Paul Cartledge describes Xenephon's Socrates (as depicted in the Memorabilia) as orthodox and boring, which is true. I have not yet pushed myself to finish Xenephon's Socratic dialogues
for this reason.
Showing posts with label Xenephon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xenephon. Show all posts
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Appetitive: Xenephon
Three of my favorite classical scholars gathered together to discuss Xenephon on Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time: Paul Cartledge, Edith Hall, and Simon Goldhill. I am listening to it right now. You can listen to it here.
Paul Cartledge describes Xenephon's Socrates (as depicted in the Memorabilia) as orthodox and boring, which is true. I have not yet pushed myself to finish Xenephon's Socratic dialogues for this reason.
Enjoy the podcast!
Paul Cartledge describes Xenephon's Socrates (as depicted in the Memorabilia) as orthodox and boring, which is true. I have not yet pushed myself to finish Xenephon's Socratic dialogues
for this reason.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Reasoning: Vlastos' Socratic Studies #4
In a combination continuation of the chain of blogposts on Gregory Vlastos' Socratic Studies
as well as a follow-up to yesterday's note on Gregory Vlastos and the historical Socrates. The fourth essay in the collection is "The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy."
Vlastos begins the essay with his two principle theses:
This thesis makes a lot of sense. Plato spent much of his career defending his Socrates from the charge that he educated Alcibiades and the Thirty Tyrants and taught them their unscrupulous and cruel ways [2]. Xenephon, according to the introduction of Penguin edition of Xenephon's Socratic dialogues, was exiled from Athens because of his elitist tendencies (Waterfield 7) both because of his own political proclivities, but also because he was one of Socrates' students, all of whom were under suspicion (Waterfield 6-7) [3]. Using only Xenephon as a source to corroborate the second prong of this first thesis seems problematic as Xenephon (at least in my view) sticks a lot of his own elitist political viewpoints in Socrates' mouth. This is not to say that Socrates was pro-democracy-- I have no basis on which to assert his political views-- but it seems that using Xenephon and Xenephon alone for this provides a warped view.
Vlastos spends the rest of the essay trying to prove his second thesis--that Socretes was pro-democratic government. He starts by looking at the evidence in Crito, where Socrates and him speaking as a personified form of the Laws of Athens attest his love of Athens, even above "well-ordered" oligarchies such as Thebes, Megara, Crete, and Sparta. The rest of the essay is essentially a proof by contradiction. He explains that the only way to establish the premise in the Crito is false would be to establish one of two other premises:
Vlastos argues that if there he cannot dig up evidence for either of these premises, than the pro-Athenian testimony from the Crito stands.
I think this is a perfectly irrational way to attempt to prove something for two reasons. First, this procedure for proving a claim is untenable, especially for ancient ideas. Proving by lack is difficult enough to do in the first place, because it requires the assumption that what one believes is true, until someone else finds a piece of evidence that challenges the work. To use this method in an ancient text is ridiculous, because there is always the possibility that the evidence necessary is now lost or will not be found until some later time. The fact that such evidence does not exist may be simply due to scribal error or disintegrating documents rather than truth.
Second, even if one is to buy the premise, for which Vlastos argues extensively elsewhere [5], that the "Socratic Dialogues" form a unit and endeavor to recreate the philosophy of historical Socrates, the Crito does not mean that Socrates was a particular proponent of Athenian democracy. On it's most basic level, the argument in the Crito is on of a social contract: Socrates has lived in the city all these years and has benefited from it's people and it's protection and raised his children there, so in return he must obey the laws that govern the city just like any other citizen. If we take into account Vlastos' argument that the historical Socrates and the Socrates from the "Socratic Dialogues" is only a moral philosopher (Vlastos 101), then this makes sense; Socrates is not endorsing a political political system, but instead a moral contract with the state, irrespective of the form of rule that governs it.
