The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica Vivienne Gray The Johns Hopkins University Press BaltimoreFirst published in 1989 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 701 West 40th Street Baltimore, Maryland 21211 © 1989 by Vivienne Gray All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gray, Vivienne The character of Xenophon’s Hellenica/ Vivienne Gray. pcm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-8018-3809-6 1. Xenophon. Hellenica. 2. Greece—History—Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.—Historiography. 3. Greece—History—Spartan and Theban Supremacies, 404-362 B.C.—Historiography. I. Title DF229.G73_ 1989 938'.06—de19 88-1374 CIP Printed and bound in Great BritainContents Preface Introduction NOgP one Part I. Conversationalised Narrative Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War Stories of the Asiatic Campaigns of Dercylidas Spartan Stories Stories of Agesilaus in Asia Conversationalised Stories of the Later Hellenica Narrative Stories Conclusion Part II. Formal Speeches 8. Speeches of the Continuation 9. Speeches of the Athenian Civil War 10. Athenian Speeches 11. Other Speeches 12. Conclusion Part III. Narrative 13. Stratagem Stories 14. Narrative Episodes 15. Conclusion Epilogue Appendices Notes Bibliography Index locorum General index vii ll 14 29 36 46 59 65 73 79 81 94 107 132 137 141 146 154 176 178 183 197 214 217 218Preface Xenophon’s Hellenica is a principal source for the history of the period 411-362 BC. There is now a clear need for a good book on the character of the work. J.K. Anderson, Xenophon, London, 1974, W.E. Higgins, Xenophon the Athenian, Albany, New York, 1977, and R. Nickel, Xenophon, Darmstadt, 1979 describe Xenophon’s life and his many and varied writings as a whole, but are necessarily brief on the Hellenica. Most of the specialist studies this century have been devoted to the problem of the composition and the dating of the work, but the firmness of their conclusions has been effectively challenged by W.P. Henry, Greek Historical Writing, Chicago, 1967. Many now emphasise the tendency of the Hellenica to portray good leadership, but even H.R. Breitenbach, a principal exponent of this in his Die historiographische Anschauungsformen Xenophons, Freiburg in der Schweiz, 1950, considers it no more than a tendency and certainly not a total explanation of the work in his standard reference article ‘Xenophon’ P-W RE ix A®, 1967. G.L. Cawkwell emphasises the didactic and moralising tendencies in his introduction to the Penguin translation of the work, A History of My Times, Penguin, 1978. This present study proposes a different characterisation of the Hellenica that will supplement and may perhaps replace some of the characterisations presently accepted. The progress made in understanding the character of Xenophon’s biographical writings in recent decades, which is recognised by A. Momigliano in his The Development of Greek Biography, Berkeley, California, 1971, should serve as a warning that there may still be a lot to learn about his historical writing as well, particularly his Hellenica. * Prefaces are the places to win the goodwill of the audience. I must first state my view of history, since this is a book about a particular piece of historical writing. History is what happened in the past. Written history is the record of what happened in the past, and introduces the writer as a medium between the historical events and the written record, the subjective element. The writer chooses which events to record, imposing his own idea of what is important, and he chooses a particular approach to those events, according to some idea of the viiviii Preface nature of history determined by individual preference or the preference of the audience for whom the history is written, or both. The style of the discourse will vary. Herodotus often uses a storytelling style of discourse, Thucydides an analytical style, though this is not the limit of their styles. The choice of the type of discourse introduces another possible barrier between the historical events and the written record. Storytelling does not deal in analysis of political events, analysis of political events has its own limitations. The deeper the thought about the nature of the written historical record, the greater the gap appears between the facts offered in the written record and the facts as they actually occurred. Some believe that the written record can still render up the true facts once the element of subjectivity is recognised and assessed. They peel away the recognised and assessed distortions and reconstruct the ancient accounts according to their idea of the nature of history. Others believe it a futile enterprise to take a piece of storytelling, for example, and try to turn it to the account of political analysis. There is a considerable mid-ground, but I side with the latter group more than the former. I believe that the value of written history is the discovery of the mentality of the writer and the society that produced the writer. This is worth far more to me than the knowledge of the strategy that won the battle of Cyzicus. It is a human thing. I therefore make no apology for having written a book that seeks to discover the character of the Hellenica as a piece of historical writing rather than assess the literal truth of the events it describes. I observe that much recent writing on Xenophon’s Hellenica makes judgements about its accuracy without being fully aware of its character, which is to lessen the value of those judgements. It is my hope that those who wish to use the work for a modern reconstruction of the events will benefit from my understanding of Xenophon’s approach to history as much as those who are interested in the nature of his approach for its own considerable sake. I restrict myself to pointing out the distortions likely to have been produced in his adoption of this or that technique or attitude. Ihave made a point of not indulging in too much direct criticism of previous literature on the Hellenica. The literature is of several main types. The first type seeks to assess the accuracy of the events described and to reconstruct the history of the period covered. This will not concern me since I seek first of all to reveal Xenophon’s purpose in representing events in the way he does, regardless of his accuracy. The second type seeks to establish the various sources of the Hellenica from what is known of Xenophon’s life and what is revealed by his selection and treatment of episode. It is allied to the type that seeks to reconstruct Xenophon’s life from his works. It often reaches the conclusion that the works are no more than a reflection of his personalPreface ix circumstances at the time of their composition. I do not confront this literature directly. I prefer to demonstrate through my own investigation of episodes that Xenophon has a consistent set of criteria for selection and treatment that cannot be a random reflection of his life. The third type of literature, also allied to the previous types, seeks to explain perceived historiographical differences between one part of the Hellenica and another as the result of different dates of composition. I see no need for direct confrontation with this literature either. It seems to me that a consensus is now emerging that the arguments against the unity of the work are unconvincing. My own contribution will be to demonstrate in the course of an investigation of a wide selection of episodes of varying types from throughout all parts of the Hellenica that Xenophon wrote the work in the one consistent historiographical frame of mind from start to finish. Others may yet press the negative arguments against unity, but they must also argue away the evidence I present. A fourth type of literature directly addresses the meaning of the Hellenica through a detailed investigation of its contents. It is this type of literature that principally concerns me. Yet it is surprisingly slight. There is very little on the purpose of the speeches, for example, an area of investigation which in the case of other historians generates whole books. The purpose of some narrative episodes I examine, like the mutiny of the Canebearers and the story of Mania, has never been previously explored. Moreover, previous literature has left virtually untouched the question of the literary manner of the episodes. My treatment of this question, and my demonstration that the literary manner serves the historiographical purpose, take my inquiry far beyond the bounds previously set. The comparative dearth of bibliography directly relevant to my present investigation is one reason why the reader will find comparatively little bibliographical argument in my exposition. It also seemed to me that if I covered a selection of episodes sufficiently large to permit convincing general conclusions about the overall character of the work, and indulged myself at the same time in lengthy critical arguments, my own exposition would be interrupted and my work would become too long to be attractive. Besides, I do not love strife. I have therefore consigned relevant argumentation to the footnotes. Ihave tried to make the book accessible to that growing group in our academic classical community who cannot easily read Greek at sight, by translating relevant passages of Greek into English. Where I am attempting to make a stylistic point about word arrangement or figures of speech, I have tried to capture the point by making the English translation rather literal, but where that seemed insufficient, I have supplied the Greek as well. I have found it convenient to translate shorter passages in full. The benefits of having a translation immedi- ately accessible when a passage is being discussed in detail are obvious.x Preface The reader will find that within the three main sections of the book, which I have divided (for reasons that will become apparent) according to the three main types of discourse present in the Hellenica (conversationalised narrative, formal speech, and narrative), I deal with passages one after the other, commentary style. I am convinced that this is the best presentation, partly because it is the best way of demonstrating the thoroughly consistent historiographical principles Xenophon observes throughout the work, but also because it is in the detailed reading of historical texts that the greatest