Chapter IV: Xenophon (2)

There are four categories of age:--boys, up to sixteen--young men or ephêbi, from sixteen to twenty-six--mature men, as far as fifty-one--above that age, elders. To each of these four classes there is assigned a certain portion of the "free agora": _i.e._, the great square of the city, where no buying or selling or vulgar occupation is allowed--where the regal residence is situated, and none but dignified functions, civil or military, are carried on. Here the boys and the mature men assemble every day at sunrise, continue under drill, and take their meals; while the young men even pass the night on guard near the government house. Each of the four sections is commanded by superintendents or officers: those superintending the boys are Elders, who are employed in administering justice to the boys, and in teaching them what justice is. They hold judicial trials of the boys for various sorts of misconduct: for violence, theft, abusive words, lying, and even for ingratitude. In cases of proved guilt, beating or flogging is inflicted. The boys go there to learn justice (says Xenophon), as boys in Hellas go to school to learn letters. Under this discipline, and in learning the use of the bow and javelin besides, they spend the time until sixteen years of age. They bring their food with them from home (wheaten bread, with a condiment of kardamon, or bruised seed of the nasturtium), together with a wooden cup to draw water from the river: and they dine at public tables under the eye of the teacher. The young men perform all the military and police duty under the commands of the King and the Elders: moreover, they accompany the King when he goes on a hunting expedition--which accustoms them to fatigue and long abstinence, as well as to the encounter of dangerous wild animals. The Elders do not take part in these hunts, nor in any foreign military march, nor are they bound, like the others, to daily attendance in the agora. They appoint all officers, and try judicially the cases shown up by the superintendents, or other accusers, of all youths or mature men who have failed in the requirements of the public discipline. The gravest derelictions they punish with death: where this is not called for, they put the offender out of his class, so that he remains degraded all his life.[67]

[Footnote 67: Xen. Cyrop. i. 2, 6-16. [Greek: kai\ ê)/n tis ê)\ e)n e)phê/bois ê)\ e)n telei/ois a)ndra/sin e)lli/pê| ti tô=n nomi/môn, phai/nousi me\n oi( phu/larchoi e(/kaston, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn o( boulo/menos; oi( de\ gerai/teroi a)kou/santes e)kkri/nousin; o( de\ e)kkrithei\s a)/timos to\n loipo\n bi/on diatelei=.]]

[Side-note: Evidence of the good effect of this discipline--Hard and dry condition of the body.]

This severe discipline is by law open to all Persians who choose to attend and the honours of the state are attainable by all equally. But in practice it is confined to a few: for neither boys nor men can attend it continuously, except such as possess an independent maintenance; nor is any one allowed to enter the regiment of youths or mature men, unless he has previously gone through the discipline of boyhood. The elders, by whom the higher functions are exercised, must be persons who have passed without reproach through all the three preceding stages: so that these offices, though legally open to all, are in practice confined to a few--the small class of Homotimoi.[68]

[Footnote 68: Cyropæd. i. 2, 14-15.]

Such is Xenophon's conception of a perfect Polity. It consists in an effective public discipline and drill, begun in early boyhood and continued until old age. The evidence on which he specially insists to prove its good results relates first to the body. The bodies of the Persians become so dry and hard, that they neither spit, nor have occasion to wipe their noses, nor are full of wind, nor are ever seen to retire for the satisfaction of natural wants.[69] Besides this, the discipline enforces complete habits of obedience, sobriety, justice, endurance of pain and privation.

[Footnote 69: Cyrop. i. 2, 16.]

We may note here both the agreement, and the difference, between Xenophon and Plato, as to the tests applied for measuring the goodness of their respective disciplinarian schemes. In regard to the ethical effects desirable (obedience, sobriety, &c.) both were agreed. But while Plato (in Republic) dwells much besides upon the musical training necessary, Xenophon omits this, and substitutes in its place the working off of all the superfluous moisture of the body.[70]

[Footnote 70: See below, chap. xxxvii.]

[Side-note: Exemplary obedience of Cyrus to the public discipline--He had learnt justice well--His award about the two coats--Lesson inculcated upon him by the Justice-Master.]

Through the two youthful stages of this discipline Cyrus is represented as having passed; undergoing all the fatigues as well as the punishment (he is beaten or flogged by the superintendent[71]) with as much rigour as the rest, and even surpassing all his comrades in endurance and exemplary obedience, not less than in the bow and the javelin. In the lessons about justice he manifests such pre-eminence, that he is appointed by the superintendent to administer justice to other boys: and it is in this capacity that he is chastised for his well-known decision, awarding the large coat to the great boy and the little coat to the little boy, as being more convenient to both,[72] though the proprietorship was opposite: the master impressing upon him, as a general explanation, that the lawful or customary was the Just.[73] Cyrus had been brought as a boy by his mother Mandanê to visit her father, the Median king Astyages. The boy wins the affection of Astyages and all around by his child-like frankness and affectionate sympathy (admirably depicted in Xenophon): while he at the same time resists the corruptions of a luxurious court, and adheres to the simplicity of his Persian training. When Mandanê is about to depart and to rejoin her husband Kambyses in Persis, she is entreated by Astyages to allow Cyrus to remain with him. Cyrus himself also desires to remain: but Mandanê hesitates to allow it: putting to Cyrus, among other difficulties, the question--How will you learn justice here, when the teachers of it are in Persis? To which Cyrus replies--I am already well taught in justice: as you may see by the fact, that my teacher made me a judge over other boys, and compelled me to render account to him of all my proceedings.[74] Besides which, if I am found wanting, my grandfather Astyages will make up the deficient teaching. But (says Mandanê) justice is not the same here under Astyages, as it is in Persis. Astyages has made himself master of all the Medes: while among the Persians equality is accounted justice. Your father Kambyses both performs all that the city directs, and receives nothing more than what the city allows: the measure for him is, not his own inclination, but the law. You must therefore be cautious of staying here, lest you should bring back with you to Persia habits of despotism, and of grasping at more than any one else, contracted from your grandfather: for if you come back in this spirit, you will assuredly be flogged to death. Never fear, mother (answered Cyrus): my grandfather teaches every one round him to claim less than his due--not more than his due: and he will teach me the same.[75]

