the feelings at Olympia against Dionysius.]

The dialogue of which I have given this short abstract, illustrates what Xenophon calls the torment of Tantalus--the misery of a despot who has to extort obedience from unwilling subjects:--especially if the despot be one who has once known the comfort and security of private life, under tolerably favourable circumstances. If we compare this dialogue with the Platonic Gorgias, where we have seen a thesis very analogous handled in respect to Archelaus,--we shall find Plato soaring into a sublime ethical region of his own, measuring the despot's happiness and misery by a standard peculiar to himself, and making good what he admits to be a paradox by abundant eloquence covering faulty dialectic: while Xenophon, herein following his master, applies to human life the measure of a rational common sense, talks about pleasures and pains which every one can feel to be such, and points out how many of these pleasures the despot forfeits, how many of these pains and privations he undergoes,--in spite of that great power of doing hurt, and less power, though still considerable, of doing good, which raises the envy of spectators. The Hieron gives utterance to an interesting vein of sentiment, more common at Athens than elsewhere in Greece; enforced by the conversation of Sokrates, and serving as corrective protest against that unqualified worship of power which prevailed in the ancient world no less than in the modern. That the Syrakusan Hieron should be selected as an exemplifying name, may be explained by the circumstance, that during thirty-eight years of Xenophon's mature life (405-367 B.C.), Dionysius the elder was despot of Syrakuse; a man of energy and ability, who had extinguished the liberties of his native city, and acquired power and dominion greater than that of any living Greek. Xenophon, resident at Skillus, within a short distance from Olympia, had probably[47] seen the splendid Thêory (or sacred legation of representative envoys) installed in rich and ornamented tents, and the fine running horses sent by Dionysius, at the ninety-ninth Olympic festival (384 B.C.): but he probably also heard the execration with which the name of Dionysius himself had been received by the spectators, and he would feel that the despot could hardly shew himself there in person. There were narratives in circulation about the interior life of Dionysius,[48] analogous to those statements which Xenophon puts into the mouth of Hieron. A predecessor of Dionysius as despot of Syracuse[49] and also as patron of poets, was therefore a suitable person to choose for illustrating the first part of Xenophon's thesis--the countervailing pains and penalties which spoilt all the value of power, if exercised over unwilling and repugnant subjects.[50]

[Footnote 47: Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 11.]

[Footnote 48: See chap. 83, vol. xi. pp. 40-50, of my 'History of Greece,' where this memorable scene at Olympia is described.]

[Footnote 49: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 20, 57-63; De Officiis, ii. 7, 24-25.

"Multos timebit ille, quem multi timent."]

[Footnote 50: An anecdote is told about a visit of Xenophon to Dionysius at Syracuse--whether the elder or the younger is not specified--but the tenor of the anecdote points to the younger; if so the visit must have been later than 367 B.C. (Athenæus x. 427).]

[Side-note: Xenophon could not have chosen a Grecian despot to illustrate his theory of the happiness of governing willing subjects.]

But when Xenophon came to illustrate the second part of his thesis--the possibility of exercising power in such manner as to render the holder of it popular and beloved--it would have been scarcely possible for him to lay the scene in any Grecian city. The repugnance of the citizens of a Grecian city towards a despot who usurped power over them, was incurable--however much the more ambitious individuals subjects among them might have wished to obtain such power for themselves: a repugnance as great among oligarchs as among democrats--perhaps even greater. When we read the recommendations addressed by Simonides, teaching Hieron how he might render himself popular, we perceive at once that they are alike well intentioned and ineffectual. Xenophon could neither find any real Grecian despot corresponding to this portion of his illustrative purpose--nor could he invent one with any shew of plausibility. He was forced to resort to other countries and other habits different from those of Greece.

[Side-note: Cyropædia--blending of Spartan and Persian customs--Xenophon's experience of Cyrus the Younger.]

To this necessity probably we owe the Cyropædia: a romance in which Persian and Grecian experience are singularly blended, and both of them so transformed as to suit the philosophical purpose of the narrator. Xenophon had personally served and communicated with Cyrus the younger: respecting whom also he had large means of information, from his intimate friend Proxenus, as well as from the other Grecian generals of the expedition. In the first book of the Anabasis, we find this young prince depicted as an energetic and magnanimous character, faithful to his word and generous in his friendships--inspiring strong attachment in those around him, yet vigorous in administration and in punishing criminals--not only courting the Greeks as useful for his ambitious projects, but appreciating sincerely the superiority of Hellenic character and freedom over Oriental servitude.[51] And in the Oekonomikus, Cyrus is quoted as illustrating in his character the true virtue of a commander; the test of which Xenophon declares to be--That his subordinates follow him willingly, and stand by him to the death.[52]

[Footnote 51: Xenoph. Anab. i. 9, also i. 7, 3, the address of Cyrus to the Greek soldiers--[Greek: O(/pôs ou)=n e)/sesthe a)/ndres a)/xioi tê=s e)leutheri/as ê(=s ke/ktêsthe, kai\ u(pe\r ê(=s u(ma=s eu)daimoni/zô. Eu)= ga\r i)/ste, o(/ti te\n e)leutheri/an e(loi/mên a)\n, a)nti\ ô(=n e)/chô pa/ntôn kai\ a)/llôn pollaplasi/ôn], compared with i. 5, 16, where Cyrus gives his appreciation of the Oriental portion of his army, and the remarkable description of the trial of Orontes, i. 6.]

[Footnote 52: Xenoph. Oeconom. iv. 18-19. [Greek: Ku=ros, ei) e)bi/ôsen, a)/ristos a)\n dokei= a)/rchôn gene/sthai--ê(gou=mai me/ga tekmê/rion a)/rchontos a)retê=s ei)=nai, ô(=| a)\n e(ko/ntes e(/pôntai, kai\ e)n toi=s deinoi=s parame/nein e)the/lôsin]. Compare Anab. i. 9, 29-30.]

[Side-note: Portrait of Cyrus the Great--his education--Preface to the Cyropædia.]

It is this character Hellenised, Sokratised, idealised--that Xenophon paints into his glowing picture of Cyrus the founder of the Persian monarchy, or the Cyropædia. He thus escapes the insuperable difficulty arising from the position of a Grecian despot; who never could acquire willing or loving obedience, because his possession of power was felt by a majority of his subjects to be wrongful, violent, tainted. The Cyrus of the Cyropædia begins as son of Kambyses, king or chief of Persia, and grandson of Astyages, king of Media; recognised according to established custom by all, as the person to whom they look for orders. Xenophon furnishes him with a splendid outfit of heroic qualities, suitable to this ascendant position: and represents the foundation of the vast Persian empire, with the unshaken fidelity of all the heterogeneous people composing it, as the reward of a laborious life spent in the active display of such qualities. In his interesting Preface to the Cyropædia, he presents this as the solution of a problem which had greatly perplexed him. He had witnessed many revolutions in the Grecian cities--subversions of democracies, oligarchies, and despotisms: he had seen also private establishments, some with numerous servants, some with few, yet scarcely any house-master able to obtain hearty or continued obedience. But as to herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, on the contrary, he had seen them uniformly obedient; suffering the herdsman or shepherd to do what he pleased with, them, and never once conspiring against him. The first inference of Xenophon from these facts was, that man was by nature the most difficult of all animals to govern.[53] But he became satisfied that he was mistaken, when he reflected on the history of Cyrus; who had acquired and maintained dominion over more men than had ever been united under one empire, always obeying him cheerfully and affectionately. This history proved to Xenophon that it was not impossible, nor even difficult,[54] to rule mankind, provided a man undertook it with scientific or artistic competence. Accordingly, he proceeded to examine what Cyrus was in birth, disposition, and education--and how he came to be so admirably accomplished in the government of men.[55] The result is the Cyropædia. We must observe, however, that his solution of the problem is one which does not meet the full difficulties. These difficulties, as he states them, had been suggested to him by his Hellenic experience: by the instability of government in Grecian cities. But the solution which he provides departs from Hellenic experience, and implies what Aristotle and Hippokrates called the more yielding and servile disposition of Asiatics:[56] for it postulates an hereditary chief of heroic or divine lineage, such as was nowhere acknowledged in Greece, except at Sparta--and there, only under restrictions which would have rendered the case unfit for Xenophon's purpose. The heroic and regal lineage of Cyrus was a condition not less essential to success than his disposition and education:[57] and not merely his lineage, but also the farther fact, that besides being constant in the duties of prayer and sacrifice to the Gods, he was peculiarly favoured by them with premonitory signs and warnings in all difficult emergencies.[58]

[Footnote 53: Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 54: Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 3. [Greek: e)k tou/tou dê\ ê)nagkazo/metha metanoei=n, mê\ ou)/te tô=n a)duna/tôn ou)/te tô=n chalepô=n e)/rgôn ê(=| to\ a)nthrô/pôn a)/rchein, ê)/n tis e)pistame/nôs tou=to pra/ttê|.]]

[Footnote 55: Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 3-8.]

[Footnote 56: Aristot. Politic. vii. 7, 1327, b. 25. [Greek: ta\ de\ peri\ tê\n A)si/an, dianoêtika\ me\n kai\ te\chnika\ tê\n psuchê/n, a)/thuma de/; dio/per a)rcho/mena kai\ douleu/onta diatelei=].

Hippokrates, De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, c. 19-23.]

[Footnote 57: So it is stated by Xenophon himself, in the speech addressed by Kroesus after his defeat and captivity to Cyrus, vii. 2, 24--[Greek: a)gnoô=n e)mauto\n o(/ti soi a)ntipolemei=n i(kano\s ô(=|mên ei)=nai, prô=ton me\n e)k theô=n gegono/ti, e)/peita de\ dia\ basile/ôn pephuko/ti, e)/peita de\ e)k paido\s a)retê\n a)skou=nti; tô=n d' e)mô=n progo/nôn a)kou/ô to\n prô=ton basileu/santa a)/ma te basile/a kai\ e)leu/theron gene/sthai]. Cyrop. i. 2, 1: [Greek: tou= Perseidô=n ge/nous], &c.]

[Footnote 58: See the remarkable words addressed by Cyrus, shortly before his death, in sacrificing on the hill-top to [Greek: Zeu\s Patrô=|os] and [Greek: Ê(/lios], Cyrop. viii. 7, 3.

The special communications of the Gods to Cyrus are insisted on by Xenophon, like those made to Sokrates, and like the constant aid of Athênê to Odysseus in Homer, Odyss. iii. 221:--

[Greek: Ou) ga\r pô i)/don ô(=de theou\s a)naphanda\ phileu=ntas ô(s kei/nô| a)naphanda\ pari/stato Palla\s A)thê/nê.]]

[Side-note: Xenophon does not solve his own problem--The governing aptitude and popularity of Cyrus come from nature, not from education.]

The fundamental principle of Xenophon is, that to obtain hearty and unshaken obedience is not difficult for a ruler, provided he possesses the science or art of ruling. This is a principle expressly laid down by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.[59] We have seen Plato affirming in the Politikus[60] that this is the only true government, though very few individuals are competent to it: Plato gives to it a peculiar application in the Republic, and points out a philosophical or dialectic tuition whereby he supposes that his Elders will acquire the science or art of command. The Cyropædia presents to us an illustrative example. Cyrus is a young prince who, from twenty-six years of age to his dying day, is always ready with his initiative, provident in calculation of consequences, and personally active in enforcement: giving the right order at the right moment, with good assignable reasons. As a military man, he is not only personally forward, but peculiarly dexterous in the marshalling and management of soldiers; like the Homeric Agamemnon[61]--

[Greek: A)mpho/teron, basileu/s t' a)gatho/s, kratero/s t' ai)chmêtê/s].

But we must consider this aptitude for command as a spontaneous growth in Cyrus--a portion of his divine constitution or of the golden element in his nature (to speak in the phrase of the Platonic Republic): for no means are pointed out whereby he acquired it, and the Platonic Sokrates would have asked in vain, where teachers of it were to be found. It is true that he is made to go through a rigorous and long-continued training: but this training is common to him with all the other Persian youths of good family, and is calculated to teach obedience, not to communicate aptitude for command; while the master of tactics, whose lessons he receives apart, is expressly declared to have known little about the duties of a commander.[62] Kambyses indeed (father of Cyrus) gives to his son valuable general exhortations respecting the multiplicity of exigencies which press upon a commander, and the constant watchfulness, precautions, fertility of invention, required on his part to meet them. We read the like in the conversations of Sokrates in the Memorabilia:[63] but neither Kambyses nor Sokrates are teachers of the art of commanding. For this art, Cyrus is assumed to possess a natural aptitude; like the other elements of his dispositions--his warm sympathies, his frank and engaging manners, his ardent emulation combined with perfect freedom from jealousy, his courage, his love of learning, his willingness to endure any amount of labour for the purpose of obtaining praise, &c., all which Xenophon represents as belonging to him by nature, together with a very handsome person.[64]

[Footnote 59: Xenoph. Mem. iii. 9, 10-12.]

[Footnote 60: See what is said below about the Platonic Politikus, chap. xxx.]

[Footnote 61: Cicero, when called upon in his province of Cilicia to conduct warlike operations against the Parthians, as well as against some refractory mountaineers, improved his military knowledge by studying and commenting on the Cyropædia. Epist. ad Famil. ix. 25. Compare the remarkable observation made by Cicero (Academic. Prior. ii. init.) about the way in which Lucullus made up his deficiency of military experience by reading military books.]

