XENOPHON. 



XENOPHON. 



870 



Thimbron (B.C. 399). Immediately before giving up the troops, Xen 

 phon with a part of them made an expedition into the plain of th 

 Caicus, for the purpose of plundering a wealthy Persian name 

 Asidates. The Persian was taken, with his women, children, horse 

 and all that he had. Xenophon received a good share of the plunder 

 ('Anab.,' vii. 8, 23.) 



It is uncertain what Xenophon did after giving up the troops t 

 Thimbrou. He remarks (' Anab.,' vii. 7, 57), just before he speaks o 

 leading the troops back into Asia, that he^had not yet been banished 

 but as it is stated by various authorities that he was banished by th 

 Athenians because he joined the expedition of Cyrus against the Persian 

 king, who was then on friendly terms with the Athenians, it is mos 

 probable that the sentence of banishment was passed against him in 

 the year B.C. 399, in which Socrates was executed. It seems reason 

 able enough that the execution of Socrates should be followed o 

 accompanied by the banishment of his pupil, who was adding to hi 

 former offence that of putting troops in the hands of the Lacedse 

 monians to act against the Persian king. Letronne assumes, in th 

 absence of evidence, that he returned to Athens in B.C. 399. But it i 

 much more likely that he stayed with Thimbron, and with Dercyllidas 

 the successor of Thimbron ; and there are various passages in the 

 'Hellenica' which favour the conjecture. 



Agesilaus, king of Sparta, was sent with an army into Asia, B.C. 396 

 and Xenophon was with him during the whole, or part at least, of this 

 Asiatic expedition. Agesilaus was recalled to Greece B.C. 394, anc 

 Xenophon accompanied him on his return ('Anab.,' v. 3, 6), and h 

 was with Agesilaus in the battle against his own countrymen at Coro 

 neia, B.C. 394. According to Plutarch, he accompanied Agesilaus to 

 Sparta after the battle of Coroneia, and shortly after settled himself a 

 Scillus and Eleia, near Olympia, on a spot which the Lacedoemoniam 

 gave him, and here, it is said, he was joined by his wife Philesia anc 

 her children. Philesia was apparently the second wife of Xenophon 

 and he had probably married her in Asia. On the advice of Agesilaus 

 he sent his sons to Sparta to be educated. Thus Xenophon had 

 become an exile from his country for an act of treason, or what was 

 equivalent to treason; he had received a present of land from the 

 Lacedaemonians, the enemies of the Athenians, and he was educating 

 his children in Spartan usages. 



From this time Xenophon took no part in public affairs. He resided 

 at Scillus, where he spent his time in hunting, entertaining his friends, 

 and in writing some of his later works. Diogenes Laertius states that 

 he wrote here his histories, by which he must mean the 'Anabasis' 

 and the ' Hellenica,' and probably the ' Cyropaedia.' During his 

 residence here also he probably wrote the treatise on ' Hunting,' 

