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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Xenophon's "Hellenica" serves as a crucial historical narrative that chronicles the final years of the Peloponnesian War and the ensuing events of the Greek world up to 362 BCE. Written with a clear, engaging prose style, the work exhibits Xenophon's unique perspective as both a soldier and a historian, combining firsthand observation with extensive research. Unlike Thucydides' more analytical approach, Xenophon's narrative is infused with a sense of moral inquiry and character analysis, reflecting the tumultuous political landscape of post-war Greece and showcasing significant figures like Socrates, Alcibiades, and the Spartan leaders. The text is not merely a historical account; it is an exploration of ethical leadership amidst civic strife, placing it firmly within the tradition of classical historiography. Xenophon, an Athenian-born soldier, philosopher, and student of Socrates, drew upon his experiences in various military campaigns and his disdain for the chaotic political environment of his time to compose "Hellenica." His background in philosophy profoundly influenced his insights into leadership and virtue, shaping his interpretations of historical events. Living in a transitional period marked by the decline of Athenian power, his work reflects both his love for Greece and his desire to provide an enduring evaluation of its political and ethical conditions. "Hellenica" is essential reading for those interested in ancient Greek history, military strategy, and ethical philosophy. Its multifaceted approach renders it not only a source of historical knowledge but also a profound commentary on the nature of power and morality. Readers seeking to understand the foundations of Western thought and leadership will find Xenophon's exploration illuminating and relevant. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Hellenica
Table of Contents
Introduction
In an age when alliances turned faster than the tide, Hellenica follows the perilous aftermath of war as cities struggle to rule, to survive, and to remember what they are for. Xenophon’s narrative enters a Greece still vibrating from prolonged conflict, where the meaning of victory, defeat, and civic duty is tested daily. Here, strategy unfolds in council chambers no less than on dusty roads and crowded harbors. The book invites readers to watch leaders balance necessity with honor, and communities weigh security against liberty. It is a story of choices, and of the fragile webs that bind states to their fortunes.
Hellenica is the work of Xenophon, an Athenian soldier and writer of the fourth century BCE, and consists of seven books. Composed in that century, it continues Greek history from the point at which Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War breaks off, beginning in 411 BCE and extending decades beyond. Its central premise is straightforward: to narrate Greek affairs—military, political, and diplomatic—during a time of rapid realignment and persistent rivalry among city-states. Without announcing a grand theory, Xenophon records campaigns and negotiations, tracing how decisions made in council or field altered the balance of power throughout the Greek world.
The book holds classic status because it stands at a crossroads: both a bridge from Thucydides and a distinct voice in its own right. Its clarity, economy of expression, and eye for telling detail helped shape the expectations of historical prose in antiquity and beyond. Hellenica became indispensable for understanding the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE, and its narrative architecture—episodic, purposeful, morally attentive—proved influential. Later writers mined it for facts and for portraits of character under strain. Modern readers return to it for the same reasons: it pairs a sober chronicle with questions about leadership, justice, and the limits of power.
The historical moment Xenophon covers was unsettled and consequential. Greek cities adjusted to shifting alliances, rival leagues, and the pressures exerted by neighboring powers, including the influence of Persian authorities on Aegean affairs. Naval and land warfare altered trade and civic life, while political disputes at home mirrored diplomatic entanglements abroad. Hellenica presents this environment as a living terrain where policies are tried, partnerships tested, and consequences felt. The narrative foregrounds how circumstances—geography, resources, and reputation—shape choices, and how those choices, in turn, reconfigure the landscape through which armies march and envoys seek agreements.
Xenophon’s manner is distinctive: restrained yet vivid, attentive to action and the character of those who command. He tends to eschew elaborate speeches in favor of concise scene-setting and selective comment, allowing events to suggest their own lessons. Tactical descriptions are balanced by glimpses of everyday pressures—supply, morale, timing—that decide outcomes as surely as courage. His prose leaves space for readers to weigh motives and outcomes, and his transitions keep focus on cause and effect. The resulting texture is not merely a record of episodes; it is an inquiry into how decisions are framed and remembered.
The work’s structure, while chronological, is notably episodic. Xenophon moves across theaters—Aegean islands, coastal Asia Minor, the Peloponnese, and the plains of central Greece—following the lines of campaign seasons and diplomatic shifts. He marks changes in leadership, traces alliances as they form and unravel, and pauses when an episode illuminates the broader currents of the time. This approach invites readers to assemble a larger picture from interlocking parts. The method is demanding yet rewarding: patterns appear gradually, and the mosaic that emerges shows how local actions can ripple outward to reshape the culture and politics of many cities.
Xenophon’s background helps explain his perspective. An Athenian by birth and a seasoned soldier, he wrote as someone familiar with command, discipline, and the practical demands of campaigning. He later spent time outside Athens and moved in circles that included prominent Spartan figures, experiences that informed his understanding of rival viewpoints. He also wrote works on Socrates, reflecting an interest in ethics and self-command. In Hellenica, these strands converge subtly: attention to prudence, responsibility, and the character of decision-makers runs through the narrative without turning it into doctrine or treatise.
Readers have long discussed Xenophon’s vantage point and sympathies. Because he writes about people and institutions he knew—some directly, others by reputation—his judgments and emphases invite scrutiny. Hellenica rewards such critical attention. The text neither hides its opinions nor reduces events to a single moral. Instead, it stages situations where competing goods collide and where outcomes rest on imperfect information. The challenge to the reader is part of the book’s appeal: to probe how perspective shapes narrative, and how narrative, in turn, shapes memory, while maintaining respect for the austerity of Xenophon’s style.
Hellenica’s impact is evident in its use by later authors and in its centrality to modern histories of the period. Ancient biographers such as Plutarch drew on Xenophon when portraying figures who dominate this era. The work also complements other sources, including oratory and inscriptions, and remains crucial for reconstructing chronology and context. Its influence is not just archival; the book offers a model for writing history that balances economy with depth. Generations of historians and readers have studied it to learn how to frame complex events without sacrificing nuance or the integrity of the record.
