Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/766

Rh 720 X E N X E N gods being the powers of nature personified, pantheism lay nearer to hand than monotheism. Xenophanes was then a pantheist. Accordingly his assertion of the unity of God was at the same time a declaration of the unity of Being, and in virtue of this declaration he is entitled to rank as the founder of Eleaticism, inasmuch as the philosophy of rarmenides was his forerunner s pantheism divested of its theistic element. This reconciliation of the internal and the external evidence, countenanced as it is by Theophrastus, one of the best-informed of the ancient historians, and approved by Zeller, one of the most acute of the modern critics, is more than plausible ; but there is something to be said on the contrary part. In the first place, it may be doubted whether to a Greek of the 6th century pantheism was nearer than monotheism. Secondly, the external evidence does not bear examination. The Platonic testimony, if it proved anything, would prove too much, namely, that the doctrine of the unity of Being originated, not with Xeno phanes, but before him ; and, in fact, the passage from the Sophist no more proves that Plato attributed to Xenophanes the philosophy of Parmenides than Tlic&tetus, 160 D, proves that Plato attributed to Homer the philosophy of Heraclitus. Again, Aristotle s descrip tion of Xenophanes as the first of the Eleatic Unitarians does not necessarily imply that the unity asserted by Xenophanes was the unity asserted by Parmenides; the phrase, &quot;contemplating the firmament (or the world), he declared that the One is God,&quot; leaves it doubtful whether Aristotle attributed to Xenophanes any philosophical theory whatever ; and the epithet dypoiKbrepos dis courages the belief that Aristotle regarded Xenophanes as the author of a new and important departure. Third 1}, when Xeno phanes himself says that his theories about gods and about things are not knowledge, that his utterances are not verities but verisi militudes, and that, so far from learning things by revelation, man must laboriously seek a better opinion, he plainly renounces the &quot;disinterested pursuit of truth.&quot; If then he was indifferent to the problem, he can hardly be credited with the Eleatic solution. In the judgment of the present writer, Xenophanes was neither a philosopher nor a sceptic. He was not a philosopher, for he despaired of knowledge. He was not a sceptic, if by &quot;sceptic&quot; is meant the misologist whose despair of knowledge is the consequence of disappointed endeavour, for he had never hoped. Rather he was a theologian who arrived at his theory of the unity of God by the rejection of the contemporary mythology. But, while he thus stood aloof from philosophy, Xenophanes influenced its de velopment in two ways : first, his theological monism led the way to the philosophical monism of Parmenides and Zeno ; secondly, his assertion that so-called knowledge was in reality no more than opinion taught his successors to distinguish knowledge and opinion, and to assign to each a separate province. Apart from the old controversy about Xenophanes s relations to philosophy, doubts have recently arisen about his theological posi tion. In fragments i., xiv., xvi., xxi., &c., he recognizes, thinks Freudenthal, a plurality of deities ; whence it is inferred that, 1 icsides the One God, most high, perfect, eternal, who, as immanent intelligent cause, unifies the plurality of things, there were also lesser divinities, who govern portions of the universe, being them selves eternal parts of the one all-embracing Godhead. Whilst it can hardly be allowed that Xenophanes, so far from denying, actu ally affirms a plurality of gods, it must be conceded to Freudenthal that Xenophanes s polemic was directed against the anthropomor phic tendencies and the mythological details of the contemporary polytheism rather than against the polytheistic principle, and that, apart from the treatise De Melisso, Xcn-ophane,, et Gorgia, now generally discredited, there is no direct evidence to prove him a consistent monotheist. The wisdom of Xenophanes, like the wisdom of the Hebrew Preacher, showed itself, not in a theory of the uni verse, but in a sorrowful recognition of the nothingness of things and the futility of endeavour. His theism was a declaration not so^much of the greatness of God as rather of the littleness of man. His cosmology was an assertion not so much of the immutability of the One as rather of the mutability of the Many. Like Socrates, he was not a philosopher, and did not pretend to be one ; but, as the reasoned scepticism of Socrates cleared the way for the philo sophy of Plato, so did Xenophanes s &quot;abnormis sapientia&quot; for the philosophy of Parmenides. Bibliography. 