 and that on 'Biding.' The history of the remainder of his life is 

 somewhat doubtful. Diogenes says that the Eleians sent a force 

 against Scillus, and as the Lacedaemonians did not come to the 

 aid of Xenophon, they seized the place. Xenophon's son, with 

 some slaves, made their escape to Lepreum ; Xenophon himself 

 first went to Elis, for what purpose it is not said, and then to 

 Lepreum to meet his children. At last he withdrew to Corinth, and 

 he probably died there. The time of his expulsion from Scillus is 

 uncertain ; but it is a probable conjecture of Kriiger, that the Eleians 

 took Scillus not earlier than B.C. 371, in which year the Lacedae- 

 monians were defeated in the battle of Leuctra. Letronne fixes the 

 date at the year B.C. 368, though there is no authority for that precise 

 year; but he considers it most probable that the Eleians invaded 

 Scillus at the time when the Lacedaemonians were most engaged 

 with the Theban war, which would be during the invasion of Laconia 

 by Epaminondas. Xenophon must have lived above twenty years at 

 Scillus, if the date of his expulsion from that place is not before 

 the year B.C. 371. The sentence of banishment against Xenophon was 

 revoked by a decree proposed by Eubulus ; but the date of this decree 

 is uncertain. Before the battle of Mantineia, B.C. 362, the Athenians 

 had joined the Spartans against the Thebans. Upon this Xenophon 

 sent his two sons Gryllus and Diodorus to Athens, to fight on the 

 Spartan side against the Thebans. Gryllus fell in the battle of Man- 

 tineia, in which the Theban general Epaminondas also lost his life. 

 Letronne assumes that the decree for repealing the sentence of 

 banishment against Xenophon must have passed before B.C. 362, 

 because his two sons served in the Athenian army at the battle of 

 Mantineia. But this is not conclusive. Kriiger, for other reasons, 

 thinks that the sentence was repealed not later than 01. 103, which 

 would be before the battle of Mantineia. No reason ia assigned by any 

 ancient writer for Xenophon not returning to Athens : for in the absence 

 of direct evidence as to his return, we rnuat conclude that he did not. 

 Several of his works were written or completed after the revocation 

 of his sentence: the 'Hipparchicus;' the Epilogus to the 'Cyropaedia,' 

 if we assume that his sentence was revoked before B.C. 362 ; and the 

 treatise on the ' Revenues of Athens.' Stesicleides, quoted by Dio- 

 genes, places the death of Xenophon in B.C. 359 ; but there is much 

 uncertainty on this matter. (Clinton, 'Fast. Hellen.,' B.C. 359, and 

 bis remarks on the death of Alexander of Pherse.) Probably he died a 

 few years after B.C. 359. 



The extant works of Xenophon may be distributed into four classes : 

 Historical the 'Anabasis,' the 'Hellenica,' and the 'Cyropaedia,' 

 which however is not strictly historical, and the 'Life of Agesilaus;' 

 Didactic the ' Hipparchicus,' 'On Horsemanship,' and ' On Hunting;' 



but, like many other ancient productions of the same class, they are 

 not genuine. The works of Xenophon as enumerated by Diogenes 

 agree exactly with those which are extant, and we may therefore con- 

 clude that we have at least as many works as Xenophon published, 

 though all of them may not be genuine. It is true that Diogenea says 

 that Xenophon wrote about forty books (ftip\la), but he says that they 

 were variously divided, from which expression, and the list that he gives, 

 it is certain that by the Word biblia, he intends to reckon the several 

 divisions or books, as we call them, of the 'Anabasis,' 'Hellenica,' 

 ' Cyropaedia,' and ' Memorabilia,' as distinct biblia, and thus we have in 

 the whole the number of thirty-eight, which is near enough to forty. 



The editions of the collected works of Xenophon and of the separate 

 works are very numerous. The 'Hellenica' was the first work that 

 appeared. It was printed at Venice, folio, 1503, by the editor Aldus, 

 under the title of ' Paralipomena,' and as a supplement to his edition 

 of Thucydides, which was printed in 1502. The first edition of the 

 works of Xenophon was printed by P. Giunta, folio, Florence, 1516; 

