Xenophon's Symposium

"But it seems to me that the works of gentlemen [of good and noble men]--and not only their serious dealings, but even the playful ones--are worthy of discourse. I wish to explain an experience which supports this.

"At the time of the horse-races of the greater Pan-Athenian games, Kallias, the son of Hipponicos, and lover, as it happened, of the boy Autolycos, who was the winner of the pankration [catch-as-catch-can], brought the boy to the spectacle. When the horse-races ended, he continues along with Autolycos and his father towards the house near the Peiraian harbor, and Nikaratos accompanies them.

"He sees a group, namely, Sokrates and Kritobolos and Hermogenes and Antisthenes and Charmides, and arranges for someone to show Autolycos and the others the way, himself turning about to Sokrates and his party, and says, 'A noble meeting! For I intend to hold a banquet for Autolycos and his father. I believe much more magnificence will be brought to my arrangement by men whose souls are cleansed than by generals or horsemen or office-seekers.'

"And Sokrates says, 'You always laugh at us, since you have sacrificed a good deal of silver to Protagoras for wisdom--yes, and Gorgias and Prodikos, and many others--and think poorly of us homegrown philosophers.'

"And Kallias: 'Indeed, formerly, I fancied, I hid from you just how much wisdom I had to tell; now, however, if you go with me I shall eagerly display to you all my worth.'"

The opening is pure Xenophon. For him, being a gentleman [kalos kagathos] is the end to which all men aspire. Therefore, any and all doings of gentlemen are worthy to be discussed and imitated. The extreme end of this is Xenophon's own On Household Management, where a thinly disguised author holds forth on the beauty of pots and pans carefully arranged. Contrast Socrates, with his interest not just in gentlemen, but in all men. Shoemakers, prostitutes, sophists, slaves: all, for Socrates, are people to talk with, even (and perhaps especially) on the most elevated subjects.

Xenophon is at heart an elitist, believing that some men (and he includes Socrates) are better than others, both by nature and by law. Thus, the "works of gentlemen", here "kalos kagathos andron". The "andron" is unsurprising. Xenophon, like any number of Greek philosophers, had a dim view of women, and his wife must either have been completely cowed by her heroic husband, or else viewed him as a colossal bore. Probably both.

But the "playful" side of things is one that Plato seems to have forgotten in his dialogues. There's a good deal of sniggering over sex, and punning, but the scene of Socrates and others relaxed on their couches, with any attempt at serious discussion--note how Socrates promptly brings up wisdom, and Kallias derails him just as quickly--being half-hearted at best, is absent from Plato. There's an ease of manner to Xenophon's characters, a sense of being gentlemen among gentlemen, with none of the ferocity of Plato's inquiries. While Xenophon's Socrates lacks the mystic qualities of Plato's (and in Plato's accounts one is almost ready to believe that Socrates himself was a daimon), he has a grounded quality that I find immeasurably attractive.

Kierkegaard, in The Concept of Irony, makes an excellent point in comparing Xenophon and Plato. "When Alcibiades tells us in the [Plato's] Symposium that he has never seen Socrates drunk, he is also suggesting that this was an impossibility for Socrates, as we do in fact in the [Plato's] Symposium see him drink everybody else under the table. Xenophon, of course, would have explained this by saying that he never transgressed the quantum satis of an experientially tried and tested rule." Plato compares Socrates to Silenus; it would not have occured to Xenophon to compare him to anything at all.

Kierkegaard has a lot of (accurate) abuse for Xenophon in The Concept of Irony, mostly because Xenophon lacked an appreciation for Socrates' ironical statements. There's no middle ground for Xenophon, no double meanings or insoluble grey areas. His every thought is relentless vivisected, labeled, and stored away against its need, just like his pots and pans, and generally quite as commonplace. Xenophon lacks irony, and, sadly, lacks poetry, too¹.

What Xenophon does offer is a view of Socrates unobscured by Platonic alterations. His Socrates is earthy, pleasant, amusing, and clever. Xenophon saw Socrates not as a near-divine teacher, but as a friend.

Xenophon's invocation of empirical proof is also typical of him. For him the final determination is whether a thing works in real--i.e. either public or private--life. He demands evidence where Plato demands thought.

His characters are sketched precisely, and their personalities are clear the moment that the open their mouths. At this, he equals or surpasses Plato, although, to be fair, Plato is trying to accomplish something rather different. Xenophon wants to show how it was; Plato wants to show how it ought to be.

In short, I read Xenophon for clarity, not depth. More later, whether you like it or not.

¹ Which is at least part of the reason I chose to translate him. My Greek is lousy, and it's nice to have someone who uses straightforward constructions and, for some reason, refuses all offers of synonyms. I heartily recommend him to anyone wishing to regain lost Greek proficiency. He might have been written for just that purpose. I like Xenophon, but don't value him nearly as highly as Thomas Jefferson did. Jefferson felt that Xenophon's was the only genuine account of Socrates. Jefferson was a great politician, but an abysmal philosopher.