Xenophon: The Man and His Times Quiz

Answer: Athens

Xenophon was born to a wealthy family the same year Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration in 430 BC. He grew up on the family farm around horses and based on his life seems to have always enjoyed country living. In his teens he became a student and follower of Socrates, who would have a profound impact upon his life.

It does not seem definitively known that he participated in the Great Peloponnesian War; but given that he would have been 26 at its end, his social status and his subsequent conduct as well Athens' manpower needs at war's end, it seems likely he did in some role.

Answer: Cyrus the Younger

Greek mercenaries were well respected at the end of the Peloponnesian War and very available because of the hard economic times in Greece. Cyrus obtained the help of approximately 10,000 Greek mercenaries (often called the "Ten Thousand"), in addition to the Persian forces he had gathered, for a task that was not exactly clear to those who joined up. Regardless of that, Xenophon and Proxenus signed on for what has has been called the Persian Expedition or Anabasis("up country").

Answer: The overthrow of his brother, the Persian King Artaxerxes II

Xenophon claims he and his comrades were told that the expedition was against the Pisidians, a warlike people in Anatolia. Clearchus, the Spartan general and commander of the Greeks, appears to have colluded with Cyrus to trick the Greeks. When confronted, Clearchus basically told his men that they had come too far and, besides, they had no way to get back. Xenophon and the Greeks thus continued their march east further into the interior of the Persian Empire.

Answer: Cunaxa

The Greeks were on the right flank of Cyrus' army and routed Artaxerxes' forces in front of them, pursuing them some way from the main battle. The problem was what had occurred in their absence: Cyrus, their employer, had been killed and the rest of his forces had been defeated. Now the Greeks were stranded in the middle of the Persian Empire, some 1,500 miles from home, with no easy way of supplying themselves and no guides. Things were about to get worse.

Answer: The Persians killed all the Greek generals

The Greeks were many miles from home, with sketchy supplies and now leaderless. Or so it seemed. It was now that Xenophon, at most a mid-ranking officer of no great import to date, stepped forward and began to take control. Based on his speeches and advice, his soldiers voted him as one of the leaders to take them home to Greece.

Answer: The northern route to the Black Sea

The Greeks really only had two good alternatives: west to the Aegean--the way they had come initially-- or north to the Black Sea. The way west was back through the deserts of the central Persian Empire and water and supplies were thought to be scarcer there; it would also be in the teeth of Persian forces, who were determined to force a surrender of the Greeks. Supplies were thought to be better on the northern route and the Greeks felt if they could make it to the Black Sea they could catch a boat home.

As it turns out, the northern route had its own set of problems.

Answer: Xenophon became ill

The northern way to the Black Sea took Xenophon and his men through what is now Kurdistan and Armenia. It was an area that was mountainous and populated by peoples who were not keen on outsiders. Time and again the Ten Thousand flanked hostile tribesmen holding a key mountain pass or forced a river crossing in the face of armed resistance.

At one point Xenophon describes his men making their through snowy cold weather. And all this time, the Greeks had to find a way to feed themselves. It was really at this time that Xenophon's leadership skills came to fore.

He demonstrates an ability throughout this time frame an ability to think on his feet and adjust as problems come up. It is the reason why most Victorian and Edwardian British public school boys were required to translate Anabasis from Greek, and many US military academies still read it today.

Answer: "The sea, the sea"

"Thalatta, thalatta," in Greek. The Ten Thousand, after months of hardship and fighting, had made it to the Black Sea coast near Trapezus. The journey was not over, nor the fighting, and the Greeks were nowhere near Greece, but they had made it back to a civilization they were familiar with and home was a boat ride away.

Answer: Back in Asia Minor under the command of the Spartans, fighting the Persians again

In the Spring of 399, Xenophon and the ten thousand Greek mercenaries would re-cross back into Asia Minor and join the Spartans under the command of Thimbron against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes (the same one who cut off Clearchus' head) and Pharnabazus. Xenophon would later briefly go home to Athens.

It was probably at Athens that he witnessed or soon learned of the death of his teacher Socrates, who was condemned to death, by the democracy, for blasphemy and corruption of Athenian youth. Many feel that the execution by hemlock of his teacher had a profound impact upon Xenophon's outlook on governing.