The themes that animate Hellenica endure. It explores leadership and accountability, the ethics of alliance, the tension between civic ideals and strategic necessity, and the volatility of public opinion. It shows how material realities—money, ships, grain—intersect with honor and law, and how reputations rise or falter in the long shadow of war. Xenophon demonstrates that political life is less a straight road than a series of forks, each chosen under pressure. These concerns remain recognizable: institutions must adapt; victories carry costs; and the measure of a policy is taken in time, not merely in triumphs.
To read Hellenica is to navigate a landscape of signals—dispatches, decrees, rumors—and to learn how to weigh them. The work does not present a single protagonist or a simple arc; rather, it offers a disciplined chronicle that invites comparative judgment. It rewards readers who attend to geography, timing, and the interplay of local and interstate politics. Without resorting to spectacle, Xenophon crafts momentum from the accumulation of decisions and their consequences. The prose is unadorned yet suggestive, and the narrative’s composure keeps attention on substance. In this restraint lies much of its literary force.
The questions Hellenica raises are as contemporary as they are classical. How do free communities manage power transitions? What binds coalitions in the absence of trust? When does prudence harden into opportunism, or principle yield to necessity? In charting a world of contested leadership and fragile agreements, Xenophon shows why history matters: it clarifies the choices that shape collective life. The book’s lasting appeal rests on this clarity. It is a classic because it illuminates not only a pivotal Greek century, but also the recurring patterns by which states, leaders, and citizens confront uncertainty.
Synopsis
Hellenica by Xenophon is a Greek prose history that resumes the story of the Peloponnesian War where Thucydides breaks off and carries it into the mid-fourth century BCE. Written in the fourth century BCE and arranged in seven books, it surveys political decisions and military campaigns across the Greek world, interweaving developments at sea and on land. Xenophon presents episodes concisely, often shifting vantage among cities to show the interplay of strategy, resources, and leadership. The narrative follows a chronological course while highlighting how alliances, domestic factions, and foreign sponsorship continually reshape events, providing a connective account from late-war crises to the reordering that follows.
The work opens amid Athens’s severe strain in 411 BCE, when defeat in Sicily and financial pressures precipitate turmoil at home and in the fleet. Xenophon traces the ascent of an oligarchic council, the Four Hundred, and the rival authority maintained by Athenian forces at Samos. Persian satraps, especially Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, are shown managing support to extract advantage, while Spartan leaders jockey for influence. This early section introduces the book’s method: alternating theaters, terse battle descriptions, and attention to councils and commanders whose decisions ripple through the fragile equilibrium of the Aegean and the Hellespont.
Xenophon then turns to campaigning in the northern seas that sustain Athens’s grain lifeline. He recounts a sequence of naval engagements, including actions at Cynossema, Abydos, and Cyzicus, emphasizing how tactical improvisation and funding arrangements affect outcomes. Alcibiades reappears as a shifting figure within Athenian command, while Spartan navarchs seek a durable advantage with intermittent Persian assistance. By following supply routes, bases, and seasonal movements, the narrative underscores how sea control and morale repeatedly change hands. The emphasis falls less on spectacle than on command transitions, strategic choices, and the cumulative attrition that shapes each side’s prospects.
Amid fluctuating fortunes, Xenophon highlights the tension between popular governance and military necessity. The emergency musters that produce a striking Athenian naval effort at Arginusae are followed by controversial legal proceedings that test civic norms under wartime pressures. He records debates, procedural steps, and the influence of orators without dramatizing motives, allowing the contrast between battlefield expediency and assembly judgment to stand out. The episode reflects the book’s larger interest in how institutions and laws respond to crisis, and how political accountability intersects with the practical demands of maintaining fleets, paying crews, and preserving cohesion within a democratic polity.
As the conflict nears its breaking point, the narrative shows Athens struggling with resources and leadership churn, while Sparta consolidates maritime command through disciplined organization and external backing. Xenophon describes the gradual constriction of Athenian options and the effect of sustained pressure on its seaborne lifelines. Without lingering on spectacle, he indicates a decisive turn that brings the long war to an end and ushers in a new balance of power. This transition marks a pivot in Hellenica from a duel between two leading cities to the broader question of how a hegemon governs allies, manages rivalries, and administers peace.
The postwar books examine settlement terms, the restructuring of alliances, and the imposition of Spartan oversight through commanders and garrisons. In Athens, an oligarchic regime arises and faces resistance, followed by a carefully negotiated civic realignment. Xenophon charts the interplay of vengeance, amnesty, and pragmatic reconciliation, noting how measures to stabilize public life coexist with unresolved grievances. Beyond Attica, he shows Sparta building a network among cities, relying on appointed officials and sympathetic councils, while allies grow uneasy with burdens and interference. The result is a portrait of uneasy hegemony, where order is maintained yet constantly challenged by local ambitions and shifting loyalties.
Xenophon then broadens the scope to Asia Minor and central Greece. He presents King Agesilaus’s ventures in the east, Persian countermoves, and the outbreak of the Corinthian War, in which Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos combine against Sparta. Naval action, including a significant defeat of Spartan sea power off Cnidus, alters the strategic map and encourages new coalitions. The narrative follows battles, raids, and negotiations until a Persian-sponsored accord, often called the King’s Peace, resets formal alignments and asserts a principle of autonomy. Xenophon’s spare account stresses diplomacy’s force in determining outcomes no less than battlefield prowess.
Despite the peace, rivalries intensify. Xenophon shows Sparta and Thebes contesting influence, with episodes of intervention, coups, and counter-coups, including the seizure and later liberation of Theban strongholds. He traces the emergence of Theban leadership that experiments with new tactical approaches and regional partnerships. The sequence builds through shifting campaigns and political maneuvers toward a landmark battle in Boeotia that reshapes expectations about who can lead the Greek world. Subsequent expeditions into the Peloponnese and a complex web of alliances carry the story forward, until the work closes with events centered on Mantinea in 362 BCE.
