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The Constitution of the Athenians ascribed to Xenophon the orator.--The Politeia of the Spartans by Xenophon.--The Boeotian Constitution from the Oxyrhynchus historian.--The Constitution of Athens by Aristotle.

Seit 1923 erscheinen in der Sammlung Tusculum ma gebende Editionen griechischer und lateinischer Werke mit deutscher bersetzung. Die Originaltexte werden zudem eingeleitet und umfassend kommentiert; nach der neuen Konzeption bieten schlie lich thematische Essays tiefere Einblicke in das Werk, seinen historischen Kontext und sein Nachleben. Die hohe wissenschaftliche Qualit t der Ausgaben, gepaart mit dem leserfreundlichen Sprachstil der Einf hrungs- und Kommentarteile, macht jeden Tusculum-Band zu einer fundamentalen Lekt re nicht nur f r Studierende, die sich zum ersten Mal einem (...) antiken Autor n hern, und f r Wissenschaftler, die spezifische Aspekte eines Werkes vertiefen m chten, sondern f r alle, die sich durch vertrauensw rdige bersetzungen einen Zugang zur Antiken Welt verschaffen wollen. In der Reihe wurden bisher ber 270 Titel publiziert, alle erh ltlich als Buch und eBook. Dadruch werden bislang vergriffene Titel und Rarit ten wieder vollst ndig verf gbar gemacht. Zus tzlich zu der Buchreihe erscheint bei De Gruyter zum 90-j hrigen Jubil um das eBook-PaketTusculum Online, eine digitale Sammlung aller von 1923 bis 2013 erschienenen Titel -eine geb hrende W rdigung eines wichtigen St cks deutscher Verlagsgeschichte. Mehr Informationen rund um Tusculum erhalten Sie unter: www.degruyter.com/tusculum. (shrink)

This article surveys Xenophon’s evidence for Socrates’ views on democracy. It offers a more balanced and complete reading of the evidence in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and takes account of new ways to assess the definition of what is democratic. It argues that Xenophon’s basic image of Socrates is democratic in the broadest sense through an investigation of topics such as Socrates’ attitudes towards democratic laws, and the use of dokimasia and the ballot, as well as his views on (...) oligarchic and democratic regimes of his time, the ‘royal art’ of rule, the assembly and its decisions, and the role of the wealthy in democracy. It also argues against the general view that Xenophon’s own views on democracy as expressed in his other works show no support for democracy. (shrink)

Xenophon of Athens was a pupil of Socrates and a philosopher in his own right. He wrote two of the texts included in this volume, the Hiero and the Constitution of the Spartans. The third, the Constitution of the Athenians, is found under Xenophon's name alongside the other two in the manuscripts. The works represent three distinct types of government, but there are common features throughout. This volume presents an introduction discussing Xenophon's views on government in the (...) context of his general political thought, drawing particularly on his Socratic work Memorabilia, and a commentary on the Greek text of each work aimed primarily at advanced undergraduates and graduate students. (shrink)

This book is a detailed comparison of the major political writings of Machiavelli and Xenophon. By elucidating the remarkable scope, depth, and subtlety of the debate between these two great thinkers,Excellence Unleashed offers a fresh perspective on the philosophic and political significance of Machiavelli's proto-modern break from the classical tradition.

The death of Socrates gave birth to an industry of biographical literature which often took the form of a defence or prosecution , sometimes purporting to be the actual defence or prosecution conducted at his trial. Plato and Xenophon wrote works in his defence. Among his critics, one Polycrates had a certain notoriety. Lysias, Theodectes and Demetrius of Phalerum, orators and rhetoricians like Polycrates, were credited with further works of apology. There were doubtless many others. The aim of this (...) paper is to show that Xenophon wrote his Defence in the light of the rhetorical theory that required that a speaker utter words and thoughts appropriate πρεποντα to his character. (shrink)

