Table Of ContentTitle Pages
Xenophon's Mirror of Princes: Reading the
Reflections
Vivienne J. Gray
Print publication date: 2010
Print ISBN-13: 9780199563814
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.001.0001
Title Pages
(p.i) Xenophon's Mirror of Princes (p.ii)
(p.iii) Xenophon's Mirror of Princes
(p.iv)
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Title Pages
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© Vivienne J. Gray 2011
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Page 2 of 2
Abbreviations
Xenophon's Mirror of Princes: Reading the
Reflections
Vivienne J. Gray
Print publication date: 2010
Print ISBN-13: 9780199563814
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.001.0001
(p.vii) Abbreviations
Standard abbreviations are used, and for Xenophon's works:
Ag. Agesilaus
An. Anabasis
Ap.Soc. Apologia Socratis
Cyr. Cyropaedia
Equ. De re equestri
Hell. Hellenica
Hipp. Hipparchicus
Mem. Memorabilia
Oec. Oeconomicus
RL Respublica Lacedaemoniorum
Symp. Symposium (p.viii)
Page 1 of 1
Introduction
Xenophon's Mirror of Princes: Reading the
Reflections
Vivienne J. Gray
Print publication date: 2010
Print ISBN-13: 9780199563814
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.001.0001
Introduction
Vivienne J. Gray (Contributor Webpage)
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
This Introduction briefly outlines the book. This book is about Xenophon's
literary presentation of the leadership of individuals in their communities, from
those of private households up to those of great empires. Leadership is his main
interest throughout his works and the examination of the methods he uses to
portray leadership allows us to look into his general literary techniques. The
main aim is to show that these techniques produce images of leaders that are
rich in literary and conceptual interest and contribute to the literary theory of
writing in prose. As part of this analysis, the book addresses readings that have
found concealed criticism behind his apparently positive images of leadership in
a majority of his works. These represent a dominant trend of literary criticism of
Xenophon in our time and we can profit from engaging with them.
Keywords: Xenophon, leadership, literary techniques, images of leaders, prose
It is a fine and sufficient achievement for a man to take care to make
himself excellent (kaloskagathos) with good standing in his community and
secure sufficient provision for himself and his householders. But though
this is a great achievement, to understand how to rule other men so that
they have all provision in abundance and will be all of them as they should
be, this seemed to us to be something really amazing.
Xenophon (Cyr. 1.6.7)
This book is about Xenophon's literary presentation of the leadership of
individuals in their communities, from those of private households up to those of
Page 1 of 4
Introduction
great empires. Leadership is his main interest throughout his works and the
examination of the methods he uses to portray leadership gives us an insight
into his general literary techniques. The main aim is to show that these
techniques produce images of leaders that are rich in literary and conceptual
interest and contribute to the literary theory of writing in prose. As part of this
analysis, the book addresses readings that have found concealed criticism
behind his apparently positive images of leadership in a majority of his works.
These represent a dominant trend of literary criticism of Xenophon in our time
and we can profit from engaging with them. They can be called ‘ironical’ or
‘subversive’ or ‘darker’ readings and they reflect the preoccupation of the
modern world with irony.
The importance of Irony in modern art and literature and, more latterly, in
the intellectual sciences and in culture generally, can hardly be
overestimated. For some writers, the cultivation of irony is the most
essential (p.2) qualification for any thought, any art or literature or social
or political theory to be truly modern. (Witkin 1993)
These readings reveal in particular the democratic suspicion of leaders that is
reflected in modern management theory, which finds leadership problematic
because of its inherent drift to autocracy:
The theory of democracy does not treat rulers kindly. Suspicion of rulers,
concern over their propensity to abuse power in their own self‐interest, the
need to hold them accountable, and the belief that legitimate power is
lodged originally in the people and granted to leaderships only with severe
contingencies, all are fixed stars in the democratic galaxy.
Yet for all this suspicion, modern theory still acknowledges ‘those elements of
democratic thought that acknowledge the indispensable, fundamental and
positive contributions of leaders’,1 and the dilemma is solved by placing
restrictions on the power of leaders, such as the need to secure assent from
other members of the organization, and to give them self‐determination,
inclusiveness, equal participation and deliberation.2
Xenophon believed also that leaders were fundamental to the success of any
organization, but he also knew the risk of the drift toward autocracy, and it will
become clear in the course of the analysis that his theory placed restrictions on
his leaders that are very like the ones mentioned above in connection with
modern democratic management theory.
The arrangement of the book is as follows:
Chapter 1 is divided into three parts like Gaul. The first part introduces key
concepts of Xenophon's theory of leadership, illustrating them mainly from the
Socratic works. The second part surveys Xenophon's application of some of
Page 2 of 4
Introduction
these key concepts over the range of his narrative works and offers an ‘innocent’
reading of those works, and then previews a method of reading that arises from
this survey and will inform the rest of the book. The third part traces the history
of the darker readings of his images of power and demonstrates the challenges
these pose to the earlier ‘innocent’ readings.