[Footnote 71: Cyrop. i. 3, 17; i. 5, 4.]

[Footnote 72: Cyrop. i. 3, 17. This is an ingenious and apposite illustration of the law of property.]

[Footnote 73: Cyrop. i. 3, 17. [Greek: e)/peita de\ e)/phê to\ me\n no/mimon di/kaion ei)=nai; to\ de\ a)/nomon, bi/aion.]]

[Footnote 74: Cyropæd. i. 4, 2.]

[Footnote 75: Cyrop. i. 3, 17-18. [Greek: O(/pôs ou)=n mê\ a)polê=| mastigou/menos, e)peida\n oi)/koi ê)=|s, a)\n para\ tou/tou mathô\n ê(/kê|s a)nti\ tou= basilikou= to\ turanniko/n, e)n ô(=| e)sti to\ ple/on oi)/esthai chrê=nai pa/ntôn e)/chein.]]

[Side-note: Xenophon's conception of the Sokratic problems--He does not recognise the Sokratic order of solution of those problems.]

The portion of the Cyropædia just cited deserves especial attention, in reference to Xenophon as a companion and pupil of Sokrates. The reader has been already familiarised throughout this work with the questions habitually propounded and canvassed by Sokrates--What is Justice, Temperance, Courage, &c.? Are these virtues teachable? If they are so, where are the teachers of them to be found?--for he professed to have looked in vain for any teachers.[76] I have farther remarked that Sokrates required these questions to be debated in the order here stated. That is--you must first know what Justice is, before you can determine whether it be teachable or not--nay, before you are in a position to affirm any thing at all about it, or to declare any particular acts to be either just or unjust.[77]

[Footnote 76: Xenoph. Memor. i. 16, iv. 4, 5.]

[Footnote 77: See below, ch. xiii., ch. xxii, and ch. xxiii.]

Now Xenophon, in his description of the Persian official discipline, provides a sufficient answer to the second question--Whether justice is teachable--and where are the teachers thereof? It _is_ teachable: there are official teachers appointed: and every boy passes through a course of teaching prolonged for several years.--But Xenophon does not at all recognise the Sokratic requirement, that the first question shall be fully canvassed and satisfactorily answered, before the second is approached. The first question is indeed answered in a certain way--though the answer appears here only as an _obiter dictum_, and is never submitted to any Elenchus at all. The master explains--What is Justice?--by telling Cyrus, "That the lawful is just, and that the lawless is violent". Now if we consider this as preceptorial--as an admonition to the youthful Cyrus how he ought to decide judicial cases--it is perfectly reasonable: "Let your decisions be conformable to the law or custom of the country". But if we consider it as a portion of philosophy or reasoned truth--as a definition or rational explanation of Justice, advanced by a respondent who is bound to defend it against the Sokratic cross-examination--we shall find it altogether insufficient. Xenophon himself tells us here, that Law or Custom is one thing among the Medes, and the reverse among the Persians: accordingly an action which is just in the one place will be unjust in the other. It is by objections of this kind that Sokrates, both in Plato and Xenophon, refutes explanations propounded by his respondents.[78]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Republ. v. p. 479 A. [Greek: tou/tôn tô=n pollô=n kalô=n mô=n ti e)/stin, o( ou)k ai)schro\n phanê/setai? kai\ tô=n dikai/ôn, o(\ ou)k a)/dikon? kai\ tô=n o(si/ôn, o(\ ou)k a)no/sion?] Compare Republ. i. p. 331 C, and the conversation of So krates with Euthydêmus in the Xenophontic Memorab. iv. 2, 18-19, and Cyropædia, i. 6, 27-34, about what is just and good morality towards enemies.

We read in Pascal, Pensées, i. 6, 8-9:--

"On ne voit presque rien de juste et d'injuste, qui ne change de qualité en changeant de climat. Trois degrés d'élévation du pôle renversent toute la jurisprudence. Un méridien décide de la verité: en peu d'années de possession, les loix fondamentales changent: le droit a ses époques. Plaisante justice, qu'une rivière ou une montagne borne! Vérité au deçà des Pyrénées--erreur au delà!

"Ils confessent que la justice n'est pas dans les coutumes, mais qu'elle reside dans les loix naturelles, connues en tout pays. Certainement ils la soutiendraient opiniâtrement, si la témérité du hasard qui a semé les loix humaines en avait rencontré au moins une qui fut universelle: mais la plaisanterie est telle, que le caprice des hommes s'est si bien diversifié, qu'il n'y en a point.

"Le larcin, l'inceste, le meurtre des enfans et des pères, tout a eu sa place entre les actions vertueuses. Se peut-il rien de plus plaisant, qu'un homme ait droit de me tuer parcequ'il demeure au-delà de l'eau, et que son prince a querelle avec le mien, quoique je n'en aie aucune avec lui?

