Greek Historiography

by Thomas F Scanlon

  debate over whether to pull down the city walls precedes the final act of doing so (X. Hell. 2.2.11–23). The focus on walls reminds readers of their crucial importance in fifth‐century empire building, how the walls went up against the Persians despite Peloponnesian disapproval, and how they symbolize the last bulwark of a naval state. “After this Lysander

  sailed into Piraeus, the exiles returned, and the Peloponnesians with great enthusiasm began to tear down the walls to the music of flute‐girls,

  thinking that that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece” (X. Hell.

  150

  Xenophon on LeAdership And MorAL Authority

  2.2.23). The comment is more a bridge to what is to come than a note of closure. The Peloponnesian perspective does bring the reader full circle to Archidamus’ utterance at the very start of the war, in 431 bc: “This day is the beginning of great evils for the Greeks” (Th. 2.12.3; cf. Hom. Il.

  5.63; Hdt. 5.97.3; Ar. Pax 435). But the release from Athenian imperialism is not the release from evils, or even from Greeks oppressing Greeks, and the Peloponnesian enthusiasm is to be seen ironically in view of the sufferings in the subsequent narrative.

  When the government of the Thirty is set up in Athens, there are

  internal disputes among its members and an oligarchy of the Three

  Thousand is established, which includes members of the elite ( kaloi kai agathoi) to be “associated with” the government (X. Hell. 2.3). The arms of all but the Three Thousand are confiscated, many citizens and resident aliens are put to death, and property is used to pay the Spartan garrison.

  In a subsequent debate, Critias represents a harsh element motivating

  execution and confiscation, while Theramenes, accused of treason and

  seen as changing sides often, eloquently defends himself: the ones putting the innocent to death are the traitors; “you call me a flip‐flop [ kothornos, litt. “stage boot”], trying to please both sides. But what, by the gods, do you call someone who pleases neither party?” (X. Hell. 2.3.47).

  Theramenes favors neither an extremist democracy nor a tyrannical oli-

  garchy, but “government in the company of men who can be of use,

  whether cavalry or hoplite class,” that is, the wealthy or middle class (X. Hell. 2.3.48). In the event Critias condemns Theramenes to death, fearing his potential popularity, and, without proper trial under the Thirty, Theramenes is first brutalized by a gang of ruffians called “the Eleven,”

  then forced to drink hemlock, which he does while coolly joking at

  Critias’ expense. While the politically flexible Theramenes is certainly not Socrates, his nobility in death and facing up to the brutality of

  his peers is meant to offer one admirable model for the politically engaged.

  The resolution comes in the stories of Thrasybulus fighting Critias in the Piraeus with an army of 1,000; of the rout of the Thirty; and of the end of this civil war in Athens (X. Hell. 2.4). The heroic figure is Cleocritus, a herald of those initiated in the mysteries of Demeter, who calls for an end to dissent and persecution in the name of the common gods, common

  ancestry, and bonds of friendship (X. Hell. 2.4.20–2). After the Thirty are removed from office and a government of the Ten (based on the ten

  tribes of Attica) is set up, the Spartan king Pausanias marches on Athens to stabilize the factions of the Thirty there (X. Hell. 2.4.29). The Athenian Thrasybulus, discouraging lawlessness, addresses the assembly, which

  restores a form of democracy.

  Xenophon on LeAdership And MorAL Authority

  151

  Book 3 covers the death of King Cyrus (401 bc), the Elean War of the

  Spartan king Agis II (c. 402–400 bc), and the death of Agis and succession of Agesilaus, a crucial figure in Xenophon’s narrative. Agesilaus’ holding of the throne is bolstered by a (disputed) reading of an oracle and

  protected by a seer’s revelations against a conspiracy. Agesilaus plans an ambitious campaign in Asia (396–395 bc), encouraged in part by

  Xenophon’s mercenary venture (X. Hell. 3.4.2) and playing out the old Greek–Asian hostility. Agesilaus’ sacrifice at Aulis recalls Agamemnon’s en route to Troy and puts the Spartan in a heroic tradition. The sacrifice is unceremoniously scuttled by the Boeotians, whom Agesilaus curses for their impiety (X. Hell. 3.4.3–4). Finally in Ephesus, Agesilaus tells the Persian Tissaphernes that he seeks autonomy for the cities of Asia; and he deftly brings about a truce despite the mutual lack of trust (X. Hell.