Throughout, Hellenica presents leadership as a central question: who commands legitimacy, how decision-makers balance principle and expediency, and why coalitions fracture or endure. Xenophon’s restrained style keeps attention on choices, institutions, and the chain of consequences, emphasizing the volatility of power and the costs of misjudgment. As a continuation of Thucydides and a major source for the early fourth century BCE, the work’s enduring significance lies in its clear view of a multipolar Greek world shaped by war, diplomacy, and law. It offers a caution about hegemony’s limits while preserving a record of cities adapting under unrelenting pressure.
Historical Context
Xenophon’s Hellenica is set in the Greek world from the late fifth to the mid-fourth century BCE, when autonomous city-states across the Aegean and mainland Greece competed for power. The dominant institutions were the polis and its civic bodies, with Athens’ popular assembly, council, and law courts exemplifying democracy, and Sparta’s dual kingship, gerousia, and ephors representing an oligarchic-military order. Naval triremes, hoplite phalanxes, and interstate alliances shaped warfare and diplomacy. The Persian Empire loomed to the east as a decisive financial and diplomatic actor. This framework of rival leagues, citizen-soldiers, and competing constitutions forms the political and social landscape within which Hellenica unfolds.
Xenophon was an Athenian gentleman and soldier active in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE. Associated with Socrates, he later joined the expedition of the Ten Thousand into the Persian Empire and wrote about it elsewhere. His sympathies included admiration for Spartan discipline and particularly for King Agesilaus II. He fought alongside Spartan forces in Greece and lived for a period on land near Scillus in the western Peloponnese with Spartan support. Ancient sources report that he was exiled by Athens and later recalled. Hellenica, evidently completed after 362 BCE, is shaped by this life experience: an Athenian vantage informed by soldierly pragmatism and Spartan affinities.
The work consciously continues Thucydides, beginning where his history breaks off in 411 BCE and carrying the story down to 362 BCE. It shifts from the final years of the Peloponnesian War to the age of Spartan hegemony and then to an unstable balance of powers. While Thucydides privileges analytical speeches and structural causation, Xenophon favors concise narrative, pointed moral characterization, and selected vignettes of leadership and discipline. He writes as an observer who is at times close to events and at other times reliant on circulating reports. This combination produces a politically engaged chronicle that is both continuation and contrast to its predecessor.
The late phase of the Peloponnesian War provides Hellenica’s opening canvas. Athens endured internal upheaval in 411 BCE with an oligarchic coup and a brief experiment in restricted citizenship before democratic forms returned. Naval fortunes swung sharply: the defeat at Notium undermined Alcibiades, while the victory at Arginusae in 406 BCE was followed by a controversial mass trial and execution of generals. Xenophon records the decisive Spartan victory at Aegospotami in 405 BCE, which destroyed Athenian sea power and led to the city’s surrender. His narrative highlights how strategic misjudgments and civic decision-making could combine to produce irreversible outcomes.
The Spartan-imposed settlement after 404 BCE brought the Thirty Tyrants to power in Athens, backed by a Spartan garrison. Their violent purges and property seizures provoked armed resistance led by Thrasybulus from Phyle and the Piraeus. Xenophon recounts the clashes and the eventual reconciliation of 403 BCE, including the amnesty that forbade “remembering wrongs,” a crucial legal and social measure to end stasis. The episode exemplifies Hellenica’s attention to civic repair as well as civic collapse. It also marks the transition from a defeated Athens to a city capable of political stabilization under severe constraints.
Spartan ascendancy under figures like Lysander defined the immediate postwar years. Through decarchies and harmosts, Sparta attempted to manage allied and subject cities, generating resentment. The accession of Agesilaus II and his campaigns in Asia Minor (beginning 396 BCE) brought Spartan forces into direct conflict with Persian satraps such as Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. Xenophon’s admiration for Agesilaus is clear in his emphasis on discipline, piety, and tactical economy. Yet the limits of Spartan power emerged as naval challenges reappeared and as the costs of extended commitments abroad strained a polis whose institutions were tuned to land warfare and conservative governance.
The Corinthian War (395–387 BCE) erupted when a coalition of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos, with Persian financial support, confronted Sparta. Xenophon narrates land battles such as Haliartus and Coronea and notes shifting fortunes at Nemea and elsewhere. At sea, the decisive Persian-backed victory of Conon and Pharnabazus at Cnidus in 394 BCE destroyed Spartan naval dominance. Conon then helped restore Athens’ Long Walls, reestablishing a strategic link to Piraeus. Hellenica underscores how alliances, money, and maritime strength could quickly recalibrate hegemony, and how Sparta’s attempt to control Greece encountered well-funded resistance orchestrated through Persian diplomacy.
Persian leverage culminated in the so-called King’s Peace (387/386 BCE), brokered by the Spartan envoy Antalcidas and proclaimed in the name of Artaxerxes II. Its autonomy clause dissolved many leagues while formally assigning the Greek cities of Asia Minor and some islands to Persia. Sparta assumed the role of enforcer in Greece, intervening against those deemed to violate autonomy. Xenophon’s reportage is restrained but revealing: Greek freedom appeared contingently guaranteed by Persian fiat, and enforcement served Spartan interests. The settlement stabilized little, yet it framed the next phase of interstate rivalry under an uneasy, externally underwritten order.
Thebes’ path from subordination to prominence is a central strand after the Peace. In 382 BCE, a Spartan commander seized the Theban citadel (the Cadmea) without formal authorization, and Sparta endorsed the occupation. The outrage and subsequent Theban resistance, including the return of exiles in 379/378 BCE and the killing of the occupying clique, are recounted in Hellenica. The Boeotian League was soon reconstituted under Theban leadership. Xenophon’s narrative, while cool toward Theban leaders, charts the steady restoration of Theban autonomy and influence, setting the stage for their decisive challenge to Spartan hoplite prestige.
The Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE, narrated with a characteristic economy, shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility. The Thebans concentrated force on one wing and coordinated infantry and cavalry to break the Spartan line, killing a king and many elite hoplites. Xenophon’s account emphasizes the suddenness and completeness of the reversal more than technical exposition, but the implications are clear: Sparta could be defeated in open battle by a reformed Boeotian army. This turning point redistributed power across Greece, emboldened Theban initiatives, and undermined the enforcement of the autonomy clauses that Sparta had upheld after the King’s Peace.