"L'un dit que l'essence de la justice est l'autorité du législateur: l'autre, la commodité du souverain: l'autre, la coutume présente--et c'est le plus sûr. Rien, suivant la seule raison, n'est juste de soi: tout branle avec le temps. La coutume fait toute l'équité, par cela seul qu'elle est reçue: c'est le fondement mystique de son autorité. Qui la ramène à son principe, l'anéantit."]

[Side-note: Definition given by Sokrates of Justice--Insufficient to satisfy the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.]

Though the explanation of Justice here given is altogether untenable, yet we shall find it advanced by Sokrates himself as complete and conclusive, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where he is conversing with the Sophist Hippias. That Sophist is represented as at first urging difficulties against it, but afterwards as concurring with Sokrates: who enlarges upon the definition, and extols it as perfectly satisfactory. If Sokrates really delivered this answer to Hippias, as a general definition of Justice--we may learn from it how much greater was his negative acuteness in overthrowing the definitions of others, than his affirmative perspicacity in discovering unexceptionable definitions of his own. This is the deficiency admitted by himself in the Platonic Apology--lamented by friends like Kleitophon--arraigned by opponents like Hippias and Thrasymachus. Xenophon, whose intellect was practical rather than speculative, appears not to be aware of it. He does not feel the depth and difficulty of the Sokratic problems, even while he himself enunciates them. He does not appreciate all the conditions of a good definition, capable of being maintained against that formidable cross-examination (recounted by himself) whereby Sokrates humbled the youth Euthydêmus: still less does he enter into the spirit of that Sokratic order of precedence (declared in the negative Platonic dialogues), in the study of philosophical questions:--First define Justice, and find a definition of it such as you can maintain against a cross-examining adversary before you proceed either to affirm or deny any predicates concerning it. The practical advice and reflexions of Xenophon are, for the most part, judicious and penetrating. But he falls very short when he comes to deal with philosophical theory:--with reasoned truth, and with the Sokratic Elenchus as a test for discriminating such truth from the false, the doubtful, or the not-proven.

[Side-note: Biography of Cyrus--constant military success earned by suitable qualities--Variety of characters and situations.]

Cyrus is allowed by his mother to remain amidst the luxuries of the Median court. It is a part of his admirable disposition that he resists all its temptations,[79] and goes back to the hard fare and discipline of the Persians with the same exemplary obedience as before. He is appointed by the Elders to command the Persian contingent which is sent to assist Kyaxares (son of Astyages), king of Media; and he thus enters upon that active military career which is described as occupying his whole life, until his conquest of Babylon, and his subsequent organization of the great Persian empire. His father Kambyses sends him forth with excellent exhortations, many of which are almost in the same words as those which we read ascribed to Sokrates in the Memorabilia. In the details of Cyrus's biography which follow, the stamp of Sokratic influence is less marked, yet seldom altogether wanting. The conversation of Sokrates had taught Xenophon how to make the most of his own large experience and observation. His biography of Cyrus represents a string of successive situations, calling forth and displaying the aptitude of the hero for command. The epical invention with which these situations are imagined--the variety of characters introduced, Araspes, Abradates, Pantheia, Chrysantas, Hystaspes, Gadatas, Gobryas, Tigranes, &c.--the dramatic propriety with which each of these persons is animated as speaker, and made to teach a lesson bearing on the predetermined conclusion--all these are highly honourable to the Xenophontic genius, but all of them likewise bespeak the Companion of Sokrates. Xenophon dwells, with evident pleasure, on the details connected with the _rationale_ of military proceedings: the wants and liabilities of soldiers, the advantages or disadvantages of different weapons or different modes of marshalling, the duties of the general as compared with those of the soldier, &c. Cyrus is not merely always ready with his orders, but also competent as a speaker to explain the propriety of what he orders.[80] We have the truly Athenian idea, that persuasive speech is the precursor of intelligent and energetic action: and that it is an attribute essentially necessary for a general, for the purpose of informing, appeasing, re-assuring, the minds of the soldiers.[81] This, as well as other duties and functions of a military commander, we find laid down generally in the conversations of Sokrates,[82] who conceives these functions, in their most general aspect, as a branch of the comprehensive art of guiding or governing men. What Sokrates thus enunciates generally, is exemplified in detail throughout the life of Cyrus.

[Footnote 79: Cyropæd. i. 5, 1.]

[Footnote 80: Cyropæd. v. 5, 46. [Greek: lektikô/tatos kai\ praktikô/tatos]. Compare the Memorabilia, iv. 6, 1-15.]

[Footnote 81: Memorab. iii. 3, 11; Hipparch. viii. 22; Cyropæd. vi. 2, 13. Compare the impressive portion of the funeral oration delivered by Perikles in Thucydides, ii. 40.]

[Footnote 82: See the four first chapters of the third book of the Xenophontic Memorabilia. The treatise of Xenophon called [Greek: I(pparchiko\s] enumerates also the general duties required from a commander of cavalry: among these, [Greek: pseudauto/moloi] are mentioned (iv. 7). Now the employment, with effect, of a [Greek: pseudauto/molos], is described with much detail in the Cyropædia. See the case of Araspes (vi. 1, 37, vi. 3, 16).]

[Side-note: Generous and amiable qualities of Cyrus, Abradates and Pantheia.]

