Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/380

350 XENOPHON

Xenophon, the only other Greek historian besides Herod- otus and Thucydides. of the so-called classical period, whose ΛνοΓΐί8 are extant, was born near Athens about 430 B. c. Early in life he came under the influence of Socrates, for whom he felt the warmest admiration and affection, and whose character he vindicates from charges made against him by anecdotes illustrating his daily mode of life and con- versation, in the Memorabilia, or Recollections of Socrates.

After the close of the Peloponnesian War in 403 B. c, Xenophon received an invitation to join the expedition of Cyrus the Younger, a Persian prince who was gathering a force of Greek mercenaries with the hope of wresting the throne from his brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes. Xeno- phon consulted Socrates and the Delphic oracle, and joined the campaign, neither as officer nor as soldier, but out of a spirit of adventure. When Cyrus was killed in the battle of Cunaxa, 401 b. c, and the chief Greek officers were assas- sinated, Xenophon became the leading spirit of the army, and directed its retreat through the country of the enemy to the Black Sea, and thence to the Hellespont. He describes this entire expedition in the Anabasis, or March to Babylon, — a title which belongs strictly only to the first of the seven " books " of the work. On his return, he served un- der the Spartan king Agesilaus, and perhaps even fought with him against Athens at the battle of Coronea in 394 B. c. Before or after this event, he was formally banished from Athens, but he was presented by the Lacedaemonians with an estate in Elis, where he made his home and wrote