Athens, v. 430 av. J. - C. - v. 355 av. J. - C.
The forwarding of the Ten Thousand
Historian, philosopher and Greek general.
Xénophon in Xenophôn Greek. His/her father, Gryllos, were rich and the Xénophon young person could follow the lessons very appraisals, but extremely expensive, of the sophists. Towards 404, the young man met Socrate and followed it during three years.
Spring 401, he answered the call of one of his friends, Proxenos, who lived in the Persian Empire at Cyrus the Young person. This one prepared a military campaign. Five months later only, on Euphrate, it revealed the goal of it: to dethrone his/her brother Artaxerxès II. The shock occurred close to Babylon: the Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, made wonder but Cyrus was killed.
Then began long and painful retirement. Xénophon played a big role in spite of its young age there: the Tissapherne satrap having taken the Greek chiefs, it was promoted with the command. But he was only one strategist among the others, under the orders of Cheirisophe. With the death of this one, it took the command of the army, of which it brought back the remainders to Pergame (spring 399).
Perhaps it returned to Athens, but it did not remain there: the death of Socrate was close. This odious death, consequence of the democratic reaction, carried to its roof the hatred of the young aristocrat for the democracy and definitively moved away it from Athens. Also, in 396, it at the sides of king de Sparte Agésilas was, and into 394, in Coronée, in the rows Spartans, against its fatherland.
An adventurous intellectual Punished exile, it was withdrawn in Sparte, which granted the statute of “proxene to him” (host of the State) and a field, with Scillonte (390-387). Xénophon lived twenty years there, as a landowner, with his Philésia wife and her two sons Gryllos and Diodore, that as a fervent supporter of the lacédémonien spirit it made raise in Sparte. At this point in time he wrote the seven books of Anabase, chronicle of the forwarding of the Ten Thousand. He had care to place himself there in the foreground, also can one have an idea of the man through work.
Its piety is remarkable. In Anabase, one sees it sacrificing to the least occasion. But he does not hesitate with ruser with the gods, questioning without slackening to have a favorable answer. It is a man of action, an adventurer, but also an intellectual curious about all and a polygraph.
The Economic one is a handbook of management for landowners, the Commander of cavalry was born from the military experiment of its author, the Incomes consign observations to the use of a “Minister for Finance” of the time. In Hunting and Horsemanship the aristocrat, the impassioned man of horse and hunting appears.
Xénophon was made historian in the Hellenic ones and biographer in Agésilas; its elegant prose, its style living made it call the “bee attic”, even if its language were deteriorated by its stays abroad. Hiéron is a reflection on tyranny and Cyropédie, a fictionalized life of Cyrus the Old one, political and philosophical work. The Banquet, on the other hand, presents humiliated Socrate, liking the wine and the good expensive one. Because the hermit of Scillonte is not a philosopher: its Memorable is only one collection of matter of the Master, and its Apology for Socrate does not have anything comparable with that of Plato.
In 371, Scillonte was devastated by Eléens; Xénophon took refuge in Corinthe. His/her two sons fought in Mantinée (362). Gryllos, after an admirable control, died there. The old father accommodated this news with a firmness of heart any Spartan.
Intellectual and adventurer, writer and condottiere, Xénophon are a typical example of these Greeks of IVe front century J. - C. which opened the way with Alexandre the Large one.