Throughout all the Cyropædia, the heroic qualities and personal agency of Cyrus are always in the foreground, working with unerring success and determining every thing. He is moreover recommended to our sympathies, not merely by the energy and judgment of a leader, but also by the amiable qualities of a generous man--by the remarkable combination of self-command with indulgence towards others--by considerate lenity towards subdued enemies like Kroesus and the Armenian prince--even by solicitude shown that the miseries of war should fall altogether on the fighting men, and that the cultivators of the land should be left unmolested by both parties.[83] Respecting several other persons in the narrative, too--the Armenian Tigranes, Gadatas, Gobryas, &c.--the adventures and scenes described are touching: but the tale of Abradates and Pantheia transcends them all, and is perhaps the most pathetic recital embodied in the works of Hellenic antiquity.[84] In all these narratives the vein of sentiment is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, but belongs to Xenophon himself.

[Footnote 83: Cyrop. iii. 1, 10-38, vii. 2, 9-29, v. 4, 26, vi. 1, 37. [Greek: A)lla\ su\ me\n, ô)= Ku=re, kai\ tau=ta o(/moios ei)=, pra=|o/s te kai\ suggnô/môn tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn a(martêma/tôn].\

[Footnote 84: Cyrop. vii. 3.]

[Side-note: Scheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests are completed--Oriental despotism, wisely arranged.]

This last remark may also be made respecting the concluding proceedings of Cyrus, after he has thoroughly completed his conquests, and when he establishes arrangements for governing them permanently. The scheme of government which Xenophon imagines and introduces him as organizing, is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, nor even Hellenic: it would probably have been as little acceptable to his friend Agesilaus, the marked "hater of Persia,"[85] as to any Athenian politician. It is altogether an Oriental despotism, skilfully organized both for the security of the despot and for enabling him to keep a vigorous hold on subjects distant as well as near: such as the younger Cyrus might possibly have attempted, if his brother Artaxerxes had been slain at Kunaxa, instead of himself. "Eam conditionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si uni reddatur"[86]--is a maxim repugnant to Hellenic ideas, and not likely to be rendered welcome even by the regulations of detail with which Xenophon surrounds it; judicious as these regulations are for their contemplated purpose. The amiable and popular character which Cyrus has maintained from youth upwards, and by means of which he has gained an uninterrupted series of victories, is difficult to be reconciled with the insecurity, however imposing, in which he dwells as Great King. When we find that he accounts it a necessary precaution to surround himself with eunuchs, on the express ground that they are despised by every one else and therefore likely to be more faithful to their master--when we read also that in consequence of the number of disaffected subjects, he is forced to keep a guard composed of twenty thousand soldiers taken from poor Persian mountaineers[87]--we find realised, in the case of the triumphant Cyrus, much of that peril and insecurity which the despot Hieron had so bitterly deplored in his conversation with Simonides. However unsatisfactory the ideal of government may be, which Plato lays out either in the Republic or the Leges--that which Xenophon sets before us is not at all more acceptable, in spite of the splendid individual portrait whereby he dazzles our imagination. Few Athenians would have exchanged Athens either for Babylon under Cyrus, or for Plato's Magnêtic colony in Krete.

[Footnote 85: Xenoph. Agesilaus, vii. 7. [Greek: ei) d' au)= kalo\n kai\ _misope/rsên_ ei)=nai--e)xe/pleusen, o(/, ti du/naito kako\n; poiê/sôn to\n ba/rbaron.]]

[Footnote 86: Tacit. Annal. i. 6.]

[Footnote 87: Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5, 58-70.]

[Side-note: Persian present reality--is described by Xenophon as thoroughly depraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of Cyrus.]

The Xenophontic government is thus noway admirable, even as an ideal. But he himself presents it only as an ideal--or (which is the same thing in the eyes of a present companion of Sokrates) as a quasi-historical fact, belonging to the unknown and undetermined past. When Xenophon talks of what the Persians _are now_, he presents us with nothing but a shocking contrast to this ideal; nothing but vice, corruption, degeneracy of every kind, exorbitant sensuality, faithlessness and cowardice.[88] His picture of Persia is like that of the of Platonic Kosmos, which we can read in the Timæus:[89] a splendid Kosmos in its original plan and construction, but full of defects and evil as it actually exists. The strength and excellence of the Xenophontic orderly despotism dies with its heroic beginner. His two sons (as Plato remarked) do not receive the same elaborate training and discipline as himself: nor can they be restrained, even by the impressive appeal which he makes to them on his death-bed, from violent dissension among themselves, and misgovernment of every kind.[90]

[Footnote 88: Cyrop. viii. 8.]

[Footnote 89: See below, ch. xxxviii.]

[Footnote 90: Cyropæd. viii. 7, 9-19: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 694 D.]

[Side-note: Xenophon has good experience of military and equestrian proceedings--No experience of finance and commerce.]

Whatever we may think of the political ideal of Xenophon, his Cyropædia is among the glories of the Sokratic family; as an excellent specimen of the philosophical imagination, in carrying a general doctrine into illustrative details--and of the epical imagination in respect to varied characters and touching incident. In stringing together instructive conversations, moreover, it displays the same art which we trace in the Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, Hieron, &c., and which is worthy of the attentive companion of Sokrates. Whenever Xenophon talks about military affairs, horsemanship, agriculture, house-management, &c., he is within the range of personal experience of his own; and his recommendations, controlled as they thus are by known realities, are for the most part instructive and valuable. Such is the case not merely with the Cyropædia and Oekonomikus, but also in his two short treatises, De Re Equestri and De Officio Magistri Equitum.