light can be cast on their character. As for transliteration of Greek names, a practice about which all classicists are obliged to declare their failings, I normally prefer the Latinised version, because of the tradition in which I was educated. I want to thank Paul Cartledge of Clare College, Cambridge for saving me from one or two misguided notions I pressed upon him when I first made a serious start on this enterprise, for generally listening to my ideas and even accepting some of them. He will probably not recognise what eventually has come to birth. Cambridge has given me much hospitality. I want to thank Bill Barnes too, my classical colleague in Auckland, and all others who have helped me by being well disposed to my endeavours. The book is dedicated to Evan Gray, for twenty years’ devotion. VJI.G.Introduction The attempt to understand the nature of Xenophon's Hellenica has a long history.! Part of the problem is that Xenophon makes no prefatory statement of the programme of the history. It begins in medias res as a continuation of Thucydides’ unfinished history of the Peloponnesian War and there is no indication in the text even of the identity of the author, let alone his intended theme, purpose or method. As it happens the identity of the author is no problem, but the theme and purpose and method remain unclear. The incidental comments he makes on such matters in the body of the work are by no means programmatic for the whole, nor are they necessarily complete statements in themselves. Whatever the reason for the lack of a preface, and there have been several theories, this feature of the Hellenica creates problems for the reader, who is given no idea of what to expect nor any guide to assess what is offered, apart from what is suggested by the fact of the continuation of Thucydides.” In view of the lack of preface there has been a natural tendency to try to understand the Hellenica in the light of its antecedents. This is in line with the tendency of most ancient literature to imitate what is best in a tradition and innovate in that context. Xenophon shows that tendency over a wide range of his other works.° Naturally enough too, since the Hellenica is a continuation of Thucydides, the tradition in which Xenophon is assumed to be writing is the tradition of Thucydides. Xenophon was one of several who completed Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, left unfinished in the middle of the account of the events of 411 BC.* Admittedly, the greater part of the work concerned events subsequent to that war: the installation of the Thirty Tyrants and the civil war at Athens they provoked and the reconciliation, and then the history of Greek affairs in general right down to the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC. Nevertheless, the fact of the continuation suggested to many that at least the early part of the work should be an imitation of Thucydides, as well as a continuation. They emphasised Thucydidean and other features that seemed to distinguish this section from the rest as one inspired by Thucydidean historiography. Yet it falls so manifestly short of Thucydides’ standards that a serious imitation seems out of the question. It is on a far smaller scale AL2 The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica for the most part, does not exhibit that particularly Thucydidean concern for accuracy and analysis and is not written in his kind of language. Even its use of his seasonal chronology is unsystematic, and the differences between the continuation and the rest are now thought to have been exaggerated. Continuations are not obliged to be imitations of what they continue. There is no expectation that the other historians who completed Thucy- dides’ account also imitated him. Only the abruptness of this particular continuation and the lack of a preface really encourage the belief in Xenophon’s case. Xenophon ended his own Hellenica with the hope that he would find a continuator: ‘Let this be the limit of my account. The events that follow will perhaps be the concern of another historian.’ It is hard to believe that he expected this continuator to share his view of history, or his particular themes and interests. Xenophon was obliged to make his continuation more abrupt since Thucydides had not completed what he wanted to say and had left events in mid-stream, but there was no compulsion on him to write in the manner of his predecessor. If Xenophon is not writing in the manner of Thucydides, the problem of the nature of the continuation remains unsolved. Negative char- acterisations of the work, based on the expectation that he should be writing like Thucydides but is not are all too easy.® Positive characteri- sations are more difficult. It is equally difficult to characterise the rest of the work, after the continuation is complete. Some style a great deal of it memoir, especially the account of the Spartan war in Asia in the third and fourth books, and this is used to explain the state of the narrative, not only what is included and what is omitted, but also the way in which episodes are presented, for example in the way of conversations. Yet the theory has proven quite defective.’ Some progress has been made toward a typically Xenophontic characterisation of the whole in recog- nising the tendency to portray good military leadership and select and present many episodes to that end, but even the principal exponent of this refuses to allow that it is the key to the whole.® Many episodes do not conform to the tendency. His tendency to make moralising comments has been noted, and his alleged irony, but again these are at best partial and incomplete characterisations.° There is a need for more characteri- sation. The more there is and the more consistent it is through all parts of the Hellenica, the more chance there is of understanding what Xenophon was trying to achieve. The more chance there is too of settling the long debated question of whether it is a unified composition, exhibit- ing a continuity of interest, method and style, or a disparate series of sections composed at different times, or a basic kernel of memoir that grew gradually into a full-scale history of Greek affairs, as various traditions of criticism have at various times supposed. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, an important literary critic of the first century BC, believed that Xenophon’s historical works, the Cyropaidia,Introduction 3 the Anabasis and the Hellenica. were inspired by the historical writing of Herodotus rather than Thucydides, and he included the continuation of the Peloponnesian War in this. He summarised the principal features of Xenophon’s historical writing and compared them with those of Herodotus and Thucydides and others in his On Imitation, now no longer fully extant, and in his letter to Gnaeus Pompeius Geminus. !° Dionysius judges his authors by criteria of style and subject matter. He treats historians slightly differently from the writers of speeches, who are his principal interest. He includes under the category of subject matter the nobility of the theme chosen by the historian, the propriety of the beginning and end points of the history, the use of digressions, the internal organisation, and the ethical characteristics displayed. Herodotus, he said, had chosen the fine and impressive theme of the success of the Greeks against the Persians, taking the story down to the expulsion of the Persians from Greece. Xenophon had also chosen themes ‘fine and impressive and fit for a philosopher’. His Cyropaidia was the ‘image of a good and successful king’, his Anabasis contains a ‘grand encomium of those Greeks who went with Cyrus’, and his Hellenica has the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens and the rebuilding of the Athenian Walls. The quality of the themes revealed the quality of the man, his choice of subject reflecting his character. On the other hand, Thucydides had chosen the theme of the Peloponnesian War, a far less fine and impressive affair, a great misfortune for Greece, and the end of her prosperity. Dionysius particularly criticised Thucydides for his envisaged end point, suggesting that it would have been far better to go on to describe the return of the exiles from Phyle and the beginning of the recovery of Athenian freedom after the end of the Athenian civil war that followed on the main war. When he comes to discuss the theme of Xenophon’s Hellenica, he specifically commends him for taking the story of the Peloponnesian War right down to the recovery of Athens symbolised by the rebuilding of her defensive walls in the fourth book.!! The modern explanations of why Xenophon took the story of the Peloponnesian War further than Thucydides envisaged are really no better than this, nor do they offer a better explanation of why he devoted almost two thirds of the second book of the Hellenica, a very large section of his work as a whole, to the recovery of Athenian freedom. Dionysius may be right in giving an ethical explanation. Dionysius presents Xenophon’s choice of subject matter as well as his historical themes as a reflection of the good moral character he also attributes to Herodotus. Herodotus is generous throughout, showing pleasure in success and pain in misfortune, whereas Thucydides is outspoken and bitter, particularly toward his own city of Athens, ‘remembering the harm it did him’, a reference to his exile at the city’s4 The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica hands. Xenophon’s works reflect a character that is throughout ‘pious, just, enduring and affable’. These are qualities that cannot be restricted to what is revealed in his choice of themes and subject matter, but must extend beyond that to the manner and style of the account. Dionysius characterised Xenophon’s historical works as imitations of Herodotus rather than Thucydides because of the character they revealed. Herodotus chose a theme that was the mark of a great and noble soul, and was gentle and understanding, Thucydides chose a theme that was the mark of a mean and ignoble soul, and was harsh and bitter. Xenophon chose themes of a quality fit for a philosopher, that is, a man of moral worth, and he revealed a character, as Dionysius says, ‘adorned with all the virtues’. This ethical characterisation of historical works may be quite invalid, or Dionysius may be too fond of the theme of literary