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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY
Vivienne J. Gray1,2
Abstract: This article surveys Xenophon’s evidence for Socrates’ views on democ-racy. It offers a more balanced and complete reading of the evidence in Xenophon’sMemorabilia, and takes account of new ways to assess the definition of what is demo-cratic. It argues that Xenophon’s basic image of Socrates is democratic (d�motikos) inthe broadest sense through an investigation of topics such as Socrates’ attitudestowards democratic laws, and the use of dokimasia and the ballot, as well as his viewson oligarchic and democratic regimes of his time, the ‘royal art’ of rule, the assemblyand its decisions, and the role of the wealthy in democracy. It also argues against thegeneral view that Xenophon’s own views on democracy as expressed in his otherworks show no support for democracy.
Introduction
It seems to me that Xenophon had a democratic spirit in seeing in most people,
including women and slaves, that capacity for superior virtue that constitutes
the chief claim to leadership. Once virtue emerged, the community — whether
household, polis or empire — would recognize and follow it because it
included the virtue of looking to secure its success. Leadership in this way
secured ‘willing obedience’ that was given as long as the leader’s interest in
securing their success persisted. I think that Xenophon believed that this
democratic co-operation of leaders and followers could appear in any form of
constitution, from the rule of one to the rule of many. Xenophon applied his
theory of leadership to the full range of different political communities and
we cannot understand his views until its application over the full range of his
contexts is taken into account.3 In my comments below on recent articles, I
draw out some examples.4
POLIS. Vol. 28. No. 1, 2011
1 Department of Classics and Ancient History, The University of Auckland, Auckland1142, New Zealand. Email: v.gray@auckland.ac.nz
2 Author’s Note: This article makes available the original English version (previouslyunpublished) of an essay that first appeared in French (V. Gray, ‘Le Socrate de Xénophonet la Démocratie’, in Les Écrits Socratiques de Xénophon, ed. L. Brisson and L.-A. Dorion,Special Issue of Les Études Philosophiques, 69.2 (2004), pp. 141–76). Occasional requestsfor the original prompted its publication here, slightly revised, with a new Introduction thatreviews some recent, important articles on the topic which have appeared since its firstpublication. No substantial changes have been made, in spite of some developments since2004 in my views about the democratic impulses of Xenophon’s works.
3 See V. Gray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes: Reading the Reflections (Oxford,2011).
4 I survey the political views of Xenophon in the general introduction to V. Gray,Xenophon on Government (Cambridge, 2007). For essays on Xenophon’s reconciliationwith democracy and his wish to reform it for the better, see P. Gauthier, ‘Le Programme
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Ron Kroeker has most recently engaged with Xenophon’s political
thought about democracy.5 With reference to my article (see note 2), he
argued against what he showed to be still the consensus, which is that
Xenophon is undemocratic, and he agreed that we cannot judge Xenophon’s
views until we understand the normal range of Athenian democratic ideol-
ogy. He applies the distinction between the immanent/internal critic and
the rejectionist/external critic to Xenophon’s material with very interest-
ing results. The internal critic reforms from inside and points out how
society has strayed from its foundational ideals; the external critic holds up
models of reform imported from outside. He finds the immanent critic of
democracy in much of Xenophon’s work and the rejectionist critic by
implication only when, in Constitution of the Spartans (hereafter cited as
LP), after praising the laws of the Spartans, Xenophon declares that it is
most amazing that ‘everyone praises such practices, but no polis has the
will to copy them’ (10.8).