The Hiero is an account in Socratic conversational form of a meeting between Simonides the poet and Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse; it was written by Xenophon of Athens in the fourth century b.c., but is set in the fifth, when the historical Simonides and Hiero lived and met. The subject they are portrayed discussing is the relative happiness of the tyrant and private individual. Plato also makes this a topic of discussion in his Republic. However, whereas Plato writes (...) a regular Socratic dialogue, Xenophon does not, for though he represents his characters using Socratic conversation, Socrates himself does not appear; the characteros of the Hiero are Simonides and Hiero, poet and tyrant. This is the problem of the Hiero. It requires explanation. The action of the Hiero is initiated by Simonides and begins in the following way: Simonides the poet once came to the court of Hiero the tyrant. When they were both at leisure, Simonides said, ‘Would you be willing to tell me, Hiero, something you are likely to know better than I?’ And Hiero said, ‘What is it that I should know better than you, who are such a wise man?’ He replied, ‘I know that you were once a private individual and are now a tyrant. Since you have experienced both conditions, you are likely to know better than I how tyrannical life differs from private life in respect of men's pleasures and griefs’ . The identification of Simonides as a wise man who nevertheless seeks wisdom from others establishes his Socratic nature from the start. (shrink)

Le Socrate de Xénophon et la démocratie présente une interprétation nuancée du témoignage de Xénophon sur l’attitude de Socrate à l’endroit de la démocratie athénienne. Cette étude conteste les interprétations qui ont été trop restrictives dans le choix des témoignages et trop négatives dans leurs conclusions. Elle tient compte, d’une part, des différents paramètres qui permettent de définir la démocratie ; d’autre part, des réalités de la démocratie athénienne. Les principaux textes pertinents proviennent des Mémorables. Nous traitons de la nature (...) de cet ouvrage et de la façon dont il expose l’attitude de Socrate à l’endroit des lois et des institutions du régime démocratique, notamment l’assemblée et le tirage au sort. Cette étude présente enfin une interprétation plus nuancée de la propre attitude de Xénophon à l’endroit de la démocratie, attitude qui a elle-même influé sur la façon dont on a, par le passé, évalué l’attitude de son Socrate.Xenophon’s Socrates and Democracy offers a balanced interpretation of Xenophon’s evidence for Socrates’ attitude to the Athenian democracy, arguing against interpretations that have been too selective in their evidence and too negative in their conclusions. It takes due account of the various parameters that define democracy and the realities of Athenian democracy. The main evidence is from Memorabilia. There is discussion of nature of this work, and then of how it expresses Socrates’ attitude to the laws of the democracy and other processes such as sortition and the assembly. The paper also offers a more balanced interpretation of Xenophon’s own attitude to democracy, which has influenced past assessments of the attitude of his Socrates. (shrink)

The use of dialogue in Xenophon's Hellenica is a phenomenon that needs explanation. Among previous historians, Herodotus had used it frequently but Thucydides hardly at all. In Xenophon's own time, Ctesias had used it but not the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia nor Ephorus to any great extent, as far as we can tell. Theopompus had plagiarized one of the Hellenica dialogues as well as adding others of his own. Generally, dialogue occurred less frequently in history writing than (...) the set speech. Yet there have been no serious studies of dialogue in the Hellenica, and where opinions are expressed they often vary. Sordi considered that the purpose of dialogue was decorative and agreed with the estimates of ancient critics about the liveliness of the conversations. Breitenbach also thought they had literary merit but suggested that their purpose was moral and didactic. Henry agreed that their purpose was didactic but thought them flat and lifeless and lacking in literary merit. Bruce thought their purpose was to illustrate personality. These differences of opinion should be settled. Moreover, Sordi's view that the content, style and purpose of dialogue is quite different from that of the set speech, and that this reflects a difference of genre within the Hellenica, dialogue being typical of memoir and the set speech of ‘serious’ history, cannot go unchallenged. Herodotus used dialogue in what was clearly not memoir. Further, there has been no serious attempt to place dialogue in the Hellenica in the tradition of dialogue writing in history or to examine its relationship to dramatic dialogue or the philosophical dialogue. This needs to be attempted. Such are the aims of this paper. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the relationship between the serious and the playful elements in Socrates’ character as these unfold within the context of Xenophon’s Symposium. For the Greeks, the concept of value is attached to the meaning of seriousness, and this accounts for the natural preference for the serious over the playful. Despite the potential rivalry of the playful and philosophy, Socrates mixes the playful with the serious in such a way as to conceal their boundary. This mixing (...) serves the purpose of education, by both attracting us to Socrates and placing us at a distance from the intended meaning of his words. (shrink)

For once the blurbs on the book jacket do not exaggerate. Josiah Ober is one of the most original, wide-ranging, and provocative thinkers we have on Athenian democracy and his book, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule really is a ‘groundbreaking contribution to classical Greek history, ancient Greek philosophy, and the history of political thought’ and does indeed offer ‘close and insightful’ readings of particular texts . Every chapter is full of fresh interpretations of the most (...) worked-over passages or a shift of focus which alters our reading of an entire text. Moreover, he has more interesting things to say about Ps.-Xenophon than just about anyone I have ever read. And he weaves all this into a richly textured story about modern as well as ancient democracy. (shrink)

This new translation makes Xenophon's interpretation of Socrates readily available for the first time in a low-priced edition. With the exception of unnecessarily literal repetitions of "by Zeus," the translation is smooth. The introduction is somewhat restricted in its usefulness by the assumption that those who condemned Socrates could not have understood what they were doing and by a tendency to blur differences between Plato's and Xenophon's portraits of Socrates.—R. J. W.