Third, in my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the "Socratic Dialogues" are a group, nor that Plato tried to recreate the historical Socrates at all. A dialogue in which a character called Socrates, who somewhat resembles an historical figure, was a genre in itself. Plato, although only one of two authors of extant dialogues, was only one of at least thirteen authors who actually wrote Socratic Dialogues. Just because the main speaker is named Socrates does not hold any bearing over whether the Socratic dialogues portray Socratic philosophy as the historical Socrates might have practiced it. Vlastos rests much of his argument on the assumption that there are three distinct stages of dialogue in the Platonic corpus. I argue in the soon-to-be-complete series of blogposts on "Dates in the Platonic Corpus" that this is not the case.
Over the next few pages, Vlastos argues that in the moments where Socrates criticizes Athens in the Apology and the Gorgias that he is merely criticizing the people not following the laws rather than the democratic procedures themselves. He argues that this means that the preference expressed in Crito is not "contradicted by the other sentiments expressed by Socrates elsewhere in Plato's Socratic dialogues" (Vlastos 93) and so he has fulfilled his first obligation in proving the second thesis.
Next, Vlastos tackles Xenephon's Socrates. Unlike Plato's, Xenephon's Socrates cannot be called a crypto-oligarch, but is easily in the oligarchic camp. Most importantly in this, statecraft is a "royal art" that can only be exercised by an elite group, and hence cannot operate in a system chosen by lot. So, as Vlastos sees is, Plato and Xenephon's Socrates are diametrically opposed. So now, if there is a reason to prefer Xenephon's view over Plato's than Vlastos' second thesis is proven false. Oddly enough, Vlastos does not tackle the argument of whose Socrates is more accurate (which he does in other texts). Instead, he faces the question as to whether governing is a "royal art" in Plato as well.
In Plato, Vlastos contends, Socrates may think that virtue is a "royal art," but he believes it is one that is necessary for all persons, regardless of their station or disposition, to practice and lead an examined life governed by moral knowledge (Vlastos 105). He claims that this Socrates considers the necessary wisdom with which people act to be a moral rather than a political statement. Vlastos then says that although he believes the Socrates of Plato is more accurate, a declaration of his faith is not convincing and he leaves the essay with two historical tidbits.
The problems I have with this argument are numerous. For the present moment I will stick with the procedural ones: Vlastos simply does not fulfill the things he lays out as necessary to prove his point. He says at the beginning that if Xenephon provides evidence of Socrates' oligarchic tendencies and if Xenephon can be proven to be more historically important/accurate than Plato, than Vlastos' second thesis is false. Instead, Vlastos sidesteps the essential last argument as to which of the two authors the audience should consider as more important because he claims it would be a "declaration of faith." As such, he cannot fulfill his second premise, and he cannot prove his second thesis.
He ends the essay with two historical "crumbs": first that Socrates taught and consorted closely with Chaerephon, an ardent democrat, and second that Lysias, who was also pro-democratic, is thought to have written an Apology of Socrates (now lost) in the few years following Socrates' execution (Vlastos 108).