Xenophon uses such phrases elsewhere to underscore the hardship
involved in following/imitating the best practices, without a rejectionist
implication. For instance, in Hipparchicus, after describing the ‘best’
practices of the cavalry commander, he ends with the statement: ‘almost
everyone knows these things, but not many have the will to persist in carry-
ing them out’ (4.5). Nevertheless, our evidence certainly invites us take
the comment in LP as aimed at the Athenians, but with this important pro-
viso, that we appreciate that their democratic ideology easily accommo-
dates the Spartan practices he has just described; and that highlights the
question of understanding their democratic ideology. This accommoda-
tion is shown in the conversation in Memorabilia (III 5) in which Socrates
is advising the younger Pericles how to make the Athenians militarily suc-
cessful. Here they envisage producing in the Athenian army virtues that
they explicitly associate with Sparta, and which are also found in Xenophon’s
LP (respect for elders, body-building, obedience to commanders, homonoiaabove envy). They also agree that the Athenians are reluctant to imitate the
Spartans (Mem. III 5.15–16), which again echoes the comment in LP. Yet
they do not for a moment envisage the end of democracy — as I argue
below. Moreover, though Xenophon’s idea that the Athenians should
imitate the Spartans seems rejectionist because it imports the Spartan
model, we notice that among the other models that Socrates offers for
imitation in this conversation are the Athenian navy and Athenian choral
and gymnastic competitions, as well as their own ancestral system, which
2 V.J. GRAY
de Xénophon dans les Poroi (Xenophon’s Programme in the Poroi)’, and S. Johnstone,‘Virtuous Toil, Vicious Work: Xenophon on Aristocratic Style’, reprinted in Xenophon(Oxford Readings in Classical Studies), ed. V. Gray (Oxford, 2010), pp. 113–66.
5 R. Kroeker, ‘Xenophon as a Critic of the Athenian Democracy’, History of PoliticalThought, 30.2 (2009), pp. 197–228.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 3
seems to suggest that ‘the democracy has strayed from its foundational ideals’
in the way of the immanent critic,6 but even then has not strayed completely,
as their cultural competitions and naval forces show.
Kroeker sees the freedom of the individual as essential to democratic
ideology, taking Pericles’ Funeral Speech from Thucydides as a guide, and
he opposes to this view the lack of individual freedom endorsed in LP. I
would argue rather that the ideological essence of the Spartan practices
described in LP is the obedience to the laws that the preface points to as the
secret of their success, and that Pericles shows this to be part of Athenian
democratic ideology too when he praises the Athenians’ obedience to com-
manders and laws in his articulation of that ideology in the Funeral
Speech. Both ideologies reflect Xenophon’s view that success is assured
by obedience to the authorities and to law, no matter what the political con-
stitution may be (see Mem. IV 4.16; Cyropaedia VI 1).7 If such obedience
is equated with a denial of personal freedom, then it already exists in
Athens, in those significant parts of their organization that already show
‘obedience to those in charge’ and ‘good order’ (Mem. III 5.18–21). Spar-
tan marriage laws infringed individual freedom more than Athenian mar-
riage laws, but obedience to law is a higher ideology than mere personal
freedom.
Xenophon’s democratic tendencies in Hellenica and Poroi have also
been recently addressed.8 Poroi is intended to reform the Athenian economy
in order to relieve the poverty of the demos, but its evidently democratic
endorsement has drawn special pleading to the contrary: that Xenophon
wrote it in order to secure the favour of the demos for his return from exile,
or that it conceals an attempt to disenfranchise the demos by making them
dependent on welfare. John Lewis implicitly challenges the undemocratic
interpretation when he finds the economic and political theory of Jean-
Baptiste Say in the work. Bernard Dobski focuses on Xenophon’s presen-
tation of the restored democracy at Athens, where he has Thrasybulus
endorse the qualities of the demos in order to justify the rule of the restored
democracy (Hel. II 4.40–43). As with Poroi there have been attempts to
explain away the endorsement in terms of Xenophon’s political opportun-
ism. Dobski believes to the contrary that Xenophon is in dialogue with
Thucydides about the nature of the best constitution in this episode and
that he substitutes this restored democracy as the ‘best government’ for the
6 Kroeker, ‘Xenophon as a Critic’, p. 201.7 For comments on the funeral speech, see V. Gray, ‘A Short Response to David M.
Johnson, “Xenophon’s Socrates on Law and Justice”’, Ancient Philosophy, 24 (2004),pp. 442–6.
8 B. Dobski, ‘Athenian Democracy Refounded: Xenophon’s Political History in theHellenika’; and J. Lewis, ‘Xenophon’s Poroi and the Foundations of Political Econo-my’, in The Political Thought of Xenophon, ed. D. Gish and W. Ambler, Special Issue ofPolis, 26.2 (2009), pp. 316–38, 370–88.
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government of the Five Thousand that Thucydides endorses as the ‘best’
(VIII 97.2). He believes that this is because Thucydides’ best constitution
arose from necessity, 9 whereas Xenophon’s is based on traditional
authority, and he argues that Xenophon considers traditional authority to be
best able to protect philosophy as represented by Socrates — even though
this is the democracy that put him to death.