(p.3) Chapter 2 examines how Xenophon evaluates leaders for praise and
blame in authorial comments in historical narrative, and takes a special interest
in the engagement of the author with the reader and his concern to protect the
integrity of his evaluations. There is some engagement with the darker readings
and with some evaluations that seem to be problematic. Hellenica and Anabasis
are the main works addressed, but there are also passages from Agesilaus. It is
hoped that this chapter will provoke further research into his use of the
techniques of rhetoric and of narratology.
Chapter 3 examines Xenophon's intertextual adaptations of previous literature to
showcase his new values relating to leadership, in allegories and in
deconstructions of Homer and Herodotus. These figure in the Socratic works,
but also in Cyropaedia and Hiero, and there is passing comment also on
Anabasis. It is hoped that this chapter will make ‘intertextuality’ a word used of
Xenophon in future research as regularly as it is on other ancient authors.
Chapter 4 examines his creation and development of formulaic scenes to display
his views on leadership and how the recognition of these formulae guides our
readings and can bring new light to passages that have not previously been
recognized as formulae. The works mentioned in this chapter are Hellenica and
Cyropaedia as well as Agesilaus and Anabasis. It is hoped that this chapter will
put Xenophon's creation and adaptation of patterned narrative in the same
tradition as Homer and Herodotus.
Chapter 5 investigates the methods behind darker readings of Cyropaedia, using
the results of the previous investigations of formulaic scenes and the adaptations
of his literary predecessors, and begins by reading the notorious epilogue to that
work as a patterned narrative of decline that creates a rhetorical argument
designed to support the praise of Cyrus. Xenophon's Constitution of the Spartans
is adduced as another example of this patterned narrative, with support from
Memorabilia. This chapter then engages directly with ironical readings of
significant passages from Cyropaedia and makes a case that Xenophon is not
unaware of the complexities of leadership but gives no purchase for darker
readings, that he set himself a challenge in turning a Persian king into an ideal
leader against the historical realities of Persian kingship, but that this was a
challenge he relished and needed to overcome to prove that his leadership
theory (p.4) explained the success not just of smaller communities but of the
greatest empire the world had ever known.
Page 3 of 4
Introduction
Chapter 6 investigates Xenophon's views on friendship, particularly his equation
of friendship between rulers and followers with those of more apparently equal
status, and the methods used to question this equation. The material comes
especially from the Socratic works as well as from narrative works such as
Cyropaedia. It is hoped that this chapter will position Xenophon more firmly in
the debate about ancient friendship.
Chapter 7 offers studies in Xenophon's Socratic ironies that the modern ironical
readings leave untouched as well as ironies from Anabasis, Cyropaedia, and
Hellenica. This takes the focus away from leaders to some extent, but the
ironical process is a significant part of his literary achievement. It is argued that
the bulk of the ironies presented in these works are very different from the
darker ironies. Xenophon anticipates Aristotle in producing a theory of humour
that places irony in the spectrum of truth and lies as well as the most correct
and improving from of play for educated people in Symposium, and in
Oeconomicus he uses irony for very complex pedagogical purposes. It is hoped
that this chapter may inspire more serious study of the implications of
Xenophon's lighter ironies.
Chapter 8 concludes that Xenophon presents clear and positive images of the
dynamics of leadership, which match and sometimes surpass the requirements
of modern democratic management theory, and that he exercises a range of
interesting literary techniques in doing that, which give him fair repute within
the traditions of ancient literature even as they clarify his contribution to
political thought about leadership.
Notes:
(1) Ruscio (2004), ix.
(2) Gastil (1997), 158.
Page 4 of 4
The Mirror of Princes or Flaws in the Glass?: General Remarks
Xenophon's Mirror of Princes: Reading the
Reflections
Vivienne J. Gray
Print publication date: 2010
Print ISBN-13: 9780199563814
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.001.0001
The Mirror of Princes or Flaws in the Glass?:
General Remarks
Vivienne J. Gray (Contributor Webpage)
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563814.003.0002
Abstract and Keywords
Chapter 1 introduces key concepts of Xenophon's theory of leadership,
illustrating them mainly from the Socratic works. The second part surveys
Xenophon's application of some of these key concepts over the range of his
narrative works and offers an ‘innocent’ reading of those works, and then
previews a method of reading that arises from this survey and will inform the
rest of the book. The third part traces the history of the darker readings of his
images of power and demonstrates the challenges these pose to the earlier
‘innocent’ readings.
Keywords: leadership, Socrates on leadership, Xenophon, subversive readings, innocent readings,
willing obedience, man management
Xenophon's works offer us ‘mirrors of princes’ that seem to reflect positive
images of the relations between leaders and followers that he presents as the
secret to success in any community.1 His image in Cyropaedia of Cyrus the Great
of Persia, for instance, was long read as the mirror of a perfect prince, and this
is what many modern readers continue to see; but others look into the same
glass and catch glimpses of a reflection of a darker prince, which they say
Xenophon is himself encouraging us to see.
