Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/11



is none of the ancient Greek authors whose personality stands more clearly before us than that of Xenophon. We owe this entirely to his own writings, for external notices of him are meagre and untrustworthy. But the historian of the expedition of Cyrus, the recorder of the conversations of Socrates, and the varied essayist on so many topics of ancient Greek life, was one of those writers who, in depicting other things, give at the same time a portrait of themselves. His chief work is the account of a military expedition in which he was himself engaged, and in which he ultimately played a very prominent and leading part. So it follows only naturally that five-sevenths of this work are almost pure autobiography. We have thus from Xenophon's own hand a minute and living pic- vol. viii.