More important for me than the dialogue with Thucydides or connection
with Socrates are the direct implications for what Xenophon thought about
the restored democracy. The thrust of Thrasybulus’ comment is that superior
virtue alone justifies rule: the oligarchs have shown themselves to be infe-
rior in courage and wisdom and justice, and therefore should bow down to
the demos. This idea that those who know themselves to be inferior should
follow their betters turns out to be a general principle that can also justify
non-democratic rule. Xenophon has Cyrus the Great express the same
thought in the same shape and sentence structure as is used by Thrasybulus,
but in order to justify the rule of the Persians over subject nations (Cyr. VII
5.83).10 This makes the restored democracy only one among many ‘best
constitutions’, in all of which the ruling element demonstrates superior
virtue. Other parts of what Thrasybulus says are also general principles
that go beyond democracy, such as his idea that the oligarchs should ‘know
themselves’ in the Socratic way because they have proven inferior to the
demos (Hel. II 4.40). In Cyropaedia, Croesus the Lydian explains in simi-
lar terms how he came to ‘know himself’ to be inferior in virtue when
defeated by Cyrus, and he agrees that he must assent to his leadership as a
result (VII 2).11 Thrasybulus’ exhortation that the Athenians should keep
their oaths and obey the ancestral laws also appears in other contexts
where obedience is the key to political success (such as Mem. IV 4.16). His
endorsement makes him one of those heroes mentioned in that passage
who enforce the law and thus secure the success of their community.
Another equivalent is Cyrus, who tells the Persians that they must continue
to obey the rules that made them superior in virtue, since only such obedi-
ence can ensure their continuing virtue, which is the justification of their
rule (Cyr. VII 5.83).
4 V.J. GRAY
9 See Dobski, ‘Athenian Democracy Refounded’, pp. 336–7; cf. S. Hornblower,Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford, 2008), vol. 3 (arguing that Thucydides’ judgmenthere is based on the blending of the elements in the constitution).
10 See Gray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes, pp. 243–4.11 See E. Lefèvre, ‘Die Frage nach dem ���� ������� Die Begegnung zwischen
Kyros und Kroisos bei Xenophon (The Question of the ���� ������: The Encoun-ter between Cyrus and Croesus in Xenophon)’, in Gray, Xenophon, pp. 401–17; see alsoGray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes, pp. 149–57.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 5
Xenophon’s Socrates and Democracy
Luccioni offers the most systematic evaluation of the attitudes of Xenophon’s
Socrates towards the Athenian demos. He believes that Xenophon used Soc-
rates as his mouth-piece and calls them both ‘adversaires de la démocratie’,
arguing that Xenophon had a prejudice towards the wealthy and Socrates
taught him to support this through philosophy.12 The view has not changed in
recent times and may even have hardened. Vlastos uses the same evidence as
Luccioni to establish that Xenophon’s Socrates’ conception of the ‘royal art’
of rule was undemocratic because its practice and its benefits were limited to
an elite, whereas Plato’s conception was democratic because it was accessible
to all.13 But he leaves the passage in which Socrates describes the assembly as
superlatively weak and witless unqualified, whereas Luccioni at least noted
Socrates’ recognition of their basic ‘competence’;14 and whereas Luccioni only
tried to undermine the passage that proves Socrates’ obedience to democratic
law, through questioning his motives, Vlastos dismissed it entirely as ‘that curi-
ous piece of legal positivism’ which was unavailing against other evidence.15
This article offers a more balanced and complete reading of the evidence,
and takes account of new ways in which the definition of what is democratic
might be assessed.16 Xenophon’s Memorabilia provides the most evidence,
with more occasional insights offered in Oeconomicus, Symposium and
Apology of Socrates to the Jury. Xenophon here defends Socrates against his
conviction at the hands of an Athenian democratic court on the official
charges of not worshipping the gods of the polis, but introducing new ones,
and corrupting the youth. He does not make Socrates directly address his
dikast�rion, as Plato does in his Apology of Socrates or as Xenophon himself
does in his Apology, but he refutes the charges and presents the character of
the defendant for posthumous judgment. The work can indeed be placed in the
rhetorical tradition of the speech that defended the client against charges
raised in the process of preliminary scrutiny for office (dokimasia) in the
democracy. That speech can take the form of an argument in two phases:
12 J. Luccioni, Les Idées Politiques et Sociales de Xénophon (Paris, 1946),pp. 108–38 (‘Xénophon et la Démocratie Athénienne’); quotations are at pp. 108, 114.
