SOURCE: Proietti, Gerald. Preface to Xenophon's Sparta: An Introduction, pp. ix-xxii. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1987.

[In the following excerpt from the preface to his study of Xenophon's Hellenica, Proietti explores the ancient writer's perceptions of Sparta.]

We have reason today to read Xenophon's writings on Sparta with care. The central concern of most international political discourse is the search for a stable condition of peace that will, above all, provide for the freedom of all nations. Both World Wars ended with all but unanimous declarations of this principle and the establishment of international organizations seeking to maintain it, but the emergence of two “superpowers,” each accusing the other of imperial designs, has darkened those hopes. Xenophon's Hellenica remains the only extensive contemporary account—and in many parts it is even an eyewitness account—of a time in Greece when many believed that they were nearer than ever to attaining such a stable condition of peace with autonomy for their cities.

After the Greeks had united to repulse the invasions of the King of the Persian Empire, who sought to bring them all under his rule, two competing powers emerged among them, the alliance or submission of most of the others falling either to Athens or to Sparta. Then, in what Thucydides described as the greatest war up to that time, Sparta and her allies fought almost without interruption for twenty-seven years to prevent the domination of all Greece by the Athenian Empire. Thucydides' writing broke off abruptly in the twenty-first year of that war. But the narrative was taken up and completed by Xenophon. In the end, the Spartan confederacy destroyed the Athenian navy and starved the Athenians into surrendering.

And after that Lysander sailed into the Peiraeus, the exiles returned, and they tore down the walls to the accompaniment of flute-girls, with much enthusiasm, thinking that day to be for Hellas the beginning of freedom.

(Hellenica II.ii.23)¹

This moment of great hope was owing primarily to the Greeks' faith in the Spartans. Respected for the courage, strength and discipline of her army (virtues instilled especially in her leading class of citizens through their austere communal upbringing) as well as for the relative restraint with which most of her highest officials conducted foreign affairs (a restraint caused in fact by the need of these oligarchs to maintain constant vigilance at home against subject populations), Sparta was recognized as the leader of Greece at the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was expected that this leadership would not result in a new empire but rather would be a shield against future transgressors of the freedom of the Greek cities—that now, as at the end of the Persian Wars, the Spartans would return home and be content to exercise imperial power in settling affairs only among their allies in the Peloponnese.²

This expectation seems to have been fulfilled in part, for Book III of the Hellenica shows the Spartans avenging violations of the cities' autonomy. They sent an expedition against the Persian King's satrap to liberate the Hellenic cities in Asia Minor, and even their campaign against the Eleans was in the name of liberating the small cities in that part of the Peloponnese. But their hegemony soon bore all the marks of a new empire over all of Greece. Oligarchies (often evolving into tyrannies), supported by Spartan garrisons, were imposed on many of them; and “liberation” became in fact a mere pretext for giving vent to their citizens' private ambitions and their subjects' rebellious impulses (this applies especially to their assaults on the empire of the Persian King) and for punishing any city's present or past offenses against Sparta. Consequently, new alliances were formed against Sparta and eventually reduced her nearly to ruins.

In the absence of a strong superintendent, however, the Greek cities fell prey to one another's ambitions, both petty and grand. Xenophon's history ends abruptly in the midst of the resulting chaos. But we know that these circumstances soon made the cities all together the prey of the Macedonians, and Greek freedom was at an end.

Considering the parallels one might draw here to actual circumstances and events as well as future possibilities in international affairs in the twentieth century, we must wonder more precisely how it is that Sparta, from such auspicious beginnings after the Peloponnesian War, experienced such a moral and military decline.