  3.4.5–6). The inevitable military clash at Daskyleion (396 bc) results in Agesilaus’ retreat and renewed attacks against Sardis the following year (X. Hell. 3.4.13–26). The Persian king, aiming to place Greeks against Greeks to his benefit, sends money to Thebes, Corinth, and Argos, but

  pointedly not to Athens, which is eager to fight Sparta, perhaps thinking that it would regain its empire (X. Hell. 3.5.2, though the text here is corrupt). This Persian playing the Greeks off one another is a leitmotif of the Hellenica, and undoubtedly an active concern of the era. Greek internal strife fostered by Persia is the main thread of this book with events leading into the Corinthian War (395–387 bc). When Thebes

  foments conflict between Locris and Phocis, Phocis seeks Sparta’s help, and Theban ambassadors appeal for help at Athens in a significant speech (X. Hell. 3.5.8–15), which suggests that this alliance is one way for Athens to regain its empire. This speech was discussed above as alluding to

  Thucydides and to the notion of the perpetuation of empires. Xenophon

  implies that Athens’ continued imperial ambitions are no secret to the

  Greeks, nor is there any special shame in this ambition from the Theban perspective: if someone must have an empire, that had better be Athens

  than Sparta. Athens supports Thebes, which prevails against the Spartans at Haliartus. Xenophon carefully explains the good reasons for the Spartan withdrawal under King Pausanias, who is then convicted in absentia of a capital offense and sentenced to death. The author implicitly disapproves of the Spartan judicial reasoning and approves of the misjudged and

  valiant king, who dies of an illness after fleeing (X. Hell. 3.5.17–25).

  Book 4 further highlights the character of Agesilaus and delineates

  Spartan campaigns at Coronea, Corinth, and Argos and at sea (395–389

  bc). Agesilaus’ diplomatic skill and shrewdness are illustrated in the

  lengthy narrative of his engineering of a marriage between the daughter

  152

  Xenophon on LeAdership And MorAL Authority

  of the disaffected Persian Spithridates and the Paphlagonian king Otys

  (4.1.3–15), a section notably given only five lines in the corresponding text of the Oxyrhynchus historian (Fr. 25). Agesilaus accomplishes the

  aim of having the two go against the Persian Pharnabazus. The Spartan’s negotiations with Pharnabazus and with his son again illustrate his deft fostering of personal friendships with both – which includes assisting the son’s Athenian beloved to be judged eligible to run in the stade race at the Olympics (X. Hell. 4.1.40). The winning and maintaining of friendships are finely negotiated arts that Xenophon values. Agesilaus is recalled to help at home and marches through Thessaly, while the Spartan forces

  win a battle against Corinthian allied troops at the Nemea River. Agesilaus’

  courage and piety are illustrated by his head‐on attack against the foe at Coronea and by his dedication of a tenth of the booty from the battle of Coronea to Delphi (X. Hell. 4.3.18–21). Next, civil strife in Corinth recalls the Corcyrean strife at Thucydides 3.82–3, where the dominant

  pro‐war faction persecutes those seeking peace by staging a massacre in the marketplace on the day of a festival of Artemis Euclea: “the conspirators, utterly sacrilegious and without so much as a single thought for civilized usage … kept up the slaughter even at holy places” (X. Hell. 4.4.3).

  Thus warm
ongering, murder, and impiety are fostered by the fervor at

  Corinth and condemned by the historian. The portrait of an oppressive

  world of inverted ethics, as in Thucydides’ passage, is made: “[persecuted citizens] saw, however, that those who were in power were ruling like

  tyrants, and perceived that their state was being put out of existence, inas-much as boundary stones had been removed and their fatherland was

  called Argos instead of Corinth” (X. Hell. 4.4.6). Fierce fighting ensues around and in Corinth, with fluctuating success by each side; the city

  walls are dismantled, repaired, and then held by Agesilaus. The Athenians inflict a heavy loss of 250 Spartans in action at the Corinthian port of Lechaeum (X. Hell. 4.5.16–18). The sacred Isthmian Games of 390 bc become a pawn in the war, first hosted by the occupying Agesilaus with

  disaffected Corinthians, then reheld by the anti‐Spartan Argives (X. Hell.