[Footnote 62: Xen. Cyrop. i. 6, 12-15.]

[Footnote 63: Compare Cyropæd. i. 6, with Memorab. iii. 1.]

[Footnote 64: Cyropæd. i. 2, 1. [Greek: phu=nai de\ o( Ku=ros le/getai], &c. i. 3, 1-2. [Greek: pa/ntôn tô=n ê(li/kôn diaphe/rôn e)phai/neto . . . pai=s phu/sei philo/storgos], &c.]

[Side-note: Views of Xenophon about public and official training of all citizens.]

The Cyropædia is a title not fairly representing the contents of the work, which contains a more copious biography of the hero than any which we read in Plutarch or Suetonius. But the education of Cyrus[65] is the most remarkable part of it, in which the ethico-political theory of Xenophon, generated by Sokratic refining criticism brought to bear on the Spartan drill and discipline, is put forth. Professing to describe the Persian polity, he in reality describes only the Persian education; which is public, and prescribed by law, intended to form the character of individuals so that they shall stand in no need of coercive laws or penalties. Most cities leave the education of youth to be conducted at the discretion of their parents, and think it sufficient to enact and enforce laws forbidding, under penal sanction, theft, murder, and various other acts enumerated as criminal. But Xenophon (like Plato and Aristotle) disapproves of this system.[66] His Persian polity places the citizen even from infancy under official tuition, and aims at forming his first habits and character, as well as at upholding them when formed, so that instead of having any disposition of his own to commit such acts, he shall contract a repugnance to them. He is kept under perpetual training, drill, and active official employment throughout life, but the supervision is most unremitting during boyhood and youth.

[Footnote 65: I have already observed that the phrase of Plato in Legg. iii. p. 694 C may be considered as conveying his denial of the assertion, that Cyrus had received a good education.]

[Footnote 66: Xenophon says the same about the scheme of Lykurgus at Sparta, De Lac. Repub. c. 2.]

[Side-note: Details of (so-called) Persian education--Severe discipline--Distribution of four ages.]

There are four categories of age:--boys, up to sixteen--young men or ephêbi, from sixteen to twenty-six--mature men, as far as fifty-one--above that age, elders. To each of these four classes there is assigned a certain portion of the "free agora": i.e., the great square of the city, where no buying or selling or vulgar occupation is allowed--where the regal residence is situated, and none but dignified functions, civil or military, are carried on. Here the boys and the mature men assemble every day at sunrise, continue under drill, and take their meals; while the young men even pass the night on guard near the government house. Each of the four sections is commanded by superintendents or officers: those superintending the boys are Elders, who are employed in administering justice to the boys, and in teaching them what justice is. They hold judicial trials of the boys for various sorts of misconduct: for violence, theft, abusive words, lying, and even for ingratitude. In cases of proved guilt, beating or flogging is inflicted. The boys go there to learn justice (says Xenophon), as boys in Hellas go to school to learn letters. Under this discipline, and in learning the use of the bow and javelin besides, they spend the time until sixteen years of age. They bring their food with them from home (wheaten bread, with a condiment of kardamon, or bruised seed of the nasturtium), together with a wooden cup to draw water from the river: and they dine at public tables under the eye of the teacher. The young men perform all the military and police duty under the commands of the King and the Elders: moreover, they accompany the King when he goes on a hunting expedition--which accustoms them to fatigue and long abstinence, as well as to the encounter of dangerous wild animals. The Elders do not take part in these hunts, nor in any foreign military march, nor are they bound, like the others, to daily attendance in the agora. They appoint all officers, and try judicially the cases shown up by the superintendents, or other accusers, of all youths or mature men who have failed in the requirements of the public discipline. The gravest derelictions they punish with death: where this is not called for, they put the offender out of his class, so that he remains degraded all his life.[67]

[Footnote 67: Xen. Cyrop. i. 2, 6-16. [Greek: kai\ ê)/n tis ê)\ e)n e)phê/bois ê)\ e)n telei/ois a)ndra/sin e)lli/pê| ti tô=n nomi/môn, phai/nousi me\n oi( phu/larchoi e(/kaston, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn o( boulo/menos; oi( de\ gerai/teroi a)kou/santes e)kkri/nousin; o( de\ e)kkrithei\s a)/timos to\n loipo\n bi/on diatelei=.]]

[Side-note: Evidence of the good effect of this discipline--Hard and dry condition of the body.]

This severe discipline is by law open to all Persians who choose to attend and the honours of the state are attainable by all equally. But in practice it is confined to a few: for neither boys nor men can attend it continuously, except such as possess an independent maintenance; nor is any one allowed to enter the regiment of youths or mature men, unless he has previously gone through the discipline of boyhood. The elders, by whom the higher functions are exercised, must be persons who have passed without reproach through all the three preceding stages: so that these offices, though legally open to all, are in practice confined to a few--the small class of Homotimoi.[68]

[Footnote 68: Cyropæd. i. 2, 14-15.]

Such is Xenophon's conception of a perfect Polity. It consists in an effective public discipline and drill, begun in early boyhood and continued until old age. The evidence on which he specially insists to prove its good results relates first to the body. The bodies of the Persians become so dry and hard, that they neither spit, nor have occasion to wipe their noses, nor are full of wind, nor are ever seen to retire for the satisfaction of natural wants.[69] Besides this, the discipline enforces complete habits of obedience, sobriety, justice, endurance of pain and privation.

[Footnote 69: Cyrop. i. 2, 16.]

We may note here both the agreement, and the difference, between Xenophon and Plato, as to the tests applied for measuring the goodness of their respective disciplinarian schemes. In regard to the ethical effects desirable (obedience, sobriety, &c.) both were agreed. But while Plato (in Republic) dwells much besides upon the musical training necessary, Xenophon omits this, and substitutes in its place the working off of all the superfluous moisture of the body.[70]

[Footnote 70: See below, chap. xxxvii.]

[Side-note: Exemplary obedience of Cyrus to the public discipline--He had learnt justice well--His award about the two coats--Lesson inculcated upon him by the Justice-Master.]

Through the two youthful stages of this discipline Cyrus is represented as having passed; undergoing all the fatigues as well as the punishment (he is beaten or flogged by the superintendent[71]) with as much rigour as the rest, and even surpassing all his comrades in endurance and exemplary obedience, not less than in the bow and the javelin. In the lessons about justice he manifests such pre-eminence, that he is appointed by the superintendent to administer justice to other boys: and it is in this capacity that he is chastised for his well-known decision, awarding the large coat to the great boy and the little coat to the little boy, as being more convenient to both,[72] though the proprietorship was opposite: the master impressing upon him, as a general explanation, that the lawful or customary was the Just.[73] Cyrus had been brought as a boy by his mother Mandanê to visit her father, the Median king Astyages. The boy wins the affection of Astyages and all around by his child-like frankness and affectionate sympathy (admirably depicted in Xenophon): while he at the same time resists the corruptions of a luxurious court, and adheres to the simplicity of his Persian training. When Mandanê is about to depart and to rejoin her husband Kambyses in Persis, she is entreated by Astyages to allow Cyrus to remain with him. Cyrus himself also desires to remain: but Mandanê hesitates to allow it: putting to Cyrus, among other difficulties, the question--How will you learn justice here, when the teachers of it are in Persis? To which Cyrus replies--I am already well taught in justice: as you may see by the fact, that my teacher made me a judge over other boys, and compelled me to render account to him of all my proceedings.[74] Besides which, if I am found wanting, my grandfather Astyages will make up the deficient teaching. But (says Mandanê) justice is not the same here under Astyages, as it is in Persis. Astyages has made himself master of all the Medes: while among the Persians equality is accounted justice. Your father Kambyses both performs all that the city directs, and receives nothing more than what the city allows: the measure for him is, not his own inclination, but the law. You must therefore be cautious of staying here, lest you should bring back with you to Persia habits of despotism, and of grasping at more than any one else, contracted from your grandfather: for if you come back in this spirit, you will assuredly be flogged to death. Never fear, mother (answered Cyrus): my grandfather teaches every one round him to claim less than his due--not more than his due: and he will teach me the same.[75]

[Footnote 71: Cyrop. i. 3, 17; i. 5, 4.]

[Footnote 72: Cyrop. i. 3, 17. This is an ingenious and apposite illustration of the law of property.]

[Footnote 73: Cyrop. i. 3, 17. [Greek: e)/peita de\ e)/phê to\ me\n no/mimon di/kaion ei)=nai; to\ de\ a)/nomon, bi/aion.]]

[Footnote 74: Cyropæd. i. 4, 2.]

[Footnote 75: Cyrop. i. 3, 17-18. [Greek: O(/pôs ou)=n mê\ a)polê=| mastigou/menos, e)peida\n oi)/koi ê)=|s, a)\n para\ tou/tou mathô\n ê(/kê|s a)nti\ tou= basilikou= to\ turanniko/n, e)n ô(=| e)sti to\ ple/on oi)/esthai chrê=nai pa/ntôn e)/chein.]]

[Side-note: Xenophon's conception of the Sokratic problems--He does not recognise the Sokratic order of solution of those problems.]

The portion of the Cyropædia just cited deserves especial attention, in reference to Xenophon as a companion and pupil of Sokrates. The reader has been already familiarised throughout this work with the questions habitually propounded and canvassed by Sokrates--What is Justice, Temperance, Courage, &c.? Are these virtues teachable? If they are so, where are the teachers of them to be found?--for he professed to have looked in vain for any teachers.[76] I have farther remarked that Sokrates required these questions to be debated in the order here stated. That is--you must first know what Justice is, before you can determine whether it be teachable or not--nay, before you are in a position to affirm any thing at all about it, or to declare any particular acts to be either just or unjust.[77]

[Footnote 76: Xenoph. Memor. i. 16, iv. 4, 5.]

[Footnote 77: See below, ch. xiii., ch. xxii, and ch. xxiii.]

Now Xenophon, in his description of the Persian official discipline, provides a sufficient answer to the second question--Whether justice is teachable--and where are the teachers thereof? It is teachable: there are official teachers appointed: and every boy passes through a course of teaching prolonged for several years.--But Xenophon does not at all recognise the Sokratic requirement, that the first question shall be fully canvassed and satisfactorily answered, before the second is approached. The first question is indeed answered in a certain way--though the answer appears here only as an obiter dictum, and is never submitted to any Elenchus at all. The master explains--What is Justice?--by telling Cyrus, "That the lawful is just, and that the lawless is violent". Now if we consider this as preceptorial--as an admonition to the youthful Cyrus how he ought to decide judicial cases--it is perfectly reasonable: "Let your decisions be conformable to the law or custom of the country". But if we consider it as a portion of philosophy or reasoned truth--as a definition or rational explanation of Justice, advanced by a respondent who is bound to defend it against the Sokratic cross-examination--we shall find it altogether insufficient. Xenophon himself tells us here, that Law or Custom is one thing among the Medes, and the reverse among the Persians: accordingly an action which is just in the one place will be unjust in the other. It is by objections of this kind that Sokrates, both in Plato and Xenophon, refutes explanations propounded by his respondents.[78]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Republ. v. p. 479 A. [Greek: tou/tôn tô=n pollô=n kalô=n mô=n ti e)/stin, o( ou)k ai)schro\n phanê/setai? kai\ tô=n dikai/ôn, o(\ ou)k a)/dikon? kai\ tô=n o(si/ôn, o(\ ou)k a)no/sion?] Compare Republ. i. p. 331 C, and the conversation of So krates with Euthydêmus in the Xenophontic Memorab. iv. 2, 18-19, and Cyropædia, i. 6, 27-34, about what is just and good morality towards enemies.

We read in Pascal, Pensées, i. 6, 8-9:--

"On ne voit presque rien de juste et d'injuste, qui ne change de qualité en changeant de climat. Trois degrés d'élévation du pôle renversent toute la jurisprudence. Un méridien décide de la verité: en peu d'années de possession, les loix fondamentales changent: le droit a ses époques. Plaisante justice, qu'une rivière ou une montagne borne! Vérité au deçà des Pyrénées--erreur au delà!

"Ils confessent que la justice n'est pas dans les coutumes, mais qu'elle reside dans les loix naturelles, connues en tout pays. Certainement ils la soutiendraient opiniâtrement, si la témérité du hasard qui a semé les loix humaines en avait rencontré au moins une qui fut universelle: mais la plaisanterie est telle, que le caprice des hommes s'est si bien diversifié, qu'il n'y en a point.

"Le larcin, l'inceste, le meurtre des enfans et des pères, tout a eu sa place entre les actions vertueuses. Se peut-il rien de plus plaisant, qu'un homme ait droit de me tuer parcequ'il demeure au-delà de l'eau, et que son prince a querelle avec le mien, quoique je n'en aie aucune avec lui?

"L'un dit que l'essence de la justice est l'autorité du législateur: l'autre, la commodité du souverain: l'autre, la coutume présente--et c'est le plus sûr. Rien, suivant la seule raison, n'est juste de soi: tout branle avec le temps. La coutume fait toute l'équité, par cela seul qu'elle est reçue: c'est le fondement mystique de son autorité. Qui la ramène à son principe, l'anéantit."]

[Side-note: Definition given by Sokrates of Justice--Insufficient to satisfy the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.]