Following Leuctra, Theban expeditions into the Peloponnese altered the regional map. Campaigns in 370–369 BCE led to the liberation of Messenia and the foundation of a fortified city at Messene, establishing an independent Messenian state. The creation of an Arcadian League and the rise of Megalopolis further constrained Spartan influence. Hellenica records these developments tersely, reflecting both their strategic significance and Xenophon’s limited sympathy for Theban leadership. The loss of Messenian labor and territory weakened Sparta’s economic base, while Theban diplomacy and arms demonstrated how regional coalitions could erode even the most established hegemonies.
Athens, too, reemerged as a maritime power through the Second Athenian League, founded in 378/377 BCE. Its charter promised autonomy and avoided the tribute mechanisms of the old empire, substituting assessments (syntaxeis) and a common synedrion. Xenophon notes renewed Athenian naval activity and the role of capable commanders. In land warfare, he highlights tactical adaptation, above all Iphicrates’ use of peltasts and flexible formations that destroyed a Spartan mora near Lechaeum in the early 390s. Such episodes exemplify the work’s interest in practical generalship and the effectiveness of light-armed troops against traditional hoplite formations.
The military world of Hellenica was evolving. Trireme design and seamanship remained crucial, but the growing prominence of peltasts, improved cavalry, and combined-arms tactics reshaped engagements. Mercenary service expanded as cash-strapped poleis outsourced fighting and as individuals sought pay abroad. Developments in siegecraft and fortification, including the rebuilding and maintenance of long walls and fortified positions, feature in the narrative. Elsewhere in the Greek world, early artillery appeared at Syracuse around the turn of the fourth century, a sign of technological innovation that soon influenced warfare. Xenophon’s soldierly eye attends to organization, training, and discipline as levers of success.
The social and economic background was marked by recovery and strain after decades of war. Agricultural cycles and estates remained the backbone of wealth, supplemented by trade through ports like Piraeus, where banking and credit services were active. Public finance relied on liturgies and emergency property taxes, while the costs of fleets and garrisons pressed civic budgets. Slavery was pervasive and integral to production. Civic religion and festivals continued to structure time and solidarity, even in cities under garrisons. Hellenica’s vignettes of muster, pay, and provisioning show how warfare intersected with household economies and how political choices reverberated through everyday life.
Persia’s role is a continuous thread in Hellenica. Satraps negotiated, funded fleets, and played Greek cities against one another, while the Great King’s directives could recast interstate alignments. Xenophon presents figures such as Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes as decisive interlocutors. In the early 360s, unrest among western satraps complicated Persian control, and Greek leaders navigated these uncertainties for advantage. Greek dependence on Persian subsidies, already evident during the Peloponnesian War and the Corinthian War, persisted. The work thereby illustrates how Greek autonomy was conditioned by the empire’s fiscal capacity and diplomatic reach as much as by hoplite valor.
Civic ideology and institutions, though rarely analyzed abstractly in Hellenica, are everywhere implicated. The recurrent contrast between oligarchy and democracy, the mobilization of citizen juries, and the authority of councils and generals all receive concrete treatment. Xenophon’s cases show how constitutional forms could be subverted by faction or preserved by legal compromise, as in the Athenian amnesty. His persistent interest in leadership character—self-control, justice, piety—anchors political outcomes in ethical conduct. The narrative intimates that constitutions rely on habits and laws alike, and that foreign policy failures often stem from domestic indiscipline and shortsighted ambition.
As a historian, Xenophon writes with purposes that modern readers often debate. He is selective, sometimes omitting episodes or diminishing actors who do not fit his emphases, and critics note a bias favoring Sparta and Agesilaus. Yet Hellenica preserves details and sequences unmatched in other surviving sources, making it indispensable for the years 411–362 BCE. Comparison with later authors such as Diodorus Siculus or Plutarch underscores both its laconic strengths and its silences. The work’s proximity to events and its consistency of moral interest give it a distinctive profile within classical Greek historiography, neither detached chronicle nor overt political pamphlet. Lastly, the book functions as a mirror of its era by staging the strengths and fragilities of the polis world. It highlights the volatility of hegemony, the corrosive effects of stasis, the utility and risks of mercenary force, and the capacity of institutions to recover through lawful compromise. From the fall of empires to tactical innovations, Hellenica reflects a Greece repeatedly remade by leadership and luck, and it critiques complacency through the outcomes it records more than through explicit judgment.
Author Biography
Xenophon was an Athenian soldier, historian, and writer active in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE. Living through the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War and the shifting hegemony of Greek city-states, he combined practical military experience with reflective prose. His most famous narrative, Anabasis, recounts the expedition of Greek mercenaries in Persia and their arduous return, while Hellenica continues the story of Greek history where Thucydides left off. He also produced Socratic dialogues and didactic treatises on leadership, economy, and warfare, establishing himself as a versatile author whose clear, spare Attic style made complex events and ideas accessible across generations.
Born and educated in Athens, Xenophon grew up within a culture that prized rhetoric, gymnastics, and music. As a young man he entered the circle of Socrates, an association that shaped his outlook on ethics, self-mastery, and civic responsibility. He was also impressed by Spartan institutions, especially their discipline and training, which he observed firsthand and later analyzed. These influences Socratic inquiry, Laconian practice, and the rigors of campaigning inform both his subjects and his method. He favored concrete examples, character portraits, and dialogue as instruments for examining politics, education, and leadership in the Greek world.
In early adulthood Xenophon joined the Greek force recruited by Cyrus the Younger in an attempt to seize the Persian throne. After Cyrus fell at the battle of Cunaxa (401 BCE), the Greek commanders were seized, and the army had to fight its way north to the Black Sea. Xenophon emerged as one of the leaders who organized the retreat through hostile terrain. Anabasis narrates this march with attention to logistics, morale, councils, and geography, offering an unparalleled view of mercenary service and improvised command. The work became a classic of military narrative and a touchstone for thinking about decision-making under pressure.