  4.5.1–2). Agesilaus next takes the war to Acharnania in Western Central Greece and adds this region’s inhabitants as allies (X. Hell. 4.6.1–7.1), then invades Argos after getting favorable oracles from Delphi and

  Olympia and the omen of an earthquake (X. Hell. 4.7.2–7). The gods seem to favor the Spartan king. The sea war in Asia Minor rounds out the book, which is marked by episodes illustrating leadership qualities and the jockeying for Persian favor. Notable leaders include Dercylidas, the effective Spartan governor of Abydos and an agent of Agesilaus, who rouses

  the people to resist the siege mounted by Pharnabazus and the Athenian

  Xenophon on LeAdership And MorAL Authority

  153

  Conon (X. Hell. 4.8.3–5); the enterprising Spartan Diphridas, who collects a ransom to hire mercenaries (X. Hell. 4.8.21–2); and the Athenian Thrasybulus, “esteemed a good man,” who wins at Methymna

  and Aspendus, yet tragically dies at the hands of locals angry at the

  soldiers’ plundering (X. Hell. 4.8.25–31). Spartan fear of Athenian power, a major motif in Thucydides’ narrative, has become a rhetorical cliché, but an effective one, used here by the Rhodians to convince the Spartans to come to their aid, lest Athens “acquire such great power” by making

  Rhodes an ally (X. Hell. 4.8.20). Tellingly, Xenophon points out that

  “both [Athenian and Spartan] parties were acting in this affair in a manner absolutely opposed to their own interests,” by aiding others who were at odds with them over their relation to the Persian king (X. Hell. 4.8.24).

  The dynamic of Greek relations with Persia overshadows the relative

  might of the Greek states themselves, as we see in the stories of Conon’s procuring Persian money to rebuild the walls at Athens and of the Spartan Antalcidas failing to turn the Persian king against Athens (X. Hell. 4.8.9–

  17). The book ends with the brave death of the Spartan Anaxibius at

  Abydus, here a death at the hands of fellow Greeks. Anaxibius is ambushed by Athenian forces and dies along with his young lover, twelve local

  governors, and two hundred of his men (X. Hell. 4.8.39). Anaxibius’

  bravery is partly reminiscent of Leonidas’ stand at Thermopylae; he is

  otherwise not especially heroic, but may be redeemed by a good death.

  Prominent in Book 5 is the Spartan admiral Teleutias. He is

  remarkable, Xenophon says, for winning the true affection and affec-

  tionate gestures of his men when he relinquishes command at Aegina

  (X. Hell. 5.1.3–4). He later returns to Aegina and in a speech encourages endurance and bravery and plays down material rewards, words

  echoing Xenophon’s sentiments (X. Hell. 5.1.14). Then he leads a bold raid on the Piraeus, which sends the Athenians into a panic and produces enough booty for a month’s pay for his sailors (X. Hell. 5.1.19–

  24). Xenophon then reports the King’s Peace – termed “the Peace of

  Antalcidas” in honor of the Spartan negotiator, but mainly brokered by

  the Persian monarch – highlighting the Spartan role and downplaying

  the Persian. The treaty benefits Sparta most, as the overseer of the

  agreement (X. Hell. 5.1.31–6; 386 bc). Next Sparta intervenes in Mantinea and Phlius (385–384 bc) and attacks Olynthus to help Thebes,

  while the Theban Leontidas allows the Spartan Phoebidas to occupy his

  city’s citadel, the Cadmeia, amid factional Theban strife that benefits Sparta (X. Hell. 5.2). Sparta is spurred on by a speech of ambassadors from cities near Olynthus who repeatedly warn about the power of

  Olynthus becoming great: “For the deity, perhaps, has so ordered it that

  154

  Xenophon on LeAdership And MorAL Authority

  men’s pride should increase with their power” (X. Hell. 5.2.18), a lesson echoing Herodotus. At the siege of Olynthus the otherwise praiseworthy

  Teleutias becomes angry at the enemy’s success, makes a strategic

  blunder, and causes a defeat that costs his own and many others’ lives.

  Men learn from such sufferings, Xenophon moralizes, that anger is

  costly: “to attack under the influence of anger and not with judgment is an absolute mistake. For anger does not look ahead, while judgment has

  in view no less avoiding suffering than causing harm to the enemy” (X.

  Hell. 5.3.7, adapted). Abbreviated narratives of a subsequent siege of Olynthus end in its surrender and alliance with Sparta (X. Hell. 5.3.8–9, 18–19, and 26), giving greater focus to Agesilaus and his balanced

  treatment of the people of Phlius in the Peloponnese (X. Hell. 5.3.10–17

  and 20–5). Next there is at Sparta a trial of Sphodrias, the Spartan

  governor of the city of Thespiae, who invaded Attica without orders to

  do so. Sphodrias is scandalously acquitted because his son is the beloved of Agesilaus’ son (X. Hell. 5.4.20–3). Agesilaus successfully argues for his pardon if he did wrong. Sphodrias’ death at Leuctra, in the great

  Theban victory over Sparta seven years later, underscores his devotion to the state. The extensive narrative of this rather inconsequential event reveals the historian’s concern with ethics and its broader consequences.