13 G. Vlastos, ‘The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy’, Political Theory,11.4 (1983), pp. 495–516; reprinted in G. Vlastos, Socratic Studies (Cambridge, 1994),pp. 87–108.
14 Vlastos, Socratic Studies, p. 98; Luccioni, Les Idées, pp. 114–18.15 Vlastos, Socratic Studies, p. 106; Luccioni, Les Idées, pp. 130–2. A random exam-
ple of recent scholarship confirms the negative image in a passing footnote: C.J. Rowe,‘Killing Socrates: Plato’s Later Thoughts on Democracy’, Journal of Hellenic Studies,121 (2001), pp. 63–76, at p. 75 n. 43.
16 Ober is one of the leaders in this field: see J. Ober, Political Dissent in DemocraticAthens (Princeton, 1998); see also L. Kallett-Marx, ‘Institutions, Ideology, and PoliticalConsciousness in Ancient Greece: Some Recent Books on Athenian Democracy’, Jour-nal of the History of Ideas, 55.2 (1994), pp. 307–35.
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refutation of specific charges, then demonstration of wider virtue.17 Memora-bilia accordingly uses rhetorical argument to refute the specific charges
against Socrates (I 1.1 — I 2.64), then goes beyond the charges and demon-
strates the positive virtue of his teaching mainly through a series of short con-
versations (I 3 — IV 8). Xenophon may encourage us to read Memorabilia as
dokimasia at the point where he is about to begin the demonstration (I 4.1); for
he invites the audience to ‘test’ the evidence ( �����������). Certainly, he
ends Memorabilia with the invitation: ‘making a comparison with the charac-
ter of others, with respect to this let him judge (�������)’ (IV 8.11).
IXenophon’s Memorabilia as Evidence
The rhetorical and defensive nature of Memorabilia could discredit its evi-
dence and suggest that it is a complete whitewash of the historical Socrates, in
the same way that Lysias might whitewash a client’s oligarchic tendencies
before a live courtroom. The form certainly dictates some accommodation
with democratic expectations since the charges that it refutes include those for
plain undemocratic conviction, such as Socrates’ opposition to the use of
sortition in the selection of magistrates (Mem. I 2.9–11). Ober has argued that
an accommodation is expected even where there is no live presentation, as
when Isocrates in Antidosis pretends to be on trial in a democratic court in
order to make an account of his own life and works: ‘Isocrates is forced by the
situation to show his audience that he is a loyal adherent of the democratic
politeia. In the setting of a public trial before a demotic jury, he cannot be
expected to contemplate the replacement of democracy with a politeia whose
establishment might eliminate his own raison d’être.’18
Certainly, Xenophon’s basic image of Socrates is democratic in the broad-
est sense; his central argument, in response to the implication of harm in the
official charges, is that Socrates helped the polis rather than harming it. The
speeches of Lysias also indicate that helping and not harming the demos is the
general test of the democrat.19 This mostly takes the form of personal military
service or financial support for the demos in the form of liturgies — the equip-
ping of a trireme, the production of a chorus, and so on — but other kinds of
assistance could be equally valid. Xenophon accordingly writes the first part
of the work to prove that he did not harm the polis in his religious teaching or
practice, or by encouraging or failing to restrain the bad desires of the young
for sex and food, warmth and sleep, money and clothes (I 2.1–8, cf. the con-
clusion at I 2.64) — which he takes to be the basis of corruption. He takes the
6 V.J. GRAY
17 V. Gray, The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Interpretation of Xenophon’sMemorabilia (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 89–91.
18 Ober, Political Dissent, p. 287. Ober does not deal with Xenophon, but suggeststhat he and his Socrates are critics of democracy (p. 50 n.70).