But we cannot say so much when he discusses plans of finance.

[Side-note: Discourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the condition of Athens. His admiration of active commerce and variety of pursuits.]

We read among his works a discourse composed after his sentence of exile had been repealed, and when he was very old, seemingly not earlier than 355 B.C.[91]--criticising the actual condition of Athens, and proposing various measures for the improvement of the finances, as well as for relief of the citizens from poverty. He begins this discourse by a sentiment thoroughly Sokratic and Platonic, which would serve almost as a continuation of the Cyropædia. The government of a city will be measured by the character and ability of its leaders.[92] He closes it by another sentiment equally Sokratic and Platonic; advising that before his measures are adopted, special messengers shall be sent to Delphi and Dodona; to ascertain whether the Gods approve them--and if they approve, to which Gods they enjoin that the initiatory sacrifices shall be offered.[93] But almost everything in the discourse, between the first and last sentences, is in a vein not at all Sokratic--in a vein, indeed, positively anti-Platonic and anti-Spartan. We have already seen that wealth, gold and silver, commerce, influx of strangers, &c., are discouraged as much as possible by Plato, and by the theory (though evaded partially in practice) of Sparta. Now it is precisely these objects which Xenophon, in the treatise before us, does his utmost to foster and extend at Athens. Nothing is here said about the vulgarising influence of trade as compared with farming, which we read in the Oekonomikus: nor about the ethical and pædagogic dictation which pervades so much of the Cyropædia, and reigns paramount throughout the Platonic Republic and Leges. Xenophon takes Athens as she stands, with great variety of tastes, active occupation, and condition among the inhabitants: her mild climate and productive territory, especially her veins of silver and her fine marble: her importing and exporting merchants, her central situation, as convenient entrepôt for commodities produced in the most distant lands:[94] her skilful artisans and craftsmen: her monied capitalists: and not these alone, but also the congregation and affluence of fine artists, intellectual men, philosophers, Sophists, poets, rhapsodes, actors, &c.: last, though not least, the temples adorning her akropolis, and the dramatic representations exhibited at her Dionysiac festivals, which afforded the highest captivation to eye as well as ear, and attracted strangers from all quarters as visitors.[95] Xenophon extols these charms of Athens with a warmth which reminds us of the Periklean funeral oration in Thucydides.[96] He no longer speaks like one whose heart and affections are with the Spartan drill: still less does he speak like Plato--to whom (as we see both by the Republic and the Leges) such artistic and poetical exhibitions were abominations calling for censorial repression--and in whose eyes gold, silver, commerce, abundant influx of strangers, &c., were dangerous enemies of all civic virtue.

[Footnote 91: Xenophon, [Greek: Po/roi--ê(\ peri\ Proso/dôn]. De Vectigalibus. See Schneider's Proleg. to this treatise, pp. 138-140.]

[Footnote 92: De Vectig. i. 1. [Greek: e)gô\ me\n tou=to a)ei/ pote nomi/zo, o(poi=oi/ tines a)\n oi( prosta/tai ô)=si, toiau/tas kai\ ta\s politei/as gi/gnesthai.]]

[Footnote 93: De Vect. vi. 2. Compare this with Anabas. iii. 1, 5, where Sokrates reproves Xenophon for his evasive manner of putting a question to the Delphian God. Xenophon here adopts the plenary manner enjoined by Sokrates.]

[Footnote 94: De Vectig. c. i. 2-3.]

[Footnote 95: De Vect. v. 3-4. [Greek: Ti/ de\ oi( polue/laioi? ti/ de\ oi( polupro/batoi? ti/ de\ oi( gnô/mê| kai\ a)rguri/ô| duna/menoi chrêmati/zesthai? Kai\ mê\n cheirote/chnai te kai\ sophistai\ kai\ philo/sophoi; oi( de\ poiêtai\, oi( de\ ta\ tou/tôn metacheirizo/menoi, oi( de\ a)xiothea/tôn ê)\ a)xiakou/stôn i(erô=n ê)\ o(si/ôn e)pithumou=ntes], &c.]

[Footnote 96: Thucydid. ii. 34-42; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12. Compare Xenophon, Republ. Athen. ii. 7, iii. 8.]

[Side-note: Recognised poverty among the citizens. Plan for improvement.]

Yet while recognising all these charms and advantages, Xenophon finds himself compelled to lament great poverty among the citizens; which poverty (he says) is often urged by the leading men as an excuse for unjust proceedings. Accordingly he comes forward with various financial suggestions, by means of which he confidently anticipates that every Athenian citizen may obtain a comfortable maintenance from the public.[97]

[Footnote 97: De Vectig. iv. 33. [Greek: kai\ e)moi\ me\n dê\ ei)/rêtai, ô(s a)\n ê(gou=mai kataskeuasthei/sês tê=s po/leôs i(kanê\n a)\n pa=sin A)thênai/ois trophê\n a)po\ koinou= gene/sthai.]]

[Side-note: Advantage of a large number of Metics. How these may be encouraged.]