The problem with these last two "crumbs" is that Socrates also consorted with anti-democratic proponants including Critias, Charmides, and Xenephon. d
Endnotes
as well as a follow-up to yesterday's note on Gregory Vlastos and the historical Socrates. The fourth essay in the collection is "The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy." - "In his own time and place Socrates was widely percieved as μισόδημος, i.e. as antipopulist (literally as a people-hater)" (Vlastos
- "This public perception of him was a misperception: he had not been the crypto-oligarch many had thought he was" (Vlastos
This thesis makes a lot of sense. Plato spent much of his career defending his Socrates from the charge that he educated Alcibiades and the Thirty Tyrants and taught them their unscrupulous and cruel ways [2]. Xenephon, according to the introduction of Penguin edition of Xenephon's Socratic dialogues
, was exiled from Athens because of his elitist tendencies (Waterfield 7) both because of his own political proclivities, but also because he was one of Socrates' students, all of whom were under suspicion (Waterfield 6-7) [3]. Using only Xenephon as a source to corroborate the second prong of this first thesis seems problematic as Xenephon (at least in my view) sticks a lot of his own elitist political viewpoints in Socrates' mouth. This is not to say that Socrates was pro-democracy-- I have no basis on which to assert his political views-- but it seems that using Xenephon and Xenephon alone for this provides a warped view.Vlastos spends the rest of the essay trying to prove his second thesis--that Socretes was pro-democratic government. He starts by looking at the evidence in Crito, where Socrates and him speaking as a personified form of the Laws of Athens attest his love of Athens, even above "well-ordered" oligarchies such as Thebes, Megara, Crete, and Sparta. The rest of the essay is essentially a proof by contradiction. He explains that the only way to establish the premise in the Crito is false would be to establish one of two other premises:
- "That this preference is contradicted by the other sentiments expressed by Socrates elsewhere in Plato's Socratic dialogues" [4] (Vlastos 93).
- "This it is contradicted by opinions voiced by Socrates in Xenophon, our other major source, and that we have evidence independent of both Xenophon and Plato for rating Xenophon's credibility more highly than Plato's" (Vlastos 93).
Vlastos argues that if there he cannot dig up evidence for either of these premises, than the pro-Athenian testimony from the Crito stands.
I think this is a perfectly irrational way to attempt to prove something for two reasons. First, this procedure for proving a claim is untenable, especially for ancient ideas. Proving by lack is difficult enough to do in the first place, because it requires the assumption that what one believes is true, until someone else finds a piece of evidence that challenges the work. To use this method in an ancient text is ridiculous, because there is always the possibility that the evidence necessary is now lost or will not be found until some later time. The fact that such evidence does not exist may be simply due to scribal error or disintegrating documents rather than truth.
Second, even if one is to buy the premise, for which Vlastos argues extensively elsewhere [5], that the "Socratic Dialogues" form a unit and endeavor to recreate the philosophy of historical Socrates, the Crito does not mean that Socrates was a particular proponent of Athenian democracy. On it's most basic level, the argument in the Crito is on of a social contract: Socrates has lived in the city all these years and has benefited from it's people and it's protection and raised his children there, so in return he must obey the laws that govern the city just like any other citizen. If we take into account Vlastos' argument that the historical Socrates and the Socrates from the "Socratic Dialogues" is only a moral philosopher (Vlastos 101), then this makes sense; Socrates is not endorsing a political political system, but instead a moral contract with the state, irrespective of the form of rule that governs it.
Third, in my opinion, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the "Socratic Dialogues" are a group, nor that Plato tried to recreate the historical Socrates at all. A dialogue in which a character called Socrates, who somewhat resembles an historical figure, was a genre in itself. Plato, although only one of two authors of extant dialogues, was only one of at least thirteen authors who actually wrote Socratic Dialogues. Just because the main speaker is named Socrates does not hold any bearing over whether the Socratic dialogues portray Socratic philosophy as the historical Socrates might have practiced it. Vlastos rests much of his argument on the assumption that there are three distinct stages of dialogue in the Platonic corpus. I argue in the soon-to-be-complete series of blogposts on "Dates in the Platonic Corpus" that this is not the case.
Over the next few pages, Vlastos argues that in the moments where Socrates criticizes Athens in the Apology and the Gorgias that he is merely criticizing the people not following the laws rather than the democratic procedures themselves. He argues that this means that the preference expressed in Crito is not "contradicted by the other sentiments expressed by Socrates elsewhere in Plato's Socratic dialogues" (Vlastos 93) and so he has fulfilled his first obligation in proving the second thesis.