 but the Agesilaus, the Apology, the treatise on the Revenues of 

 Athens, and a part of the treatise on the constitution of Athens are 

 wanting. The edition of Andrea of Asola, folio, 1525, contains every- 

 thing except the ' Apology.' The first complete edition of the works 

 of Xenophon was the Giunta edition of Hall, 3 vols. 8vo, 1540, with a 

 preface by Melanchthon, who also added the 'Apology,' which had 

 been edited by John Reuchlin (Capmo), 4to, at Hagenau, 1520. The 

 Basel edition of 1545, folio, printed by Nic. Brylinger, is the first 

 which contains the Greek text with the Latin version. The editions 

 of Henry Stephens, 1561, 1581, contain an amended text : the edition 

 of 1561 has no Latin version, but that of 1581 has. The editions 

 of Stephens were the foundation of the three editions of Johann Loe- 

 wenklau, 1572, commonly called Leunclavius, Basel, 1569, Frankfort, 

 1594, accompanied with the Latin version. The edition of B. Weiske, 

 6 vols. 8vo, Leipzig, 1798-1804, did nothing towards a new recension 

 of the text, though it is corrected in many places. The most pretend- 

 ing edition of all the works of Xenophon is that of Gail, on which it is 

 fair to take the opinion of hia own countryman Letronne. This edition. 

 is entitled '"QEuvres completes de Xe"nophon traduites en Fran9ais, 

 accompagnees du texte, de la version Latine, et de notes critiques/ 6 

 vols. 4to, 1797-1804. There is a seventh volume, in three parts, one 

 of which (1808) contains the various readings of three manuscripts; a 

 second (1814) contains the notices of the manuscripts, and observations, 

 literary and critical ; and the third an Atlas of maps and plans. 

 Gail has kept to the old text, and has made no use of his various 

 readings for improving it. His literary and critical observations, in 

 which he discusses certain difficult passages, are more useful for the 

 understanding of Xenophon than for the correction of the text. The 

 convenient division into paragraphs has unfortunately been only 

 adopted in the last volume, which contains the ' Memorabilia,' the 

 ;reatise on Hunting, and the * (Economic.' The Latin version is 

 that of Leunclavius, which is corrected in some passages. The French 

 version is only new in parts. The author acknowledges that he has 

 ;aken those of the 'Cyropaedia,' the ' Memorabilia,' and the 'Anabasis,' 

 jy Dacier, Leveque, and Larcher, with some few alterations, made, as 

 le says, for the following reason : 'I was induced to copy these 

 ;hree versions; but the publisher of one of these three versions 

 mving given me notice of certain claims of his own (des preventions), 

 ;o avoid all discussion, I made some alterations." There are indexes of 

 the contents of each volume, except the first, which has only a title of 

 jhe chapters, and that very insufficient," &c. This is very moderate 

 >raise, but it ia quite as much as Gail's pompous edition deserves. 

 Zeune published an edition of the various works of Xenophon, except 

 .he 'Hellenica,' between 1778 and 1785, in 5 vols. 8vo. Schneider 

 revised this edition : he published the 'Hellenica' in 1791 ; the 'Me- 

 morabilia' in 1790 and 1801; the ' Cyropaedia ' in 1800; the ' Oeco- 

 lomic' and the 'Agesilaus' in 1805; the 'Anabasis' in 1806; and 

 he Political minor works in 1815. 



The ' Anabasis ' ('Avdflaa-is), in seven books, is the work by which 

 .enophon is best known. It contains the history of the expedition of 

 he younger Cyrus against his brother Artaxerxes Mnemon, and the 

 etreat of the Greeks who accompanied him. The first book contains 

 he march of Cyrus to the neighbourhood of Babylon, and ends with 

 us death at the battle of Cunaxa. The remaining six books contain 

 he account of the retreat of the Ten Thousand, as the Greek army 

 s often called. The work is written in an easy agreeable style, and 

 s full of interest as being a minute detail by an eye-witness of the 

 azards and adventures of the army in their difficult march through 

 n unknown and hostile country. The impression which it makes is 

 avourable to the writer's veracity and his practical good sense; but 

 s a history of military operations, it is as much inferior to the only 

 ,vork of antiquity with which it can be compared, the ' Commentaries ' 

 f Csesar, as the writer himself falls short of the lofty genius of the 

 reat Roman commander. There are numerous editions of the ' Ana- 

 asis,' which have merit enough so far as concerns the critical handling 

 f the text, but not one of them contains a sufficient commentary, 

 'he work of Major Rennell is still the best commentary, ' Illustrations 