Though the explanation of Justice here given is altogether untenable, yet we shall find it advanced by Sokrates himself as complete and conclusive, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where he is conversing with the Sophist Hippias. That Sophist is represented as at first urging difficulties against it, but afterwards as concurring with Sokrates: who enlarges upon the definition, and extols it as perfectly satisfactory. If Sokrates really delivered this answer to Hippias, as a general definition of Justice--we may learn from it how much greater was his negative acuteness in overthrowing the definitions of others, than his affirmative perspicacity in discovering unexceptionable definitions of his own. This is the deficiency admitted by himself in the Platonic Apology--lamented by friends like Kleitophon--arraigned by opponents like Hippias and Thrasymachus. Xenophon, whose intellect was practical rather than speculative, appears not to be aware of it. He does not feel the depth and difficulty of the Sokratic problems, even while he himself enunciates them. He does not appreciate all the conditions of a good definition, capable of being maintained against that formidable cross-examination (recounted by himself) whereby Sokrates humbled the youth Euthydêmus: still less does he enter into the spirit of that Sokratic order of precedence (declared in the negative Platonic dialogues), in the study of philosophical questions:--First define Justice, and find a definition of it such as you can maintain against a cross-examining adversary before you proceed either to affirm or deny any predicates concerning it. The practical advice and reflexions of Xenophon are, for the most part, judicious and penetrating. But he falls very short when he comes to deal with philosophical theory:--with reasoned truth, and with the Sokratic Elenchus as a test for discriminating such truth from the false, the doubtful, or the not-proven.

[Side-note: Biography of Cyrus--constant military success earned by suitable qualities--Variety of characters and situations.]

Cyrus is allowed by his mother to remain amidst the luxuries of the Median court. It is a part of his admirable disposition that he resists all its temptations,[79] and goes back to the hard fare and discipline of the Persians with the same exemplary obedience as before. He is appointed by the Elders to command the Persian contingent which is sent to assist Kyaxares (son of Astyages), king of Media; and he thus enters upon that active military career which is described as occupying his whole life, until his conquest of Babylon, and his subsequent organization of the great Persian empire. His father Kambyses sends him forth with excellent exhortations, many of which are almost in the same words as those which we read ascribed to Sokrates in the Memorabilia. In the details of Cyrus's biography which follow, the stamp of Sokratic influence is less marked, yet seldom altogether wanting. The conversation of Sokrates had taught Xenophon how to make the most of his own large experience and observation. His biography of Cyrus represents a string of successive situations, calling forth and displaying the aptitude of the hero for command. The epical invention with which these situations are imagined--the variety of characters introduced, Araspes, Abradates, Pantheia, Chrysantas, Hystaspes, Gadatas, Gobryas, Tigranes, &c.--the dramatic propriety with which each of these persons is animated as speaker, and made to teach a lesson bearing on the predetermined conclusion--all these are highly honourable to the Xenophontic genius, but all of them likewise bespeak the Companion of Sokrates. Xenophon dwells, with evident pleasure, on the details connected with the rationale of military proceedings: the wants and liabilities of soldiers, the advantages or disadvantages of different weapons or different modes of marshalling, the duties of the general as compared with those of the soldier, &c. Cyrus is not merely always ready with his orders, but also competent as a speaker to explain the propriety of what he orders.[80] We have the truly Athenian idea, that persuasive speech is the precursor of intelligent and energetic action: and that it is an attribute essentially necessary for a general, for the purpose of informing, appeasing, re-assuring, the minds of the soldiers.[81] This, as well as other duties and functions of a military commander, we find laid down generally in the conversations of Sokrates,[82] who conceives these functions, in their most general aspect, as a branch of the comprehensive art of guiding or governing men. What Sokrates thus enunciates generally, is exemplified in detail throughout the life of Cyrus.

[Footnote 79: Cyropæd. i. 5, 1.]

[Footnote 80: Cyropæd. v. 5, 46. [Greek: lektikô/tatos kai\ praktikô/tatos]. Compare the Memorabilia, iv. 6, 1-15.]

[Footnote 81: Memorab. iii. 3, 11; Hipparch. viii. 22; Cyropæd. vi. 2, 13. Compare the impressive portion of the funeral oration delivered by Perikles in Thucydides, ii. 40.]

[Footnote 82: See the four first chapters of the third book of the Xenophontic Memorabilia. The treatise of Xenophon called [Greek: I(pparchiko\s] enumerates also the general duties required from a commander of cavalry: among these, [Greek: pseudauto/moloi] are mentioned (iv. 7). Now the employment, with effect, of a [Greek: pseudauto/molos], is described with much detail in the Cyropædia. See the case of Araspes (vi. 1, 37, vi. 3, 16).]

[Side-note: Generous and amiable qualities of Cyrus, Abradates and Pantheia.]

Throughout all the Cyropædia, the heroic qualities and personal agency of Cyrus are always in the foreground, working with unerring success and determining every thing. He is moreover recommended to our sympathies, not merely by the energy and judgment of a leader, but also by the amiable qualities of a generous man--by the remarkable combination of self-command with indulgence towards others--by considerate lenity towards subdued enemies like Kroesus and the Armenian prince--even by solicitude shown that the miseries of war should fall altogether on the fighting men, and that the cultivators of the land should be left unmolested by both parties.[83] Respecting several other persons in the narrative, too--the Armenian Tigranes, Gadatas, Gobryas, &c.--the adventures and scenes described are touching: but the tale of Abradates and Pantheia transcends them all, and is perhaps the most pathetic recital embodied in the works of Hellenic antiquity.[84] In all these narratives the vein of sentiment is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, but belongs to Xenophon himself.

[Footnote 83: Cyrop. iii. 1, 10-38, vii. 2, 9-29, v. 4, 26, vi. 1, 37. [Greek: A)lla\ su\ me\n, ô)= Ku=re, kai\ tau=ta o(/moios ei)=, pra=|o/s te kai\ suggnô/môn tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn a(martêma/tôn].\

[Footnote 84: Cyrop. vii. 3.]

[Side-note: Scheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests are completed--Oriental despotism, wisely arranged.]

This last remark may also be made respecting the concluding proceedings of Cyrus, after he has thoroughly completed his conquests, and when he establishes arrangements for governing them permanently. The scheme of government which Xenophon imagines and introduces him as organizing, is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, nor even Hellenic: it would probably have been as little acceptable to his friend Agesilaus, the marked "hater of Persia,"[85] as to any Athenian politician. It is altogether an Oriental despotism, skilfully organized both for the security of the despot and for enabling him to keep a vigorous hold on subjects distant as well as near: such as the younger Cyrus might possibly have attempted, if his brother Artaxerxes had been slain at Kunaxa, instead of himself. "Eam conditionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si uni reddatur"[86]--is a maxim repugnant to Hellenic ideas, and not likely to be rendered welcome even by the regulations of detail with which Xenophon surrounds it; judicious as these regulations are for their contemplated purpose. The amiable and popular character which Cyrus has maintained from youth upwards, and by means of which he has gained an uninterrupted series of victories, is difficult to be reconciled with the insecurity, however imposing, in which he dwells as Great King. When we find that he accounts it a necessary precaution to surround himself with eunuchs, on the express ground that they are despised by every one else and therefore likely to be more faithful to their master--when we read also that in consequence of the number of disaffected subjects, he is forced to keep a guard composed of twenty thousand soldiers taken from poor Persian mountaineers[87]--we find realised, in the case of the triumphant Cyrus, much of that peril and insecurity which the despot Hieron had so bitterly deplored in his conversation with Simonides. However unsatisfactory the ideal of government may be, which Plato lays out either in the Republic or the Leges--that which Xenophon sets before us is not at all more acceptable, in spite of the splendid individual portrait whereby he dazzles our imagination. Few Athenians would have exchanged Athens either for Babylon under Cyrus, or for Plato's Magnêtic colony in Krete.

[Footnote 85: Xenoph. Agesilaus, vii. 7. [Greek: ei) d' au)= kalo\n kai\ misope/rsên ei)=nai--e)xe/pleusen, o(/, ti du/naito kako\n; poiê/sôn to\n ba/rbaron.]]

[Footnote 86: Tacit. Annal. i. 6.]

[Footnote 87: Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5, 58-70.]

[Side-note: Persian present reality--is described by Xenophon as thoroughly depraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of Cyrus.]

The Xenophontic government is thus noway admirable, even as an ideal. But he himself presents it only as an ideal--or (which is the same thing in the eyes of a present companion of Sokrates) as a quasi-historical fact, belonging to the unknown and undetermined past. When Xenophon talks of what the Persians are now, he presents us with nothing but a shocking contrast to this ideal; nothing but vice, corruption, degeneracy of every kind, exorbitant sensuality, faithlessness and cowardice.[88] His picture of Persia is like that of the of Platonic Kosmos, which we can read in the Timæus:[89] a splendid Kosmos in its original plan and construction, but full of defects and evil as it actually exists. The strength and excellence of the Xenophontic orderly despotism dies with its heroic beginner. His two sons (as Plato remarked) do not receive the same elaborate training and discipline as himself: nor can they be restrained, even by the impressive appeal which he makes to them on his death-bed, from violent dissension among themselves, and misgovernment of every kind.[90]

[Footnote 88: Cyrop. viii. 8.]

[Footnote 89: See below, ch. xxxviii.]

[Footnote 90: Cyropæd. viii. 7, 9-19: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 694 D.]

[Side-note: Xenophon has good experience of military and equestrian proceedings--No experience of finance and commerce.]

Whatever we may think of the political ideal of Xenophon, his Cyropædia is among the glories of the Sokratic family; as an excellent specimen of the philosophical imagination, in carrying a general doctrine into illustrative details--and of the epical imagination in respect to varied characters and touching incident. In stringing together instructive conversations, moreover, it displays the same art which we trace in the Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, Hieron, &c., and which is worthy of the attentive companion of Sokrates. Whenever Xenophon talks about military affairs, horsemanship, agriculture, house-management, &c., he is within the range of personal experience of his own; and his recommendations, controlled as they thus are by known realities, are for the most part instructive and valuable. Such is the case not merely with the Cyropædia and Oekonomikus, but also in his two short treatises, De Re Equestri and De Officio Magistri Equitum.

But we cannot say so much when he discusses plans of finance.

[Side-note: Discourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the condition of Athens. His admiration of active commerce and variety of pursuits.]

We read among his works a discourse composed after his sentence of exile had been repealed, and when he was very old, seemingly not earlier than 355 B.C.[91]--criticising the actual condition of Athens, and proposing various measures for the improvement of the finances, as well as for relief of the citizens from poverty. He begins this discourse by a sentiment thoroughly Sokratic and Platonic, which would serve almost as a continuation of the Cyropædia. The government of a city will be measured by the character and ability of its leaders.[92] He closes it by another sentiment equally Sokratic and Platonic; advising that before his measures are adopted, special messengers shall be sent to Delphi and Dodona; to ascertain whether the Gods approve them--and if they approve, to which Gods they enjoin that the initiatory sacrifices shall be offered.[93] But almost everything in the discourse, between the first and last sentences, is in a vein not at all Sokratic--in a vein, indeed, positively anti-Platonic and anti-Spartan. We have already seen that wealth, gold and silver, commerce, influx of strangers, &c., are discouraged as much as possible by Plato, and by the theory (though evaded partially in practice) of Sparta. Now it is precisely these objects which Xenophon, in the treatise before us, does his utmost to foster and extend at Athens. Nothing is here said about the vulgarising influence of trade as compared with farming, which we read in the Oekonomikus: nor about the ethical and pædagogic dictation which pervades so much of the Cyropædia, and reigns paramount throughout the Platonic Republic and Leges. Xenophon takes Athens as she stands, with great variety of tastes, active occupation, and condition among the inhabitants: her mild climate and productive territory, especially her veins of silver and her fine marble: her importing and exporting merchants, her central situation, as convenient entrepôt for commodities produced in the most distant lands:[94] her skilful artisans and craftsmen: her monied capitalists: and not these alone, but also the congregation and affluence of fine artists, intellectual men, philosophers, Sophists, poets, rhapsodes, actors, &c.: last, though not least, the temples adorning her akropolis, and the dramatic representations exhibited at her Dionysiac festivals, which afforded the highest captivation to eye as well as ear, and attracted strangers from all quarters as visitors.[95] Xenophon extols these charms of Athens with a warmth which reminds us of the Periklean funeral oration in Thucydides.[96] He no longer speaks like one whose heart and affections are with the Spartan drill: still less does he speak like Plato--to whom (as we see both by the Republic and the Leges) such artistic and poetical exhibitions were abominations calling for censorial repression--and in whose eyes gold, silver, commerce, abundant influx of strangers, &c., were dangerous enemies of all civic virtue.

[Footnote 91: Xenophon, [Greek: Po/roi--ê(\ peri\ Proso/dôn]. De Vectigalibus. See Schneider's Proleg. to this treatise, pp. 138-140.]

[Footnote 92: De Vectig. i. 1. [Greek: e)gô\ me\n tou=to a)ei/ pote nomi/zo, o(poi=oi/ tines a)\n oi( prosta/tai ô)=si, toiau/tas kai\ ta\s politei/as gi/gnesthai.]]

[Footnote 93: De Vect. vi. 2. Compare this with Anabas. iii. 1, 5, where Sokrates reproves Xenophon for his evasive manner of putting a question to the Delphian God. Xenophon here adopts the plenary manner enjoined by Sokrates.]