Next, Vlastos tackles Xenephon's Socrates. Unlike Plato's, Xenephon's Socrates cannot be called a crypto-oligarch, but is easily in the oligarchic camp. Most importantly in this, statecraft is a "royal art" that can only be exercised by an elite group, and hence cannot operate in a system chosen by lot. So, as Vlastos sees is, Plato and Xenephon's Socrates are diametrically opposed. So now, if there is a reason to prefer Xenephon's view over Plato's than Vlastos' second thesis is proven false. Oddly enough, Vlastos does not tackle the argument of whose Socrates is more accurate (which he does in other texts). Instead, he faces the question as to whether governing is a "royal art" in Plato as well.
In Plato, Vlastos contends, Socrates may think that virtue is a "royal art," but he believes it is one that is necessary for all persons, regardless of their station or disposition, to practice and lead an examined life governed by moral knowledge (Vlastos 105). He claims that this Socrates considers the necessary wisdom with which people act to be a moral rather than a political statement. Vlastos then says that although he believes the Socrates of Plato is more accurate, a declaration of his faith is not convincing and he leaves the essay with two historical tidbits.
The problems I have with this argument are numerous. For the present moment I will stick with the procedural ones: Vlastos simply does not fulfill the things he lays out as necessary to prove his point. He says at the beginning that if Xenephon provides evidence of Socrates' oligarchic tendencies and if Xenephon can be proven to be more historically important/accurate than Plato, than Vlastos' second thesis is false. Instead, Vlastos sidesteps the essential last argument as to which of the two authors the audience should consider as more important because he claims it would be a "declaration of faith." As such, he cannot fulfill his second premise, and he cannot prove his second thesis.
He ends the essay with two historical "crumbs": first that Socrates taught and consorted closely with Chaerephon, an ardent democrat, and second that Lysias, who was also pro-democratic, is thought to have written an Apology of Socrates (now lost) in the few years following Socrates' execution (Vlastos
108).The problem with these last two "crumbs" is that Socrates also consorted with anti-democratic proponants including Critias, Charmides, and Xenephon. d
Endnotes
- The Thirty Tyrants were a group of Sparta-sympathetic oligarchs installed by Sparta to rule Athens following the Peloponnesian Wars and they were kicked out of Athens a few years before Socrates' death. For more information, see Perseus or Wikipedia.
- See Symposium, Charmides, and Republic (Book 6 I think).
- I discussed this briefly in a blogpost musing on Xenephon.
- By the "Socratic Dialogues," Vlastos refers to the "early" elenchic dialogues: "Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Lysis, Menexenus, Protagoras, and Republic [Book] I [only]" (Vlastos 135), in which he believes Plato reconstructed the philosophy (although not actual historical circumstances) of the historical Socrates.
- This argument is the focus of "Socrates contra Socrates" from Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher
.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Appetitive: Bread in Anicent Greece
As I abandoned my work on reading Μήδεια
this morning to bake some bread, I thought I should investigate bread in the ancient world. Amusingly, most what I know about Ancient Greek cooking comes from Plato and Xenephon. In the Republic, Plato describes the healthy city, the minimalist city with which he and his interlocutors begin their discussion, as being essentially vegetarian. The feverish or unhealthy city that follows it in the discussion not only lets in actors and prostitutes but also brings in meat alongside the bread, vegetables, and porridge of the more primitive version. In Xenephon's account of the Symposium, Socrates questions a young man who takes too much "savory," which I presume is a chunky stew or stirfry of some kind, with his bread. This method of eating appears to make the eater immoderate, pleasure seeking, and troublesome in Xenephon's eyes [1].
There is actually a concise, but sadly rather short, description of the varieties of Greek bread on Wikipedia. Apparently, according to the article, Solon ordained that leavened bread should be reserved for special occasion, and bread was leavened with a yeast coming from wine fermentation.
