X is for Xenophon and What Makes History

What I read: The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon

I'm never going to be a classicist because I like more dialog in my exposition. Book 1 of The Expedition is straight exposition. It's kind of like reading Numbers in the Bible: lists of generals and numbers of troops. It's like watching a Risk game. Shoot, it's like playing Risk. (Most boring board game ever invented.)

However, about half-way through Book 1, Cyrus dies, and Xenophon (who was there, but refers to himself in the third person) goes into this long panegyric about what a great guy Cyrus was and how he would have been a WAY better king than his brother, thank you very much, and this is actually pretty interesting stuff as well as being great argument/persuasion. Here's a guy who knows how to argue his point (and is totally direct about it).

And there are some interesting nuggets. One is the description of the battle. You know those fantasy/ancient legend types of movies where the two sides line up in a really, really, really long line and rush each other? Turns out, the ancient Mediterranean people actually did that, and it sounds pretty exciting!

Another is Xenophon's historical persona. It isn't as if he footnotes his "data." But he doesn't jump to conclusions. At one point, Cyrus is "betrayed" by one of his Persian backers, Orontas. Orontas goes to trial and then "was taken into the tent of Artapatas, the most loyal of Cyrus' staff-bearers, and no one ever again saw Orontas alive or dead, nor could anyone say with certainty how he died, although people came up with various conjectures. No one ever saw his grave either." It isn't clear whether Xenophon is trying a little too hard to NOT make Cyrus seem like a butchering murderer or whether Xenophon is actually doubtful whether the whole thing wasn't just an elaborate show, and Cyrus really let the guy live. In any case, it's fun historical writing!

Another interesting tid-bit is how xenophobic (another "X"!) those Greeks were. Cyrus hired a bunch of Greeks to go fight with him against the Persian army controlled by his brother. The Greeks were mercenaries, yet Xenophon, a Greek, continually refers to the Persian army as "barbarians." He's completely unapologetic about it. That's what barbarians do. Yep, the barbarians are at it again.

The lowliest Greek is better than the Persian king: there's something awe-inspiring about this attitude. 

2023: I learned about Xenophon. I read the introduction to another of his books, Hellenica. I also watched Great Course's The Greek and Persian Wars with Professor John R. Hale. 

Xenophon is apparently not all that reliable. He was "there," at least part of the time, But even when he was there, he seems to have heavily edited events. G.L. Cawkwell in the introduction to Hellenica states, "[Xenophon] is principally what we have to rely on [for Cyrus's war against his brother and the end of the Greek Empire] and again and again puzzles present themselves. For the Hellenica is not history. It is essentially Memoirs." 

Another of Xenophon's problems is "[h]e wrote for men who knew, and felt no need to explain to those who did not know." 

 

Herodotus

He was no Herodotus, who by all accounts was a truly magnanimous man who felt the need to honestly depict and relate what he heard, even if he personally disbelieved it. In comparison, Xenophon edited by his silence stuff that he didn't want to remember or relate or think about.

 

Both Xenophon and Herodotus were interested in the moral lessons of history, however. I personally find this approach to history troubling since it can take on the same role as slathering academic theories. The moral lesson gets in the way. However, here again, a difference rears its head. Herodotus, like Adam Smith, observed, then deduced while Xenophon appears to wade into recent history with a story already in place. As Cawkwell states, "The hand of God is an explanation that dulls the quest for truth." 

 

Contemporary historians still love Xenophon (they love Herodotus more) because without both men, we would know even less about the ancient world than we do. And, too, Herodotus at least was promoting a somewhat new approach to the past. Ancient civilizations had "origin" stories as well as plenty of law documents as proof that a society had been around for awhile  (in fact, most conquerors in the Sumerian time period simply adopted everything that was left and kept it going).  But digging all that up (quite literally on occasion) became increasingly popular at the time of Herodotus and Xenophon. 

 

How did we get to here?

 

What was it like back then? was slightly less common but still part of the equation.