Answer: Agesilaus II

Less than eight years after the Persians had assisted Sparta in winning the Peloponnesian War against Athens, the Spartans had turned against Persia, attempting to limit its influence among the Greeks of Ionia. Agesilaus would defeat the Persians, with the help of Xenophon and his men, on several occasions, but could not score a strategic knockout.

In 395 BC, Agesilaus was re-called to mainland Greece where the Persians had stirred up trouble for Sparta in the so-called Corinthian War. Xenophon and his men would follow the Spartan king back to Greece for yet another war.

Answer: Coronea

Agesilaus' Spartans and their allies, including the Ten Thousand on the right wing, would defeat a coalition of Corinth, Argos, Thebes and, most importantly for Xenophon, Athens, at Coronea. Athens would banish Xenophon from his native city.(There is some reason to believe that this occurred even sooner given his association with Persia, Sparta and Socrates). About that same year, Agesilaus would prove a generous benefactor, awarding him a farm and house in Elis near Olympia.

It was at "Skillus" that Xenophon would spend the next twenty three years and begin his writing career.

Answer: Tissaphernes

"Agesilaus" was a panegyric on his Spartan benefactor, while the works on Great King and Persian Empire founder Cyrus ("Cyropaedia") and the Syracusan tyrant Hiero were essentially political works on how to be a great ruler and what the pitfalls of politics were. Both of the latter works were popular with Renaissance figures like Machiavelli and Elizabeth I. Closely connected to these biographies were works on his teacher Socrates ("Memorabilia", "Apology," and "Symposium"), which are considered very different from Plato's works on the same teacher. Xenophon also wrote on a wide variety of practical topics such as hunting, raising horses, how a wife could run a good home and how to be a good cavalry officer.

Answer: False

Far from of it. Xenophon had been born into a wealthy family and had witnessed the fickleness of Athenian democracy first hand. Athens had allowed the brilliant scoundrel Alcibiades back into the political fold in 408 despite repeated betrayals, executed six victorious generals after the Battle of Arginusae in 406, defeated the Thirty Tyrants (who had been put in place by Sparta and who he supported )and killed his teacher Socrates in 399 on trumped up charges.

He seems to have believed that democracy always led to mob rule.(Plato's "Republic" also reflected this. Plato had also been a pupil of Socrates). Furthermore, throughout his military career and association with Agesilaus, he had come to increasingly admire Sparta and its way of life.

His political and philosophical writings emphasized a life of strife, self-denial, self-discipline and self-control. These traits were not in abundant supply, as he probably saw it, in free-wheeling, democratic Athens.

Answer: The Thebans defeated the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra

The Theban victory under Epaminondas at Leuctra over Agesilaus and Sparta brought about a revolution in Greek affairs, ending the Spartan Hegemony that had existed since the end of the Peloponnesian War. The pro-Spartan Xenophon with his connectons to Agesilaus was probably too high profile for the Elieans and they kicked him out of the country and confiscated his property.

He ended up in "flowery Corinth" for the rest of his life.

Answer: Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War

For reasons unknown, Thucydides' great work ends in 411 BC, while the conflict lasted until 404. Xenophon had obviously read Thucydides and picked up the narrative where the latter left off and carried Greek history through the Battle of Mantinea in 362. "Hellenica" has been criticized for a variety of perceived shortcomings, but it is a bridge between the end of the Great Peloponnesian War and the Rise of Macedon under Philip II in 359 and leaves the reader with these enlightening words:
"When these things had taken place[the Battle of Mantinea in 362], the opposite of what all men believed would happen was brought to pass. For since well-nigh all the people of Greece had come together and formed themselves in opposing lines, there was no one who did not suppose that if a battle were fought, those who proved victorious would be the rulers and those who were defeated would be their subjects...and that while each party claimed to be victorious,
neither was found to be any better off [after the Battle], as regards either additional territory, or city, or sway, than before the battle took place; but there was even more confusion and disorder in Greece after the battle than before."

Thus wrote Xenophon near the end of his life. His son had died at Mantinea fighting on behalf of Athens. Some Athenians reached out to him after that.

He never returned to Athens. He died sometime around 350 BC.