Another random factoid from my memory is that in Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History
, the authors alledge that the ancient Greeks did not like the taste of butter. My first question was, "how would you know?"
this morning to bake some bread, I thought I should investigate bread in the ancient world. Amusingly, most what I know about Ancient Greek cooking comes from Plato and Xenephon. In the Republic, Plato describes the healthy city, the minimalist city with which he and his interlocutors begin their discussion, as being essentially vegetarian. The feverish or unhealthy city that follows it in the discussion not only lets in actors and prostitutes but also brings in meat alongside the bread, vegetables, and porridge of the more primitive version. In Xenephon's account of the Symposium, Socrates questions a young man who takes too much "savory," which I presume is a chunky stew or stirfry of some kind, with his bread. This method of eating appears to make the eater immoderate, pleasure seeking, and troublesome in Xenephon's eyes [1].There is actually a concise, but sadly rather short, description of the varieties of Greek bread on Wikipedia. Apparently, according to the article, Solon ordained that leavened bread should be reserved for special occasion, and bread was leavened with a yeast coming from wine fermentation.
Another random factoid from my memory is that in Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History
, the authors alledge that the ancient Greeks did not like the taste of butter. My first question was, "how would you know?"Endnotes
- I apologize for my lack of citation but I am doing this from memory. I will hopefully come back and add the section numbers at some point.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Reasoning/Spirited: Dates in the Platonic Corpus #1
There was a great comment on my blog [1] the other day concerning dramatic and compositional dating of Plato (and specifically Plato's Laws
) which I thought merited a significantly longer answer than I provided it. So this post will be the long version of my discussion about dating the Platonic corpus. I thought I would provide a brief introduction to the reasons that dating the Platonic corpus is helpful for Plato scholarship before I launched into my own (and Zuckert's
) thoughts about creating a chronology.
Why Dating the Platonic Corpus is Important: Over the last few centuries, scholars have noticed that the ideas which emerge from Plato's dialogues as well as Socrates' character (and his importance as a speaker) change radically throughout the Platonic corpus. In the early 19th century, Friedrich Schleiermacher postulated the evolutionary hypothesis in an attempt to account for these differences in the texts, which proposes that Plato's ideas about philosophy changed as he grew older. Many 19th and 20th century Plato scholars have followed this (Zuckert 2) and many of them have tried to verify or update this theory with stylometric evidence [2]. These dates are the compositional dates, i.e. the dates when Plato wrote each of the dialogues.
A second way to evaluate the dates of the dialogue is through dramatic dating, i.e. the dates when the conversations are supposed to have taken place. These dates can gleaned through certain types of references, the age of Socrates, and the age and/or presence of particular interlocutors. Some of these dates are more difficult to determine, either because there are few or only vague datable references, or because there is no possible time that the conversation could have taken place (e.g. the Phaedrus
[3]), but most of them can be assigned some sort of approximate date (even with the slight historical inconsistencies) [4]. These dramatic dates are important for a number of reasons. Some scholars believe that some of the elenctic dialogues may have actually occurred [5]. More importantly, in my mind, these dialogues are set in particular historical moments which provide a context for the arguments being made. Although these arguments may not have-- and probably were not-- made during the years in which they are dramatically dated, they may shed some light on the context in which the contemporary audience would have viewed the dialogues and the arguments contained within. To me, it seems that being dialogues with specific characters and settings, the audience can mine much more information out of them if we assume that those characters and contexts have some meaning.
For me, both types of dating are important. Each one sheds some light on the related concepts of philosophical interpretation and historical context. Compositional dating has philosophical importance insofar as it gives the reader an understanding of the context in which the philosophical ideas were written. Also, if those who believe in the evolutionary model of the Platonic corpus are correct, it could show the audience the changes throughout Plato's philosophy over his lifetime. I do not agree with the evolutionary hypothesis, but my arguments will come in the next section. It also allows us to compare the Plato's Socratic dialogues with those written by Xenephon. In terms of dramatic date, the historical situating of the Socratic dialogues is important because it must have influenced the contemporary readers philosophical interpretations of the arguments within. Furthermore, it possibly gives us some possible historical background on the people and events mentioned [6].