imitation of one author by another, but the view that Xenophon leans more to Herodotus than he does to Thucydides in this respect is at least interesting, and at best, in the light of modern belief, rather revolutionary. Dionysius characterises other areas of Xenophon’s historical works as Herodotean, for instance the organisation. He likens him to Herodotus and sets him apart from Thucydides in his preference for a natural organisation where one story is followed through to its conclusion or at least to a natural break before another is begun. Thucydides broke up even the most tightly unified story into its seasonal parts. What Dionysius says is certainly true of Xenophon’s interweaving of the narrative of the Spartan campaign against Asia with events in Greece in the years following the Peloponnesian War, and the separate treatment of the narrative of the Corinthian War first by land and then by sea, in two unconnected blocks. Oddly, Dionysius seems unconcerned about Xenophon’s use of seasonal organisation for some of his continuation. Dionysius also likens Xenophon to Herodotus and sets him apart from Thucydides in his use of digressions to give relief from the tedium of speeches and military engagements that made up the core of written history. It is not all that easy to decide what constitutes a digression’in the Hellenica, but it is certain that the story of the rise and fall of Jason of Pherae is one such (6.1, 4.27-37), as well as the story of the trial of the killers of Euphron (7.3.4-11), and the account of the achievements of the men of Phlius (7.2). Thucydides had few such digressions. Dionysius seems to believe that Xenophon tried to imitate the linguistic style of Herodotus as well, but did not measure up. He says that both shared a pure and suitable vocabulary, and both exhibited charm in their writing, but Xenophon lacked the beauty of the linguistic expression of Herodotus.? He also found him deficient in adapting his expression to his subject matter in the writing of speechesIntroduction 5 for characters in his history. This type of comment reflects the belief held by the tradition of Peripatetic literary criticism Dionysius prac- tised, that the principal stylistic virtue was the virtue of propriety, in which both sentiment and expression were made appropriate to the character of the speaker and the nature of the subject matter in hand.19 Yet though Xenophon failed to match Herodotus, he certainly departed from Thucydidean stylistic practice. Dionysius commented that Thucy- dides had no charm of the Herodotean sort and that he completely failed to adapt the expression of his speeches to the character of his speakers. His speeches were all in the one style and therefore all of the one character. This made for tedium and lack of variety. Other critics, such as Demetrius and Longinus, restrict their analysis of Xenophon’s works, including his historical works, purely to stylistic matters like these. Herodotean influence on Xenophon’s Hellenica is a subject well worth pursuing. It was always unwise to insist on Thucydides as the only model for imitation. There is the earlier tradition of historical writing to consider and it is chiefly represented by Herodotus. Current under- standing of the Hellenica allows Xenophon no contact with this earlier tradition, nor indeed with the contemporary tradition, represented for example by Ctesias, and it fails to set him in the context of the nature of historical writing in his times. Thucydides had far less influence on historians contemporary with Xenophon than Herodotus did. His most obvious influence was his style of storytelling, but it did not stop there. Ctesias, who was Xenophon’s contemporary, wrote a history of Persia that set out to correct alleged errors in Herodotus and fill gaps in his record. At the same time he told stories that owed a direct debt to Herodotus, like the one about Queen Semiramis turning into a bird and flying off with the flock, or the truly inspired account of the stratagem of the dummy elephants preserved by Diodorus Siculus. His stories of court intrigue owe a debt to Herodotus too. There are passages in which the debt is one of linguistic expression. The letter Ctesias writes for Stryangaeus to his beloved is in the tradition of the speech Herodotus wrote for Queen Tomyris against Cyrus. The historian Theopompus, who wrote a continuation of the Pelopon- nesian War as well as a history of Philip of Macedon, openly declared his competition ‘with Herodotus in the matter of storytelling: ‘I shall tell stories better than Hellanicus or Herodotus or Ctesias.’ He offers an ancient version of Rip van Winkel who slept for many years and woke to find the world changed, as well as a version of the famous meeting of Midas and Silenus previously told by Herodotus himself, and a story about Pherecydes previously told of Pythagoras. His account of the Persian King’s preparations for an expedition against Egypt is modelled in tone and language on Herodotus’ account of Xerxes’ preparations for Greece.15 At the beginning of the third century Duris of Samus recast whole6 The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica episodes from Herodotus, evidently hoping to outdo him in some way, perhaps by using his plainer linguistic style to bring his events down to earth.! Against all this, the influence of Thucydides seems meagre. It was virtually restricted to the anonymous author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia.!7 The argument that Herodotus has influenced Xenophon’s account in some serious way requires considerable substantiation, but given the influence he had on quite a few other fourth-century historians, it does not seems an altogether surprising or ingenious argument to advance. I have already expressed the view that Herodotus has influenced his Hiero, where the shape of the dialogue, which represents a meeting between a wise man and a tyrant who discuss the nature of happiness, is attested in Herodotus in the stories of the meetings between Solon and Croesus and Croesus and Cyrus in his first book. Xenophon takes this essentially Herodotean narrative pattern and experiments with it, casting it in Socratic dialogue to create an effective vehicle for the expression of his own ideas about the nature of the happiness of the tyrant. His Cyropaidia recasts whole episodes from Herodotus.1® There is another ancient characterisation of the Hellenica that is also worth the pursuit. The Hiero shows that some of Herodotus’ material, like his meetings between wise men and tyrants, could be a vehicle for philosophy. Diogenes Laertius included Xenophon in his lives of the philosophers. He considered his historical writing an offshoot of his philosophic activity, ‘First of the philosophers, he also wrote history.’ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as we have seen, thought that Xenophon revealed the character of a philosopher, ‘adorned with all the virtues’, in his historical writing.!9 The ancient tradition saw Xenophon as a philosopher first and foremost, an historian second. His historical works were ultimately philosophic. This was because he was a pupil of the philosopher Socrates and the writer of numerous Socratic works: the Memorabilia, in which he depicted the moral goodness of Socrates through reports of his conversations and speeches, the Apologia Socratis, in which he discussed the quality of high- mindedness Socrates showed at his trial, the Oeconomicus, in which Socrates learned the art of estate management from Ischomachus, and the Hiero, in which the poet Simonides and the tyrant Hiero discussed tyranny in the Socratic manner. Xenophon’s own definition of philosophy was the pursuit of moral excellence and his ideal philosopher was Socrates, a man himself possessed of all the virtues and adept at leading his companions towards the same goals, by dialectic and other forms of conversation and by offering himself as a model for imitation.?° His contemporary Isocrates also defined philosophy as the pursuit of moral excellence, but not according to Socratic methods. He believed that the study of the art of rhetoric was the way, and wrote his essays in his typicalIntroduction u grand rhetorical style on his typically grand and uplifting themes at least partly for the education of his companions in philosophy.?! Theopompus the historian of Philip, who was alleged to be a pupil of Isocrates, was known for his revelation of vice and virtue. best seen in his moralising comments on the court of Philip.2? Almost all of Xenophon’s works are in some way touched by this moral and philosophic purpose. There are clear examples in the Socratic works. His Hiero is a straight philosophical dialogue on the nature of the happiness of the ruler. His Agesilaus offers the picture of a military leader possessed of all the virtues as a model for imitation. The Cyropaidia seeks to explain the success of Cyrus in moral terms by investigating his background and his education. Even his technical works have a generally moral purpose, including the preface and the epilogue to the Cynegeticus. It would be surprising if the Hellenica did not show a similar purpose, and not only in the way of direct moralising. Ancient Greek history had always to some extent offered examples of virtue. This gave the genre the potential for philosophy. Herodotus was congenial to those who wished to present and investigate such qualities because his history was firmly fixed on instances of achievement that included the moral dimension. He says in his preface: This is the achievement of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus designed to ensure that what men have done is not obliterated by the passing of time, and that the great and astonishing works achieved by men both Greek and barbarian do not go unglorified, particularly the causes of their mutual wars. His description of the battle of Thermopylae (7.202-33) is a good illustration of this focus on ethical achievement, for it is almost totally devoted to examples of Spartan courage. This is the point of the story of the visit of the Persian scout to the Spartan camp and his report of the men there exercising and combing their hair, which Demaratus interprets as proof of their calm courage in the face of overwhelming odds. The preliminaries to the main battle commemorate the courage of the seer Megistias and the king Leonidas in refusing to leave