Returning to Greece, Xenophon wrote Hellenica, a history that continues from the final years of the Peloponnesian War to the mid-fourth century BCE. Its selective narrative covers shifting alliances, battles, and the careers of prominent statesmen. Though sometimes criticized for omissions and a favorable view of Sparta, it remains a principal source for the period. Xenophon’s admiration for Spartan discipline also appears in Constitution of the Lacedaemonians and in Agesilaus, a laudatory biography of the Spartan king. He had connections with Spartan leaders and fought on their side in Greece, experiences that reinforced his interest in civic training and martial virtue.
Xenophon’s Socratic writings preserve a distinctive image of the philosopher as practical moral guide. Memorabilia defends Socrates’ life and teaching through conversations on piety, friendship, and self-control. Apology presents a concise account of Socrates’ defense, differing in tone and emphasis from Plato’s version. Symposium depicts a convivial exchange that links wit to character and education. Oeconomicus explores household management and agriculture as arenas for rational stewardship, suggesting that leadership begins at home. Across these works Xenophon presents Socratic inquiry as useful to citizens, soldiers, and householders, preferring straightforward argument and illustrative episodes to abstract theorizing.
Beyond history and Socratic dialogues, Xenophon produced technical and political treatises. On Horsemanship and Cavalry Commander address the training, care, and command of horses and riders, drawing on experience with Greek cavalry. Cynegeticus treats hunting as education in effort and discipline. Hiero, a dialogue on tyranny, probes the costs of absolute power. Cyropaedia, a partly fictionalized education of Cyrus, uses narrative to examine leadership, organization, and cultural accommodation. In Ways and Means he proposes peaceful measures to improve Athenian revenues. These works blend instruction with case studies, reflecting his view that effective governance rests on habituation, competence, and measured ambition.
Xenophon spent years away from Athens, including a long residence at Scillus near Olympia, and continued to write into old age. After political reversals unsettled that arrangement, he relocated elsewhere in Greece and remained active as an author. He died in the mid-fourth century BCE. In antiquity his lucid prose made him a school author; later readers valued his eyewitness testimony, portraits of Socrates, and analyses of leadership. Modern scholarship debates his biases but relies on his evidence, while his narratives, especially Anabasis and Cyropaedia, continue to inform discussions of command, ethics, and cultural encounter, securing his place among classical Greek prose writers.
Hellenica
BOOK I
I
B.C. 411. To follow the order of events (1). A few days later Thymochares arrived from Athens with a few ships, when another sea fight between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians at once took place, in which the former, under the command of Agesandridas, gained the victory.
Another short interval brings us to a morning in early winter, when Dorieus, the son of Diagoras, was entering the Hellespont with fourteen ships from Rhodes at break of day. The Athenian day-watch descrying him, signalled to the generals, and they, with twenty sail, put out to sea to attack him. Dorieus made good his escape, and, as he shook himself free of the narrows, (2) ran his triremes[1] aground off Rhoeteum. When the Athenians had come to close quarters, the fighting commenced, and was sustained at once from ships and shore, until at length the Athenians retired to their main camp at Madytus, having achieved nothing.
Meanwhile Mindarus, while sacrificing to Athena at Ilium, had observed the battle. He at once hastened to the sea, and getting his own triremes afloat, sailed out to pick up the ships with Dorieus. The Athenians on their side put out to meet him, and engaged him off Abydos. From early morning till the afternoon the fight was kept up close to the shore. (3) Victory and defeat hung still in even balance, when Alcibiades came sailing up with eighteen ships[1q]. Thereupon the Peloponnesians fled towards Abydos, where, however, Pharnabazus[2] brought them timely assistance. (4) Mounted on horseback, he pushed forward into the sea as far as his horse would let him, doing battle himself, and encouraging his troopers and the infantry alike to play their parts. Then the Peloponnesians, ranging their ships in close-packed order, and drawing up their battle line in proximity to the land, kept up the fight. At length the Athenians, having captured thirty of the enemy's vessels without their crews, and having recovered those of their own which they had previously lost, set sail for Sestos. Here the fleet, with the exception of forty vessels, dispersed in different directions outside the Hellespont, to collect money; while Thrasylus, one of the generals, sailed to Athens to report what had happened, and to beg for a reinforcement of troops and ships. After the above incidents, Tissaphernes arrived in the Hellespont, and received a visit from Alcibiades, who presented him with a single ship, bringing with him tokens of friendship and gifts, whereupon Tissaphernes seized him and shut him up in Sardis, giving out that the king's orders were to go to war with the Athenians. Thirty days later Alcibiades, accompanied by Mantitheus, who had been captured in Caria, managed to procure horses and escaped by night to Clazomenae.
B.C. 410. And now the Athenians at Sestos, hearing that Mindarus was meditating an attack upon them with a squadron of sixty sail, gave him the slip, and under cover of night escaped to Cardia. Hither also Alcibiades repaired from Clazomenae, having with him five triremes and a light skiff; but on learning that the Peloponnesian fleet had left Abydos and was in full sail for Cyzicus, he set off himself by land to Sestos, giving orders to the fleet to sail round and join him there. Presently the vessels arrived, and he was on the point of putting out to sea with everything ready for action, when Theramenes, with a fleet of twenty ships from Macedonia, entered the port, and at the same instant Thrasybulus, with a second fleet of twenty sail from Thasos, both squadrons having been engaged in collecting money. Bidding these officers also follow him with all speed, as soon as they had taken out their large sails and cleared for action, Alcibiades set sail himself for Parium. During the following night the united squadron, consisting now of eighty-six vessels, stood out to sea from Parium, and reached Proconnesus next morning, about the hour of breakfast. Here they learnt that Mindarus was in Cyzicus, and that Pharnabazus, with a body of infantry, was with him. Accordingly they waited the whole of this day at Proconnesus. On the following day Alcibiades summoned an assembly, and addressing the men in terms of encouragement, warned them that a threefold service was expected of them; that they must be ready for a sea fight, a land fight, and a wall fight all at once, "for look you," said he, "we have no money, but the enemy has unlimited supplies from the king."