[Footnote 94: De Vectig. c. i. 2-3.]

[Footnote 95: De Vect. v. 3-4. [Greek: Ti/ de\ oi( polue/laioi? ti/ de\ oi( polupro/batoi? ti/ de\ oi( gnô/mê| kai\ a)rguri/ô| duna/menoi chrêmati/zesthai? Kai\ mê\n cheirote/chnai te kai\ sophistai\ kai\ philo/sophoi; oi( de\ poiêtai\, oi( de\ ta\ tou/tôn metacheirizo/menoi, oi( de\ a)xiothea/tôn ê)\ a)xiakou/stôn i(erô=n ê)\ o(si/ôn e)pithumou=ntes], &c.]

[Footnote 96: Thucydid. ii. 34-42; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12. Compare Xenophon, Republ. Athen. ii. 7, iii. 8.]

[Side-note: Recognised poverty among the citizens. Plan for improvement.]

Yet while recognising all these charms and advantages, Xenophon finds himself compelled to lament great poverty among the citizens; which poverty (he says) is often urged by the leading men as an excuse for unjust proceedings. Accordingly he comes forward with various financial suggestions, by means of which he confidently anticipates that every Athenian citizen may obtain a comfortable maintenance from the public.[97]

[Footnote 97: De Vectig. iv. 33. [Greek: kai\ e)moi\ me\n dê\ ei)/rêtai, ô(s a)\n ê(gou=mai kataskeuasthei/sês tê=s po/leôs i(kanê\n a)\n pa=sin A)thênai/ois trophê\n a)po\ koinou= gene/sthai.]]

[Side-note: Advantage of a large number of Metics. How these may be encouraged.]

First, he dwells upon the great advantage of encouraging metics, or foreigners resident at Athens, each of whom paid an annual capitation tax to the treasury. There were already many such, not merely Greeks, but Orientals also, Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians, &c.:[98] and by judicious encouragement all expatriated men everywhere might be made to prefer the agreeable residence at Athens, thus largely increasing the annual amount of the tax. The metics ought (he says) to be exempted from military service (which the citizens ought to perform and might perform alone), but to be admitted to the honours of the equestrian duty, whenever they were rich enough to afford it: and farther, to be allowed the liberty of purchasing land and building houses in the city. Moreover not merely resident metics, but also foreign merchants who came as visitors, conducting an extensive commerce--ought to be flattered by complimentary votes and occasional hospitalities: while the curators of the harbour, whose function it was to settle disputes among them, should receive prizes if they adjudicated equitably and speedily.[99]

[Footnote: 98: De Vect. ii. 3-7.]

[Footnote: 99: De Vect. iii. 2-6.]

[Side-note: Proposal to raise by voluntary contributions a large sum to be employed as capital by the city. Distribution of three oboli per head per day to all the citizens.]

All this (Xenophon observes) will require only friendly and considerate demonstrations. His farther schemes are more ambitious, not to be effected without a large outlay. He proposes to raise an ample fund for the purposes of the city, by voluntary contributions; which he expects to obtain not merely from private Athenians and metics, rich and in easy circumstances--but also from other cities, and even from foreign despots, kings, satraps, &c. The tempting inducement will be, that the names of all contributors with their respecting contributions will be inscribed on public tablets, and permanently commemorated as benefactors of the city.[100] Contributors (he says) are found, for the outfit of a fleet, where they expect no return: much more will they come forward here, where a good return will accrue. The fund so raised will be employed under public authority with the most profitable result, in many different ways. The city will build docks and warehouses for bonding goods--houses near the harbour to be let to merchants--merchant-vessels to be let out on freight. But the largest profit will be obtained by working the silver mines at Laureion in Attica. The city will purchase a number of foreign slaves, and will employ them under the superintendence of old free citizens who are past the age of labour, partly in working these mines for public account, each of the ten tribes employing one tenth part of the number--partly by letting them out to private mining undertakers, at so much per diem for each slave: the slaves being distinguished by a conspicuous public stamp, and the undertaker binding himself under penalty always to restore the same number of them as he received.[101] Such competition between the city and the private mining undertakers will augment the total produce, and will be no loss to either, but wholesome for both. The mines will absorb as many workmen as are put into them: for in the production of silver (Xenophon argues) there can never be any glut, as there is sometimes in corn, wine, or oil. Silver is always in demand, and is not lessened in value by increase of quantity. Every one is anxious to get it, and has as much pleasure in hoarding it under ground as in actively employing it.[102] The scheme, thus described, may (if found necessary) be brought into operation by degrees, a certain number of slaves being purchased annually until the full total is made up. From these various financial projects, and especially from the fund thus employed as capital under the management of the Senate, the largest returns are expected. Amidst the general abundance which will ensue, the religious festivals will be celebrated with increased splendour--the temples will be repaired, the docks and walls will be put in complete order--the priests, the Senate, the magistrates, the horsemen, will receive the full stipends which the old custom of Athens destined for them.[103] But besides all these, the object which Xenophon has most at heart will be accomplished: the poor citizens will be rescued from poverty. There will be a regular distribution among all citizens, per head and equally. Three oboli, or half a drachma, will be allotted daily to each, to poor and rich alike. For the poor citizens, this will provide a comfortable subsistence, without any contribution on their part: the poverty now prevailing will thus be alleviated. The rich, like the poor, receive the daily triobolon as a free gift: but if they even compute it as interest for their investments, they will find that the rate of interest is full and satisfactory, like the rate on bottomry. Three oboli per day amount in the year of 360 days to 180 drachmæ: now if a rich man has contributed ten minæ ( = 1000 drachmæ), he will thus receive interest at the rate of 18 per cent. per annum: if another less rich citizen has contributed one mina ( = 100 drachmæ), he will receive interest at the rate of 180 per cent. per annum: more than he could realise in any other investment.[104]

[Footnote 100: De Vect. iii. 11.]

[Footnote 101: De Vect. iv. 13-19.]

[Footnote 102: De Vect. iv. 4-7.]

[Footnote 103: De Vectig. vi. 1-2. [Greek: Kai\ o( me\n dê=mos trophê=s eu)porê/sei, oi( de\ plou/sioi tê=s ei)s to\n po/lemon dapa/nês a)pallagê/sontai, periousi/as de\ pollê=s genome/nês, megaloprepe/steron me\n e)/ti ê(\ nu=n ta\s e(orta\s a)/xomen, i(era\ d' e)piskeua/somen, tei/chê de\ kai\ neô/ria a)northô/somen, i(ereu=si de\ kai\ boulê=| kai\ a)rchai=s kai\ i(ppeu=si ta\ pa/tria a)podô/somen--pô=s ou)k a)/xion ô(s ta/chista tou/tois e)gcheirei=n, i(/na e)/ti e)ph' ê(mô=n e)pi/dômen tê\n po/lin met' a)sphalei/as eu)daimonou=san?]

[Footnote 104: De Vectig. iii. 9-12.]

[Side-note: Purpose and principle of this distribution.]

Half a drachma, or three oboli, per day, was the highest rate of pay ever received (the rate varied at different times) by the citizens as Dikasts and Ekklesiasts, for attending in judicature or in assembly. It is this amount of pay which Xenophon here proposes to ensure to every citizen, without exception, out of the public treasury; which (he calculates) would be enriched by his project so as easily to bear such a disbursement. He relieves the poor citizens from poverty by making them all pensioners on the public treasury, with or without service rendered, or the pretence of service. He strains yet farther the dangerous principle of the Theôrikon, without the same excuse as can be shown for the Theôrikon itself on religious grounds.[105] If such a proposition had been made by Kleon, Hyperbolus, Kleophon, Agyrrhius, &c., it would have been dwelt upon by most historians of Greece as an illustration of the cacoethes of democracy--to extract money, somehow or other, from the rich, for the purpose of keeping the poor in comfort. Not one of the democratical leaders, so far as we know, ever ventured to propose so sweeping a measure: we have it here from the pen of the oligarchical Xenophon.

[Footnote 105: Respecting the Theôrikon at Athens, see my 'History of Greece,' ch. 88, pp. 492-498.]

[Side-note: Visionary anticipations of Xenophon, financial and commercial.]

But we must of course discuss Xenophon's scheme as a whole: the aggregate enlargement of revenue, from his various visionary new ways and means, on one side--against the new mode and increased amount of expenditure, on the other side. He would not have proposed such an expenditure, if he had not thoroughly believed in the correctness of his own anticipations, both as to the profits of the mining scheme, and as to the increase of receipts from other sources: such as the multiplication of tax-paying Metics, the rent paid by them for the new houses to be built by the city, the increase of the harbour dues from expanded foreign trade. But of these anticipations, even the least unpromising are vague and uncertain: while the prospects of the mining scheme appear thoroughly chimerical. Nothing is clear or certain except the disbursement. We scarcely understand how Xenophon could seriously have imagined, either that voluntary contributors could have been found to subscribe the aggregate fund as he proposes--or that, if subscribed, it could have yielded the prodigious return upon which he reckons. We must, however, recollect that he had no familiarity with finance, or with the conditions and liabilities of commerce, or with the raising of money from voluntary contributors for any collective purpose. He would not have indulged in similar fancies if the question had been about getting together supplies for an army. Practical Athenian financiers would probably say, in criticising his financial project--what Heraldus[106] observes upon some views of his opponent Salmasius, about the relations of capital and interest in Attica--"Somnium est hominis harum rerum, etiam cum vigilat, nihil scientis".[107] The financial management of Athens was doubtless defective in many ways: but it would not have been improved in the hands of Xenophon--any more than the administrative and judiciary department of Athens would have become better under the severe regimen of Plato.[108] The merits of the Sokratic companions--and great merits they were--lay in the region of instructive theory.

[Footnote 106: This passage of Heraldus is cited by M. Boeckh in his Public Economy of Athens, B. iv. ch. 21, p. 606, Eng. Trans. In that chapter of M. Boeckh's work (pp. 600-610) some very instructive pages will be found about the Xenophontic scheme here noticed.

I will however mention one or two points on which my understanding of the scheme differs from his. He says (p. 605):--"The author supposes that the profit upon this speculation would amount to three oboli per day, so that the subscribers would obtain a very high per centage on their shares. Xenophon supposes unequal contributions, according to the different amounts of property, agreeable to the principles of a property-tax, but an equal distribution of the receipts for the purpose of favouring and aiding the poor. What Xenophon is speaking of is an income annually arising upon each share, either equal to or exceeding the interest of the loans on bottomry. Where, however, is the security that the undertaking would produce three oboli a day to each subscriber?"

I concur in most of what is here said; but M. Boeckh states the matter too much as if the three oboli per diem were a real return arising from the scheme, and payable to each shareholder upon each share as he calls it. This is an accident of the case, not the essential feature. The poorest citizens--for whose benefit, more than for any other object, the scheme is contrived--would not be shareholders at all: they would be too poor to contribute anything, yet each of them would receive his triobolon like the rest. Moreover, many citizens, even though able to pay, might hold back, and decline to pay: yet still each would receive as much. And again, the foreigners, kings, satraps, &c., would be contributors, but would receive nothing at all. The distribution of the triobolon would be made to citizens only. Xenophon does indeed state the proportion of receipt to payments in the cases of some rich contributors, as an auxiliary motive to conciliate them. Bat we ought not to treat this receipt as if it were a real return yielded by the public mining speculation, or as profit actually brought in.

As I conceive the scheme, the daily triobolon, and the respective contributions furnished, have no premeditated ratio, no essential connection with each other. The daily payment of the triobolon to every citizen indiscriminately, is a new and heavy burden which Xenophon imposes upon the city. But this is only one among many other burdens, as we may see by cap. 6. In order to augment the wealth of the city, so as to defray these large expenses, he proposes several new financial measures. Of these the most considerable was the public mining speculation; but it did not stand alone. The financial scheme of Xenophon, both as to receipts and as to expenditure, is more general than M. Boeckh allows for.]

[Footnote 107: It is truly surprising to read in one of Hume's Essays the following sentence. Essay XII. on Civil Liberty, p. 107 ed. of Hume's Philosophical Works, 1825.

"The Athenians, though governed by a Republic, paid near two hundred per cent for those sums of money which any emergence made it necessary for them to borrow, as we learn from Xenophon."

In the note Hume quotes the following passage from this discourse, De Vectigalibus:--[Greek: Ktê=sin de\ a)p' ou)deno\s a)\n ou(/tô kalê\n ktê/sainto, ô(/sper a)ph' ou)= a)\n protele/sôsin ei)s tê\n a)phormê/n. Oi( de/ ge plei=stoi A)thênai/ôn plei/ona lê/psontai kat' e)niauto\n ê)\ o(/sa a)\n ei)sene/gkôsin. Oi( ga\r mna=n protele/santes, e)ggu\s duoi=n mna=|n pro/sodon e)/xousi. O(\ dokei= tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn a)sphale/stato/n te kai\ poluchroniô/taton ei)=nai].

Hume has been misled by dwelling upon one or two separate sentences. If he had taken into consideration the whole discourse and its declared scope, he would have seen that it affords no warrant for any inference as to the rate of interest paid by the Athenian public when they wanted to borrow. In Xenophon's scheme there is no fixed proportion between what a contributor to the fund would pay and what he would receive. The triobolon received is a fixed sum to each citizen, whereas the contributions of each would be different. Moreover the foreigners and metics would contribute without receiving anything, while the poor citizens would receive their triobolon per head, without having contributed anything.]

