Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1312

Rh 1300 XENOPHON. History of the Expedition of Cyrus, &c. London, 1807, 4to." is a useful commentary on the Anabasis, to which may be added various remarks in the London Geographical Journal. (See the Index to the first ten volumes.) The translation by Spel- man is perhaps the best English version. In a passage in the Hellenica (iii. 1. § 1), the author says, " Now how Cyrus got his army to- gether and marched up the country with it against his brother, and how the battle was fought, and how he died, and how after this the Greeks made their retreat to the sea, has been written by The- mistogenes of Syracuse." This passage seems sufficiently to indicate the Anabasis, though the extract siiys nothing of the course which the Greeks took from Trapezus to Byzantium, Plu- tarch {De Gloria Athen. vol. ii. ed. Wyttenbach) says, that Xenophon attributed the Anabasis to Themistogenes in order that the work might have more credit, than if it appeared as the narrative of one who had to say so much about himself. We might suppose that there was a work on the ex- pedition of Cyrus by Themistogenes, and that Xenophon wrote his Anabasis after he had written this passage in the Hellenica. But this is merely a conjecture, and not a satisfactory one. When we read the Anabasis we never doubt that Xeno- phon was the author of it, for he speaks of himself in many places in a way in which no other person could speak : he records, for instance, dreams and thoughts, which no one could know except from his evidence. The Anabasis, then, as we have it, was either written by Xenophon, or compiled from his notes ; and the reference to the work of Themistogenes either proves that there was such a work, or that Xenophon's work passed under the name of Themistogenes, at the time when the passage in the Hellenica was written, if Xenophon wrote the passage in the Hellenica. Bornemann's proposal to translate the words in the Hellenica, QeuicTToyeuei r^ '2,vpaKovaiq} yeypamai, " das habe ich fiir den Themistogenes gcschrieben " is altogether inadmissible. The Hellenica {'E}viKa.) of Xenophon are divided into seven books, and comprehend the space of forty-eight years, from the time when the history of Thucydides ends [Thucydides] to the battle of Mantineia, b. c. 362. But the fact of the assassination of Alexander of Pherae is men- tioned (vi. 4. 35), as to which the reference al- ready made to Clinton's Fasti may be consulted. It is the opinion of Niebuhr and others that the Hellenica consists of two distinct parts or works written at different times. The History of Thu- cydides would be completed by the capture of Athens, B. c. 404, which is described in the second book {Hellen. ii. 2) ; the remainder of this book carries the history to the restoration of Thrasybu- lus and the exiles, B. c. 403. The second para- graph of the third book in which Themistogenes is mentioned, may be considered as completing the history up to B. c. 399 ; and a new narrative ap- pears to begin with the third paragraph of the third book ('EttcI jxtvToi Tiaaa<pfpvT}?, &c.). But there seems no sufficient reason to consider the Hellenica as two works, because an expression at the end of the second book refers to the Athenian amnesty (en /coi vvv o/jloD, &c.) of B. c. 403, and because the death of Alexander of Pherae is re- corded in the sixth. This would only prove that Xenophon had the work a long time under his XENOPHON. hands. The division into books proves nothing, for that was posterior to Xenophon's time. (The Hellenica of Xenophon, and their division into books, by G. C. Lewis, Classical Museum, No. iv. ) The Hellenica is generally a dry narrative of events, and there is nothing in the treatment of them which gives a special interest to the work. Some events of importance are briefly treated, but a few striking incidents are presented with some particularity. There is an English translation of the Hellenica by W. Smith, the translator of Thu- cydides. The Cyropaedia (KvpoTraiSeia) in eight books, is a kind of political romance, the basis of which is the liistory of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy. It shows how citizens are to be made virtuous and brave ; and Cyrus is the model of a wise and good ruler. As a history it has no autho- rity at all. Xenophon adopted the current stories as to Cyrus and the chief events of his reign, without any intention of subjecting them to a critical examination ; nor have we any reason to suppose that his picture of Pei'sian morals and Persian discipline is any thing more than a fiction, for we know that many of the usages of the Persians in the time of the first Dareius and his successors were different from the usages which Xenophon attributes to the Persians ; and Xeno- phon himself affirms this. Besides this, Xenophon could know no more of the Persians in the time of the first Cyrus than other Greeks ; and, setting aside the improbability of his picture, we are certain that he could not know many things which he has introduced into his romance. His object was to represent what a state might be, and he placed the scene of his fiction far enough off to give it the colour of possibility. His own philo- sophical notions and the usages of Sparta were the real materials out of which he constructed his poli- tical system. The Cyropaedia is evidence enough that Xenophon did not like the political constitu- tion of his own country, and that a well-ordered monarchy or kingdom appeared to him preferable to a democracy like Athens. The genuineness of the Epilogus or conclusion, in which Xenophon shows how the Persians had degenerated since the time of Cyrus, is doubted by some critics ; but there seem to be no sufficient reasons. The author here says that the " Persians of his time, and the rest who were among them, were proved to be both less reverential towards the gods and less just to their kin, and more dishonest towards others, and less courageous in war now than they were before ; and if any man has a contrary opinion, he will find, if he looks to their acts, that they testify to the truth of what I say." The Cyropaedia is one of the most pleasing of Xenophon's works, and it contains many good hints on the training of youth. Xenophon's remarks are practical; we do not find in his writings any thoughts that strike us as very profound or new, but we always discover careful observation of human life, good sense, and honest purpose. The dying speech of Cyrus (viii. 7) is worthy of the pupil of Socrates, and Cicero {de Senectute, 22) has transferred the substance of it to enforce his argument for the immortality of the soul. This passage may be assumed as evi- dence of Xenophon's belief in the existence of the soul (^"'X^) independent of the organised being in which it acts. '• I never could be persuaded," says Cyrus, " that the soul lives so long as it is in