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Xenophon

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For other people named the ancient Greek writer Xenophon, see the ancient Greek writer Xenophon (disambiguation).
Xenophon, Greek historian

Xenophon (Ancient Greek Template:Polytonic, Modern Greek "Ξενοφών", "Ξενοφώντας"; ca. 431 – 355 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, was a soldier, mercenary and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates. He is known for his writings on the history of his own times, preserving the sayings of Socrates, and the life of ancient Greece.


List of works

Xenophon's writings, especially the Anabasis, are often read by beginning students of the Greek language. His Hellenica is a major primary source for events in Greece from 411 to 362 BC, and his Socratic writings, preserved complete, are the only surviving representatives of the genre of Sokratikoi logoi other than the dialogues of Plato.

Xenophon in Pop Culture

The 1979 cult classic film The Warriors is loosely based on Xenophon's Anabasis. In it a gang (The Warriors) has to fight its way home through hostile territory after fleeing a meeting called by a prominent gang leader, Cyrus, whose subsequent murder is blamed on them.

In the 1976 novel Spock, Messiah!, James Kirk is re-reading Xenophon's Anabasis with evident pleasure as a diversion from the ongoing pressures of being a Starship Captain. [1]


Socratic works and dialogues

Short treatises

In addition, a short treatise on the Constitution of Athens exists that was once thought to be by Xenophon, but which was probably written when Xenophon was about five years old. This is found in manuscripts among the short works of Xenophon, as though he had written it also. The author, often called in English the "Old Oligarch", detests the democracy of Athens and the poorer classes, but he argues that the Periclean institutions are well designed for their deplorable purposes. Leo Strauss has argued that this work is in fact by Xenophon, whose ironic posing he believes has been utterly missed by contemporary scholarship.

Notes

References and further reading

  • Anderson, J.K. Xenophon. London: Duckworth, 2001 (paperback, ISBN 1-85399-619-X).
  • Dillery, John. Xenophon and the History of His Times. London; New York: Routledge, 1995 (hardcover, ISBN 0-415-09139-X).
  • Evans, R.L.S. "Xenophon" in The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Greek Writers. Ed.Ward Briggs. Vol. 176, 1997.
  • Gray, V.J. "The Years 375 to 371 BC: A Case Study in the Reliability of Diodorus Siculus and Xenophon, The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2. (1980), pp. 306–326.
  • Higgins, William Edward. Xenophon the Athenian: The Problem of the Individual and the Society of the “Polis”. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977 (hardcover, ISBN 0-87395-369-X).
  • Hirsch, Steven W. The Friendship of the Barbarians: Xenophon and the Persian Empire. Hanover; London: University Press of New England, 1985 (hardcover, ISBN 0-87451-322-7).
  • Hutchinson, Godfrey. Xenophon and the Art of Command. London: Greenhill Books, 2000 (hardcover, ISBN 1-85367-417-6).
  • The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, edited by Robin Lane Fox. New Heaven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0-300-10403-0).
  • Moles, J.L. "Xenophon and Callicratidas", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 114. (1994), pp. 70–84.
  • Nadon, Christopher. Xenophon's Prince: Republic and Empire in the “Cyropaedia”. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 2001 (hardcover, ISBN 0-520-22404-3).
  • Nussbaum, G.B. The Ten Thousand: A Study in Social Organization and Action in Xenophon's “Anabasis.” (Social and Economic Commentaries on Classical Texts; 4). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967.
  • Phillips, A.A & Willcock M.M. Xenophon & Arrian On Hunting With Hounds, contains Cynegeticus original texts, translations & commentary. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1999 (paperback ISBN 0-85668-706-5).
  • Rahn, Peter J. "Xenophon's Developing Historiography", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 102. (1971), pp. 497–508.
  • Rood, Tim. The Sea! The Sea!: The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination. London: Duckworth Publishing, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-7156-3308-2); Woodstock, NY; New York: The Overlook Press, (hardcover, ISBN 1-58567-664-0); 2006 (paperback, ISBN 1-58567-824-4).
  • Strauss, Leo. Xenophon's Socrates. Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press, 1972 (hardcover, ISBN 0-8014-0712-5); South Bend, IN: St. Augustines Press, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 1-58731-966-7).
  • Stronk, J.P. The Ten Thousand in Thrace: An Archaeological and Historical Commenary on Xenophon's Anabasis, Books VI, iii–vi – VIII (Amsterdam Classical Monographs; 2). Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1995 (hardcover, ISBN 90-5063-396-X).
  • Usher, S. "Xenophon, Critias and Theramenes", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 88. (1968), pp. 128–135.
  • Waterfield, Robin. Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia and the End of the Golden Age. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-674-02356-0); London: Faber and Faber, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0571223831).
  • Vivienne J. Gray, Xenophon On Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. 231.
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