Neither the chronology nor the interpretation of the history of the years 375 to 371 BC is yet settled. The date of the peace that followed the Athenian naval victory over Sparta at Alyzeia in Scirophorion 375 is put variously in the second half of 375 or 374 or even in spring 374. The status of the Boeotian cities at the time of the peace as well as the role of the King and the participation of Thebes are controversial, and (...) this affects the interpretation of the peace itself. (shrink)

Depuis une vingtaine d'annees, on assiste un peu partout a un regain d'interet pour les ecrits socratiques de Xenophon. Que Xenophon ne nous donne pas davantage que Platon un portrait historiquement fiable de Socrate peut etre considere comme un acquis de la critique du XXe siecle. Laissant transparaitre dans son temoignage des options profondement differentes de celles de Platon, Xenophon temoigne par la meme, cependant, des tensions, voire des oppositions qui traversaient le milieu socratique autour du souvenir (...) et de la comprehension de la personne de Socrate: cette seule consideration suffit a faire de Xenophon une source essentielle pour notre connaissance de l'immediat apres Socrate et, par dela, pour notre intelligence de l'histoire de la reception de Socrate dans les siecles ulterieurs. Le colloque dont sont issues les etudes rassemblees dans ce volume, organise a l'Universite de Provence (Aix-Marseille I) du 6 au 9 novembre 2003, s'inscrit dans cette perspective. Plus qu'un bilan de la nouvelle orientation des etudes xenophontiennes, qu'il est encore trop tot pour etablir, on y verra l'illustration de la diversite d'approches dont est susceptible le temoignage de Xenophon sur Socrate. Due a Louis-Andre Dorion, une bibliographie des etudes sur les ecrits socratiques de Xenophon publiees dans le dernier quart de siecle temoigne de la vitalite retrouvee de ce domaine de recherche. (shrink)

This volume represents some of the activities of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy from the academic year 1997-98. It contains nine colloquia that were hosted by eight different colleges and universities in the greater Boston area. Discussions of the works of Plato dominate this volume, with six of the nine colloquia based on Platonic texts. Appropriately, the colloquia begin with an analysis of division in the ancient atomists. Later, a study of truth in Aristotle gives a counterpoint to (...) the Platonic interplay of drama and pedagogy or logic and rhetoric examined in papers about the "Theaetetus" and "Symposium". A presentation of Proclus’s account of evil revisits some of the issues of sophistry and morality discussed in relation to Plato’s "Republic" and "Euthydemus". Finally, the remaining Platonic papers are in a way not about Plato at all, but about Socrates and Xanthippe, supplementing Platonic dialogues with Xenophon and others. Underneath these discussions of ancient texts current modes of philosophy run along, providing a score of alternative interpretative schemes._ This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here_ for details. (shrink)

In discussions of the complex and controversial problem of Spartan land-tenure,1 the mysterious ‘ρχαα μορα’ has assumed an importance out of all proportion to its prominence in the sources, for the actual phrase only occurs once in extant literature. It owes its importance to the fact that the reference to it has been used to support the theory that there were two categories of land in Sparta, a theory which in turn is held to explain how, when all Spartans supposedly (...) owned equal estates, there could nevertheless be rich ones and poor ones, as authors such as Herodotos, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Aristotle make clear. The answer, it is claimed, is that although all Spartans possessed an equal share of one category of land, they could own more or less of the other category.2. (shrink)

A philosophical treatment of ideas, the book presents a philosophical dialogue much in the spirit of classical philosophical dialogues, notably those of Plato and Xenophon. As those authors do in a number of their works, Nick Pappas adopts a light and playful tone to treat a serious topic. This contrast helps bring out the truth, in an approachable style that requires no prior exposure to philosophy and heavy intellectual work.