First, he dwells upon the great advantage of encouraging metics, or foreigners resident at Athens, each of whom paid an annual capitation tax to the treasury. There were already many such, not merely Greeks, but Orientals also, Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians, &c.:[98] and by judicious encouragement all expatriated men everywhere might be made to prefer the agreeable residence at Athens, thus largely increasing the annual amount of the tax. The metics ought (he says) to be exempted from military service (which the citizens ought to perform and might perform alone), but to be admitted to the honours of the equestrian duty, whenever they were rich enough to afford it: and farther, to be allowed the liberty of purchasing land and building houses in the city. Moreover not merely resident metics, but also foreign merchants who came as visitors, conducting an extensive commerce--ought to be flattered by complimentary votes and occasional hospitalities: while the curators of the harbour, whose function it was to settle disputes among them, should receive prizes if they adjudicated equitably and speedily.[99]

[Footnote: 98: De Vect. ii. 3-7.]

[Footnote: 99: De Vect. iii. 2-6.]

[Side-note: Proposal to raise by voluntary contributions a large sum to be employed as capital by the city. Distribution of three oboli per head per day to all the citizens.]

All this (Xenophon observes) will require only friendly and considerate demonstrations. His farther schemes are more ambitious, not to be effected without a large outlay. He proposes to raise an ample fund for the purposes of the city, by voluntary contributions; which he expects to obtain not merely from private Athenians and metics, rich and in easy circumstances--but also from other cities, and even from foreign despots, kings, satraps, &c. The tempting inducement will be, that the names of all contributors with their respecting contributions will be inscribed on public tablets, and permanently commemorated as benefactors of the city.[100] Contributors (he says) are found, for the outfit of a fleet, where they expect no return: much more will they come forward here, where a good return will accrue. The fund so raised will be employed under public authority with the most profitable result, in many different ways. The city will build docks and warehouses for bonding goods--houses near the harbour to be let to merchants--merchant-vessels to be let out on freight. But the largest profit will be obtained by working the silver mines at Laureion in Attica. The city will purchase a number of foreign slaves, and will employ them under the superintendence of old free citizens who are past the age of labour, partly in working these mines for public account, each of the ten tribes employing one tenth part of the number--partly by letting them out to private mining undertakers, at so much per diem for each slave: the slaves being distinguished by a conspicuous public stamp, and the undertaker binding himself under penalty always to restore the same number of them as he received.[101] Such competition between the city and the private mining undertakers will augment the total produce, and will be no loss to either, but wholesome for both. The mines will absorb as many workmen as are put into them: for in the production of silver (Xenophon argues) there can never be any glut, as there is sometimes in corn, wine, or oil. Silver is always in demand, and is not lessened in value by increase of quantity. Every one is anxious to get it, and has as much pleasure in hoarding it under ground as in actively employing it.[102] The scheme, thus described, may (if found necessary) be brought into operation by degrees, a certain number of slaves being purchased annually until the full total is made up. From these various financial projects, and especially from the fund thus employed as capital under the management of the Senate, the largest returns are expected. Amidst the general abundance which will ensue, the religious festivals will be celebrated with increased splendour--the temples will be repaired, the docks and walls will be put in complete order--the priests, the Senate, the magistrates, the horsemen, will receive the full stipends which the old custom of Athens destined for them.[103] But besides all these, the object which Xenophon has most at heart will be accomplished: the poor citizens will be rescued from poverty. There will be a regular distribution among all citizens, per head and equally. Three oboli, or half a drachma, will be allotted daily to each, to poor and rich alike. For the poor citizens, this will provide a comfortable subsistence, without any contribution on their part: the poverty now prevailing will thus be alleviated. The rich, like the poor, receive the daily triobolon as a free gift: but if they even compute it as interest for their investments, they will find that the rate of interest is full and satisfactory, like the rate on bottomry. Three oboli per day amount in the year of 360 days to 180 drachmæ: now if a rich man has contributed ten minæ ( = 1000 drachmæ), he will thus receive interest at the rate of 18 per cent. per annum: if another less rich citizen has contributed one mina ( = 100 drachmæ), he will receive interest at the rate of 180 per cent. per annum: more than he could realise in any other investment.[104]

[Footnote 100: De Vect. iii. 11.]

[Footnote 101: De Vect. iv. 13-19.]

[Footnote 102: De Vect. iv. 4-7.]

[Footnote 103: De Vectig. vi. 1-2. [Greek: Kai\ o( me\n dê=mos trophê=s eu)porê/sei, oi( de\ plou/sioi tê=s ei)s to\n po/lemon dapa/nês a)pallagê/sontai, periousi/as de\ pollê=s genome/nês, megaloprepe/steron me\n e)/ti ê(\ nu=n ta\s e(orta\s a)/xomen, i(era\ d' e)piskeua/somen, tei/chê de\ kai\ neô/ria a)northô/somen, i(ereu=si de\ kai\ boulê=| kai\ a)rchai=s kai\ i(ppeu=si ta\ pa/tria a)podô/somen--pô=s ou)k a)/xion ô(s ta/chista tou/tois e)gcheirei=n, i(/na e)/ti e)ph' ê(mô=n e)pi/dômen tê\n po/lin met' a)sphalei/as eu)daimonou=san?]

[Footnote 104: De Vectig. iii. 9-12.]

[Side-note: Purpose and principle of this distribution.]