[Footnote 108: Aristeides the Rhetor has some forcible remarks in defending Rhetoric and the Athenian statesmen against the bitter criticisms of Plato in the Gorgias: pointing out that Plato himself had never made trial of the difficulty of governing any real community of men, or of the necessities under which a statesman in actual political life was placed (Orat. xlv. [Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s], pp. 109-110, Dindorf).]

[Side-note: Xenophon exhorts his countrymen to maintain peace.]

Xenophon accompanies his financial scheme with a strong recommendation to his countrymen that they should abstain from warlike enterprises and maintain peace with every one. He expatiates on the manifest advantages, nay, even on the necessity, of continued peace, under the actual poverty of the city: for the purpose of recruiting the exhausted means of the citizens, as well as of favouring his own new projects for the improvement of finance and commerce. While he especially deprecates any attempt on the part of Athens to regain by force her lost headship over the Greeks, he at the same time holds out hopes that this dignity would be spontaneously tendered to her, if, besides abstaining from all violence, she conducted herself with a liberal and conciliatory spirit towards all: if she did her best to adjust differences among other cities, and to uphold the autonomy of the Delphian temple.[109] As far as we can judge, such pacific exhortations were at that time wise and politic. Athens had just then concluded peace (355 B.C.) after the three years of ruinous and unsuccessful war, called the Social War, carried on against her revolted allies Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium. To attempt the recovery of empire by force was most mischievous. There was indeed one purpose, for which she was called upon by a wise forecast to put forth her strength--to check the aggrandisement of Philip in Macedonia. But this was a distant purpose: and the necessity, though it became every year more urgent, was not so prominently manifest[110] in 355 B.C. as to affect the judgment of Xenophon. At that early day, Demosthenes himself did not see the danger from Macedonia: his first Philippic was delivered in 351 B.C., and even then his remonstrances, highly creditable to his own forecast, made little impression on others. But when we read the financial oration De Symmoriis we appreciate his sound administrative and practical judgment; compared with the benevolent dreams and ample public largess in which Xenophon here indulges.[111]

[Footnote 109: Xenoph. De Vectig. v. 3-8.]

[Footnote 110: See my 'History of Greece,' ch. 86, p. 325 seq.

I agree with Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, ut suprà, p. 601, that this pamphlet of Xenophon is probably to be referred to the close of the Social War, about 355 B.C.]

[Footnote 111: Respecting the first Philippic, and the Oratio De Symmoriis of Demosthenes, see my 'History of Greece,' ch. 87, pp. 401-431.]

[Side-note: Difference of the latest compositions of Xenophon and Plato, from their point of view in the earlier.]

We have seen that Plato died in 347 B.C., having reached the full age of eighty: Xenophon must have attained the same age nearly, and may perhaps have attained it completely--though we do not know the exact year of his death. With both these two illustrious companions of Sokrates, the point of view is considerably modified in their last compositions as compared to their earlier. Xenophon shows the alteration not less clearly than Plato, though in an opposite direction. His discourse on the Athenian revenues differs quite as much from the Anabasis, Cyropædia, and Oekonomikus--as the Leges and Epinomis differ from any of Plato's earlier works. Whatever we may think of the financial and commercial anticipations of Xenophon, his pamphlet on the Athenian revenues betokens a warm sympathy for his native city--a genuine appreciation of her individual freedom and her many-sided intellectual activity--an earnest interest in her actual career, and even in the extension of her commercial and manufacturing wealth. In these respects it recommends itself to our feelings more than the last Platonic production--Leges and Epinomis--composed nearly at the same time, between 356-347 B.C. While Xenophon in old age, becoming reconciled to his country, forgets his early passion for the Spartan drill and discipline, perpetual, monotonous, unlettered--we find in the senility of Plato a more cramping limitation of the varieties of human agency--a stricter compression, even of individual thought and speech, under the infallible official orthodoxy--a more extensive use of the pædagogic rod and the censorial muzzle than he had ever proposed before.

In thus taking an unwilling leave of the Sokratic family, represented by these two venerable survivors--to both of whom the students of Athenian letters and philosophy are so deeply indebted--I feel some satisfaction in the belief, that both of them died, as they were born, citizens of free Athens and of unconquered Hellas: and that neither of them was preserved to an excessive old age, like their contemporary Isokrates, to witness the extinction of Hellenic autonomy by the battle of Chæroneia.[112]

[Footnote 112: Compare the touching passage in Tacitus's description of the death of Agricola, c. 44-45.

"Festinatæ mortis grande solatium tulit, evasisse postremum illud tempus," &c.]

V. LIFE OF PLATO

[Side-note: Scanty information about Plato's life.]

Of Plato's biography we can furnish nothing better than a faint outline. We are not fortunate enough to possess the work on Plato's life,[1] composed by his companion and disciple Xenokrates, like the life of Plotinus by Porphyry, or that of Proklus by Marinus. Though Plato lived eighty years, enjoying extensive celebrity--and though Diogenes Laertius employed peculiar care in collecting information about him--yet the number of facts recounted is very small, and of those facts a considerable proportion is poorly attested.[2]

[Footnote 1: This is cited by Simplikius, Schol. ad Aristot. De Coelo, 470, a. 27; 474, a. 12, ed. Brandis.]

[Footnote 2: Diogen. Laert. iv. 1. The person to whom Diogenes addressed his biography of Plato was a female: possibly the wife of the emperor Septimius Severus (see Philostr. Vit. Apoll. i. 3), who greatly loved and valued the Platonic philosophy (Diog. Laert. iii. 47). Ménage (in his commentary on the Prooemium) supposes the person signified to be Arria: this also is a mere conjecture, and in my judgment less probable. We know that the empress gave positive encouragement to writers on philosophy. The article devoted by Diogenes to Plato is of considerable length, including both biography and exposition of doctrine. He makes reference to numerous witnesses--Speusippus, Aristotle, Hermodôrus, Aristippus, Dikæarchus, Aristoxenus, Klearchus, Herakleides, Theopompus, Timon in his Silli or satirical poem, Pamphila, Hermippus, Neanthes, Antileon, Favorinus, Athenodôrus. Timotheus, Idomeneus, Alexander [Greek: e)n diadochai=s kath' Ê(ra/kleiton], Satyrus, Onêtor, Alkimus, Euphorion, Panætius, Myronianus, Polemon, Aristophanes of Byzantium, the Alexandrine critic, Antigonus of Karystus, Thrasyllus, &c.

Of the other biographers of Plato, Olympiodorus and the Auctor Anonymus cite no authorities. Apuleius, in his survey of the doctrine of Plato (De Habitudine doctrinarum Platonis, init. p. 567, ed. Paris), mentions only Speusippus, as having attested the early diligence and quick apprehension of Plato. "Speusippus, domesticis instructus documentis, et pueri ejus acre in percipiendo ingenium, et admirandæ verecundiæ indolem laudat, et pubescentis primitias labore atque amore studendi imbutas refert," &c.

Speusippus had composed a funeral Discourse or Encomium on Plato (Diogen. iii. 1, 2; iv. 1, 11). Unfortunately Diogenes refers to it only once in reference to Plato. We can hardly make out whether any of the authors, whom he cites, had made the life of Plato a subject of attentive study. Hermodôrus is cited by Simplikius as having written a treatise [Greek: peri\ Pla/tônos]. Aristoxenus, Dikæarchus, and Theopompus--perhaps also Hermippus, and Klearchus--had good means of information.

See K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 97, not. 45.]

[Side-note: His birth, parentage, and early education.]

Plato was born in Ægina (in which island his father enjoyed an estate as kleruch or out-settled citizen) in the month Thargelion (May) of the year B.C. 427.[3] His family, belonging to the Dême Kollytus, was both ancient and noble, in the sense attached to that word at Athens. He was son of Ariston (or, according to some admirers, of the God Apollo) and Periktionê: his maternal ancestors had been intimate friends or relatives of the law-giver Solon, while his father belonged to a Gens tracing its descent from Kodrus, and even from the God Poseidon. He was also nearly related to Charmides and to Kritias--this last the well-known and violent leader among the oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants.[4] Plato was first called Aristoklês, after his grandfather; but received when he grew up the name of Plato--on account of the breadth (we are told) either of his forehead or of his shoulders. Endowed with a robust physical frame, and exercised in gymnastics, not merely in one of the palæstræ of Athens (which he describes graphically in the Charmides) but also under an Argeian trainer, he attained such force and skill as to contend (if we may credit Dikæarchus) for the prize of wrestling among boys at the Isthmian festival.[5] His literary training was commenced under a schoolmaster named Dionysius, and pursued under Drakon, a celebrated teacher of music in the large sense then attached to that word. He is said to have displayed both diligence and remarkable quickness of apprehension, combined too with the utmost gravity and modesty.[6] He not only acquired great familiarity with the poets, but composed poetry of his own--dithyrambic, lyric, and tragic: and he is even reported to have prepared a tragic tetralogy, with the view of competing for victory at the Dionysian festival. We are told that he burned these poems, when he attached himself to the society of Sokrates. No compositions in verse remain under his name, except a few epigrams--amatory, affectionate, and of great poetical beauty. But there is ample proof in his dialogues that the cast of his mind was essentially poetical. Many of his philosophical speculations are nearly allied to poetry, and acquire their hold upon the mind rather through imagination and sentiment than through reason or evidence.

[Footnote 3: It was affirmed distinctly by Hermodôrus (according to the statement of Diogenes Laertius, iii. 6) that Plato was twenty-eight years old at the time of the death of Sokrates: that is, in May, 399 B.C. (Zeller, Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. p. 39, ed. 2nd.) This would place the birth of Plato in 427 B.C. Other critics refer his birth to 428 or 429: but I agree with Zeller in thinking that the deposition of Hermodôrus is more trustworthy than any other evidence before us.

Hermodôrus was a friend and disciple of Plato, and is even said to have made money by publishing Plato's dialogues without permission (Cic., Epist. ad Attic. xiii. 21). Suidas, [Greek: E(rmo/dôros]. He was also an author: he published a treatise [Greek: Peri\ Mathêma/tôn] (Diog. L., Prooem. 2).

See the more recent Dissertation of Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, Marburg, 1859, p. 19 seq. He cites two important passages (out of the commentary of Simplikius on Aristot. Physic.) referring to the work of Hermodôrus [Greek: o( Pla/tônos e(/tairos]--a work [Greek: Peri\ Pla/tônos], on Plato.]

[Footnote 4: The statements respecting Plato's relatives are obscure and perplexing: unfortunately the domestica documenta, which were within the knowledge of his nephew Speusippus, are no longer accessible to us. It is certain that he had two brothers, Glaukon and Adeimantus: besides which, it would appear from the Parmenides (126 B) that he had a younger half-brother by the mother's side, named Antiphon, and son of Pyrilampes (compare Charmides, p. 158 A, and Plut., De Frat. Amore, 12, p. 484 E). But the age, which this would assign to Antiphon, does not harmonise well with the chronological postulates assumed in the exordium of the Parmenides. Accordingly, K. F. Hermann and Stallbaum are led to believe, that besides the brothers of Plato named Glaukon and Adeimantus, there must also have been two uncles of Plato bearing these same names, and having Antiphon for their younger brother. (See Stallbaum's Prolegg. ad Charm. pp. 84, 85, and Prolegg. ad Parmen., Part iii. pp. 304-307.) This is not unlikely: but we cannot certainly determine the point--more especially as we do not know what amount of chronological inaccuracy Plato might hold to be admissible in the personnel of his dialogues.

It is worth mentioning, that in the discourse of Andokides de Mysteriis, persons named Plato, Charmides, Antiphon, are named among those accused of concern in the sacrileges of 415 B.C.--the mutilation of the Hermæ and the mock celebration of the mysteries. Speusippus is also named as among the Senators of the year (Andokides de Myst. p. 13-27, seq.). Whether these persons belonged to the same family as the philosopher Plato, we cannot say. He himself was then only twelve years old.]

[Footnote 5: Diog. L. iii. 4; Epiktêtus, i. 8-13, [Greek: ei) de\ kalo\s ê)=n Pla/tôn kai\ i)schuro/s], &c.

The statement of Sextus Empiricus--that Plato in his boyhood had his ears bored and wore ear-rings--indicates the opulent family to which he belonged. (Sex. Emp. adv. Gramm. s. 258.) Probably some of the old habits of the great Athenian families, as to ornaments worn on the head or hair, were preserved with the children after they had been discontinued with adults. See Thuc. i. 6.]

[Footnote 6: Diog. L. iii. 26.]

[Side-note: Early relations of Plato with Sokrates.]

According to Diogenes[7] (who on this point does not cite his authority), it was about the twentieth year of Plato's age (407 B.C.) that his acquaintance with Sokrates began. It may possibly have begun earlier, but certainly not later--since at the time of the conversation (related by Xenophon) between Sokrates and Plato's younger brother Glaukon, there was already a friendship established between Sokrates and Plato: and that time can hardly be later than 406 B.C., or the beginning of 405 B.C.[8] From 406 B.C. down to 399 B.C., when Sokrates was tried and condemned, Plato seems to have remained in friendly relation and society with him: a relation perhaps interrupted during the severe political struggles between 405 B.C. and 403 B.C., but revived and strengthened after the restoration of the democracy in the last-mentioned year.