My Thoughts on Dating the Platonic Corpus: in a subsequent blogpost.
Endnotes
) which I thought merited a significantly longer answer than I provided it. So this post will be the long version of my discussion about dating the Platonic corpus. I thought I would provide a brief introduction to the reasons that dating the Platonic corpus is helpful for Plato scholarship before I launched into my own (and Zuckert's) thoughts about creating a chronology.Why Dating the Platonic Corpus is Important: Over the last few centuries, scholars have noticed that the ideas which emerge from Plato's dialogues as well as Socrates' character (and his importance as a speaker) change radically throughout the Platonic corpus. In the early 19th century, Friedrich Schleiermacher postulated the evolutionary hypothesis in an attempt to account for these differences in the texts, which proposes that Plato's ideas about philosophy changed as he grew older. Many 19th and 20th century Plato scholars have followed this (Zuckert
2) and many of them have tried to verify or update this theory with stylometric evidence [2]. These dates are the compositional dates, i.e. the dates when Plato wrote each of the dialogues.A second way to evaluate the dates of the dialogue is through dramatic dating, i.e. the dates when the conversations are supposed to have taken place. These dates can gleaned through certain types of references, the age of Socrates, and the age and/or presence of particular interlocutors. Some of these dates are more difficult to determine, either because there are few or only vague datable references, or because there is no possible time that the conversation could have taken place (e.g. the Phaedrus
[3]), but most of them can be assigned some sort of approximate date (even with the slight historical inconsistencies) [4]. These dramatic dates are important for a number of reasons. Some scholars believe that some of the elenctic dialogues may have actually occurred [5]. More importantly, in my mind, these dialogues are set in particular historical moments which provide a context for the arguments being made. Although these arguments may not have-- and probably were not-- made during the years in which they are dramatically dated, they may shed some light on the context in which the contemporary audience would have viewed the dialogues and the arguments contained within. To me, it seems that being dialogues with specific characters and settings, the audience can mine much more information out of them if we assume that those characters and contexts have some meaning.For me, both types of dating are important. Each one sheds some light on the related concepts of philosophical interpretation and historical context. Compositional dating has philosophical importance insofar as it gives the reader an understanding of the context in which the philosophical ideas were written. Also, if those who believe in the evolutionary model of the Platonic corpus are correct, it could show the audience the changes throughout Plato's philosophy over his lifetime. I do not agree with the evolutionary hypothesis, but my arguments will come in the next section. It also allows us to compare the Plato's Socratic dialogues with those written by Xenephon. In terms of dramatic date, the historical situating of the Socratic dialogues is important because it must have influenced the contemporary readers philosophical interpretations of the arguments within. Furthermore, it possibly gives us some possible historical background on the people and events mentioned [6].
My Thoughts on Dating the Platonic Corpus: in a subsequent blogpost.
The person who commented said something about 408 as a possible dramatic date of the Laws. Does anyone know anything about this hypothesis. I am really interested to look into it.
Endnotes
- Please note that I slightly edited the first paragraph of this blogpost because I realized it was unclear (based on the comment I received). It is not changed in argument; I simply tried to clarify my point by expounding.
- Stylometry is the study of linguistic style. Scholars have employed surveys of word-choice, article use, particle use, elision, etc in order to determine the possible order of the Platonic corpus. For a short survey, see Leonard Brandwood's "Stylometry and Chronology" in Cambridge Companion to Plato
(CCO).
- Due to historical evidence about Lysias ans Polemarchus, the dialogue must take place between 412/411 and 404. However, Phaedrus remained in exile during the entirety of this period (Rowe
- There are four dialogues for which Zuckert
- When I say "elenctic dialogues" I borrow a term from Gregory Vlastos
- Many scholars of tragedy look to Plato for evidence in terms of the years when Plato was writing, but the discussion of his characters could provide some tentative evidence for the times in which he set these dialogues rather than when he composed them.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Appetitive/Reasoning: Landmark Editions and Xenenphon
Looking for the Landmark Herodotus
to put in my last blogpost, when I happened upon the newest book in the landmark series, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander
. Although Alexander's campaigns and the Hellenistic world are not my area of expertise or interest, I think the Landmark Series is incredible, and I am glad that they are branching out.