their positions. The final struggle vividly commemorates Spartan courage, fighting to the last with their bare hands and teeth(!). There is a separate story of the exchange between the Spartan Dieneces and the man from Trachis in which Dieneces revealed his courage in words rather than deeds; when he was told that the Persian arrows would fly so thickly they would block out the sun, Dieneces welcomed the news on the grounds that they would fight in the shade. Herodotus offers his speech as a memorial to his courage, just as solid as the epitaphs he8 The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica cites from the battlefield. The section ends with the contrasting stories of the two Spartans suffering from eye disease, one of whom played the coward and returned to Sparta to endure a life of disgrace until he redeemed his life in death at Plataea, the other being led blindly into battle by his servant to die gloriously. There is a further contrast between courage and cowardice in the story of the Thebans who surrendered to Xerxes, only to be branded for their action by the Persians themselves. Xenophon’s few statements of intent in his Hellenica reveal that same firm focus on the moral achievement. At the beginning of the fifth book, he describes the enthusiastic farewell given Teleutias by the men under his command when he left them on the expiry of his term of office (5.1.4): I know that in this description I am recounting no expenditure danger or stratagem worthy of report, but it seems to me that this is worthy of a man’s consideration, what it was that Teleutias did to produce such a disposition in his men. That is a human achievement most worthy of report, more than great wealth or many dangers. The focus on moral achievement is explicit. What is defined as worthy of report is the winning of enthusiastic support from those one leads, an important quality of the good commander in Xenophon’s well known theory.2? The qualities of the leader were food for philosophical thought. Xenophon has Socrates discuss the problem of how to win willing obedience in the Memorabilia and the Oeconomicus, and the problem is the focus of the Cyropaidia and the Hiero.24 Moreover, Xenophon is here going out of his way to find moral achievement where it is not at first evident. He says that the scene of farewell for Teleutias itself reveals no great achievement, but he encourages the reader to look below the surface of the scene to discover a very great achievement indeed, one of the greatest in his view. In discussing the many fine achievements of the small city of Phlius (7.2.1), he produces a further example of a firm focus If any of the large cities has a single fine achievement to its credit, all the historians record it. But it seems to me that if a small city has many fine achievements to its credit, that is even more worthy of revelation. He goes on to explain that these many fine achievements were the deeds of courage and endurance the men of Phlius accomplished in their stalwart attempt to remain loyal to their ally Sparta in her time of misfortune after the defeat at Leuctra. He contrasts their loyalty with the treachery of her fair-weather friends. Thus their achieve- ments have a strong moral overtone. Friendship was one of the particular concerns of the Xenophontic philosopher.?5Introduction 9 Loyalty in misfortune is the focus of another of Xenophon’s comments. In describing his plans for the account of the Corinthian War (4.8.1), he comments: I shall record those events worthy of recall and pass over those not worthy of report. An early incident demonstrates what this means. The Spartan Dercylidas is portrayed keeping the men of Abydus loyal to Sparta in a speech. Part of what he says is that their loyalty will be ‘remembered for all time’ because it is loyalty in misfortune (4.8.4). It was indeed rare loyalty to remain with Sparta though she no longer had a fleet on the seas and the enemy fleet was virtually at the gates. Dionysius and other ancient critics suggest various avenues of approach to the Hellenica. My own characterisation proceeds from a close reading of the text. I believe the text is often misread because modern readers, even scholarly ones, do not have sufficient command of the moral values Xenophon takes for granted in his audience, or the forms of historical discourse he prefers, or his structuring of episodes and his use of language. I beg the reader's indulgence for a highly detailed investigation of relatively short passages but make no apology, since they are necessary. What I am presenting amounts to a literary characterisation of the Hellenica, but one which has serious consequences for the use of the Hellenica as history. I would argue that this literary characterisation is in fact a necessary preliminary to any such use. Ihave organised my investigation of the character of the Hellenica in three parts, according to the three main manners of presentation in the work, conversationalised narrative, speech and plain narrative. My reasons for doing so will become clear in the course of the discussion.Part I Conversationalised Narrative This section investigates a group of episodes in the Hellenica that exhibits a well-focussed devotion to the great moral achievement and a conversationalised manner of presentation. Some of the patterns of action used resemble patterns in Herodotus. J.K. Thomson char- acterised Herodotean stories by their preoccupation with action, their clear and simple development, and their use of vivid detail and conversational presentation to enhance that action.! Xenophon’s conversationalised stories share some of these qualities. I refer to them as conversationalised narrative because they are often a mixture of conversation and narrative. Conversation describes informal speech between two persons and is differentiated from formal speech, which involves an address by one person to a larger formal group, like a political or military assembly. I choose to begin with these conversationalised episodes for two reasons, apart from the desire to investigate their overall character. The first is the existence of a theory that Xenophon was writing a ‘memoir’ style of history where they occur. Many such episodes do indeed occur in that section of the work dealing with the Spartan campaigns in Asia in which Xenophon personally participated. It is assumed that the conversationalised manner is merely the natural expression of his personal recollections of his own experience. The theory has many flaws. Conversationalised narrative is not restricted to events Xenophon personally witnessed. It is a feature of the narrative of events in Greece contemporaneous with those in Asia and therefore incapable of being witnessed or recalled by Xenophon himself (3.3). This seems to me a telling point against the identification. In fact this manner of presentation is evidence of something far more interesting than mere recollection. The other special interest of these episodes is that they demonstrate the essential unity of the Hellenica because they occur throughout the work, from the continuation of the Peloponnesian War through the Asiatic narrative right on to the later books. Since the focus of much of this century’s criticism has been the composition of the Hellenica, I expect that this might be seen as a major contribution to the debate. They also demonstrate that from the very start Xenophon was using 1112 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative a literary manner quite alien to Thucydides. This literary manner is found in at least some conversationalised episodes in Herodotus, and deserves some initial explanation. I call it by the name given it by the later literary critic Demetrius: ‘charm’ (charis). Indeed, Demetrius himself used the term to describe Xenophon’s writing. It certainly is the manner of his conversationalised episodes.” Demetrius wrote a work On Style in the Peripatetic tradition of literary criticism which had begun with Aristotle, was continued by Theophrastus, and kept on developing down to Roman times. He considered that there were four main styles of writing, each of which was appropriate to a particular type of subject matter, for like all good Peripatetics he took it as axiomatic that style must be appropriate to subject matter. These four main styles were the elevated or grand, the elegant or graceful or charming, the plain and the forceful. He considered charis to be the principal characteristic of the elegant style of writing. It was marked by charming subject matter, which included witticism on the one hand and prettiness on the other. Demetrius offers examples (128-35): stories of the Nymphs and goddesses at play; of marriage and of love; Xenophon’s story of the exchange between the Greek and the Paphlagonian, when in reply to the question whether Greek women went to war, the Greek said that they had in fact routed the Great King, scoring points off the King; the joke he made of unpromising material when he said of Aglaitas, a very gloomy man, that it would be easier to strike fire from his skull than laughter. He cites Xenophon approvingly, but mainly in his Anabasis, as a writer who could produce wit from the most unpromising subject matter, and one who specialised in grim humour, in the footsteps of Homer and the Cyclops and the deadly joke about eating Noman last of all (130-1, 134-5). Style of expression made a vital contribution to witty or pretty effect. Demetrius emphasises the virtue of compression of thought and deft positioning of important ideas at the end of the passage as the way to accentuate wit, illustrating both these effects from Xenophon, though again, not from his Hellenica (137-9). He cites light touches like Xenophon’s tiny clinching remark about the pierced ears of the man who was detected as being Lydian not Greek, so much more effective than a laboured explanation, and his charmingly incongruous arrangement of the beautiful gifts Cyrus gave once: a horse, a robe, a linked collar, and the assurance that his country should no longer be plundered (136-9). The effects of such writing are economy and rapidity — a punchline effect. Single words can be charming, if they are used cleverly, and imagery too, and all veiled meanings. I shall not examine every single case of conversationalised narrative in the Hellenica, but I wish to cover a representative sample, partly in order to establish