  Agesilaus’ martial prowess is further demonstrated by his successfully

  threatening and harassing Theban residents (X. Hell. 5.4.47–54).

  Book 6 then shifts to Polydamas of Pharsalus in Thessaly, an honorable

  and honest leading citizen there. He speaks at Sparta (X. Hell. 6.1.4–16) and calls Jason of Pherae “a man of great power and fame” (X. Hell.

  6.1.4). Polydamas had been threatened by Jason of Pherae after making a treaty with him. Jason applies power politics, saying in essence that he has many allies and could defeat Polydamas; but it is better to make allies willingly, through persuasion, rather than by force (X. Hell. 6.1.7). Jason is made a tyrant figure, while Sparta is also warned that, if it does not ally itself with Pharsalus, Athens will do so (X. Hell. 6.1.10; see Sprawski 2004: 437–52). Yet in the end Sparta does not agree to help Polydamas,

  and he returns home to become subject to Jason (X. Hell. 6.1.17–19).

  “All cities fear where the power [ dunamis] of this man will lead,”

  Polydamas warns (X. Hell. 6.1.14). An appeal to Greek power politics is added to the moral and legal issues. Action in the west, at Corcyra, pivots on an attack of the island by the Spartan Mnasippus, his death in battle, and the able leadership of the Athenian general Iphicrates. The Athenian controls his own men, captures a Syracusan flotilla in the area, and earns Xenophon’s praise for his being “neither dilatory nor careless … [but] a man of supreme self‐confidence” (X. Hell. 6.2). Mnasippus and Iphicrates

  Xenophon on LeAdership And MorAL Authority

  155

  represent, for Xenophon, two contrasting models of leadership (Dillery

  1995: ch. 6; Krafft 1967).

  The Athenians send ambassadors to Sparta to seek peace
, two speakers

  pointing out Sparta’s imperialist acquisitiveness ( pleonexia), its demanding justice from others but its seizing for itself (X. Hell. 6.3): “we have all learned that selfish gain is without profit, and we will be more moderate in our mutual friendship” (X. Hell. 6.3.9, 11). Through the embassy, the historian implies that Sparta’s blunt acquisitiveness and its failure in reciprocity make its empire unattractive to potential allies and untenable to the subordinate.

  The battle at Leuctra that follows shows a less than competent (and

  possibly drunken) Spartan general, Cleombrotus, facing the superior

  tactician Epaminondas and the Sacred Band of Thebes under the formi-

  dable Pelopidas. Divine oracles and portents predict the Theban suc-

  cess, as Xenophon typically notes (X. Hell. 6.4.7). The defeat of Sparta and the loss of hundreds of citizen warriors open the way for

  Epaminondas and the Thebans to invade Spartan territory (though not

  the city of Sparta) within a year, for the first time ever. Epaminondas establishes the new cities of Messene and Megalopolis, power bases in

  the Peloponnese that ensured that Sparta would never again rise to its

  previous superpower status (Cartledge 2009: 262–3). Jason of Pherae

  then emerges as a diplomatic hero, “the greatest man of his time in not being disparaged by anyone” (X. Hell. 6.4.28), dissuading the Thebans from further fighting and arranging a treaty with the Spartans. In a

  hybristic manner, Jason arranges a more splendid than ever Pythian

  festival at Delphi, making himself director of the festival and games

  (X. Hell. 6.4.21–31). When, soon after, Jason is assassinated by seven youths, the culprits are praised by most Greek cities, since they feared Jason as a tyrant – tyrannicide being a venerable theme in historical

  writing (X. Hell. 6.4.31). After the Spartan Agesilaus leads an abortive attack on Arcadia and Mantinea and then retreats home (X. Hell. 6.5.4–

  21), the Argives and others persuade the Thebans to attack Laconia,

  skirmishing at Amyklae (X. Hell. 6.5.22–32). Next, Spartan envoys at Athens try to persuade it to become Sparta’s ally against Thebes and the effort is almost stymied, but the day is saved by the Athenian Procles, whose long oration uses appeals to tradition (Thermopylae), to justice, and, most forcefully, to self‐interest (X. Hell. 6.5.38–48). The speech is squarely in the tradition of Diodotus’ arguments in Thucydides’