Now, on the previous day, as soon as they were come to moorings, he had collected all the sea-going craft of the island, big and little alike, under his own control, that no one might report the number of his squadron to the enemy, and he had further caused a proclamation to be made, that any one caught sailing across to the opposite coast would be punished with death. When the meeting was over, he got his ships ready for action, and stood out to sea towards Cyzicus in torrents of rain. Off Cyzicus the sky cleared, and the sun shone out and revealed to him the spectacle of Mindarus's vessels, sixty in number, exercising at some distance from the harbour, and, in fact, intercepted by himself. The Peloponnesians, perceiving at a glance the greatly increased number of the Athenian galleys, and noting their proximity to the port, made haste to reach the land, where they brought their vessels to anchor in a body, and prepared to engage the enemy as he sailed to the attack. But Alcibiades, sailing round with twenty of his vessels, came to land and disembarked. Seeing this, Mindarus also landed, and in the engagement which ensued he fell fighting, whilst those who were with him took to flight. As for the enemy's ships, the Athenians succeeded in capturing the whole of them (with the exception of the Syracusan vessels, which were burnt by their crews), and made off with their prizes to Proconnesus. From thence on the following day they sailed to attack Cyzicus. The men of that place, seeing that the Peloponnesians and Pharnabazus had evacuated the town, admitted the Athenians. Here Alcibiades remained twenty days, obtaining large sums of money from the Cyzicenes, but otherwise inflicting no sort of mischief on the community. He then sailed back to Proconnesus, and from there to Perinthus and Selybria. The inhabitants of the former place welcomed his troops into their city, but the Selybrians preferred to give money, and so escape the admission of the troops. Continuing the voyage the squadron reached Chrysopolis in Chalcedonia, (5) where they built a fort, and established a custom-house to collect the tithe dues which they levied on all merchantmen passing through the Straights from the Black Sea. Besides this, a detachment of thirty ships was left there under the two generals, Theramenes and Eubulus, with instructions not only to keep a look-out on the port itself and on all traders passing through the channel, but generally to injure the enemy in any way which might present itself. This done, the rest of the generals hastened back to the Hellespont.
Now a despatch from Hippocrates, Mindarus's vice-admiral, (6) had been intercepted on its way to Lacedaemon, and taken to Athens. It ran as follows (in broad Doric): (7) "Ships gone; Mindarus dead; the men starving; at our wits' end what to do."
Pharnabazus, however, was ready to meet with encouragement the despondency which afflicted the whole Peloponnesian army and their allies. "As long as their own bodies were safe and sound, why need they take to heart the loss of a few wooden hulls? Was there not timber enough and to spare in the king's territory?" And so he presented each man with a cloak and maintenance for a couple of months, after which he armed the sailors and formed them into a coastguard for the security of his own seaboard.
He next called a meeting of the generals and trierarchs of the different States, and instructed them to build just as many new ships in the dockyards of Antandrus as they had respectively lost. He himself was to furnish the funds, and he gave them to understand that they might bring down timber from Mount Ida. While the ships were building, the Syracusans helped the men of Antandrus to finish a section of their walls, and were particularly pleasant on garrison duty; and that is why the Syracusans to this day enjoy the privilege of citizenship, with the title of "benefactors," at Antandrus. Having so arranged these matters, Pharnabazus proceeded at once to the rescue of Chalcedon.
It was at this date that the Syracusan generals received news from home of their banishment by the democratic party. Accordingly they called a meeting of their separate divisions, and putting forward Hermocrates (8) as their spokesman, proceeded to deplore their misfortune, insisting upon the injustice and the illegality of their banishment. "And now let us admonish you," they added, "to be eager and willing in the future, even as in the past: whatever the word of command may be, show yourselves good men and true: let not the memory of those glorious sea fights fade. Think of those victories you have won, those ships you have captured by your own unaided efforts; forget not that long list of achievements shared by yourselves with others, in all which you proved yourselves invincible under our generalship. It was to a happy combination of our merit and your enthusiasm, displayed alike on land and sea, that you owe the strength and perfection of your discipline."
With these words they called upon the men to choose other commanders, who should undertake the duties of their office, until the arrival of their successors. Thereupon the whole assembly, and more particularly the captains and masters of vessels and marines, insisted with loud cries on their continuance in command. The generals replied, "It was not for them to indulge in faction against the State, but rather it was their duty, in case any charges were forthcoming against themselves, at once to render an account." When, however, no one had any kind of accusation to prefer, they yielded to the general demand, and were content to await the arrival of their successors. The names of these were—Demarchus, the son of Epidocus; Myscon, the son of Mencrates; and Potamis, the son of Gnosis.
The captains, for their part, swore to restore the exiled generals as soon as they themselves should return to Syracuse. At present with a general vote of thanks they despatched them to their several destinations. It particular those who had enjoyed the society of Hermocrates recalled his virtues with regret, his thoroughness and enthusiasm, his frankness and affability, the care with which every morning and evening he was wont to gather in his quarters a group of naval captains and mariners whose ability he recognised. These were his confidants, to whom he communicated what he intended to say or do: they were his pupils, to whom he gave lessons in oratory, now calling upon them to speak extempore, and now again after deliberation. By these means Hermocrates had gained a wide reputation at the council board, where his mastery of language was no less felt than the wisdom of his advice. Appearing at Lacedaemon as the accuser of Tissaphernes, (9) he had carried his case, not only by the testimony of Astyochus, but by the obvious sincerity of his statements, and on the strength of this reputation he now betook himself to Pharnabazus. The latter did not wait to be asked, but at once gave him money, which enabled him to collect friends and triremes, with a view to his ultimate recall to Syracuse. Meanwhile the successors of the Syracusans had arrived at Miletus, where they took charge of the ships and the army.
It was at this same season that a revolution occurred in Thasos, involving the expulsion of the philo-Laconian party, with the Laconian governor Eteonicus. The Laconian Pasippidas was charged with having brought the business about in conjunction with Tissaphernes, and was banished from Sparta in consequence. The naval force which he had been collecting from the allies was handed over to Cratesippidas, who was sent out to take his place in Chios.
