Xenophon - W. E. Higgins (essay date 1977)
W. E. Higgins (essay date 1977)
SOURCE: "The Active Life," in Xenophon the Athenian: The Problem of the Individual and the Society of the "Polis," State University of New York Press, 1977, pp. 76-98.
[In the following excerpt, Higgins delineates Xenophon's notion of the individual and his ideal relationship between individual and society; using the Agesilaos and Anabasis as examples, Higgins determines that "the claims of family and city regulate individual desire" and leadership, "if genuine, is not founded upon license but limit."]
The Spartan king Agesilaos was lame in one leg and walked with a limp. Xenophon's encomium in his honor, however, never mentions this, just as it passes over in silence the oracle against a limping monarchy current at his accession. Such reticence, which extends to the king's mental imperfections as well, suits the Agesilaos' thoroughly delicate nature. Here, by contrast with the...
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