[Footnote 7: Ibid. 6.]

[Footnote 8: Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 1. Sokrates was induced by his friendship for Plato and for Charmides the cousin of Plato, to admonish the forward youth Glaukon (Plato's younger brother), who thrust himself forward obtrusively to speak in the public assembly before he was twenty years of age. The two discourses of Sokrates--one with the presumptuous Glaukon, the other with the diffident Charmides--are both reported by Xenophon.

These discourses must have taken place before the battle of Ægospotami: for Charmides was killed during the Anarchy, and Glaukon certainly would never have attempted such acts of presumption after the restoration of the democracy, at a time when the tide of public feeling had become vehemently hostile to Kritias, Charmides, and all the names and families connected with the oligarchical rule just overthrown.

I presume the conversation of Sokrates with Glaukon to have taken place in 406 B.C. or 405 B.C.: it was in 405 B.C. that the disastrous battle of Ægospotami occurred.]

[Side-note: Plato's youth--service as a citizen and soldier.]

But though Plato may have commenced at the age of twenty his acquaintance with Sokrates, he cannot have been exclusively occupied in philosophical pursuits between the nineteenth and the twenty-fifth year of his age--that is, between 409-403 B.C. He was carried, partly by his own dispositions, to other matters besides philosophy; and even if such dispositions had not existed, the exigencies of the time pressed upon him imperatively as an Athenian citizen. Even under ordinary circumstances, a young Athenian of eighteen years of age, as soon as he was enrolled on the public register of citizens, was required to take the memorable military oath in the chapel of Aglaurus, and to serve on active duty, constant or nearly constant, for two years, in various posts throughout Attica, for the defence of the country.[9] But the six years from 409-403 B.C. were years of an extraordinary character. They included the most strenuous public efforts, the severest suffering, and the gravest political revolution, that had ever occurred at Athens. Every Athenian citizen was of necessity put upon constant (almost daily) military service; either abroad, or in Attica against the Lacedæmonian garrison established in the permanent fortified post of Dekeleia, within sight of the Athenian Akropolis. So habitually were the citizens obliged to be on guard, that Athens, according to Thucydides,[10] became a military post rather than a city. It is probable that Plato, by his family and its place on the census, belonged to the Athenian Hippeis or Horsemen, who were in constant employment for the defence of the territory. But at any rate, either on horseback, or on foot, or on shipboard, a robust young citizen like Plato, whose military age commenced in 409, must have borne his fair share in this hard but indispensable duty. In the desperate emergency, which preceded the battle of Arginusæ (406 B.C.), the Athenians put to sea in thirty days a fleet of 110 triremes for the relief of Mitylenê; all the men of military age, freemen, and slaves, embarking.[11] We can hardly imagine that at such a season Plato can have wished to decline service: even if he had wished it, the Strategi would not have permitted him. Assuming that he remained at home, the garrison-duty at Athens must have been doubled on account of the number of departures. After the crushing defeat of the Athenians at Ægospotami, came the terrible apprehension at Athens, then the long blockade and famine of the city (wherein many died of hunger); next the tyranny of the Thirty, who among their other oppressions made war upon all free speech, and silenced even the voice of Sokrates: then the gallant combat of Thrasybulus followed by the intervention of the Lacedæmonians--contingencies full of uncertainty and terror, but ending in the restoration of the democracy. After such restoration, there followed all the anxieties, perils, of reaction, new enactments and provisions, required for the revived democracy, during the four years between the expulsion of the Thirty and the death of Sokrates.

[Footnote 9: Read the oath sworn by the Ephêbi in Pollux viii. 105. Æschines tells us that he served his two ephebic years as [Greek: peri/polos tê=s chô/ras], when there no was remarkable danger or foreign pressure. See Æsch. De Fals. Legat. s. 178. See the facts about the Athenian Ephêbi brought together in a Dissertation by W. Dittenberger, p. 9-12.]

[Footnote 10: Thuc. vii. 27: [Greek: o(sême/rai e)xelauno/ntôn tô=n i(ppe/ôn], &c. Cf., viii. 69. Antiphon, who is described in the beginning of the Parmenides, as devoted to [Greek: i(ppikê\], must have been either brother or uncle of Plato.]

[Footnote 11: Xen. Hell. i. 6, 24. [Greek: Oi( de\ A)thênai=oi, ta\ gegenême/na kai\ tê\n poliorki/an e)pei\ ê)/kousan, e)psêphi/santo boêthei=n nausi\n e(kato\n kai\ de/ka, ei)sbiba/zontes tou\s e)n ê(liki/a| o)/ntas a(/pantas, kai\ dou/lous kai\ e)leuthe/rous; kai\ plêrô/santes ta\s de/ka kai\ e(kato\n e)n tria/konta ê(me/rais, a)pê=ran; ei)se/bêsan de\ kai\ tô=n i(ppe/ôn polloi/]. In one of the anecdotes given by Diogenes (iii. 24) Plato alludes to his own military service. Aristoxenus (Diog. L. iii. 8) said that Plato had been engaged thrice in military expeditions out of Attica: once to Tanagra, a second time to Corinth, a third time to Delium, where he distinguished himself. Aristoxenus must have had fair means of information, yet I do not know what to make of this statement. All the three places named are notorious for battles fought by Athens; nevertheless chronology utterly forbids the supposition that Plato could have been present either at the battle of Tanagra or at the battle of Delium. At the battle of Delium Sokrates was present, and is said to have distinguished himself: hence there is ground for suspecting some confusion between his name and that of Plato. It is however possible that there may have been, during the interval between 410-405 B.C., partial invasions of the frontiers of Boeotia by Athenian detachments: both Tanagra and Delium were on the Boeotian frontier. The great battle of Corinth took place in 394 B.C. Plato left Athens immediately after the death of Sokrates in 399 B.C., and visited several foreign countries during the years immediately following; but he may have been at Athens in 394 B.C., and may have served in the Athenian force at Corinth. See Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hell. ad ann. 395 B.C. I do not see how Plato could have been engaged in any battle of Delium after the battle of Corinth, for Athens was not then at war with the Boeotians.

At the same time I confess that the account given by or ascribed to Aristoxenus appears to me to have been founded on little positive information, when we compare it with the military duty which Plato must have done between 410-405 B.C.

It is curious that Antisthenes also is mentioned as having distinguished himself at the battle of Tanagra (Diog. vi. 1). The same remarks are applicable to him as have just been made upon Plato.]

[Side-note: Period of political ambition.]

From the dangers, fatigues, and sufferings of such an historical decad, no Athenian citizen could escape, whatever might be his feeling towards the existing democracy, or however averse he might be to public employment by natural temper. But Plato was not thus averse, during the earlier years of his adult life. We know, from his own letters, that he then felt strongly the impulse of political ambition usual with young Athenians of good family;[12] though probably not with any such premature vehemence as his younger brother Glaukon, whose impatience Sokrates is reported to have so judiciously moderated.[13] Whether Plato ever spoke with success in the public assembly, we do not know: he is said to have been shy by nature, and his voice was thin and feeble, ill adapted for the Pnyx.[14] However, when the oligarchy of Thirty was established, after the capture and subjugation of Athens, Plato was not only relieved from the necessity of addressing the assembled people, but also obtained additional facilities for rising into political influence, through Kritias (his near relative) and Charmides, leading men among the new oligarchy. Plato affirms that he had always disapproved the antecedent democracy, and that he entered on the new scheme of government with full hope of seeing justice and wisdom predominant. He was soon undeceived. The government of the Thirty proved a sanguinary and rapacious tyranny,[15] filling him with disappointment and disgust. He was especially revolted by their treatment of Sokrates, whom they not only interdicted from continuing his habitual colloquy with young men,[16] but even tried to implicate in nefarious murders, by ordering him along with others to arrest Leon the Salaminian, one of their intended victims: an order which Sokrates, at the peril of his life, disobeyed.

[Footnote 12: Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 324-325.]

[Footnote 13: Xen., Mem. iii. 6.]

[Footnote 14: Diogen. Laert. iii. 5: [Greek: I)schno/phôno/s te ê)=n], &c. iii. 26: [Greek: ai)dê/môn kai\ ko/smios].]

[Footnote 15: History of Greece, vol. viii. ch. 65.]

[Footnote 16: Xen. Mem. i. 2, 36; Plato, Apol. Sokrat. c. 20, p. 32.]

[Side-note: He becomes disgusted with politics.]

Thus mortified and disappointed, Plato withdrew from public functions. What part he took in the struggle between the oligarchy and its democratical assailants under Thrasybulus, we are not informed. But when the democracy was re-established, his political ambition revived, and he again sought to acquire some active influence on public affairs. Now however the circumstances had become highly unfavourable to him. The name of his deceased relative Kritias was generally abhorred, and he had no powerful partisans among the popular leaders. With such disadvantages, with anti-democratical sentiments, and with a thin voice, we cannot wonder that Plato soon found public life repulsive;[17] though he admits the remarkable moderation displayed by the restored Demos. His repugnance was aggravated to the highest pitch of grief and indignation by the trial and condemnation of Sokrates (399 B.C.), four years after the renewal of the democracy. At that moment doubtless the Sokratic men or companions were unpopular in a body. Plato, after having yielded his best sympathy and aid at the trial of Sokrates, retired along with several others of them to Megara. He made up his mind that for a man of his views and opinions, it was not only unprofitable, but also unsafe, to embark in active public life, either at Athens or in any other Grecian city. He resolved to devote himself to philosophical speculation, and to abstain from practical politics; unless fortune should present to him some exceptional case, of a city prepared to welcome and obey a renovator upon exalted principles.[18]

[Footnote 17: Ælian (V. H. iii. 27) had read a story to the effect, that Plato, in consequence of poverty, was about to seek military service abroad, and was buying arms for the purpose, when he was induced to stay by the exhortation of Sokrates, who prevailed upon him to devote himself to philosophy at home.

If there be any truth in this story, it must refer to some time in the interval between the restoration of the democracy (403 B.C.) and the death of Sokrates (399 B.C.). The military service of Plato, prior to the battle of Ægospotami (405 B.C.), must have been obligatory, in defence of his country, not depending on his own free choice. It is possible also that Plato may have been for the time impoverished, like many other citizens, by the intestine troubles in Attica, and may have contemplated military service abroad, like Xenophon.

But I am inclined to think that the story is unfounded, and that it arises from some confusion between Plato and Xenophon.]

[Footnote 18: The above account of Plato's proceedings, perfectly natural and interesting, but unfortunately brief, is to be found in his seventh Epistle, p. 325-326.]

[Side-note: He retires from Athens after the death of Sokrates--his travels.]

At Megara Plato passed some time with the Megarian Eukleides, his fellow-disciple in the society of Sokrates, and the founder of what is termed the Megaric school of philosophers. He next visited Kyrênê, where he is said to have become acquainted with the geometrician Theodôrus, and to have studied geometry under him. From Kyrênê he proceeded to Egypt, interesting himself much in the antiquities of the country as well as in the conversation of the priests. In or about 394 B.C.--if we may trust the statement of Aristoxenus about the military service of Plato at Corinth, he was again at Athens. He afterwards went to Italy and Sicily, seeking the society of the Pythagorean philosophers, Archytas, Echekrates, Timæus, &c., at Tarentum and Lokri, and visiting the volcanic manifestations of Ætna. It appears that his first visit to Sicily was made when he was about forty years of age, which would be 387 B.C. Here he made acquaintance with the youthful Dion, over whom he acquired great intellectual ascendancy. By Dion Plato was prevailed upon to visit the elder Dionysius at Syracuse:[19] but that despot, offended by the free spirit of his conversation and admonitions, dismissed him with displeasure, and even caused him to be sold into slavery at Ægina in his voyage home. Though really sold, however, Plato was speedily ransomed by friends. After farther incurring some risk of his life as an Athenian citizen, in consequence of the hostile feelings of the Æginetans, he was conveyed away safely to Athens, about 386 B.C.[20]

[Footnote 19: Plato. Epistol. vii. p. 324 A, 327 A.]

[Footnote 20: Plut. Dion. c. 5: Corn. Nep., Dion, ii. 3; Diog. Laert. iii. 19-20; Aristides, Or. xlvi., [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 305-306, ed. Dindorf.

Cicero (De Fin. v. 29; Tusc. Disp. i. 17), and others, had contracted a lofty idea of Plato's Travels, more than the reality seems to warrant. Val. Max. viii. 7, 3; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 2.

The Sophist Himerius repeats the same general statements about Plato's early education, and extensive subsequent travels, but without adding any new particulars (Orat. xiv. 21-25).

If we can trust a passage of Tzetzes, cited by Mr. Clinton (F. H. ad B.C. 366) and by Welcker (Trag. Gr. p. 1236), Dionysius the elder of Syracuse had composed (among his various dramas) a tragi-comedy directed against Plato.]

[Side-note: His permanent establishment at Athens--386 B.C.]