As someone who is not a particularly adept historian, the Landmark Herodotus and Thucydides
have been invaluable tools for my classes on the two texts because they provide so much context (and most importantly, maps). As I mentioned in my last blogpost, Robert Strassler, the editor of the Landmark Series, is giving a free talk on Herodotus on May 10th for the Marathon 2500 project (online).
I have vaguely considered whether or not I would like the Landmark Hellenika
(Xenophon) since my wonderful Greek History professor mentioned that Xenophon intended to finish Thucydides' unfinished work. After finishing my thesis on Plato and reading 20 of the 35 dialogues that were attributed to Plato, I decided to read Xenophon's Conversations of Socrates. It seemed to me that I should read the only other surviving work of the once popular genre of the Socratic Dialogue. However, I found that although Xenephon provides interesting fodder for a comparison to Plato, his works lack the character depth, humor, and subtlety of Plato's works and is both stilted and boring.
Most of the humor comes from laughing at Xenephon, whose Socrates feels like a bizarre melding of Socrates' caricatured personality and Xenephon's aristocratic and prudish moralizing. There are places where Socrates inserts phrases such as "and that is how best to run an estate" in a similar way to Aeschylus' insertion of "I lost my little oil bottle" into Euripides' prologues in Aristophanes' Frogs
[1]. However, I realize that Xenephon is a valuable historical and literary source, especially because of his version of the Constitution of the Lakedaemonians [2] and his attempt to finish the story of the Peloponnesian Wars.
to put in my last blogpost, when I happened upon the newest book in the landmark series, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander. Although Alexander's campaigns and the Hellenistic world are not my area of expertise or interest, I think the Landmark Series is incredible, and I am glad that they are branching out.As someone who is not a particularly adept historian, the Landmark Herodotus
and Thucydides have been invaluable tools for my classes on the two texts because they provide so much context (and most importantly, maps). As I mentioned in my last blogpost, Robert Strassler, the editor of the Landmark Series, is giving a free talk on Herodotus on May 10th for the Marathon 2500 project (online). I have vaguely considered whether or not I would like the Landmark Hellenika
(Xenophon) since my wonderful Greek History professor mentioned that Xenophon intended to finish Thucydides' unfinished work. After finishing my thesis on Plato and reading 20 of the 35 dialogues that were attributed to Plato, I decided to read Xenophon's Conversations of Socrates. It seemed to me that I should read the only other surviving work of the once popular genre of the Socratic Dialogue. However, I found that although Xenephon provides interesting fodder for a comparison to Plato, his works lack the character depth, humor, and subtlety of Plato's works and is both stilted and boring.Most of the humor comes from laughing at Xenephon, whose Socrates feels like a bizarre melding of Socrates' caricatured personality and Xenephon's aristocratic and prudish moralizing. There are places where Socrates inserts phrases such as "and that is how best to run an estate" in a similar way to Aeschylus' insertion of "I lost my little oil bottle" into Euripides' prologues in Aristophanes' Frogs
[1]. However, I realize that Xenephon is a valuable historical and literary source, especially because of his version of the Constitution of the Lakedaemonians [2] and his attempt to finish the story of the Peloponnesian Wars.Endnotes
- This is my all-time favorite ancient comedy and the scene I reference is particularly hilarious. I highly suggest it (although definitely read it with a cometary that explains the political references). You can download a free copy of the Greek from Project Gutenberg and a free copy of the English from Project Gutenberg (although I cannot vouch for the quality of the translation).
- Which can be found online here or, I think, can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
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