"Rule" adopts the tradition of political philosophy begun by Socrates, refined by Xenophon and Plato. The book concentrates on something the characters call life-without-rule. What would that be? Is it a sort of utopia? How does it differ from anarchy? What makes it so appealing and what are the trade-offs?

‘Saepe stilum vertas’, says Horace; and he had excellent company in his friend Virgil, who wrote the Aeneid at the rate of only about 900 lines a year, and spent hours in licking his verses into shape. It would have been instructive to sit at the elbow of these two poets, to see what they altered and what they rejected. It is clear, e.g., that there were certain caesural arrangements which Virgil deliberately affected and others which he as deliberately avoided. (...) But what of the care taken by these and other classical authors in arranging sounds in relation to mood or idea? This present incomplete essay is written frankly with scepticism in regard to dogmatic comments on certain particular points. It has been perilously easy to frame legislation on the basis of a predilection bolstered up by one or two instances. Even in the field of syntax we have seen generalizations on too narrow a foundation. An editor of Andocides enunciates ‘a very important principle of the language, which is rigidly observed by the best writers; viz., that, when a participle and a verb of different government are referred to the same object, the case of that object depends on the participle and not at all on the verb… Shilleto's remarks on this point must be excused, as evidently written hastily.’ But a casual cast of the net brings up about a score of violations of this principle from Homer to Menander. Where does the editor propose to draw the line between the respectable and the declassé Greek writers? Aristophanes, though cited in support, is actually flagrantly lawless in the matter; and with him must go not only Homer and Hyperides but Sophocles, Euripides, Menander, Xenophon, Lysias, and Plato, leaving among the élite, as cited by this editor, only Thucydides, Antiphon, and Aeschines; and one is entitled to doubt even their rigid observance of the law until they have actually been brought to court. In problems of rhythm, also, one has to be careful to use evidence as against preconception. When an editor hacks and fits the dactylics of Ennius so as to eradicate all feet beginning with two short syllables, it is as impious as recarving a statue by Daedalus because it does not conform to the canon of Polyclitus; and one may be forgiven if now and then one interprets the editor's corr. in his apparatus criticus not as correxi but as corrupi. (shrink)

In the study of education, as in many more travelled regions of Classical scholarship, democratic Athens is something of a special case. The cautions formulation is appropriate: in the case of education, surprisingly few studies have sought to establish quite how special Athens was, and those which have, have often raised more questions than they answered. The subject itself is partly to blame. The history of education invites comparison with the present day, while those planning the future of education rarely (...) fail to invoke the past. The place of Classical Athens in European culture has ensured a place for Athenian education in almost every debate from the relation between education and democracy to the value of educationversustraining, and as the original champion of causes as varied as mass education, co-education, and the national curriculum. Desirable as it is to be in demand, such treatment is not calculated to produce the most circumspect account of the subject. The study of education is further hampered by the fact that our knowledge of Athenian culture is so vibrant and diverse in some ways and so partial in others. Plato and Aristophanes present a vivid fictional picture of education in the late fifth century. If we add a few passages from Xenophon and Aristotle, a large number of vases depicting men, women, and children reading, playing the lyre, and doing athletics, and one or two archaeological finds of an educational appearance, it is tempting to take the result as a clear portrait of a society at school. (shrink)

