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ALCIBIADES VERSUS PERICLES: APOLOGETIC STRATEGIES IN XENOPHON'S MEMORABILIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2014

Gabriel Danzig
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Extract

One of Xenophon's chief aims in Memorabilia is to defend his beloved teacher from charges raised both during and after his trial. Some readers have thought that he has gone so far in whitewashing Socrates that the resulting portrait makes it impossible to explain the hostility he aroused: Socrates appears here merely as an innocuous friend offering good advice on all sorts of mundane subjects. But the apologetic strategies employed by Xenophon are more complex and subtle than that. The widespread view of him as a simple-minded defender of conventional attitudes blinds us to the places where he speaks with a different, more radical voice. We should not be surprised to find that the enthusiastic student of Socrates, one of the most radical and unconventional thinkers of ancient Greece, has some radical thoughts of his own.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 7 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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Footnotes

*

Some of the comments in this article were originally presented as part of a review of Louis-André Dorion's commentary on the Memorabilia at the Socratica III conference in Trento. My thanks to the participants in the conference and to David Schaps for helpful comments and suggestions. None of them has seen the article in its current form. All translations are my own.

References

1 See Burnet, John's influential comment, ‘Xenophon's defence of Socrates is too successful. He would never have been put to death if he had been like that.’ Greek Philosophy. From Thales to Plato (London, 1914), 120Google Scholar.

2 See Dorion, L.-A. (tr.), Xénophon. Mémorables (Paris, 2000–11), i.104–5, n. 129Google Scholar.

3 Sanders, Kirk has recently argued that Alcibiades is displaying sophistic rather than Socratic skills, and hence that his behaviour does not reflect Socratic influence: see ‘Don't Blame Socrates (Xen. Mem. 1.2.40–46)’, CPh 106 (2011), 349–56Google Scholar. But Xenophon would certainly have denied Socratic paternity of these skills in a clear fashion if he had wanted to. As I argue below, however, he does the reverse. In any case, Xenophon does not make a categorical distinction between Socrates and the sophists in the manner of Plato. In fact, an image of Socrates that he presents in Cyropaedia is referred to as a sophist (3.1.14; 3.1.38).

4 Plato defends Socrates by displacing the charge onto sophists such as Gorgias, and portraying Socrates as pressing the arguments of his prosecutors. Depending on the relative chronology of the two compositions, he may also be aiming a swipe at what he sees as Xenophon's inept manner of defending Socrates. It is difficult to imagine Xenophon publishing the second chapter of Memorabilia to an audience familiar with Gorgias.

5 See Dorion (n. 2), i.95–96, nn. 109–11.

6 Sanders (n. 3), p. 56, n. 37, argues that the first of these quotations is not decisive since it is in his view a parenthetical statement and the conversation is designed not to illustrate the kind of conversation that Alcibiades had while associating with Socrates but the fact that, prior to spending time with the philosopher, Alcibiades had political ambitions. If this were right, Xenophon would be mildly at fault for including this misleading parenthetical statement. However, the fact that Xenophon closes the scene with a second reference to Alcibiades’ connection with Socrates shows well enough that the conversation is to be understood as occurring while Alcibiades was associated with him.

7 Dorion (n. 2), i.103–4, n. 128, acknowledges this.

8 See for example Sinclair, T., A History of Greek Political Thought (London, 1951), 90Google Scholar; Marchant, E. and Todd, O. (eds.), Xenophon: Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology (Cambridge, 1923), xix–xxGoogle Scholar.

9 A full comparison with Mem. 4.4 is impossible in this context. However, we should also note that the conflict is not as sharp as it seems. In both places Xenophon places a premium on consent: Alcibiades argues against coercion by rulers, and Socrates argues for obedience by citizens. As is well known, Xenophon's favourite political leaders rule primarily by consent rather than coercion. See Gray, V., Xenophon's Mirror of Princes. Reading the Reflections (Oxford, 2011), 15–18Google Scholar.

10 Gray, V.J., The Framing of Socrates. The Literary Interpretation of Xenophon's Memorabilia (Stuttgart, 1998), 46Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., 48.

12 This neutrality can be seen, for example, in the important statement in 1.4.1 on Socrates’ use of the elenchos, as I plan to show in a future publication.

13 This mode of apologetics is not discussed in detail by Gray (n. 10), ch. 3, in her treatment of Xenophon's apologetic rhetoric, although she does mention it.

14 Gigon, O., Kommentar zum ersten Buch von Xenophons Memorabilien (Basle, 1953), 67–70Google Scholar, saw this as a sign that Xenophon is relying on another composition in which the discussion of the good played a larger role and that he has summarized it in an incompetent fashion. We have suggested an apologetic aim for raising this critique, but it is also easy to explain why Xenophon does not allow Alcibiades to pursue it further: an idealist conception of the law would provide a basis for approving laws that are based on violence and hence undermine his main argument against democratic law.