One way of coping with this situation is to revel in the difference, but the case
will be made for authorial intention that Xenophon is offering his images of
leaders and followers for imitation and avoidance, which means that he had an
intention to send a certain message, so that we should try harder and more
Page 1 of 53
The Mirror of Princes or Flaws in the Glass?: General Remarks
systematically to understand it. Any reader of course brings to the text a range
of expectations, cultural and artistic and other, which threaten to make the
experience of reading unique to that individual, certainly in the modern and
perhaps also in the ancient world.2 I guess that (p.6) Xenophon's modern
audience largely consists of university teachers and their students, which gives
them some common values, but they have been trained in different ways of
reading and have had different political experiences so that their expectations
differ about what constitutes good government. Some are distrustful of
individual leadership, some less so, most are probably also devoted to
democracy, but of different kinds perhaps. This modern diversity of literary and
political experience is reflected in modern readings. When we speculate about
the audience for which Xenophon thought he was writing (as distinct, at least for
the moment, from the actual ancient audience that received his works), he
points us to those people he has his Socrates call the kaloikagathoi. We might
describe them as an intellectual elite, though Socrates defined them as ‘those
who were able to handle well their household and members of the household,
servants and relations, and friends and polis community and polis
members’ (Mem. 1.2.48). In other words, they were leaders, and as leaders, they
were a target audience for Xenophon's works of leadership. His Socratic works
have Socrates directly instructing such people in leadership, providing a model
for Xenophon's own instruction, and they are characterized through their
educational experience at his hands in those works, so that they form a coherent
core audience and we know a certain amount about the values and the
tolerances that Xenophon may have expected such an audience to bring to his
works.
But even for readers outside his intended range, and for kaloikagathoi who did
not fit his image, Xenophon sets horizons of expectations for his images of
leadership more clearly than other ancient writers because he wrote such a lot
and because he presents so many images in so many different ways in so many
different works. As a result of this accumulation, though the casual reader,
modern or ancient, may interpret any work or passage in isolation on whatever
terms they like, the reader of the corpus as a whole finds guidance in
Xenophon's use of repeated patterns of language and thought and narrative, so
that although language can be ambiguous, and works can be polyphonic, on his
images of leadership, Xenophon would have audiences ancient and modern
singing more or less from the same hymn‐book. The problem lies in our capacity
as readers to understand the expectations he sets and our willingness to be
guided (p.7) by them. Xenophon's Socrates himself sets many of these
expectations and is an obvious place to begin.3
The first part of this chapter therefore illustrates the theory of leadership that
his Socrates presents in his Socratic works and sets up horizons of expectations
for leadership in his other works by establishing that the theory applies
universally to leadership in all kinds of communities: those of families and
Page 2 of 53
The Mirror of Princes or Flaws in the Glass?: General Remarks
friends, as well as the army and the polis. The second surveys the universal
application of the expectations of the theory in his works of history and
biography and praise and advice; it previews a method of reading that relies on
horizons of expectation to interpret one image of leadership in relation to
another in passages of similar content. The third part of the chapter describes
the challenge to these positive impressions from the subversive or darker or
ironic readings of the works and the flawed images they discover in the glass. It
has been well said that we cannot afford to ignore these kinds of readings;4 they
dominate Xenophon's reception among political scientists.5 In later chapters the
methods behind them will be analyzed, including the nature of the horizons of
expectation that those readings adduce to support their darker images.
The leadership theory of Xenophon's Socrates
Socrates as Source
Xenophon was a pupil of Socrates and the author of four Socratic works.6 The
story told by Diogenes Laertius in his account of Xenophon's life is that Socrates
met Xenophon in an alley, barred his way (p.8) and asked him where to find
various products; being given directions he then asked him where to find good
men; Xenophon did not know and followed him in order to find out (2.48). He
learned among other things of the dangers of sexual indulgence as he records it
in Memorabilia (1.3.8–14), when Socrates taught him to beware the kiss of the
fair like the spider's bite in order to become that good man. Xenophon learned
this and other lessons: Diogenes counted him as the best of the Socratics along
with Plato and Antisthenes (2.47).
Socrates is pivotal because Xenophon credits his teacher with views about
leadership that he must himself endorse as long as we accept that he presents
him as a model of virtue and wisdom in those passages in which he discusses
leadership. There is the problem that Xenophon's Socratic works are admittedly
defensive and their picture of Socrates may not be entirely authentic. In
Memorabilia, for instance, Xenophon sets out to defend Socrates against the
charges laid against him by the Athenians that led to his execution in 399 BC
(1.1.1–1.2.64: non‐conformist religious views and corruption of the young),7 and
then gives a series of largely conversational vignettes dealing with a vast variety
of topics (1.3.1–end), all designed to prove that he was ‘helpful’ and ‘useful’
rather than ‘harmful’ to the Athenians, which Xenophon took to be the main
thrust of the charges.8 Fortunately, my argument does not depend on the
authenticity of the portrayal of Socrates' views on leadership, but on Xenophon's
endorsement of them. The questioning of his endorsement could only arise from
finding hidden meaning in the views he apparently presents,9 but when
Xenophon applies the same principles of leadership (p.9) throughout his non‐
Socratic works that he credits to Socrates throughout the Socratic works, the
logical conclusion is that these are the principles that he was attributing to
Socrates, and that the appearance is the reality. We might imagine that the
similarity between their views arose from his having learned about leadership
Page 3 of 53