It was at this period, about 386 B.C., that the continuous and formal public teaching of Plato, constituting as it does so great an epoch in philosophy, commenced. But I see no ground for believing, as many authors assume, that he was absent from Athens during the entire interval between 399-386 B.C. I regard such long-continued absence as extremely improbable. Plato had not been sentenced to banishment, nor was he under any compulsion to stay away from his native city. He was not born "of an oak-tree or a rock" (to use an Homeric phrase, strikingly applied by Sokrates in his Apology to the Dikasts[21]), but of a noble family at Athens, where he had brothers and other connections. A temporary retirement, immediately after the death of Sokrates, might be congenial to his feelings and interesting in many ways; but an absence of moderate length would suffice for such exigencies, and there were surely reasonable motives to induce him to revisit his friends at home. I conceive Plato as having visited Kyrênê, Egypt, and Italy during these thirteen years, yet as having also spent part of this long time at Athens. Had he been continuously absent from that city he would have been almost forgotten, and would scarcely have acquired reputation enough to set up with success as a teacher.[22]

[Footnote 21: Plato, Apol. p. 34 D.]

[Footnote 22: Stallbaum insists upon it as "certum et indubium" that Plato was absent from Athens continuously, without ever returning to it, for the thirteen years immediately succeeding the death of Sokrates. But I see no good evidence of this, and I think it highly improbable. See Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Politicum, p. 38, 39. The statement of Strabo (xvii. 806), that Plato and Eudoxus passed thirteen years in Egypt, is not admissible.

Ueberweg examines and criticises the statements about Plato's travels. He considers it probable that Plato passed some part of these thirteen years at Athens (Ueber die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platon. Schrift. p. 126, 127). Mr Fynes Clinton thinks the same. F. H. B.C. 394; Append. c. 21, p. 366.]

[Side-note: He commences his teaching at the Academy.]

The spot selected by Plato for his lectures or teaching was a garden adjoining the precinct sacred to the Hero Hekadêmus or Akadêmus, distant from the gate of Athens called Dipylon somewhat less than a mile, on the road to Eleusis, towards the north. In this precinct there were both walks, shaded by trees, and a gymnasium for bodily exercise; close adjoining, Plato either inherited or acquired a small dwelling-house and garden, his own private property.[23] Here, under the name of the Academy, was founded the earliest of those schools of philosophy, which continued for centuries forward to guide and stimulate the speculative minds of Greece and Rome.

[Footnote 23: Diog. Laert. iii. 7, 8; Cic. De Fin. v. 1; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 8 (Berlin, 1843). The Academy was consecrated to Athênê; there was, however, a statue of Eros there, to whom sacrifice was offered, in conjunction with Athênê. Athenæus, xiii. 561.

At the time when Aristophanes assailed Sokrates in the comedy of the Nubes (423 B.C.), the Academy was known and familiar as a place for gymnastic exercise; and Aristophanes (Nub. 995) singles it out as the proper scene of action for the honest and muscular youth, who despises rhetoric and philosophy. Aristophanes did not anticipate that within a short time after the representation of his last comedy, the most illustrious disciple of Sokrates would select the Academy as the spot for his residence and philosophical lectures, and would confer upon the name a permanent intellectual meaning, as designating the earliest and most memorable of the Hellenic schools.

In 369 B.C., when the school of Plato was in existence, the Athenian hoplites, marching to aid the Lacedæmonians in Peloponnesus, were ordered by Iphikrates to make their evening meal in the Academy (Xen. Hell. vi. 5, 49).

The garden, afterwards established by Epikurus, was situated between the gate of Athens and the Academy: so that a person passed by it, when he walked forth from Athens to the Academy (Cic. De Fin. i. 1).]

[Side-note: Plato as a teacher--pupils numerous and wealthy, from different cities.]

We have scarce any particulars respecting the growth of the Academy from this time to the death of Plato, in 347 B.C. We only know generally that his fame as a lecturer became eminent and widely diffused: that among his numerous pupils were included Speusippus, Xenokrates, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lykurgus, &c.: that he was admired and consulted by Perdikkas in Macedonia and Dionysius at Syracuse: that he was also visited by listeners and pupils from all parts of Greece. Among them was Eudoxus of Knidus, who afterwards became illustrious both in geometry and astronomy. At the age of twenty-three, and in poor circumstances, Eudoxus was tempted by the reputation of the Sokratic men, and enabled by the aid of friends, to visit Athens: where, however, he was coldly received by Plato. Besides preparing an octennial period or octaetêris, and a descriptive map of the Heavens, Eudoxus also devised the astronomical hypothesis of Concentric Spheres--the earliest theory proposed to show that the apparent irregularity in the motion of the Sun and the Planets might be explained, and proved to result from a multiplicity of co-operating spheres or agencies, each in itself regular.[24] This theory of Eudoxus is said to have originated in a challenge of Plato, who propounded to astronomers, in his oral discourse, the problem which they ought to try to solve.[25]

[Footnote 24: For an account of Eudoxus himself, of his theory of concentric spheres, and the subsequent extensions of it, see the instructive volume of the late lamented Sir George Cornewall Lewis,--Historical Survey of the Ancient Astronomy, ch. iii. sect. 3, p. 146 seq.

M. Boeckh also (in his recent publication, Ueber die vierjährigen Sonnenkreise der Alten, vorzüglich den Eudoxischen, Berlin, 1863) has given an account of the life and career of Eudoxus, not with reference to his theory of concentric spheres, but to his Calendar and Lunisolar Cycles or Periods, quadrennial and octennial. I think Boeckh is right in placing the voyage of Eudoxus to Egypt at an earlier period of the life of Eudoxus; that is, about 378 B.C.; and not in 362 B.C., where it is placed by Letronne and others. Boeckh shows that the letters of recommendation from Agesilaus to Nektanebos, which Eudoxus took with him, do not necessarily coincide in time with the military expedition of Agesilaus to Egypt, but were more probably of earlier date. (Boeckh, p. 140-148.)

Eudoxus lived 53 years (406-353 B.C., about); being born when Plato was 21, and dying when Plato was 75. He was one of the most illustrious men of the age. He was born in poor circumstances; but so marked was his early promise, that some of the medical school at Knidus assisted him to prosecute his studies--to visit Athens and hear the Sophists, Plato among them--to visit Egypt, Tarentum (where he studied geometry with Archytas), and Sicily (where he studied [Greek: ta\ i)atrika\] with Philistion). These facts depend upon the [Greek: Pi/nakes] of Kallimachus, which are good authority. (Diog. L. viii. 86.)

After thus preparing himself by travelling and varied study, Eudoxus took up the profession of a Sophist, at Kyzikus and the neighbouring cities in the Propontis. He obtained great celebrity, and a large number of pupils. M. Boeckh says, "Dort lebte er als Sophist, sagt Sotion: das heisst, er lehrte, und hielt Vortrage. Dasselbe bezeugt Philostratos."

I wish to call particular attention to the way in which M. Boeckh here describes** a Sophist of the fourth century B.C. Nothing can be more correct. Every man who taught and gave lectures to audiences more or less numerous, was so called. The Platonic critics altogether darken the history of philosophy, by using the word Sophist with its modern associations (and the unmeaning abstract Sophistic which they derive from it), to represent a supposed school of speculative and deceptive corruptors.

Eudoxus, having been coldly received when young and poor by Plato, had satisfaction in revisiting Athens at the height of his reputation, accompanied by numerous pupils--and in showing himself again to Plato. The two then became friends. Menæchmus and Helikon, geometrical pupils of Eudoxus, received instruction from Plato also; and Helikon accompanied Plato on his third voyage to Sicily (Plato, Epist. xiii. p. 360 D; Plut. Dion, c. 19). Whether Eudoxus accompanied him there also, as Boeckh supposes, is doubtful: I think it improbable.

Eudoxus ultimately returned to his native city of Knidus, where he was received with every demonstration of honour: a public vote of esteem and recognition being passed to welcome him. He is said to have been solicited to give laws to the city, and to have actually done so: how far this may be true, we cannot say. He also visited the neighbouring prince Mausôlus of Karia, by whom he was much honoured.

We know from Aristotle, that Eudoxus was not only illustrious as an astronomer and geometer, but that he also proposed a theory of Ethics, similar in its general formula to that which was afterwards laid down by Epikurus. Aristotle dissents from the theory, but he bears express testimony, in a manner very unusual with him, to the distinguished personal merit and virtue of Eudoxus (Ethic. Nikom. x. 3, p. 1172, b. 16).]

[Footnote 25: Respecting Eudoxus, see Diog. L. viii. 86-91. As the life of Eudoxus probably extended from about 406-353 B.C., his first visit to Athens would be about 383 B.C., some three years after Plato commenced his school. Strabo (xvii. 806), when he visited Heliopolis in Egypt, was shown by the guides certain cells or chambers which were said to have been occupied by Plato and Eudoxus, and was assured that the two had passed thirteen years together in Egypt. This account deserves no credit. Plato and Eudoxus visited Egypt, but not together, and neither of them for so long as thirteen years. Eudoxus stayed there sixteen months (Diog. L. viii. 87). Simplikius, Schol. ad Aristot. De Coelo, p. 497, 498, ed. Brandis, 498, a. 45. [Greek: Kai\ prô=tos tô=n E(llê/nôn Eu)/doxos o( Kni/dios. ô(s Eu)/dêmo/s te e)n tô=| deute/rô| tê=s A)strologikê=s I)stori/as a)pemnêmo/neuse kai\ Sôsige/nês para\ Eu)dê/mou tou=to labô\n, a(/psasthai le/getai tô=n toiou/tôn u(pothe/seôn; Pla/tônos, ô(s phêsi Sôsige/nês, pro/blêma tou=to poiêsame/nou toi=s peri\ tau=ta e)spoudako/si--ti/nôn u(potethei/sôn o(malô=n kai\ tetagme/nôn kinê/seôn diasôthê=| ta\ peri\ ta\s kinê/seis tô=n planôme/nôn phaino/mena]. The Scholion of Simplikius, which follows at great length, is exceedingly interesting and valuable, in regard to the astronomical theory of Eudoxus, with the modifications introduced into it by Kallippus, Aristotle, and others. All the share in it which is claimed for Plato, is, that he described in clear language the problem to be solved: and even that share depends simply upon the statement of the Alexandrine Sosigenes (contemporary of Julius Cæsar), not upon the statement of Eudemus. At least the language of Simplikius affirms, that Sosigenes copied from Eudemus the fact, that Eudoxus was the first Greek who proposed a systematic astronomical hypothesis to explain the motions of the planets--([Greek: par' Eu)dê/mou tou=to labô/n]) not the circumstance, that Plato propounded the problem afterwards mentioned. From whom Sosigenes derived this last information, is not indicated. About his time, various fictions had gained credit in Egypt respecting the connection of Plato with Eudoxus, as we may see by the story of Strabo above cited. If Plato impressed upon others that which is here ascribed to him, he must have done so in conversation or oral discourse--for there is nothing in his written dialogues to that effect. Moreover, there is nothing in the dialogues to make us suppose that Plato adopted or approved the theory of Eudoxus. When Plato speaks of astronomy, either in the Republic, or in Leges, or in Epinomis, it is in a totally different spirit--not manifesting any care to save the astronomical phenomena. Both Aristotle himself (Metaphys. A. p. 1073 b.) and Simplikius, make it clear that Aristotle warmly espoused and enlarged the theory of Eudoxus. Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, did the same. But we do not hear that either Speusippus or Xenokrates (successor of Plato) took any interest in the theory. This is one remarkable point of divergence between Plato and the Platonists on one side--Aristotle and the Aristotelians on the other--and much to the honour of the latter: for the theory of Eudoxus, though erroneous, was a great step towards improved scientific conceptions on astronomy, and a great provocative to farther observation of astronomical facts.]

Though Plato demanded no money as a fee for admission of pupils, yet neither did he scruple to receive presents from rich men such as Dionysius, Dion, and others.[26] In the jests of Ephippus, Antiphanes, and other poets of the middle comedy, the pupils of Plato in the Academy are described as finely and delicately clad, nice in their persons even to affectation, with elegant caps and canes; which is the more to be noticed because the preceding comic poets derided Sokrates and his companions for qualities the very opposite--as prosing beggars, in mean attire and dirt.[27] Such students must have belonged to opulent families; and we may be sure that they requited their master by some valuable present, though no fee may have been formally demanded from them. Some conditions (though we do not know what) were doubtless required for admission. Moreover the example of Eudoxus shows that in some cases even ardent and promising pupils were practically repelled. At any rate, the teaching of Plato formed a marked contrast with that extreme and indiscriminate publicity which characterised the conversation of Sokrates, who passed his days in the market-place or in the public porticoes or palæstræ; while Plato both dwelt and discoursed in a quiet residence and garden a little way out of Athens. The title of Athens to be considered the training-city of Hellas (as Perikles had called her fifty years before), was fully sustained by the Athenian writers and teachers between 390-347; especially by Plato and Isokrates, the most celebrated and largely frequented. So many foreign pupils came to Isokrates that he affirms most of his pecuniary gains to have been derived from non-Athenians. Several of his pupils stayed with him three or four years. The like is doubtless true about the pupils of Plato.[28]

[Footnote 26: Plato, Epistol. xiii. p. 361, 362. We learn from this epistle that Plato received pecuniary remittances not merely from Dionysius, but also from other friends ([Greek: a)/llôn e)pitêdei/ôn]--361 C); that he employed these not only for choregies and other costly functions of his own, but also to provide dowry for female relatives, and presents to friends (363 A).]