historiographical continuity, partly also in order toPart I. Conversationalised Narrative 13 justify a characterisation and to discover the significance of Xenophon’s choice of this kind of discourse. I take it for granted that a writer like Xenophon, who has command of a very wide variety of genres of literature, including Socratic dialogue, several types of biographical writing (the Agesilaus, the Memorabilia and the Cyropaidia), technical treatise, and more than one type of contemporary history (the Anabasis and the Hellenica), each genre with its own distinctive style, must be a writer conscious of the different styles of discourse he employs for each. He must be equally conscious of his use of conversationalised narrative in the Hellenica. Xenophon offers an early example of this conversationalised manner in his report of a letter sent by Hippocrates, the second-in-command of the Spartan fleet, after the crushing defeat off Cyzicus (1.1.23). Ropes gone. Mindarusdead. Menstarving. Ata loss. It is of course a classic piece of Laconic brevity and it uses Laconic dialect. There is almost certainly a pun intended on the word ‘ropes’, which has the same spelling but different accentuation from the Spartan word for ‘good record’ (cf. 5.4.32). Their good record had indeed all gone after Cyzicus. Herodotus also offers examples of Laconic brevity. When the men of Samos delivered a long speech asking the Spartans for assistance in the sixth century, the Spartans told them that they had forgotten the first part of the speech and had not understood the second. The Samians then came back with a Laconic style request, ‘Bag needs grain’. The Spartans relied that ‘Needs grain’ would have been enough (3.46). The story of Hippocrates’ letter is meant to raise a smile, in spite of the seriousness of the defeat to which it refers. I shall return to the question of the relationship between charis and Laconic brevity at the end of this section. The first conversationalised story of any length exhibits this same brevity of speech, but in a larger context. It concerns Lysander.Chapter 1 Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War Lysander and Cyrus (1.5.1-7) Lysander of Sparta, architect of the final victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War, is first introduced into the narrative of the Hellenica with the brief announcement that the Spartans had sent him out as commander of the fleet after the expiry of Cratesippidas’ term of office. Proceeding directly to Ephesos to await the arrival at Sardis of Cyrus the son of the King of Persia, newly appointed by his father to take control of the coastal region, with orders to assist the Spartans in the war, Lysander subsequently travelled inland to meet him, accompanied by the Spartan ambassadors responsible for securing this new Persian appointment. Xenophon then tells the story of their negotiations about finance. When Cyrus arrived at Sardis, Lysander travelled inland to his court, along with the embassy from Lacedaemon. There they condemned ‘Tissaphernes for his past record toward them and asked Cyrus to show the utmost energy in the war. Cyrus said that these were his father’s orders and that he had no other intention but would implement them all. He said that he had come with a fund of 500 talents. If this failed, he said he would use the private income given him by his father. If that failed too, he would even break up the throne on which he sat (it was of silver and gold). The embassy praised these intentions and told him to pay the crews an Attic drachma per day, saying that if this were the wage, the crews of the Athenian ships would desert and he would end up outlaying Jess cash. Cyrus replied that this was well and good but that he could not act contrary to the orders of the King according to the treaty, which were to provide 30 minae per ship per month for as many ships as the Lacedaemonians cared to support (i.e. ¥2 drachma per man per day). At the time Lysander kept quiet. But when Cyrus toasted his health after dinner, and asked what favour would please him best, he replied, Ifyou were to add an obol to each man’s pay. And so the wage was four obols where it had been three before. A strong case can be made that Xenophon is writing this episode to a preconceived pattern. At the end of the story Cyrus offers Lysander a favour and Lysander makes a request that Cyrus is obliged to grant. 141. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War 15 This pattern of action is found in several different stories in Herodotus. In it a king or person of superior power offers the free choice of any favour he might wish to a person of inferior power, and receives an unexpected and often unwelcome request, which must nevertheless be granted because the offer is binding. This is the pattern of the story of Xerxes’ offer of favour first to his mistress Artaynte then to his wife Amestris in the account of his love for the wife of Masistes (9.108-11), and of Ariston’s offer of favour to Agetus (6.62). Herodotus often incorporated stories into his history that exhibited a shared narrative pattern. That is well known. What is not understood is that Xenophon used them in his own history. This must now be demonstrated. In telling the story of the love of the Persian king Xerxes for the wife of the nobleman Masistes, Herodotus relates how Xerxes’ wife Amestris made him a fine cloak, and he was so pleased with it that he went immediately to his mistress Artaynte, the daughter of Masistes, to whom he had transferred his affections when her mother rejected his overtures. Pleased with her too, he offered to grant her any favour she might wish. The girl bound him to this offer by oath, then she asked for the cloak. Xerxes regretted his offer and his oath since he knew that his wife was highly likely to find out about the liaison if his mistress wore the cloak and highly likely to be offended, so he offered Artaynte cities, great wealth, an army to command, anything except the cloak. Yet she persisted and Xerxes was obliged to grant her request, bound as he was to do so. The pattern of action may be summarised: 1. Xerxes offers a favour which his mistress makes binding on him 2. She makes an unexpected and unwelcome request 3. Xerxes is obliged to grant the request. Amestris found out about the liaison in the way Xerxes feared, yet her anger was directed not at Xerxes or the girl, but at the girl’s mother. She waited for an opportunity to destroy her. Here begins another version of the pattern. It was the custom on the Feast Day of the Persian King that he was obliged to grant any request that might be put to him. Waiting for her opportunity, Amestris asked Xerxes for the wife of Masistes to be delivered into her hands. Though he found the request totally unexpected and completely distasteful, Xerxes was obliged to grant it because of the custom of the Feast Day. What followed was the ruin of the whole house of Masistes. The pattern is as follows: 1. The custom of the King’s Feast Day requires Xerxes to offer a favour toall 2. Amestris makes an unexpected and unwelcome request 3. Xerxes is obliged to grant the request.16 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative In these two variants of the pattern, Xerxes the man of superior power, offers favour, freely or under constraint, to persons of inferior power, first his mistress and then his wife. In both cases the offer leads to an unexpected and unwelcome request and in both cases the offer is binding, either because of an oath or because of custom. Another variant of the same pattern of action is developed in Xenophon’s story of Cyrus and Lysander. At the end of the story Cyrus freely offers Lysander any favour he might wish, a customary part of the dinner in progress. Lysander makes an unexpected and unwelcome request. Cyrus is obliged to grant it precisely because of the dinner custom. The request is of course unwelcome. In the earlier part of the story Xenophon makes a feature of the contrast between the enthusiastic , support Cyrus says he feels for the Spartan cause, with his extravagant promises of financial aid, and the cold shoulder he in fact turns when he is faced with the prospect of handing out hard cash. He cleverly and lightly conveys this change of tone in Cyrus’ change of expression, from referring to the orders given him by his father to assist them in the war, to referring to the orders given by the king in the treaty, which do not allow him to assist them in the way they want. Like all Persian officials before him Cyrus was reluctant to spend money when he could avoid it, and the demands of the Spartan embassy for a doubling of the rate of pay were just too high. Lysander’s request over dinner must be considered similarly unwelcome, even though it was more moderate. It was certainly unexpected. Lysander’s silence after the initial rejection, to which Xenophon makes particular reference, must have caused Cyrus to believe he had done with the formal side of the negotiations and could relax. Little did he think that Lysander was just waiting for an opportunity to raise the matter again. The fact that Cyrus did in the end grant the pay rise, for that is the implication of the story, though unstated, meant that his protestations that he could not had been a sham all along. The pattern of the action of the story is therefore like those of the Herodotean variants: 1. Cyrus makes an offer of favour 2. Lysander makes an unexpected and unwelcome request 3. Cyrus is obliged to grant the request because of the demands of the dinner As in the earlier patterns the man offering the favour is the man of superior power, for Cyrus held the purse strings. The motif of the dinner makes the similarity quite striking. Amestris’ request had to be granted because of the requirements of the dinner held on the Feast1. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War 17 Day; Lysander’s request had to be granted because of the custom of Cyrus’ dinner. Herodotus’ story of Ariston and Agetus follows the same lines (6.62). Ariston conceived a passion for the wife of Agestus and devised a plan to take her. He proposed that he and Agetus make each other a free offer of whatever possession they had. Agetus agreed and they swore oaths, making the offers binding. Ariston granted the request Agetus made but in return he asked for Agetus’ wife. This was a most unexpected request, for Ariston already had a wife, as Herodotus says, and it was of course most unwelcome. Agetus resisted but in the end had to grant the favour since he was bound by oath. The focus of the story of Cyrus and Lysander is Lysander’s achievement in securing the pay rise, an achievement of some magnitude when his success is contrasted with the earlier failure of the embassy as a whole to secure it, and when it is set against Cyrus’ clear reluctance to part with his money. It was part of Xenophon’s theory of good command that the commander should provide for his troops, and this was in Xenophon’s view one of the greatest of all human achievements. Moreover, in preferring to ask for the favour of pay for the men rather than something personal for himself, Lysander showed himself to be more concerned for the welfare of those men than for his own profit, another mark of the good commander. This is something Xenophon specifically praised in his hero Agesilaus, who refused to accept personal gifts from the Persians on the grounds that a good commander should enrich his army, not himself.? The favour Lysander seeks is far less selfish than the favours sought by the people in the similar stories in Herodotus. He also shows himself able to handle men, even difficult customers like Cyrus, who promised the world, then did not deliver. Xenophon shapes the whole account to highlight this. He clearly presents the odds against which Lysander had to work when he contrasts Cyrus’ earlier vehement protestations of enthusiastic support with his later cold denial of the same. He uses indirect speech to spell out the extravagance of these protestations, culminating in the wonderful reference to the throne he says he will melt down in their cause. The punchline conclusion of the story highlights the achievement and gives it a witty turn. Lysander caught Cyrus completely by surprise with his rapid reply. This focus on the achievement has serious implications for the sort of history Xenophon is writing. It is true that the story preserves valuable information on the finances for the war. Yet it would be perverse to believe that this is Xenophon’s main aim, since the effects of the pay rise on the course of the war are entirely neglected in the subsequent narrative, even though the embassy had made it plain to Cyrus that they believed a rise in pay would lead to desertions among18 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative Athenian crews, a very serious prospect indeed. In fact Xenophon mentions that prospect only to show more clearly how reluctant Cyrus was to part with his money, even when there was good cause to do so. This detail, like all the rest, serves to highlight Lysander’s achievement rather than contribute to an analysis of the war. The principal literary characteristic of the episode is that charis described above. In particular, Xenophon has a satisfying punchline ending for Lysander, which achieves a notable economy of expression in his hands, taking the form of an incomplete conditional clause that relies for its full meaning on Cyrus’ preceding question. This creates a sense of rapidity as well. This economy and this rapidity, as well as the deft final positioning, are the hallmarks of the witty sort of charis described by Demetrius. The unexpected punchline sends a flash of illuminating grace back over the whole episode. There are also other touches of charis in the story. One of these is the humour in the contrast between Cyrus’ early enthusiasm and his later indifference. There is also Xenophon’s use of the light touch rather than the laboured explanation to express Cyrus’ change of mood, in the slight but telling change of reference from father to King. It is theoretically possible to believe that Xenophon originally received the story from a source in something like this form and simply wrote it down. He has Socrates tell another story in the Oeconomicus about a conversational exchange between Lysander and Cyrus that also took place at Sardis, presumably on this visit, and attributes it to a Megarian associate of Lysander, who received a report of it from Lysander himself. It concerns Cyrus’ love of horticulture. If the attribution is to be taken literally, and the story in the Hellenica is assumed to come from the same source, it may be the source and not. Xenophon who has cast the narrative in the pattern and has introduced the conversationalised manner and charis. Yet it is unwise to allow the writer no part at all in the final casting of the story. Moreover, the use of this manner and literary quality is so common throughout the Hellenica that source attribution seems entirely unsatisfactory. This will emerge as the investigation proceeds. The historian intent on finding out what really happened at Sardis is bound to be wary of the effects of patterned narrative and conversational presentation. Patterned narrative may preserve the basic facts but must force the details, altering them or stripping away their complications. Conversational presentation made such accounts even more liable than ordinary narrative to suffer the temptations of pointed invention. If Xenophon’s story were the only one to exhibit this pattern, one might be disposed to accept it, but the existence of similar patterns in Herodotus disposes one otherwise. This is a stereotyped and probably inaccurate account of what happened there. It is also probable that much more happened than the pattern is prepared to1. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War 19 admit. It depends on simplicity and firm focus for its effect, but diplomatic negotiations are hardly ever simple, especially not when ancient Persia was a party to them. Lysander was doubtless a clever man, but when many individuals in similar stories exhibit the same punchline kind of cleverness and wit, it is dangerous to consider his words the very truth. Humans tend to think in patterns. Stories are told and retold with only the names and circumstances changed. Ancient historians were no different. The patterns Herodotus and Xenophon use were probably part of the Greek literary consciousness, acceptable to their audience. It is my belief that there is no point in trying to prise the real facts out of such patterns, as if the facts could somehow be separated from their presentation. This is the way Xenophon recreated the past. It was acceptable to the audience he addressed. There are times when we simply have to accept the limitations of ancient historians and appreciate them not for the facts they convey but for their interpreta- tion of the facts, even ifit is not our desired kind of interpretation. The question of direct and conscious Herodotean influence on stories like this seems a strong possibility. If he is imitating Herodotus, there is much more to be said. But first there is a need for some more comment on Herodotean conversationalised narrative. Herodotus considered that the human achievements he set out to commemorate in his history included achievements of speech as well as action, and speech revealed the moral qualities of the speaker. He specifically presents examples of speech between two individuals, which is the sort of speech that presently interests us, as well as more formal speeches to larger bodies, which will interest us in Part II of this book, as evidence of human achievement, as commemoration in particular of the ethical qualities of the speaker. I have already referred to the conversational exchange between Dieneces of Sparta and the anonymous man from Trachis before the battle of Thermopylae (7.226-7), which Herodotus offers as a memorial to his courage. Herodotus describes other conversational remarks too as ‘memorial’, true to this concept of speech as achievement to be commemorated. The Persian Megabyzus’ comment that the Greeks who settled Chalcedon must have been blind to choose that spot with the site of Byzantium so near at hand and so much better for a city is said to be an ‘undying memorial’ to him among the men of the Hellespont (4.144). The quality commemorated here must be perspicacity and perhaps wit at the expense of the men of Chalcedon. In the exchange between Thersander of Orchomenus and his Persian guest on the eve of the battle of Plataea, the Persian himself says that he leaves his words about the inevitability of defeat as a ‘memorial to my wisdom’ (9.16). The more formal speeches of the Spartan envoys Sperthias son of20 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative Anaristus and Boulis son of Nicolaus, sent to the Persian king Xerxes for slaughter as expiation for the earlier murder of Persian heralds by the Spartans, are presented as memorials to their boldness (7.134-6). Herodotus introduces them: This boldness of these men is worthy of wonder, and these speeches in addition to that. When the powerful Persian governor Hydarnes invited them to submit to Persian rule in return for Persian guarantees of dominance in Greece, they boldly replied that he did not know what he was talking about because he had no experience of the free Greek way of life they would have to give up as part of the bargain. If he did, they said, he would die for freedom, just as they would. And when they were ushered into the presence of Xerxes himself, they refused to bow down, saying that they never did that for any man, and they offered themselves instead for slaughter. Happily, Xerxes refused to stoop as low as the Spartans had in killing heralds under the protection of sacred law, and he dismissed them back to Greece unharmed. These few examples show Herodotus using speech primarily to commemorate some ethical quality, be it courage or perspicacity or wit or boldness. Interestingly, he seems not to distinguish between direct and indirect speech. Xenophon’s practice is the same. There is a considerable amount of indirect speech in the story of Lysander and the focus is of course on his ethical achievement. The charis of Xenophon’s conversationalised epsiodes is also a feature of conversationalised narrative in Herodotus. A classic example is the exchange between the Spartan Dieneces and the man of Trachis referred to above. When the man of Trachis told Dieneces that the Persian arrows would fly so thickly they would shut out the sun, Dieneces replied that the news was good since they would fight in the shade (7.226-7). Dieneces’ punchline is rapid and brief and unexpected, and effectively illustrates his great courage. The rapid, more hostile exchanges between Adeimantos of Corinth and Themistocles of Athens (8.59, 61) are typical examples of the same sort of story. When Themistocles rose to speak first, in the debate before Salamis, Adeimantus told him that those who start too soon in the games are disqualified, but Themistocles replied that those who do not make it to the start in time win no crowns. Herodotus writes a series of conversations between wise men and rulers in the first book of his histories that exhibit this sort of charis. They also commemorate the wit and wisdom of the wise men involved. Consider for example his story of the conversation between Bias of Priene, or some said Pittacus of Mytilene, wise men both, and Croesus king of Lydia (1.26-7). Croesus had been intending to build a fleet and1. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War 21 launch an assault on the Greek islanders who lived off his coast. The wise man thought that a foolish move, to attack an enemy in his own element, for the islanders were far more skilled at sea fighting than the Lydians. Yet instead of advising Croesus directly he made an oblique and witty approach. ‘The islanders’, he said, ‘are purchasing cavalry in great numbers, with the intention of launching an assault against you and Sardis.’ Croesus expressed a fervent hope that the islanders would indeed be so silly as to attack him in his own element, for the Lydians were far more skilled at cavalry fighting than the islanders. The wise man commended his wisdom, You seem to express a fervent prayer that you will catch the islanders on horseback on dry land. Your hope is justified. But do you think the islanders will express any other sort of prayer, as soon as they discover that you are building a fleet against them, than that they should catch the Lydians at sea and requite you for the Greeks who live on the mainland, whom you hold subject? Croesus was pleased with what the wise man said and desisted from his folly. The story has real charis. The wise man gives his advice in a clever way, not labouring the king with his folly, but lightly, though effectively, suggesting it to him. The allegation about the islanders purchasing cavalry is a charming lie. There is real humour in the story, arising both from the charming lie and from the conciseness and brevity of the speech. Herodotus tells a later story of the advice given by the former king Croesus, now humbled by misfortune as a captive, to his captor, king Cyrus of Persia (1.88). As he sat by the side of Cyrus watching the Persian troops plunder the city of Sardis, his former residence, Croesus asked for permission to speak, and the conversation proceeded as follows: Cr. What is this army working with great energy to achieve? Cy. Itis plundering your city and carrying off your goods. Cr. Not my city, not my goods does it plunder. I have no more part in them. What it is taking up and carrying off is yours. This story has charis too. Instead of telling Cyrus what he thinks directly, which is that he is acting against his own interest, not Croesus’, the wise man speaks obliquely and lightly, leaving Cyrus to take the hint. The effect is one of wit. The expression is highly compressed and the deft final positioning of the all important word yours is the stylistic touch Demetrius mentioned in his discussion of charis. The utter simplicity of the language that is the effect of brevity is also typical of the charming style. Other longer stories exhibit the same literary quality. Consider the conversationalised story of the recompense for Evenios (9.93-4).22 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative Evenios had been put on trial and blinded by his fellow citizens for his carelessness in letting the sacred flocks be killed by wolves. They subsequently received an oracle that demanded full recompense for Evenios; the god himself it was, not the man, who was responsible for the killing. The citizens decided to find a way out of their predicament. They went to Evenios and sympathised with him, then asked him, as if it were a very remote possibility indeed, what sort of recompense he would want if the citizens were to offer it to him. He named a few select pieces of real estate in the city, never dreaming that this was a real offer. As soon as he had finished, and had assured the citizens that he would be happy with what he asked for, the response was rapid and final: Evenios, the citizens of Apollonia give you this as recompense for your blinding, according to the oracle we have received. In a flash Evenios realised he had been deceived of the far fuller recompense he might have required. This final statement of the citizens is a classic example of the sort of brevity and deft final positioning that are the hallmarks of charis. The deception is a clever one, cleverly carried out. The reference to the oracle, which is the first Evenios hears of it, in the very closing words of the citizens’ speech, has the effect of a punchline and sends a flash of charm back over the whole conversation, illuminating what has been taking place. These conversationalised stories are at least on one level celebrations of human achievement, specifically the courage of Dieneces, the wit and wisdom of wise men like Themistocles, Bias/Pittacus and Croesus, and the clever deception of the citizens of Apollonia. They exhibit wit, which is a mark of charis. They also exhibit a clear and simple development tending toward a punchline. In these respects Xenophon’s story of Lysander is in the tradition of such stories in Herodotus. The use of the Herodotean pattern of action enhances that impression. The difference lies mainly in the nature of the achievement Xenophon celebrates in the pattern. Herodotus used it to tell of the dangers of illicit passions, clandestine love affairs, ghastly revenge, wife-swapping. Xenophon uses it for much more philosophic purposes, to demonstrate the nature of good leadership. This would seem to be an important advance on Herodotus, if Xenophon is consciously imitating his manner. But more ammunition is required. There are other episodes to be examined. Callicratidas and Lysander (1.6.1-3) Lysander is involved in another story of verbal exchange when he comes to the end of his period of office and hands the fleet over to Callicratidas.*1. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War 23 As Lysander handed over the fleet to Callicratidas, he said that he did so as ruler of the seas and victor in the sea battle. But Callicratidas told Lysander to sail along the coast of Samos from Ephesos on the left hand side where the Athenian fleet was stationed, and hand over the fleet in Miletus, and then, he said, he would agree that he was ruler of the seas. But Lysander replied that he would not meddle while another was in command, so Callicratidas himself manned 50 ships from Chios and Rhodes and elsewhere among the allies, in addition to those he had taken over from Lysander. Assembling all these, 140 in total, he prepared to meet the enemy. Hostile exchanges are common in Herodotus, but they are also part of the wider Greek literary tradition.5 They can be expressed in indirect or direct speech. Most exchanges have only the two phases, however, of challenge and rebuff. Xenophon has three phases, first the statement. by Lysander, then the challenge from Callicratidas, then the counter reply from Lysander, but he remains true to the pattern, in which it is the punchline that commands most attention and is the climax of the story. It is invalid to interpret the exchange, as some do, solely in the light of Lysander’s first statement, as an illustration of his arrogance. The whole sequence must be considered. Lysander begins by making a statement that is an assertion of his achievement while in command of the fleet. Callicratidas responds with a challenge that he demonstrate in fact what he claims in word. Lysander refuses the challenge. Lysander’s praise of his own achievements implies that he is a man who has a great love of honour and recognition. Such love of honour could be wholesome or it could shade over into arrogance. Our modern view, perhaps based on preconceptions about Lysander’s character, might be that his statement is immodest, even arrogant. The ancient view of self-praise varied too, and became an area of philosophic controversy, but Xenophon’s view about men who praised themselves was quite plain. He believed that they should be tolerated with a good will, since their evident desire for praise, which drove them to praise themselves, gave promise that they would always strive to do praiseworthy deeds. He has his hero Agesilaus adopt this easy-going attitude to such men in his encomium, and praises him for his tolerance.” This makes one look beyond Lysander’s claim in isolation to Callicratidas’ reaction to that claim. He refuses to agree with Lysander’s high estimate of his achievements and challenges him to prove it. This is not the attitude of the sort of man Xenophon admired. Callicratidas is not easy-going and tolerant with those who praise themselves. Moreover, he is prepared to risk the safety of the fleet to prove his point. Lysander, on the other hand, will not go that far to prove his reputation. He refuses to meddle while another is in24 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative command. The word meddle is pregnant with meaning. It is frequently associated with a love of honour to excess.8 Xenophon seems to have designed Lysander’s refusal to meddle as a sign of his moderation in his love of honour. He is not prepared to put his own pride above his concern for his city. Nor will he take the fleet when another is in charge. This contrasts with the attitude of Callicratidas. The exchange is a study by contrast of restrained and unrestrained love of honour. Lysander's self-control is conveyed with a lightness of tone heavy with meaning that is the hallmark of charis. He reveals the same restrained temper in his dealings with Cyrus. Xenophon much admired sweetness of temper.