CHAPTER XXV

XENOPHON AND OTHER HISTORIANS

Xenophon, about 430 to about 354 B. C.-His life and works-His literary qualities—Philistus, about 430–356 B. c.—Ephorus, first half of the fourth century to about 320 B. C.-Theopompus, about 380-(?)— Writers of Atthides-Philochorus, about 306–260 в. c.-Æneas Tacticus, about 350 B. C.

XENOPHON, who has sometimes been classed among the philosophers as well as among the historians, but who is rather to be regarded as an essayist, is better Xenophon. known to us as a man than almost any other Greek writer. He was the son of Gryllus and Diodora and belonged to a well-to-do family of the Attic deme of Erchia. A story that Socrates saved his life at the battle of Delium in 424 B. C., which has caused some scholars to think that he was born about 445 B. C., is undoubtedly a fiction. Xenophon himself (Anabasis, III, 1) says that in 401 B. C. he hesitated because of his youth to assume the command of the Greeks whose generals had been murdered by the Persians. We happen to know that one of the murdered generals was only thirty years old, from which it appears that Xenophon can hardly have been older. Elsewhere, too, he speaks of his youth. We may therefore assume that he was born not far from 430 B. C. He received a good education and became at an early age a follower of Socrates, whose influence lasted throughout his life. In 401 B. C. the young Persian prince Cyrus was preparing an expedition to dethrone his elder brother, Artaxerxes II, and was

gathering a force of over ten thousand Greek mercenaries. Xenophon, at that time a young man eager for adventure. and experience, accepted the invitation of his friend Proxenus, a Bœotian, to join the expedition as an independent volunteer, neither officer nor private soldier.

The Anabasis.

The story of this expedition is told by Xenophon in the Anabasis, in seven books. The title means March up from the seacoast to the interior, but after the second book the work describes the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks from the heart of the Persian Empire to the coast, for Cyrus was killed in September, 401 B. C., in a battle at Cunaxa, near Babylon, and the Greeks, deserted by their allies, were left, a little band of ten thousand in the midst of a vast empire of enemies, and were obliged to force their way to the sea. Five of the Greek leaders were treacherously murdered soon after the death of Cyrus, and the Greeks were in the greatest danger. Then Xenophon, moved by a dream, called the remaining leaders together and encouraged them by a practical and courageous speech. New generals were chosen, Xenophon among them, and the next day the retreat began. Followed and harassed by the Persian troops, the Greeks marched up the course of the Tigris into the country of the Carduchi (Kurds), warlike highlanders, who opposed their passage by rolling stones down upon them as they struggled through the mountain passes, then forced their way through Armenia, until at last, in February, 400 B. C., after some five months of constant marching and fighting, they saw before them the waters of the Black Sea, and with the glad shout, "The sea! the sea!" burst into tears of joy, for now they knew that nothing could keep them from their native land and kindred. Against the will of the Persians, a small force of Greeks had marched for months through Persian territory, showing how vastly superior they were to the Asiatics, and how weak the Persian Empire really was. In two days the Greeks reached Trapezus, a Greek colony,

and sacrificed thank-offerings to Zeus the Preserver and Heracles the Guide. From Trapezus, Xenophon led his force, still 8,600 strong, to Byzantium, and thence, after a service of two months under the Thracian prince Seuthes, to Pergamum, in the Troad, where they joined the army of the Lacedæmonian Thimbron, who was fighting against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus.

His later life.