Beyond this immediate concern there are larger practical and theoretical questions, which might best be indicated by reference to two philosophers who helped to give shape to the modern world and who both were deeply impressed by certain aspects of the ancient world: Machiavelli and Rousseau. In a famous dictum in The Prince, Machiavelli rejected the republics “imagined” by the ancient philosophers, republics “that have never been seen or known to exist in truth.” He omits consideration there of the fact that Sparta was the living model on which the ancients sought to improve in their “imagined” republics: Xenophon in the Cyropaedia (the old Persian regime in I.ii) and Plato in the Republic and Laws as well as Aristotle in the Politics; yet we see in the beginning of Machiavelli's longer theoretical work, the Discourses on Livy (I.2-6), that Machiavelli was deeply impressed by the longevity of the Spartan regime shaped by Lycurgus. This seeming discrepancy may be explained by the fact that in the latter context, although impressed by Sparta, Machiavelli decides that its laws were fatally flawed in that they did not enable Sparta to control a larger empire when the need came to do so; whereas Rome was very well suited to meet this contingency. By deciding in favor of Rome, Machiavelli implicitly opposed the judgment of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, who rejected imperialism as a political principle. Machiavelli's crucial observation is that Sparta, “having subdued nearly all Greece, showed upon one slightest accident her weak foundation; for following the rebellion of Thebes, caused by Pelopidas, the other cities rebelled and utterly ruined that republic” (Discourses I.6). He uses Sparta, then, precisely as an example of what happens to a republic whose cultivation of human virtue does not take adequate account of the virtually inescapable forces at work in this world compelling all peoples, sooner or later, to go to war, and impelling victors toward empire. (Perhaps he thereby denies its viability as a working model or point of departure for an “imagined” republic.) Machiavelli's immediate source for the statement quoted above seems to be Polybius (VI.48-50). But the course of events he describes is precisely that narrated at length in the bulk of the Hellenica. To understand this seminal political philosopher of modernity as well as the ancient philosophers who were impressed somehow by Sparta, we might do well to seek from Xenophon a fuller understanding of the Spartan polity and the reasons for its decline.

If Machiavelli was less interested in Sparta than the Socratic philosophers were, Rousseau was more interested. Declaiming against the decadence wrought by the liberal individualism of “moderns” such as Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu, Rousseau—albeit with occasional reservations—frequently cited Sparta as an illustrious example of a sound regime, especially with regard to the Spartans' cultivation of political virtues through their communal institutions.³ Less than two hundred years later, several regimes in our own century have claimed to have carried these principles, as revised by Karl Marx, toward their true conclusion by instituting the rule of communist parties. In each case, however, within a remarkably short time we have witnessed compromising alterations of their principles on a large scale. Depending on one's point of view, these will be called compromises in the pace of communist development, with temporary, pragmatic concessions in the face of economic and social exigencies—or, alternatively, decadence and decline in moral and political standards or pretensions. In any case, the following would not be inaccurate statements of some of the changes in the communist parties' membership (supposing that in the early years following each revolution there were many “true believers”):

Before, they preferred companionship with their comrades, sharing their limited goods, to ruling and being flattered and corrupted. And formerly they dreaded being seen with wealth; but now there are some who even pride themselves on their acquisition of it. And formerly, for this very reason, they drove foreigners away and didn't permit travel abroad, so that their citizens would not be saturated with luxury and easy-living; but now we see their leading citizens vying to enjoy continuously the perquisites of foreign missions. And there was a time when they concerned themselves with being worthy to lead; but now they exert themselves much more in order to obtain office than to be worthy of it.

Yet this is nothing other than a fairly literal translation of part of Chapter xiv of Xenophon's treatise on the Polity of the Lacedaemonians. Sparta's decline had domestic moral and political aspects as well as the “international” aspects mentioned above. The theoretical and practical importance of studying it are so much the greater for us.

Xenophon's interest in Sparta is manifest in many of his writings. The Hellenica focuses primarily on the Spartans' involvement externally in Greek affairs, while including also some telling stories about their internal political problems. The Polity of the Lacedaemonians seems to be written somewhat in conjunction with that longer narrative, since at the beginning and near the end of the treatise we find observations linking the two (Lac. i.1 and xiv.6). He composed separately an encomium of the man who seems to be easily the main hero of the Hellenica, the Spartan King Agesilaus. And the Cyropaedia, which is written more as a legend than as a factual narrative, clearly borrows heavily from the Spartan polity (see above) and from the image of Agesilaus. Thus some two thirds of Xenophon's writings on political affairs somehow emerge from his evidently keen interest in Sparta as a political phenomenon.