Half a drachma, or three oboli, per day, was the highest rate of pay ever received (the rate varied at different times) by the citizens as Dikasts and Ekklesiasts, for attending in judicature or in assembly. It is this amount of pay which Xenophon here proposes to ensure to every citizen, without exception, out of the public treasury; which (he calculates) would be enriched by his project so as easily to bear such a disbursement. He relieves the poor citizens from poverty by making them all pensioners on the public treasury, with or without service rendered, or the pretence of service. He strains yet farther the dangerous principle of the Theôrikon, without the same excuse as can be shown for the Theôrikon itself on religious grounds.[105] If such a proposition had been made by Kleon, Hyperbolus, Kleophon, Agyrrhius, &c., it would have been dwelt upon by most historians of Greece as an illustration of the cacoethes of democracy--to extract money, somehow or other, from the rich, for the purpose of keeping the poor in comfort. Not one of the democratical leaders, so far as we know, ever ventured to propose so sweeping a measure: we have it here from the pen of the oligarchical Xenophon.

[Footnote 105: Respecting the Theôrikon at Athens, see my 'History of Greece,' ch. 88, pp. 492-498.]

[Side-note: Visionary anticipations of Xenophon, financial and commercial.]

But we must of course discuss Xenophon's scheme as a whole: the aggregate enlargement of revenue, from his various visionary new ways and means, on one side--against the new mode and increased amount of expenditure, on the other side. He would not have proposed such an expenditure, if he had not thoroughly believed in the correctness of his own anticipations, both as to the profits of the mining scheme, and as to the increase of receipts from other sources: such as the multiplication of tax-paying Metics, the rent paid by them for the new houses to be built by the city, the increase of the harbour dues from expanded foreign trade. But of these anticipations, even the least unpromising are vague and uncertain: while the prospects of the mining scheme appear thoroughly chimerical. Nothing is clear or certain except the disbursement. We scarcely understand how Xenophon could seriously have imagined, either that voluntary contributors could have been found to subscribe the aggregate fund as he proposes--or that, if subscribed, it could have yielded the prodigious return upon which he reckons. We must, however, recollect that he had no familiarity with finance, or with the conditions and liabilities of commerce, or with the raising of money from voluntary contributors for any collective purpose. He would not have indulged in similar fancies if the question had been about getting together supplies for an army. Practical Athenian financiers would probably say, in criticising his financial project--what Heraldus[106] observes upon some views of his opponent Salmasius, about the relations of capital and interest in Attica--"Somnium est hominis harum rerum, etiam cum vigilat, nihil scientis".[107] The financial management of Athens was doubtless defective in many ways: but it would not have been improved in the hands of Xenophon--any more than the administrative and judiciary department of Athens would have become better under the severe regimen of Plato.[108] The merits of the Sokratic companions--and great merits they were--lay in the region of instructive theory.

[Footnote 106: This passage of Heraldus is cited by M. Boeckh in his Public Economy of Athens, B. iv. ch. 21, p. 606, Eng. Trans. In that chapter of M. Boeckh's work (pp. 600-610) some very instructive pages will be found about the Xenophontic scheme here noticed.

I will however mention one or two points on which my understanding of the scheme differs from his. He says (p. 605):--"The author supposes that the profit upon this speculation would amount to three oboli per day, so that the subscribers would obtain a very high per centage on their shares. Xenophon supposes unequal contributions, according to the different amounts of property, agreeable to the principles of a property-tax, but an equal distribution of the receipts for the purpose of favouring and aiding the poor. What Xenophon is speaking of is an income annually arising upon each share, either equal to or exceeding the interest of the loans on bottomry. Where, however, is the security that the undertaking would produce three oboli a day to each subscriber?"

I concur in most of what is here said; but M. Boeckh states the matter too much as if the three oboli per diem were a real return arising from the scheme, and payable to each shareholder upon each _share_ as he calls it. This is an accident of the case, not the essential feature. The poorest citizens--for whose benefit, more than for any other object, the scheme is contrived--would not be shareholders at all: they would be too poor to contribute anything, yet each of them would receive his triobolon like the rest. Moreover, many citizens, even though able to pay, might hold back, and decline to pay: yet still each would receive as much. And again, the foreigners, kings, satraps, &c., would be contributors, but would receive nothing at all. The distribution of the triobolon would be made to citizens only. Xenophon does indeed state the proportion of receipt to payments in the cases of some rich contributors, as an auxiliary motive to conciliate them. Bat we ought not to treat this receipt as if it were a real return yielded by the public mining speculation, or as profit actually brought in.

As I conceive the scheme, the daily triobolon, and the respective contributions furnished, have no premeditated ratio, no essential connection with each other. The daily payment of the triobolon to every citizen indiscriminately, is a new and heavy burden which Xenophon imposes upon the city. But this is only one among many other burdens, as we may see by cap. 6. In order to augment the wealth of the city, so as to defray these large expenses, he proposes several new financial measures. Of these the most considerable was the public mining speculation; but it did not stand alone. The financial scheme of Xenophon, both as to receipts and as to expenditure, is more general than M. Boeckh allows for.]

[Footnote 107: It is truly surprising to read in one of Hume's Essays the following sentence. Essay XII. on Civil Liberty, p. 107 ed. of Hume's Philosophical Works, 1825.

"The Athenians, though governed by a Republic, paid near two hundred per cent for those sums of money which any emergence made it necessary for them to borrow, as we learn from Xenophon."

In the note Hume quotes the following passage from this discourse, De Vectigalibus:--[Greek: Ktê=sin de\ a)p' ou)deno\s a)\n ou(/tô kalê\n ktê/sainto, ô(/sper a)ph' ou)= a)\n protele/sôsin ei)s tê\n a)phormê/n. Oi( de/ ge plei=stoi A)thênai/ôn plei/ona lê/psontai kat' e)niauto\n ê)\ o(/sa a)\n ei)sene/gkôsin. Oi( ga\r mna=n protele/santes, e)ggu\s duoi=n mna=|n pro/sodon e)/xousi. O(\ dokei= tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn a)sphale/stato/n te kai\ poluchroniô/taton ei)=nai].