15 The very fact that Alcibiades raises this question shows, incidentally, that Xenophon recognized the possibility of bad laws, and hence that Socrates’ apparent equation of law and justice in Mem. 4.4.12 (τὸ αὐτὸ νόμιμόν τε καὶ δίκαιον εἶναι; ‘the law-abiding and the just are the same thing’) cannot be taken literally. David Johnson has recently pointed out that Xenophon uses identical language to claim that fire and sun are the same (‘Strauss on Xenophon’, in Hobden, Fiona and Tuplin, Christopher (eds.), Xenophon. Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry [Leiden and Boston, MA, 2012], 143–4)Google Scholar. He argues that this language cannot be taken literally, since there are examples of fire which are not sun. However, this example does not save Xenophon from the charge that he has no standard from which to criticize unjust laws. Xenophon's equation of fire and sun seems to imply that the sun is a subset of fire. If law-abiding behaviour is a subset of justice, then Xenophon will remain unable to argue for the existence of unjust laws. Better grounds for the critique of statutory law can be found in the unwritten law (Mem. 4.4).

16 Dorion (n. 2), i.105–6, n. 134, argues that the identification of lawlessness with violence is an unfair step (see also i.106–7, n. 139). But that does not affect the argument significantly, since law will be shown to be violent in any case.

17 Notice that no claim is made that there is any difference between the use of force by a government and its use by anyone else. To the best of my knowledge, that artificial distinction was not formulated by Greek thinkers.

18 Similarly, while Plato's Socrates accepts an unjust death because of his deep moral obligation to the law, Xenophon's Socrates accepts death simply because he stands to gain from it (Xen. Ap. 1).

19 Socrates’ students seem to agree that the democracy was a form of compulsion. Plato's contrast of the violence of the majority with the persuasion of the single individual (Pl. Resp. 327c) is a clear image of the philosopher's relations with the democracy.

20 Adkins, A., Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar. While some have contested Adkins’ formulation of the contrast between competitive and cooperative values, few would deny the pervasiveness of competitive values in ancient Greece. See Lloyd-Jones, H., The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley, CA, 1971)Google Scholar; Gagarin, M., ‘Morality in Homer’, CPh 82 (1987), 285–306Google Scholar, with responses by A. Adkins and H. Lloyd-Jones.

21 Xenophon usually credits the teacher for the performance of the student (e.g. Symp. 2.15–16).

22 Sanders (n. 3) argues that this claim should be taken seriously, and that it indicates that Alcibiades’ methods are not Socratic in character but resemble those of the sophists who were active in Pericles’ youth. I am less inclined to see Pericles as an impartial witness on this issue, since his comment is designed primarily to extricate himself from a humiliating situation by denigrating his humiliator. He may simply mean that he made clever arguments when he was young, without meaning to imply that he used the techniques that Alcibiades displays, which include the characteristically Socratic feigning of ignorance in order to entrap an opponent.

23 Contrast Gray (n. 10), 50, 41, who believes that Xenophon prefers the democratic ideals that Pericles represents, and therefore judges Alcibiades as making false arguments. She continues to stress Xenophon's democratic sympathies in her most recent book (n. 9), esp. 5–24. However, Xenophon is much more sympathetic to oligarchic values. See Mem. 2.6.24–7, for example, where Socrates offers a plan for political dominance by a small oligarchic elite.

24 In commenting on this passage, Dorion (n. 10), i.118, n. 164, says, ‘Xénophon évite de se prononcer clairement et son esquive ressemble à une forme de reconnaissance tacite’ (Xenophon avoids any clear pronouncement, and his evasion seems like a form of tacit admission’).

25 Dorion, L.-A., ‘Socrate et l'utilité de l'amitié’, Revue du MAUSS 27 (2006), 269–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 270–1. See also Bevilacqua, F., Memorabili di Senofonte (Turin, 2010), 156–7Google Scholar.

26 For a detailed and nuanced study of the question of attitudes towards the treatment of fathers up to the death of Socrates, see Strauss, B., Fathers and Sons in Athens (Princeton, NJ, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My account implies that a revival of sympathy for youthful rebellion occurred by the time of the publication of Memorabilia. Indeed, a new generation of youth would have arisen for whom the disasters of Sicily were a distant rumour.

27 For a parallel to the non-educational, humiliating, political use of the elenchos, see Cyrus’ interrogation of the king of Armenia (Cyr. 3.1), an interrogation of which Xenophon clearly approves. The skills that Alcibiades has acquired from Socrates are comparable to the skills that enabled Cyrus to gain pre-eminence over the entire world. As the teacher of Xenophon, it is of course Socrates who is responsible for transmitting the skills that enabled our author to portray both of these striking conversations.

28 One may compare Socrates’ victories over Antiphon (Mem. 1.6) and Aristippus (Mem. 3.8).

29 The only other place where Xenophon arguably displays some concern for the reputation of Alcibiades is when he softens the claim that he and Critias caused damage to the city (1.2.13). Unlike the excuse of youth, however, that effort also serves to deflect criticism from Socrates.

30 Sanders (n. 3).

31 See the similar use of the phrase ‘sou neou ontos’ (‘from your youth’) with regard to Agathon in Pl. Symp. 175e5. Gray (n. 10), 50, offers a similar observation on the effect of mentioning Alcibiades’ age, even though she does not believe that Xenophon expects a positive reaction to Alcibiades’ behaviour in this scene.

32 See Narcy, M., ‘La meillure amie de Socrate: Xenophon Mémorables III, 11’, EPh (2004), 213–33Google Scholar.