About the same period, while Thrasylus was still in Athens, Agis (10) made a foraging expedition up to the very walls of the city. But Thrasylus led out the Athenians with the rest of the inhabitants of the city, and drew them up by the side of the Lyceum Gymnasium, ready to engage the enemy if they approached; seeing which, Agis beat a hasty retreat, not however without the loss of some of his supports, a few of whom were cut down by the Athenian light troops. This success disposed the citizens to take a still more favourable view of the objects for which Thrasylus had come; and they passed a decree empowering him to call out a thousand hoplites, one hundred cavalry, and fifty triremes.
Meanwhile Agis, as he looked out from Deceleia, and saw vessel after vessel laden with corn running down to Piraeus, declared that it was useless for his troops to go on week after week excluding the Athenians from their own land, while no one stopped the source of their corn supply by sea: the best plan would be to send Clearchus, (11) the son of Rhamphius, who was proxenos (12) of the Byzantines, to Chalcedon and Byzantium. The suggestion was approved, and with fifteen vessels duly manned from Megara, or furnished by other allies, Clearchus set out. These were troop-ships rather than swift-sailing men-of-war. Three of them, on reaching the Hellespont, were destroyed by the Athenian ships employed to keep a sharp look-out on all merchant craft in those waters. The other twelve escaped to Sestos, and thence finally reached Byzantium in safety.
So closed the year—a year notable also for the expedition against Sicily of the Carthaginians under Hannibal with one hundred thousand men, and the capture, within three months, of the two Hellenic cities of Selinus and Himera.
II
B.C. 409. Next year (1)... the Athenians fortified Thoricus; and Thrasylus, taking the vessels lately voted him and five thousand of his seamen armed to serve as peltasts, (2) set sail for Samos at the beginning of summer. At Samos he stayed three days, and then continued his voyage to Pygela, where he proceeded to ravage the territory and attack the fortress. Presently a detachment from Miletus came to the rescue of the men of Pygela, and attacking the scattered bands of the Athenian light troops, put them to flight. But to the aid of the light troops came the naval brigade of peltasts, with two companies of heavy infantry, and all but annihilated the whole detachment from Miletus. They captured about two hundred shields, and set up a trophy. Next day they sailed to Notium, and from Notium, after due preparation, marched upon Colophon. The Colophonians capitulated without a blow. The following night they made an incursion into Lydia, where the corn crops were ripe, and burnt several villages, and captured money, slaves, and other booty in large quantity. But Stages, the Persian, who was employed in this neighbourhood, fell in with a reinforcement of cavalry sent to protect the scattered pillaging parties from the Athenian camp, whilst occupied with their individual plunder, and took one trooper prisoner, killing seven others. After this Thrasylus led his troops back to the sea, intending to sail to Ephesus. Meanwhile Tissaphernes, who had wind of this intention, began collecting a large army and despatching cavalry with a summons to the inhabitants one and all to rally to the defence of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus.
On the seventeenth day after the incursion above mentioned Thrasylus sailed to Ephesus. He disembarked his troops in two divisions, his heavy infantry in the neighbourhood of Mount Coressus; his cavalry, peltasts, and marines, with the remainder of his force, near the marsh on the other side of the city. At daybreak he pushed forward both divisions. The citizens of Ephesus, on their side, were not slow to protect themselves. They had to aid them the troops brought up by Tissaphernes, as well as two detachments of Syracusans, consisting of the crews of their former twenty vessels and those of five new vessels which had opportunely arrived quite recently under Eucles, the son of Hippon, and Heracleides, the son of Aristogenes, together with two Selinuntian vessels. All these several forces first attacked the heavy infantry near Coressus; these they routed, killing about one hundred of them, and driving the remainder down into the sea. They then turned to deal with the second division on the marsh. Here, too, the Athenians were put to flight, and as many as three hundred of them perished. On this spot the Ephesians erected a trophy, and another at Coressus. The valour of the Syracusans and Selinuntians had been so conspicuous that the citizens presented many of them, both publicly and privately, with prizes for distinction in the field, besides offering the right of residence in their city with certain immunities to all who at any time might wish to live there. To the Selinuntians, indeed, as their own city had lately been destroyed, they offered full citizenship.
The Athenians, after picking up their dead under a truce, set sail for Notium, and having there buried the slain, continued their voyage towards Lesbos and the Hellespont. Whilst lying at anchor in the harbour of Methymna, in that island, they caught sight of the Syracusan vessels, five-and-twenty in number, coasting along from Ephesus. They put out to sea to attack them, and captured four ships with their crews, and chased the remainder back to Ephesus. The prisoners were sent by Thrasylus to Athens, with one exception. This was an Athenian, Alcibiades, who was a cousin and fellow-exile of Alcibiades. Him Thrasylus released. (3) From Methymna Thrasylus set sail to Sestos to join the main body of the army, after which the united forces crossed to Lampsacus. And now winter was approaching. It was the winter in which the Syracusan prisoners who had been immured in the stone quarries of Piraeus dug through the rock and escaped one night, some to Decelia and others to Megara. At Lampsacus Alcibiades was anxious to marshal the whole military force there collected in one body, but the old troops refused to be incorporated with those of Thrasylus. "They, who had never yet been beaten, with these newcomers who had just suffered a defeat." So they devoted the winter to fortifying Lampsacus. They also made an expedition against Abydos, where Pharnabazus, coming to the rescue of the place, encountered them with numerous cavalry, but was defeated and forced to flee, Alcibiades pursuing hard with his cavalry and one hundred and twenty infantry under the command of Menander, till darkness intervened. After this battle the soldiers came together of their own accord, and freely fraternised with the troops of Thrasylus. This expedition was followed by other incursions during the winter into the interior, where they found plenty to do ravaging the king's territory.
It was at this period also that the Lacedaemonians allowed their revolted helots from Malea, who had found an asylum at Coryphasium, to depart under a flag of truce. It was also about the same period that the Achaeans betrayed the colonists of Heracleia Trachinia, when they were all drawn up in battle to meet the hostile Oetaeans, whereby as many as seven hundred of them were lost, together with the governor (4) from Lacedaemon, Labotas. Thus the year came to its close—a year marked further by a revolt of the Medes from Darius, the king of Persia, followed by renewed submission to his authority.