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On the analogy of the colloquial register in some modern languages, where narrative and argument may be punctuated by oaths and exclamations in order to maintain a high affective level and compel the hearer's attention, it is reasonable to postulate that Attic conversation also was punctuated by oaths, that this ingredient in comic language was drawn from life, and that the comparative frequency of ║ M M Δ in comedy is sufficiently explained thereby. There are obvious affinities between some passages (...) of comedy, relaxed conversation in Plato and Xenophon, and the forceful, man-to-man tone which Demosthenes sometimes adopts to such good effect . Compare, for instance, Ar. V. 133 f. στιν δ' νομα ⋮ τ μν γέροντι ⋮ Φιλοκλέων / να μ Δία, τ δ' υε κτλ., where the oath is a response to imagined incredulity, and X. Smp. 4.27 ατν δ σέ, η, γ εδον να μ τν πόλλω, τε κτλ. . It is also important that the commonest oaths fit, in most of their forms, the end of an iambic trimeter: μ τν Δία, ν Δία,ν τούς θεούς, μ τος θεούς. Add that in Aristophanic dialogue over half the iambic trimeters end with major pause, and half the remainder with minor pause, and we can see why Δ / established itself early as a distinctive comic pattern. Out of 105 examples of M M Δ cited from comedy in Section II above, 59 have the oath at verse-end. In the case of πάνυ, which was almost exclusively Attic and — to judge from its great rarity in tragedy — felt by Athenian poets to be prosaic, we lack evidence on its functions in the colloquial register; it may or may not have served as affective punctuation. In prose, we have to reckon with the fact that π Mπ and Mπ π constituted a genuine stylistic choice as far back as the evidence will take us, since the two earliest instances in prose are [X.] Ath. 2.3 πάνυ δι χρείαν and ibid. 3.5 πολλ τι πάνυ. The oath, as treated by the comic poets on the basis of colloquial usage, is bound to have served as a model for πάνυ, exerting an influence which pulled πάνυ to the end of the verse, but there was also a powerful metrical constraint. As a dibrach ending in a vowel which could not be elided or enter into crasis, πάνυ was especially appropriate for verse-end. That in itself was enough both to establish Mπ π as the dominant pattern in comedy and to promote Mπ … π. Out of the total of 104 examples of Mπ π in comedy, 93 have πάνυ at verse-end, which makes Mπ π / one of the hallmarks of comic style. Mπ … π does not occur in prose in association with any other feature identified as colloquial, but it should be noted that Aiskhines and Demosthenes are much fonder of Mπ π than other prose authors. In some cases one can see that the order Mπ π avoids a succession of short syllables or hiatus or both , but there are other cases in which it has the opposite effect . The possibility of comic influence on oratorical language cannot be dismissed out of hand. It is also possible that someone will find positive determinants which will explain all the cases of Mπ π in prose. σόδρα, which, like πάνυ, is peculiarly Attic, is metrically more tractable than πάνυ, since it can be elided; even so, out of the 80 comic examples of Mσ σ no less than 58 have σόδρα at verse-end, and of those 58 there are 22 at major pause, 8 at presumed major pause and 9 at minor pause. The comic treatment of σόδρα is thus comparable with the treatment of πάνυ, and Timokles 222.4 τηρεν…σόδρα is in fact the closest analogy we have to Ar. Pl. 234 f. χθομαι…πάνυ. δέ and γάρ are a different matter, and in some significant respects different from each other. Postponement of δέ is especially prominent in Aeschylus and then abundant in fourth-century comedy. It is much less common in Euripides , rare in Sophocles and Aristophanes , and virtually limited in prose to the categories which I labelled –. There is as yet no evidence to associate postponement of δέ with colloquial language; on the contrary, it seems to have begun as a feature of poetic language and to have been taken up and exploited by fourth-century comedy. If, in addition to being Aeschylean, it was colloquial in the fourth century, what happened to it afterwards? Except for such an isolated and inexplicable case as Diod. xx85.1 — in a military narrative — it is not a feature of the Koine at literary, documentary or subliterate level. Postponement of γάρ was no doubt encouraged by postponement of δέ, but it is not itself notably poetic ). One can see how it could possibly have developed in the spoken language of the fourth century, extending the function of γάρ as an explanatory particle in a way which makes it comparable with the English ‘you see’ in ‘He didn't dare pick it up. He hurt his back last year, you see’. For an extension of this kind we may compare the current extension of the English genitive affix in ‘Then the girl whose place she was taking's mother turned up’ and ‘The man that Christopher liked's Introduction is much better’. Moreover, postponed γάρ appears in a segment of conversation constructed in indirect speech by Theophrastus in Char. 8.9 τ πργμα βοσθαι γάρ . Again we must ask: what happened to it afterwards? A couple of cases in Theophrastus' botanical works could be a reflex of the influence of comedy on literary language at Athens. The influence was plainly short-lived, since it did not affect the Koine. It is not hard to see why serious poetry in the fifth century and earlier should have experimented occasionally with the postponement of δέ and γάρ: treatment of M M q as a valid alternative to M q M is metrically very convenient. No poet, however, could afford to use common words in a bizarre, un-Greek way merely to save himself time and trouble in constructing a verse. Linguistic innovation is normally analogical, proceeding by extension from a starting-point already there, and the most obvious starting-point for postponement of δέ and γάρ is constituted by my class . This consideration provides comic postponement with a pedigree, but does not deny it individuality. The remarkable scale and frequency with which comedy exploited a phenomenon which tragedy used with restraint and prose hardly at all gives comic postponement the right to be regarded as a quite distinctive artificial feature of comedy. (shrink)