It is especially this attention to Sparta, however, that has caused Xenophon to be held in much contempt by modern scholars. In the Hellenica he gives no clear statement about his purpose. It seems to begin, as we have noted, where Thucydides' narrative of the Peloponnesian War broke off, continuing to the end of that war and then proceeding to narrate “things Hellenic” that occurred after the war during Xenophon's life. Certain features of the narrative, especially in the part that seems to complete Thucydides' enterprise (I.i.1-II.ii.23 or iii.10), reflect Thucydides' style. Beginning from these facts, modern scholars have assumed that Xenophon wished simply to continue Thucydides' work in more or less the form of a chronicle,⁴ and later extended the original design so as to write a general “history of his own times.”⁵ With a prudent caution scholars have scrutinized the writing and compared it with other ancient accounts of the period to try to regain the clearest possible view of events as they happened—that is, to discern in what respects Xenophon's account of those events might lack fulness or have been otherwise affected by the author's particular defects of intelligence or care, his prejudices, or his limited perspective. Their examination of the Hellenica revealed to them many flaws in this regard: Xenophon's chronology, for example, is not as consistent as Thucydides'—indeed, the Hellenica does not begin exactly where Thucydides' narrative ended, so that Xenophon's abrupt beginning is quite bewildering.⁶ Worse, the Hellenica lacks balance: “important” facts are either entirely omitted or included too briefly, while seemingly trivial events are narrated at great length: Xenophon does not manifest a clear understanding of the broad flow of human events, their causes and consequences.⁷ Worse still, Xenophon does not seem to be as even-handed as Thucydides in his presentation of the various Greek cities: he seems unable to conceal a predilection for Sparta and especially a prejudicial admiration for certain Spartan leaders. Many of the omissions and imbalances, in fact, are attributed to this predilection.⁸ Xenophon is therefore judged as lacking Thucydides' grandeur of vision not just as artist, as a composer of historical narrative, but as scientific historian or political scientist. These are usually held to be unconscious failings that betray an author of limited intellect who was therefore all too susceptible to the prejudices of his aristocratic class.⁹

More recently, some scholars have wondered whether the Hellenica can properly be called a “history” in the modern sense at all. They found that what looked like an ill-ordered narrative from the point of view of general history might in fact be governed by some other order: much as in his other writings, Xenophon shows a more particular interest in leadership, especially military leadership, and in those men and those actions that exemplify both good and bad leadership.¹⁰ This discovery, however, did little to improve Xenophon's reputation. For this interest of his, like his evident interest in hunting and horsemanship, still is seen as the more or less irrational predilection of an ancient aristocrat; his writing still seems to be unsystematic, with omissions, rough transitions of thought and inconsistencies; and his scope is found to be limited by his Gesichtskreis, the horizon of his personal experiences: in the Hellenica, especially after the first two books, Xenophon seldom strays far from Spartan affairs.¹¹ (After his journey with Cyrus the younger and the long march back to Greece described in the Anabasis, Xenophon spent much of his life in the company and under the protection of the Spartans and particularly of Agesilaus.)

But Xenophon's focus on Spartan affairs in the Hellenica is much more consistent than any of the modern scholars has observed. For in Books III-VI, while he does go out of his way to narrate—and sometimes at length—events at which he could not have been present himself, Xenophon never writes of an event that does not concern Sparta either directly or, on occasion, indirectly—the only possible exceptions to this being two digressions which he explicitly calls digressions (VI.i.2-19 and iv.27-37). It is implausible to attribute such a degree of consistency to the limitations of a supposed Gesichtskreis. We would do better to suppose that Xenophon intended to treat Sparta thematically in this writing. His silences about certain Spartan affairs (known to us through other ancient writings) prove nothing, except perhaps that Xenophon did not consider them important or appropriate for his purposes. Those silences certainly prove nothing as to Xenophon's supposed prejudices, since he omits much that would be flattering and includes much that is unflattering to Sparta and to his supposed Spartan heroes.¹²

Might not Xenophon's interest in Sparta have been as philosophic as Rousseau's and Machiavelli's? The Polity of the Lacedaemonians begins with amazement at the power and fame attained by such a small city and looks into the causes of this phenomenon; and in the next-to-last chapter of that treatise, turning from an exposition of their laws to the observation that these laws are currently neglected (see the quotation above), Xenophon concludes:

And therefore the Hellenes formerly, going to Lacedaemon, entreated them to take the lead against those who were held to be doing injustice; but now many call one another forth to prevent them from ruling in turn. But there is certainly no need to wonder that these blameworthy things have arisen among them, since they are manifestly obedient neither to the god nor to the laws of Lycurgus.