III
B.C. 408. The year following is the year in which the temple of Athena, in Phocaea, was struck by lightning and set on fire. (1) With the cessation of winter, in early spring, the Athenians set sail with the whole of their force to Proconnesus, and thence advanced upon Chalcedon and Byzantium, encamping near the former town. The men of Chalcedon, aware of their approach, had taken the precaution to deposit all their pillageable property with their neighbours, the Bithynian Thracians; whereupon Alcibiades put himself at the head of a small body of heavy infantry with the cavalry, and giving orders to the fleet to follow along the coast, marched against the Bithynians and demanded back the property of the Chalcedonians, threatening them with war in case of refusal. The Bithynians delivered up the property. Returning to camp, not only thus enriched, but with the further satisfaction of having secured pledges of good behaviour from the Bithynians, Alcibiades set to work with the whole of his troops to draw lines of circumvallation round Chalcedon from sea to sea, so as to include as much of the river as possible within his wall, which was made of timber. Thereupon the Lacedaemonian governor, Hippocrates, let his troops out of the city and offered battle, and the Athenians, on their side, drew up their forces opposite to receive him; while Pharnabazus, from without the lines of circumvallation, was still advancing with his army and large bodies of horse. Hippocrates and Thrasylus engaged each other with their heavy infantry for a long while, until Alcibiades, with a detachment of infantry and the cavalry, intervened. Presently Hippocrates fell, and the troops under him fled into the city; at the same instant Pharnabazus, unable to effect a junction with the Lacedaemonian leader, owing to the circumscribed nature of the ground and the close proximity of the river to the enemy's lines, retired to the Heracleium, (2) belonging to the Chalcedonians, where his camp lay. After this success Alcibiades set off to the Hellespont and the Chersonese to raise money, and the remaining generals came to terms with Pharnabazus in respect of Chalcedon; according to these, the Persian satrap agreed to pay the Athenians twenty talents (3) in behalf of the town, and to grant their ambassadors a safe conduct up country to the king. It was further stipulated by mutual consent and under oaths provided, that the Chalcedonians should continue the payment of their customary tribute to Athens, being also bound to discharge all outstanding debts. The Athenians, on their side, were bound to desist from all hostilities until the return of their ambassadors from the king. These oaths were not witnessed by Alcibiades, who was now in the neighbourhood of Selybria. Having taken that place, he presently appeared before the walls of Byzantium at the head of the men of Chersonese, who came out with their whole force; he was aided further by troops from Thrace and more than three hundred horse. Accordingly Pharnabazus, insisting that he too must take the oath, decided to remain in Chalcedon, and to await his arrival from Byzantium. Alcibiades came, but was not prepared to bind himself by any oaths, unless Pharnabazus would, on his side, take oaths to himself. After this, oaths were exchanged between them by proxy. Alcibiades took them at Chrysopolis in the presence of two representatives sent by Pharnabazus—namely, Mitrobates and Arnapes. Pharnabazus took them at Chalcedon in the presence of Euryptolemus and Diotimus, who represented Alcibiades. Both parties bound themselves not only by the general oath, but also interchanged personal pledges of good faith.
This done, Pharnabazus left Chalcedon at once, with injunctions that those who were going up to the king as ambassadors should meet him at Cyzicus. The representatives of Athens were Dorotheus, Philodices, Theogenes, Euryptolemus, and Mantitheus; with them were two Argives, Cleostratus and Pyrrholochus. An embassy of the Lacedaemonians was also about to make the journey. This consisted of Pasippidas and his fellows, with whom were Hermocrates, now an exile from Syracuse, and his brother Proxenus. So Pharnabazus put himself at their head. Meanwhile the Athenians prosecuted the siege of Byzantium; lines of circumvallation were drawn; and they diversified the blockade by sharpshooting at long range and occasional assaults upon the walls. Inside the city lay Clearchus, the Lacedaemonian governor, and a body of Perioci with a small detachment of Neodamodes. (4) There was also a body of Megarians under their general Helixus, a Megarian, and another body of Boeotians, with their general Coeratadas. The Athenians, finding presently that they could effect nothing by force, worked upon some of the inhabitants to betray the place. Clearchus, meanwhile, never dreaming that any one would be capable of such an act, had crossed over to the opposite coast to visit Pharnabazus; he had left everything in perfect order, entrusting the government of the city to Coeratadas and Helixus. His mission was to obtain pay for the soldiers from the Persian satrap, and to collect vessels from various quarters. Some were already in the Hellespont, where they had been left as guardships by Pasippidas, or else at Antandrus. Others formed the fleet which Agesandridas, who had formerly served as a marine (5) under Mindarus, now commanded on the Thracian coast. Others Clearchus purposed to have built, and with the whole united squadron to so injure the allies of the Athenians as to draw off the besieging army from Byzantium. But no sooner was he fairly gone than those who were minded to betray the city set to work. Their names were Cydon, Ariston, Anaxicrates, Lycurgus, and Anaxilaus. The last-named was afterwards impeached for treachery in Lacedaemon on the capital charge, and acquitted on the plea that, to begin with, he was not a Lacedaemonian, but a Byzantine, and, so far from having betrayed the city, he had saved it, when he saw women and children perishing of starvation; for Clearchus had given away all the corn in the city to the Lacedaemonian soldiers. It was for these reasons, as Anaxilaus himself admitted, he had introduced the enemy, and not for the sake of money, nor out of hatred to Lacedaemon.
As soon as everything was ready, these people opened the gates leading to the Thracian Square, as it is called, and admitted the Athenian troops with Alcibiades at their head. Helixus and Coeratadas, in complete ignorance of the plot, hastened to the Agora with the whole of the garrison, ready to confront the danger; but finding the enemy in occupation, they had nothing for it but to give themselves up. They were sent off as prisoners to Athens, where Coeratadas, in the midst of the crowd and confusion of debarkation at Piraeus, gave his guards the slip, and made his way in safety to Decelia.
IV