There Xenophon left them and returned to Greece, probably to Athens; but soon his adventurous spirit sent him to the field again, and in 396 B. C. he joined the army of King Agesilaus of Sparta, who was put in charge of the war against the Persians. When Agesilaus was recalled to Greece by the alliance of Thebes and Athens against Sparta, Xenophon accompanied him, and was present at the battle of Coronea in 394 B. C. Immediately after this, if not before, he was banished from Athens, and went to live at Scillus, near Olympia, in the territory of Elis, on an estate given him by the Spartans. Here he lived as a rich country gentleman, with his wife, Philesia, and his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, passing his time in hunting, entertaining his friends, and writing. His estate was large, containing woods, in which he hunted with his friends and neighbors, and beside a little stream was a temple of the Ephesian Artemis, which he had built and maintained in performance of a vow. All this he himself describes in the fifth book of the Anabasis (V, 3, 813). In 371 Scillus was ravaged by the Eleans, then at war with the Spartans, and Xenophon withdrew to Corinth. At some time, probably in 365, the decree of banishment against him was rescinded, and he probably returned to Athens. In 362 his sons, Diodorus and Gryllus, were among the Athenian cavalry at the battle of Mantinea, and Gryllus was killed fighting bravely. The date of Xenophon's death is unknown, but it was probably about 354 B. C.

The Anabasis was first published under the name of Themistogenes, a Syracusan, and appears to have been

The purpose of the Anabasis.

written in part to show that Xenophon was the real hero of the retreat of the ten thousand. It seems that at least one other account of the matter existed in which Xenophon did not figure prominently, and it was to correct this account for his own benefit that he wrote the Anabasis. Naturally, such a work would carry more conviction if it appeared under another name. Apparently, however, nobody was deceived, for the Anabasis was known through all antiquity as Xenophon's work. Books I and II are merely diaries of the events of the march, ending with the account of the battle of Cunaxa, the situation of the Greeks, and the murder of the generals, with brief and pointed descriptions of the characters of the murdered men. After this point Xenophon himself becomes prominent, and continues to occupy the foreground in the narrative. It may be, therefore, that the first two books were written before the others, and before Xenophon thought it necessary to defend his reputation.

The
Hellenica.

Besides the Anabasis, Xenophon's chief historical work. is the Hellenica, a history of Greece in seven books, beginning at the point where the narrative of Thucydides breaks off, after the battle of Cynossema in 411, and ending with the battle of Mantinea in 362 B. C. The opening words are: "But after this, not many days later, Thymochares came from Athens with a few ships, and the Lacedæmonians and Athenians fought another naval battle, and the Lacedæmonians were victorious under the leadership of Agesandrides." The work is evidently closely attached to that of Thucydides as a continuation. Through the first two books something of the style of Thucydides is preserved, though without his brilliancy and vigor, and the tone of impartiality so noticeable in Thucydides is also to be observed here; but the remaining five books are written in a less accurate and simple style, and show constantly the author's strong prejudice in

favor of the Spartans and his excessive admiration of Agesilaus, feelings which cause him to do scant justice to other peoples and other leaders, and even to give little prominence to Epaminondas, the real hero of this period. So he tells of the revolution at Thebes without mentioning Pelopidas, and in his account of the first invasion of the Peloponnesus by the Thebans he does not speak of the founding of Megalopolis and the restoration of Messene by Epaminondas. These differences between the first two books and the rest make it probable that the former, which continue the history of Thucydides to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 403 B. C., were written by Xenophon with the aid of the notes and other material left by Thucydides, and were composed not far from 400 B. C., either before Xenophon joined the expedition of Cyrus or in the interval between his return from that adventure and his second departure for Asia. The remaining books were written at Scillus and after he was driven away from there. The Hellenica is our only connected account of Greek history between 411 and 362 B. C., and is therefore valuable. As a work of literature, however, it is not interesting, for the style is rather dull, and the speeches and dialogues introduced in imitation of Thucydides are sometimes prosy.

The
Agesilaus.

The Agesilaus is a pamphlet in praise of Agesilaus, written after his death in 361 B. C. "I know," it begins, "that it is not easy to write praise worthy of the excellence and reputation of Agesilaus, but, nevertheless, I must try. For it would not be well if because a man was perfectly excellent he should on that account not obtain even inferior praises." The deeds of Agesilaus are recounted, and for that reason this work is often classed as historical. It is, however, rather a laudatory essay than history. The praise is somewhat overdone, and the style is high-flown, though smooth. Several passages of the Hellenica appear also in the Agesilaus, which