(Lac. xiv.6-7)

And the interval between “formerly” and “now” can only refer to the period of time covered by the Hellenica, particularly Books III-VI.¹³

But this treatise on the Spartan polity, too, has long borne the contempt of modern scholars, who, with few exceptions, read it as a poorly composed and biased encomium of traditional Sparta with an anomalous censure of contemporary Sparta tacked on near the end. It is difficult to understand why this reading still prevails today, since in 1939 Leo Strauss, in his first published study of Xenophon, explained lucidly and persuasively the satirical character of this writing.¹⁴ (Perhaps the essay, published in a journal of social science, has not yet come to the attention of classical scholars.) Where others had accepted Xenophon's apparent praises as being simply sincere and unqualified, Strauss showed very clearly his wry manner of referring quietly to the notoriously loose morals of the Spartan women in regard to sex and wine, the absence of any education of the women's souls, and the lack of a true education of the soul also for the Spartan boys and men. Where Xenophon seems to be praising Spartan virtues, Strauss demonstrated his veiled criticisms of the superficial character of those virtues: instead of being educated in justice, wisdom, and true moderation, the Spartan citizens were trained in fearful and arbitrary obedience, shame, hypocrisy, and mere continence.¹⁵

Notes

1. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. For translations from the Hellenica I have often consulted the best English version, that of C. L. Brownson in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1947). It will be noticed that I have frequently sacrificed grace for the sake of literalness.

2. Cf. Thucydides I.75-76, 89, 95; III.10.

3. See especially the Considerations on the Government of Poland, Chapter 2: “The Spirit of Ancient Institutions.”

4. See W. P. Henry, Greek Historical Writing (Chicago, 1966), p. 12.

5. G. E. Underhill, A Commentary on the Hellenica of Xenophon (Oxford, 1900), p.xxxiii; the phrase is typical of scholars' estimations of Xenophon's intentions. (Some hold that Books III-VII were composed first, with Books I-II added later to link this history with Thucydides': thus H. R. Breitenbach, Xenophon von Athen [Stuttgart, 1966, offprint from Pauly's Realencyclopaedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Band IX A₂], col. 1679, 1700.)

6. This has even led to doubts as to whether Xenophon meant to continue Thucydides' history: Henry, p. 13 ff.

7. Among many others: Underhill, pp. xii-xxxv; J. Hatzfeld, ed. and trans., Helléniques by Xenophon (Paris, 1936), Introduction, pp. 9-18; Henry, pp. 1-10.

8. See Underhill, pp. xxi-xxiii.

9. Throughout a lengthy and impassioned study, one young scholar seems to have been unable to decide whether the failings he found in the Hellenica (by comparison with Thucydides' history) were the results of mere stupidity or outright vice (E. M. Soulis, Xenophon and Thucydides [Athens, 1972]). We pass in silence over the spate of studies which sought to determine, by analyzing differences of form and diction among different parts of the Hellenica, the respective times in Xenophon's life when those parts must have been composed and the probable sources of his knowledge of events. See Henry's thorough critique (op. cit.).

10. Breitenbach, col. 1698-1701; P. Krafft, “Vier Beispiele des Xenophontischen in Xenophons Hellenica,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 110 (1967), 103-150; K. von Fritz, review of Henry in Gnomon XL (1968), 564 ff.; and C. H. Grayson, “Did Xenophon Intend to Write History?” in The Ancient Historian and His Materials, ed. B. Levick (Westmead, 1975), pp. 31-43.

11. Thus the encyclopedist Breitenbach, col. 1699-1700.

12. See note 8 above.

13. Hatzfeld, in the Introduction to his edition of the Hellenica, denies that Xenophon had any intent “to write the history of the greatness and of the decline of Sparta” (pp. 16-17). Yet he sees such a history portrayed in the facts which Xenophon writes (apparently in spite of himself).

14. “The Spirit of Sparta or the Taste of Xenophon,” Social Research 6 (1939), 502-536.

15. See also W. E. Higgins, Xenophon the Athenian (Albany, N.Y., 1977), pp. 65-75.