Hume has been misled by dwelling upon one or two separate sentences. If he had taken into consideration the whole discourse and its declared scope, he would have seen that it affords no warrant for any inference as to the rate of interest paid by the Athenian public when they wanted to borrow. In Xenophon's scheme there is no fixed proportion between what a contributor to the fund would pay and what he would receive. The triobolon received is a fixed sum to each citizen, whereas the contributions of _each_ would be different. Moreover the foreigners and metics would contribute without receiving anything, while the poor citizens would receive their triobolon per head, without having contributed anything.]

[Footnote 108: Aristeides the Rhetor has some forcible remarks in defending Rhetoric and the Athenian statesmen against the bitter criticisms of Plato in the Gorgias: pointing out that Plato himself had never made trial of the difficulty of governing any real community of men, or of the necessities under which a statesman in actual political life was placed (Orat. xlv. [Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s], pp. 109-110, Dindorf).]

[Side-note: Xenophon exhorts his countrymen to maintain peace.]

Xenophon accompanies his financial scheme with a strong recommendation to his countrymen that they should abstain from warlike enterprises and maintain peace with every one. He expatiates on the manifest advantages, nay, even on the necessity, of continued peace, under the actual poverty of the city: for the purpose of recruiting the exhausted means of the citizens, as well as of favouring his own new projects for the improvement of finance and commerce. While he especially deprecates any attempt on the part of Athens to regain by force her lost headship over the Greeks, he at the same time holds out hopes that this dignity would be spontaneously tendered to her, if, besides abstaining from all violence, she conducted herself with a liberal and conciliatory spirit towards all: if she did her best to adjust differences among other cities, and to uphold the autonomy of the Delphian temple.[109] As far as we can judge, such pacific exhortations were at that time wise and politic. Athens had just then concluded peace (355 B.C.) after the three years of ruinous and unsuccessful war, called the Social War, carried on against her revolted allies Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium. To attempt the recovery of empire by force was most mischievous. There was indeed one purpose, for which she was called upon by a wise forecast to put forth her strength--to check the aggrandisement of Philip in Macedonia. But this was a distant purpose: and the necessity, though it became every year more urgent, was not so prominently manifest[110] in 355 B.C. as to affect the judgment of Xenophon. At that early day, Demosthenes himself did not see the danger from Macedonia: his first Philippic was delivered in 351 B.C., and even then his remonstrances, highly creditable to his own forecast, made little impression on others. But when we read the financial oration De Symmoriis we appreciate his sound administrative and practical judgment; compared with the benevolent dreams and ample public largess in which Xenophon here indulges.[111]

[Footnote 109: Xenoph. De Vectig. v. 3-8.]

[Footnote 110: See my 'History of Greece,' ch. 86, p. 325 seq.

I agree with Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, ut suprà, p. 601, that this pamphlet of Xenophon is probably to be referred to the close of the Social War, about 355 B.C.]

[Footnote 111: Respecting the first Philippic, and the Oratio De Symmoriis of Demosthenes, see my 'History of Greece,' ch. 87, pp. 401-431.]

[Side-note: Difference of the latest compositions of Xenophon and Plato, from their point of view in the earlier.]

We have seen that Plato died in 347 B.C., having reached the full age of eighty: Xenophon must have attained the same age nearly, and may perhaps have attained it completely--though we do not know the exact year of his death. With both these two illustrious companions of Sokrates, the point of view is considerably modified in their last compositions as compared to their earlier. Xenophon shows the alteration not less clearly than Plato, though in an opposite direction. His discourse on the Athenian revenues differs quite as much from the Anabasis, Cyropædia, and Oekonomikus--as the Leges and Epinomis differ from any of Plato's earlier works. Whatever we may think of the financial and commercial anticipations of Xenophon, his pamphlet on the Athenian revenues betokens a warm sympathy for his native city--a genuine appreciation of her individual freedom and her many-sided intellectual activity--an earnest interest in her actual career, and even in the extension of her commercial and manufacturing wealth. In these respects it recommends itself to our feelings more than the last Platonic production--Leges and Epinomis--composed nearly at the same time, between 356-347 B.C. While Xenophon in old age, becoming reconciled to his country, forgets his early passion for the Spartan drill and discipline, perpetual, monotonous, unlettered--we find in the senility of Plato a more cramping limitation of the varieties of human agency--a stricter compression, even of individual thought and speech, under the infallible official orthodoxy--a more extensive use of the pædagogic rod and the censorial muzzle than he had ever proposed before.

In thus taking an unwilling leave of the Sokratic family, represented by these two venerable survivors--to both of whom the students of Athenian letters and philosophy are so deeply indebted--I feel some satisfaction in the belief, that both of them died, as they were born, citizens of free Athens and of unconquered Hellas: and that neither of them was preserved to an excessive old age, like their contemporary Isokrates, to witness the extinction of Hellenic autonomy by the battle of Chæroneia.[112]

[Footnote 112: Compare the touching passage in Tacitus's description of the death of Agricola, c. 44-45.

"Festinatæ mortis grande solatium tulit, evasisse postremum illud tempus," &c.]