No history of Xenophon’s youth has come down to us, beyond the anecdote of his first meeting with Sokrates, in Diogenes Laertius. His Memorabilia, and his handbooks on Hunting, Riding, the Command of Cavalry and Estate Management, supply his social and psychological background. The tradition that he was captured by the Thebans offers a likely origin for his friendship with Proxenos, whom he would have difficulty in meeting otherwise because of the war. In his own vivid account of the Persian Expedition, he relates how Proxenos was treacherously murdered. Xenophon himself was exiled for serving under Cyrus, and never saw Sokrates again.
Plato was credited by later generations with having won crowns for wrestling at all the principal Hellenic Games; but it seems unlikely that he devoted so much time to it after reaching manhood. He is generally believed to have contended at the Isthmus; and, owing to the exigencies of the war, 412 seems the likeliest year. Frequent allusions to wrestling in his Dialogues all show an expert grasp of its principles. His trainer is said to have given him his nickname.
In his Seventh Epistle he has described his change of heart during the tyranny, and disgust at the treatment of Sokrates. That he intervened with Kritias is only a conjecture; it seems not unlikely that Charmides did so too. Xenophon relates the incident of Euthydemos, Sokrates’ public rebuke, and his interview with Kritias during the tyranny. If Plato did save Sokrates, it would not be remarkable to find no mention of it in Xenophon, whose only reference to Plato, throughout his memoir of Sokrates, occurs in passing, during a derogatory judgement on a younger brother. Plato never mentions Xenophon at all. The cause is unknown.
Plato’s famous epitaph on Aster ends with the word “phthimenois”, which can refer to the waning or setting of a star, to extinction in general, or, specifically, to death from phthisis. The poem opens with a word-play; there may or may not be one at the end. It is full of heavily-charged, evocative words, only a part of whose feeling can be rendered in any translation.
Regarding Sokrates, I have leaned on the whole to Xenophon’s account of his life and teaching, without considering that it discredits the evidence of Plato, who probably met him on a very different plane. A tradition is preserved that his temper was naturally violent and that on the rare occasions when it escaped his control his language was uninhibited; which Xenophon’s story seems to confirm. Diogenes Laertius says that enraged citizens sometimes assaulted him in the street, and quotes his comment about the donkey.
In the year 399 B.C., shortly after this story closes, Sokrates was indicted by Melitos, Lykon the father of Autolykos, and Anytos, as follows: “Sokrates is guilty of refusing to recognise the gods recognised by the City, and of introducing other new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.”
It may well be that Lykon held Sokrates responsible for forming the character of Kritias, and felt himself to be avenging the murder of his son. But according to Xenophon’s account, Sokrates himself after his trial seems to have regarded Anytos as his principal enemy, “I told him it became him ill to bring up his son in a tanyard.” (Xenophon adds that the young man soon became a chronic alcoholic and so died.) Plato represents Sokrates as making a fool of Anytos in argument; Diogenes Laertius adds that Anytos could not endure ridicule and never forgave it. It is to Plutarch that we owe the anecdote about Alkibiades, who seems always to have left, from youth till death, an enduring impress on the imaginations of those whose lives he crossed.
I have generally preferred the Greek spelling of names to the Latin, because it is more Greek, and because in particular the substitution of soft c for k produces such gross distortion of the sound. Here and there, however, to avoid disturbing the reader who is fond of them, I have kept some Latinisms specially hallowed by association; such as Plato for Platon, Phaedo for Phaidon, and a number of common place-names.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
B.C.
431
(Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem. Rome completes conquest of Volscians.)
Outbreak of Peloponnesian War.
Siege of Potidea. Sokrates, then aged 38, saves in battle the life of Alkibiades, aged 18, and gives up in his favour the prize for valour.
430
Spartans invade Attica. The plague at Athens. Xenophon born about this time.
429
Death of Perikles. Plague continues.
428
Spartans in Attica. Probable year of Plato’s birth.
427
Fall of Mitylene. Reprieve of the Lesbians. Spartans in Attica.
425
Demosthenes’ victory at Pylos. Spartans in Attica. Athens doubles tribute of the subject allies.
424
Battle of Delion. Athenians defeated by the Thebans, with their
corps d’élite
of friends afterwards known as the Sacred Band. Alkibiades rescues Sokrates during the retreat. Thucydides exiled.
423
One year’s truce. Aristophanes presents The Clouds in which Sokrates is represented as an anarchic influence on young men.
422
Assault on Amphipolis. Kleon and the Spartan general Brasidas both killed. Autolykos, aged about 17, wins his first crown at the Panathenaic Games; the occasion of the party described in Xenophon’s
Symposium.
421
The Peace of Nikias.
420
Olympic Games held. Lavish displays by Alkibiades who enters seven chariots and wins 1st, 2nd and 4th prizes.
419
Alliance with Argos engineered by Alkibiades.
418
Athens re-enters the war.
416
Melos reduced and captured by Athenians after siege. Adult males massacred and non-combatants enslaved, Phaedo probably among them.
Agathon awarded the prize for Tragedy; the occasion of the party described in Plato’s
Symposium.
415
First performance of Euripides’
Trojan Women.
Preparations for Sicilian Expedition.
Breaking of the Hermes and accusation of Alkibiades.
Expedition sets out in early summer.
Alkibiades recalled for trial but escapes to Sparta.
Aristophanes’
Birds
performed.
413
Dekeleia seized and fortified by the Spartans on advice of Alkibiades.
Mykalessos in Boeotia seized by Thracians under Athenian command, with barbarous massacre of non-combatants, including children in school.
Timaea, wife of King Agis, seduced by Alkibiades.
Reinforcements sent to Sicily under Demosthenes, whose night attack is repulsed with heavy loss. Nikias agrees to leave but is delayed by eclipse of the moon (August 27th).
Naval action in harbour and total defeat of Athenian fleet.
Retreat of Athenian army followed by debacle.
412
Alkibiades campaigning in Ionian Islands. Widespread revolt of Athenian subject Allies. Sparta recognises Persian claim to Ionia, in return for funds to finance her fleet.
Isthmian Games held and Athenians invited.
Alkibiades goes to Persians; is entertained by Tissaphernes.
411
Subversion of democracy in Athens. Promise of electoral roll of 4,000 not implemented; political assassinations and reign of terror.
Revolution in Samos crushed with help of Alkibiades, who has discarded the oligarchs (according to Thucydides, because he had promised them more than the Persians would give).
Counter-revolution in Athens by moderate conservatives under Theramenes, in time to prevent capitulation to Sparta. The Four Hundred oligarchs overthrown; leaders in exile.