8. Karsten, XenopJianis ColopJionii Carminum Reliquiee, Brussels, 1S30 ; F. W. A. Mullach, Frag. Phil. Grxc., Paris, 1800, i. 99-108; G. troversy about the De Melissa, Xen., et Gorgia, see Ueberweg, Grundriss d. Gesch. d. PhOot., Berlin, 1871, i. 17. See also art. PARMENIDES. (H. JA.) XENOPHON, Greek historian and essayist, was born at Athens about 430 B.C. 1 He was a citizen of good position, belonging to the order of the knights. Early in The story that he was present at the battle of Delium in 424 B.C., which would carry back the date of his birth to 444 or 443, is now generally rejected, as it is impossible to reconcile it with his own life he came under the influence of Socrates. In 401 B.C., being invited by his friend Proxenus to join the expedition of the younger Cyrus against his brother, Artaxerxes II. of Persia, he jumped at the offer, for he was a needy man, and his prospects at home may not have been very good, as the knights were at this time out of favour from hav ing supported the Thirty Tyrants. At the suggestion of Socrates Xenophon went to Delphi to consult the oracle ; but his mind was already made up, and he at once crossed to Asia, to Sardis, the place of rendezvous. He joined neither as officer nor as soldier : he went simply to see new countries and peoples out of a spirit of curiosity and love of excitement. Of the expedition itself he has given a full and detailed account in his Anabasis, or the &quot; Up- Country March.&quot; (See PERSIA, vol. xviii. p. 577.) After the battle of Cunaxa the officers in command of the Greeks were treacherously murdered by the Persian satrap Tissa- phernes, with whom they were negotiating an armistice with a view to a safe return. The army was now in the heart of an unknown country, more than a thousand miles from home and in the presence of a troublesome enemy. It was decided to march northwards up the Tigris valley and make for the shores of the Euxine, on which there were several Greek colonies. Xenophon became the leading- spirit of the army ; he was elected an officer, and he it was who mainly directed the retreat. To his skill, good temper, and firmness the Greeks seem to have largely owed their safety. He seems indeed to have been an Athenian of the best type, having tact and sympathy, with a singular readiness of resource and a straightforward businesslike eloquence which could both persuade and convince. All through the perils and hardships of the retreat he shared the men s privations. Part of the way lay through the wilds of Kurdistan, where they had to encounter the harassing guerilla attacks of savage mountain tribes, and part through the highlands of Armenia and Georgia. After a five months march they reached Trapezus (Trebizond) on the Black Sea (February 400 B.C.), having given splendid proof of what Greek discipline and spirit could accomplish. When they reached the Euxine a tendency to demoraliza tion began to show itself, and even Xenophon almost lost his control over the soldiery. At Cotyora he aspired to found a new colony ; but the idea, not being unanimously accepted, was abandoned, and ultimately Xenophon with his Greeks arrived at Chrysopolis (Scutari) on the Bos- phorus, opposite Byzantium. After a brief period of ser vice under a Thracian chief, Seuthes, they were finally in corporated in a Lacedasmonian army which had crossed over into Asia to wage war against the Persian satraps Tissa- phernes and Pharnabazus, Xenophon going with them. Near Pergamum he captured a wealthy Persian nobleman with his family, and the ransom paid for his recovery seems to have been sufficient to provide Xenophon with a fair competency. On his return to Greece Xenophon served under Agesi- laus, king of Sparta, which state was at this time at the head of the Greek world. With his native Athens and its general policy and institutions he was not in sympathy. At Coronea he fought with the Spartans against the Athenians and Thebans, for which his fellow-citizens de creed his banishment. The exile found a home at Scillus in Elis, about two miles from Olympia ; there he settled down to indulge his tastes for sport and for literature. It was probably at Scillus that he wrote most of his books ; there too he built and endowed a temple to Artemis, modelled on the great temple at Ephesus. After Sparta s great defeat at Leuctra in 371 B.C., which fatally shattered statements about himself in the Anabasis, implying that in 401 B.C. he was a comparatively youug man, we may fairly assume iiot over thirty years of age.