° The theme of Callicratidas’ character becomes more explicit in the subsequent narrative. In the exchange he showed himself intolerant of Lysander’s praise of his achievements, even though it was fully justified by his record of success in his dealings with Cyrus and at the battle of Notion. In the following narrative he proves equally intolerant of the criticisms levelled against him by the friends of Lysander in the cities of Asia, who objected strongly to his appointment and wished Lysander to stay on, alleging that his successor had no experience of naval affairs, was not known in the cities, and was unable to handle men properly. True to his character, Callicratidas interpreted the criticisms as an affront to his own honour and frightened both the Spartans and the allies into silence. In his dealings with Cyrus he took quick offence at what he saw as another slight on his honour and as a result lost the fleet the subsidies on which it depended. His sense of honour seems consistently excessive, and injurious to the Spartan cause. Callicratidas shows himself equally full of his own sense of honour in further conversational exchanges in the narrative. He claimed to be ruler of the seas, as Lysander had, when he told the Athenian general Conon that he will put a stop to his ‘fornicating with the sea’ (1.6.15). The metaphor is characteristically aggressive. In one economical expression he lays claim to the sea and implies that Athens is a mere intruder to be chased off. His language is always full of egotistical remarks, for example (1.6.14) that ‘while he is commander’ no Greek would be enslaved ‘as far as lies within his power’. In his last words to his Megarian steersman Hermon, he professes a love of honour above life, but loses Sparta the vital battle of Arginusae (1.6.32).!° The moral contrast between Lysander and Callicratidas, set in place by the exchange, is the central feature of this section of the narrative. The contrast is examined further on pp. 81-3. The Canebearers of Chius (2.1.1-5) Callicratidas lost the battle of Arginusae. His colleague Eteonicus escaped to Chius with the surviving forces, where they wintered over.1. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War 25 Xenophon takes the opportunity to tell the story of how he prevented the occurrence of a dangerous mutiny. It is marked by a smart punchline conclusion. Eteonicus’ men found work on Chius for most of the summer and autumn, but when winter came on there was less work and less food, and their light summer clothing and lack of shoes made life uncomfortable. They decided to mutiny. Those in the conspiracy carried a cane as a sign of complicity. Eteonicus found out about the plan but was at a loss how to deal with it. In a long periodic sentence Xenophon has him agonise about his dilemma. He thought it dangerous to provoke the men by attacking them outright, in case they seized the city, and he found the killing of allies unacceptable. So he took fifteen men and prowled about the city until he found a man suffering from eye disease coming out of the doctor's tent carrying a cane. Eteonicus killed him. When the men made a commotion and asked why he had been killed, Eteonicus replied, ‘Because he carried a cane.’ All those in the conspiracy threw away their canes, fearing that they would be killed too. The mutiny was at an end. This story has a very firm structure leading the reader steadily toward the punchline conclusion. The canes, central to the story, are introduced early so that the reader will take the point of the ending. The announcement that Eteonicus was ‘at a loss how to handle the affair’ and his agonising over his course of action create suspense through inaction and pave the way for the ingenious and rapid denouement. Herodotus frequently has his characters at a loss how to handle affairs before he introduces the solution to their dilemma." It is a storyteller’s technique. The number fifteen seems conventional too.!? This is a well structured and vivid piece of storytelling. The punchline conclusion to the action, taking the form of an incomplete causal clause that relies for its full effect on the preceding question, is very economical and rapid. There is also considerable charm in the apparent innocence of the remark, which contains a barely veiled threat. The punchline commemorates what is the main point of the story, the ingenuity of Eteonicus in resolving a very tricky dilemma, the mark of the good commander. It is useful to imagine what a Thucydides would have made of this mutiny. Not the storytelling delights of Xenophon. The next piece of conversationalised narrative takes us beyond the continuation of the Peloponnesian War to the installation of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens after her defeat, and the subsequent split in the ranks of the Thirty that led to the trial and condemnation of Theramenes at the hands of Critias on a charge of treachery to the regime.26 Part I. Conversationalised Narrative Theramenes and Satyrus (2.3.56) It was only as a result of a clearly improper judicial procedure that Theramenes of Athens found himself no longer a member but a victim of the regime of the Thirty installed by the Spartans to rule Athens after their victory in the Peloponnesian War. Xenophon writes a very full account of this procedure with formal speeches for prosecution and defence which will be the subject of a later section of this investigation. At the end of that account he describes how Theramenes was hauled off to imprisonment and certain death by hemlock at the hands of one of the regime’s most notorious policemen, Satyrus, and then relates the exchanges Theramenes is supposed to have had with him. ‘They dragged Theramenes away through the Agora and he gave very loud voice to what was being done to him. One of his sayings is reported as follows. When Satyrus said that he would have cause for loud lament if he did not stop shouting, Theramenes replied, ‘And if I stop shouting, will I not have cause for loud lament all the same?’ And when he was compelled to drink the hemlock and die, they said that he tossed the dregs out of the cup as in the game of Cottabus and said, ‘This to the fair Critias.’ 1 am not unaware that these sayings are not worthy of report, but I judge this remarkable in the man, that with death at hand, neither wit nor humour forsook his soul. The sayings of Theramenes give a positive and optimistic ending to his sad story of injustice. This would be in accordance with what Dionysius believed about the similarities between Herodotus and Xenophon regarding their desire to present subject matter that is not complete and unrelieved misery. Whatever Theramenes had suffered, his sayings affirm a certain confidence in the human spirit that ends the story on a high note. Xenophon in fact attributes to Theramenes the same philosophic courage and equanimity in the face of death by hemlock as he attributes to Socrates. In his Apologia Socratis in particular, he emphasises just how gay and pleasant Socrates was, in his speech and his facial expression and even in the way he walked, when he was sentenced to drink the hemlock by the Athenian jurymen.!3 The jokes Theramenes makes also show how Xenophon lived up to what the critic Demetrius said of him, that he could lighten the mood of even the most unhappy subject matter not by concentrating on parts of the story that were intrinsically happier, but by working his skill so as to make light of the most unpromising material. Just as Homer made his Cyclops indulge in grim humour at the expense of Odysseus and his men, so Xenophon makes Theramenes indulge in grim humour at the expense of Critias, his chief prosecutor and former friend. The tradition of this kind of humorous exchange1. Stories of the Continuation and the Athenian Civil War = 27 goes back through Herodotus even unto Homer, who was the master of them all. Theramenes’ reply to Satyrus’ threat acknowledges the inevitability of death in a witty manner, picking up his reference to suffering and throwing it back at him. The rapidity of the response and the economy of the expression, which makes the reader think before grasping the whole of what Theramenes is saying, is typical of the charming style, as is the witty play on words itself. The toast to Critias has the same features. The apparently friendly good wishes to Critias explicit in the toast are really an oblique and veiled death wish against him, for the hemlock dregs are fatal. The toast comes moreover at the end of a story of a friendship gone sour, of the friend Critias turned enemy, and its final positioning in the whole story sends a flash of light back over the earlier events, summing them up in a few words. Xenophon uses the conversationalised presentation with consummate skill. The sayings are attributed to the report of others. If this is literally true, then the charis may belong to them rather than to Xenophon. Yet the frequency of the occurrence of such charming exchanges in the Hellenica and Demetrius’ recognition of such grim humour as a special characteristic of Xenophon tend to suggest that the final product is his, no matter what the contribution of his source. It is hard to accept in any case that the writer had no part in their final form. So much for the presentation of the exchange. Its function is the commemoration of a great achievement of virtue, to wit, courage in the face of death. This courage manifested itself in the wit and humour Theramenes displayed even at the end, a proof of his constancy and equanimity. Most men, no matter how witty by nature, would quail in the face of death and find their wit wanting. Xenophon comments that the sayings were not worthy of report in themselves, for their wit and humour, but for the quality they displayed beneath the surface banter, in the context of imminent death. In including material not in itself worthy of history, but which in context revealed an underlying fact most worthy, Xenophon is exhibiting the mentality behind a later passage already described, the farewell of Teleutias by his men (5.1.4). There the superficial interest was the details of the farewell and the underlying interest was the excellence of leadership they revealed. Xenophon seems fond of revealing hidden virtue. There is some point in noting that in a later passage of military narrative, a military commander reveals the same kind of courage in the face of imminent death as Theramenes, and expresses it in the same way, through a display of wit.!4 All three characters, Socrates, Theramenes and the commander Pasimachus go to their deaths with a quip on their lips as illustrations of courage. This makes me suspect even more that Xenophon is really the ultimate designer of the details of such episodes.