[Footnote 27: See Meineke, Hist. Crit. Comic. Græc. p. 288, 289--and the extracts there given from Ephippus and Antiphanes--apud Athenæum, xi. 509, xii. 544. About the poverty and dirt which was reproached to Sokrates and his disciples, see the fragment of Ameipsias in Meineke, ibid. p. 203. Also Aristoph. Aves, 1555; Nubes, 827; and the Fragm. of Eupolis in Meineke, p. 552--[Greek: Misô= d' e)gô\ kai\ Sôkra/tên, to\n ptôcho\n a)dole/schên].

Meineke thinks that Aristophanes, in the Ekklesiazusæ, 646, and in the Plutus, 313, intends to ridicule Plato under the name of Aristyllus: Plato's name having been originally Aristokles. But I see no sufficient ground for this opinion.]

[Footnote 28: Perikles in the Funeral Oration (Thuc. ii. 41) calls Athens [Greek: tê=s E(lla/dos pai/deusin]: the same eulogium is repeated, with greater abundance of words, by Isokrates in his Panegyrical Oration (Or. iv. sect. 56, p. 51).

The declaration of Isokrates, that most of his money was acquired from foreign (non-Athenian) pupils, and the interesting fact that many of them not only stayed with him three or four years but were even then loth to depart, will be found in Orat. xv. De Permutatione, sect. 93-175. Plutarch (Vit. x. Orat. 838 E) goes so far as to say that Isokrates never required any pay from an Athenian pupil.

Nearly three centuries after Plato's decease, Cicero sent his son Marcus to Athens, where the son spent a considerable time, frequenting the lectures of the Peripatetic philosopher Kratippus. Young Cicero, in an interesting letter addressed to Tiro (Cic. Epist. Fam. xvi. 23), describes in animated terms both his admiration for the person and abilities, and his delight in the private society, of Kratippus. Several of Plato's pupils probably felt as much or more towards him.]

[Side-note: Visit of Plato to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse, 367 B.C. Second visit to the same--mortifying failure.]

It was in the year 367-366 that Plato was induced, by the earnest entreaties of Dion, to go from Athens to Syracuse, on a visit to the younger Dionysius, who had just become despot, succeeding to his father of the same name. Dionysius II., then very young, had manifested some dispositions towards philosophy, and prodigious admiration for Plato: who was encouraged by Dion to hope that he would have influence enough to bring about an amendment or thorough reform of the government at Syracuse. This ill-starred visit, with its momentous sequel, has been described in my 'History of Greece'. It not only failed completely, but made matters worse rather than better: Dionysius became violently alienated from Dion, and sent him into exile. Though turning a deaf ear to Plato's recommendations, he nevertheless liked his conversation, treated him with great respect, detained him for some time at Syracuse, and was prevailed upon, only by the philosopher's earnest entreaties, to send him home. Yet in spite of such uncomfortable experience Plato was induced, after a certain interval, again to leave Athens and pay a second visit to Dionysius, mainly in hopes of procuring the restoration of Dion. In this hope too he was disappointed, and was glad to return, after a longer stay than he wished, to Athens.

[Side-note: Expedition of Dion against Dionysius--sympathies of Plato and the Academy.]

[Side-note: Success, misconduct, and death of Dion.]

It was in 359 B.C. that Dion, aided by friends in Peloponnesus, and encouraged by warm sympathy and co-operation from many of Plato's pupils in the Academy,[29] equipped an armament against Dionysius. Notwithstanding the inadequacy of his force he had the good fortune to make himself master of Syracuse, being greatly favoured by the popular discontent of Syracusans against the reigning despot: but he did not know how to deal with the people, nor did he either satisfy their aspirations towards liberty, or realise his own engagements. Retaining in his hands a despotic power, similar in the main to that of Dionysius, he speedily became odious, and was assassinated by the treachery of Kallippus, his companion in arms as well as fellow-pupil of the Platonic Academy. The state of Syracuse, torn by the joint evils of anarchy and despotism, and partially recovered by Dionysius, became more unhappy than ever.

[Footnote 29: Plutarch, Dion, c. 22.

Xenokrates as well as Speusippus accompanied Plato to Sicily (Diog. L. iv. 6).

To show the warm interest taken, not only by Plato himself but also by the Platonic pupils in the Academy in the conduct of Dion after he had become master of Syracuse, Plutarch quotes both from the letter of Plato to Dion (which now stands fourth among the Epistolæ Platonicæ, p. 320) and also from a letter which he had read, written by Speusippus to Dion; in which Speusippus exhorts Dion emphatically to bless Sicily with good laws and government, "in order that he may glorify the Academy"--[Greek: o(/pôs . . . eu)klea= thê/sei tê\n A)kadêmi/an] (Plutarch, De Adulator. et Amic. c. 29, p. 70 A).]

[Side-note: Death of Plato, aged 80, 347 B.C.]

The visits of Plato to Dionysius were much censured, and his motives[30] misrepresented by unfriendly critics; and these reproaches were still further embittered by the entire failure of his hopes. The closing years of his long life were saddened by the disastrous turn of events at Syracuse, aggravated by the discreditable abuse of power and violent death of his intimate friend Dion, which brought dishonour both upon himself and upon the Academy. Nevertheless he lived to the age of eighty, and died in 348-347 B.C., leaving a competent property, which he bequeathed by a will still extant.[31] But his foundation, the Academy, did not die with him. It passed to his nephew Speusippus, who succeeded him as teacher, conductor of the school, or Scholarch: and was himself succeeded after eight years by Xenokrates of Chalkêdon: while another pupil of the Academy, Aristotle, after an absence of some years from Athens, returned thither and established a school of his own at the Lykeum, at another extremity of the city.

[Footnote 30: Themistius, Orat. xxiii. (Sophistes) p. 285 C; Aristeides, Orat. xlvi., [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 234-235; Apuleius, De Habit. Philos. Platon. p. 571.]

[Footnote 31: Diog. Laert. iii. 41-42. Seneca (Epist. 58) says that Plato died on the anniversary of his birth, in the month Thargelion.]

[Side-note: Scholars of Plato--Aristotle.]

The latter half of Plato's life in his native city must have been one of dignity and consideration, though not of any of political activity. He is said to have addressed the Dikastery as an advocate for the accused general Chabrias: and we are told that he discharged the expensive and showy functions of Chorêgus, with funds supplied by Dion.[32] Out of Athens also his reputation was very great. When he went to the Olympic festival of B.C. 360, he was an object of conspicuous attention and respect: he was visited by hearers, young men of rank and ambition, from the most distant Hellenic cities; and his advice was respectfully invoked both by Perdikkas in Macedonia and by Dionysius II. at Syracuse. During his last visit to Syracuse, it is said that some of the students in the Academy, among whom Aristotle is mentioned, became dissatisfied with his absence, and tried to set up a new school; but were prevented by Iphikrates and Chabrias, the powerful friends of Plato at Athens. This story is connected with alleged ingratitude on the part of Aristotle towards Plato, and with alleged repugnance on the part of Plato towards Aristotle.[33] The fact itself--that during Plato's absence in Sicily his students sought to provide for themselves instruction and discussion elsewhere--is neither surprising nor blameable. And as to Aristotle, there is ground for believing that he passed for an intimate friend and disciple of Plato, even during the last ten years of Plato's life. For we read that Aristotle, following speculations and principles of teaching of his own, on the subject of rhetoric, found himself at variance with Isokrates and the Isokratean school. Aristotle attacked Isokrates and his mode of dealing with the subject: upon which Kephisodôrus (one of the disciples of Isokrates) retaliated by attacking Plato and the Platonic Ideas, considering Aristotle as one of Plato's scholars and adherents.[34]

[Footnote 32: Plut. Aristeides, c. 1; Diog. Laert. iii. 23-24. Diogenes says that no other Athenian except Plato dared to speak publicly in defence of Chabrias; but this can hardly be correct, since Aristotle mentions another [Greek: sunê/goraos] named Lykoleon (Rhet. iii. 10, p. 1411, b. 6). We may fairly presume that the trial of Chabrias alluded to by Aristotle is the same as that alluded to by Diogenes, that which arose out of the wrongful occupation of Orôpus by the Thebans. If Plato appeared at the trial, I doubt whether it could have occurred in 366 B.C., as Clinton supposes; Plato must have been absent during that year in Sicily.

The anecdote given by Diogenes, in relation to Plato's appearance at this trial, deserves notice. Krobylus, one of the accusers, said to him, "Are you come to plead on behalf of another? Are not you aware that the hemlock of Sokrates is in store for you also?" Plato replied: "I affronted dangers formerly, when I went on military expedition, for my country, and I am prepared to affront them now in discharge of my duty to a friend" (iii. 24).

This anecdote is instructive, as it exhibits the continuance of the anti-philosophical antipathies at Athens among a considerable portion of the citizens, and as it goes to attest the military service rendered personally by Plato.

Diogenes (iii. 46) gives a long list of hearers; and Athenæus (xi. 506-509) enumerates several from different cities in Greece: Euphræus of Oreus (in Euboea), who acquired through Plato's recommendation great influence with Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, and who is said to have excluded from the society of that king every one ignorant of philosophy and geometry; Euagon of Lampsakus, Timæus of Kyzikus, Chæron of Pellênê, all of whom tried, and the last with success, to usurp the sceptre in their respective cities; Eudêmus of Cyprus; Kallippus the Athenian, fellow-learner with Dion in the Academy, afterwards his companion in his expedition to Sicily, ultimately his murderer; Herakleides and Python from Ænus in Thrace, Chion and Leonides, also Klearchus the despot from the Pontic Herakleia (Justin, xvi. 5).

Several of these examples seem to have been cited by the orator Democharês (nephew of Demosthenes) in his speech at Athens vindicating the law proposed by Sophokles for the expulsion of the philosophers from Athens (Athenæ. xi. 508 F), a speech delivered about 306 B.C. Plutarch compliments Plato for the active political liberators and tyrannicides who came forth from the Academy: he considers Plato as the real author and planner of the expedition of Dion against Dionysius, and expatiates on the delight which Plato must have derived from it--a supposition very incorrect (Plutarch, Non Posse Suav. p. 1097 B; adv. Kolôten, p. 1126 B-C).]

[Footnote 33: Aristokles, ap. Eusebium, Præp. Evang. xv. 2: Ælian, V. H. iii. 19: Aristeides, Or. 46, [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn] vol. ii. p. 324-325. Dindorf.

The friendship and reciprocity of service between Plato and Chabrias is an interesting fact. Compare Stahr, Aristotelia, vol. i. p. 50 seqq.

Cicero affirms, on the authority of the Epistles of Demosthenes, that Demosthenes describes himself as an assiduous hearer as well as reader of Plato (Cic. Brut. 31 121; Orat. 4, 15). I think this fact highly probable, but the epistles which Cicero read no longer exist. Among the five Epistles remaining, Plato is once mentioned with respect in the fifth (p. 1490), but this epistle is considered by most critics spurious.]

[Footnote 34: Numenius, ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xiv. 6, 9. [Greek: oi)êthei\s] (Kephisodôrus) [Greek: kata\ Pla/tôna to\n A)ristote/lên philosophei=n, e)pole/mei me\n A)ristote/lei, e)/balle de\ Pla/tôna], &c. This must have happened in the latter years of Plato's life, for Aristotle must have been at least twenty-five or twenty-six years of age when he engaged in such polemics. He was born in 384 B.C.]

[Side-note: Little known about Plato's personal history.]

Such is the sum of our information respecting Plato. Scanty as it is, we have not even the advantage of contemporary authority for any portion of it. We have no description of Plato from any contemporary author, friendly or adverse. It will be seen that after the death of Sokrates we know nothing about Plato as a man and a citizen, except the little which can be learnt from his few Epistles, all written when he was very old, and relating almost entirely to his peculiar relations with Dion and Dionysius. His dialogues, when we try to interpret them collectively, and gather from them general results as to the character and purposes of the author, suggest valuable arguments and perplexing doubts, but yield few solutions. In no one of the dialogues does Plato address us in his own person. In the Apology alone (which is not a dialogue) is he alluded to even as present: in the Phædon he is mentioned as absent from illness. Each of the dialogues, direct or indirect, is conducted from beginning to end by the persons whom he introduces.[35] Not one of the dialogues affords any positive internal evidence showing the date of its composition. In a few there are allusions to prove that they must have been composed at a period later than others, or later than some given event of known date; but nothing more can be positively established. Nor is there any good extraneous testimony to determine the date of any one among them. For the remark ascribed to Sokrates about the dialogue called Lysis (which remark, if authentic, would prove the dialogue to have been composed during the life-time of Sokrates) appears altogether untrustworthy. And the statement of some critics, that the Phædrus was Plato's earliest composition, is clearly nothing more than an inference (doubtful at best, and, in my judgment, erroneous) from its dithyrambic style and erotic subject.[36]

[Footnote 35: On this point Aristotle, in the dialogues which he composed, did not follow Plato's example. Aristotle introduced two or more persons debating a question, but he appeared in his own person to give the solution, or at least to wind up the debate. He sometimes also opened the debate by a prooem or prefatory address in his own person (Cic. ad Attic. iv. 16, 2, xiii. 19, 4). Cicero followed the manner of Aristotle, not that of Plato. His dialogues are rhetorical rather than dramatic.

All the dialogues of Aristotle are lost.]

[Footnote 36: Diog. L. iii. 38. Compare the Prolegomena [Greek: tê=s Pla/tônos Philosophi/as], c. 24, in the Appendix Platonica of K. F. Hermann's edition, p. 217.]