Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/167

Rh that under all circumstances of the price of provisions, &c., they could be worked to a profit by slave labour. It is needless to say that such an assumption was unjustifiable.

Boeckh says, that of all the schemes and recommendations of Xenophon for improving the revenues of his country, the only one that is unexceptionable is his exhortation to peace. For the preservation of peace, he has great faith in moral measures. He advises the appointment of "peace-commissioners;" and he recommends that the independence of the temple of Delphi—a question analogous in ancient Greece to the neutrality of Belgium in modern Europe—should be maintained rather by diplomacy than by arms. He adds, "Should any one ask whether I mean that if any power should unjustly attack our state, we must maintain peace with that power?—I should not say I had any such intention; but I may safely assert that we shall retaliate on any aggressors with far greater facility, if we can show that none of our people does wrong to any one, for then our enemies will not have a single supporter." This simple belief in the efficacy of virtue and justice in international relationship, received a rude commentary in the subjugation of Athens to the power of Macedon very shortly after the above sentence was written.

In the 'Œconomicus,' or 'Treatise on Housekeeping,' we have Xenophon's ideas on the management of the house and the farm given under the form of a dialogue,