19 See Lysias 25.4, 11, and passim.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 7
charges to mean that Socrates harmed the community in the broadest sense
rather than the constitution in the narrow sense.20 His alleged promotion of the
beating of fathers, the dishonouring of relatives, and idle living (I 2.49–61) is
certainly more harmful to the general community than the constitution.21 He
makes corruption a political issue when Critias and Alcibiades enter politics
with their desires unrestrained, but these threaten the democracy and the oli-
garchy alike.22
The second part of Memorabilia confirms this emphasis on the general
community when it argues that Socrates used his wisdom to ‘help’ members
of the polis to improve a range of the reciprocal relationships that brought
cohesion to the community: between citizens and the gods (I 4 and IV 3), their
families and relatives (II 2–3), their friends (II 4–10), and between the leaders
and the demos itself (III 1–7); he even helped artists and prostitutes
understand their profession (III 9–10).23 Yet, though Xenophon puts Socrates in
a democratic frame, he may put the devil in the details. Ober calls Plato’s Apol-ogy ‘a demonstration of an alternative and openly critical use of the ordinarily
democratic genre of dicanic rhetoric’,24 which undermines the democratic
20 The overtly political charges, such as Socrates’ opposition to sortition (I 2.9–11)come from those who make accusations beyond the official ones; the usual view is thatthey are developing the debate about Socrates; cf. Gray, The Framing of Socrates, pp.60–73. Xenophon’s support for other interpretations could be argued, but, for example,the evidence that Socrates corrupted the young by teaching them dialectic or making theweaker argument appear the stronger is limited to the conversation between Pericles andAlcibiades (I 2.40–46).
21 The religious charges are understood in a similarly broad sense. T. Irwin, in ‘Soc-rates and Athenian Democracy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 18.2 (1989), pp.184–205, at pp. 189–91, refers to the notion that Socrates’ impiety was indicative of whatcaused the disastrous outcome of the Peloponnesian War — but there is nothing to sup-port this. Xenophon defends Socrates as a believer who worshipped ‘according to thecustom of the polis’ and was very ‘visible’ in his worship; his �������� is also ‘publicknowledge’ (I 1.2, 10, 17–18). He re-defines �������� as consulting the gods in unrea-sonable ways, thinking that everything or nothing is within the grasp of men, and investi-gating heavenly �������� (I 1.9, 12). Xenophon, at Apology 14, says that he incurredjealousy for his �������� because the gods seemed to be honouring him more than oth-ers, another apolitical motive for the charge. Socrates teaches men to honour the godswithout political reference (I 4 and IV 3).
22 Critias was most thieving, violent and murderous in the oligarchy, while Alcibiadeswas most uncontrolled, hybristic and violent in the democracy (I 2.12); both were mostambitious under either constitution, wanting to have everything in their hands (I 2.14, 24).
23 See Gray, The Framing of Socrates, pp. 10–11, which focuses on references to thishelpfulness. The programmatic I 3.1 identifies proving Socrates’ ‘helpfulness’ as themain point of the second part of the work (I 3–IV 8) and the conclusion recapitulates thisas his chief quality (IV 8.11). At IV 1.1, Xenophon describes associating with Socrates as‘most helpful in whatever manner and wherever pursued’; reported conversations makefrequent references to Socrates’ helpfulness or how he established this as a goal for others.
24 Ober, Political Dissent, p. 177.
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c expectations of the law-courts, such as the production of children to elicit com-
passion.25 Some criticism of democracy is indeed expected from the historical
Socrates. The accepted view is that he did not try to establish a position entirely
independent of the beliefs and practices of his democratic community; but his
position rests on much more than straightforward adoption of those beliefs and
practices, for he gives a reasoned, reflective response to those beliefs and prac-
tices.26 The assessment of how democratic that response was depends ulti-
mately on how acceptable it would have been to the citizens en masse.
IISocrates and the Laws, Written and Unwritten
Attitudes to democratic laws and institutions are major tests of the democrat.27
I therefore begin with the discussion between Xenophon’s Socrates and
Hippias about justice and the laws (IV 4) taking into account Alcibiades’ con-
versation with Pericles on the same topic (I 2.40–46), and moving on to the
passage in which Socrates is said to have opposed the use of the random ballot
to choose ‘rulers’ in the democracy (I 2.9–11).
Pericles defines law in democratic terms in his conversation with his
ward Alcibiades, as the written agreements that the majority of the citizens
(�������) have gathered together to approve, which indicate what to do and
what not to do (I 2.42). A further part of the definition is that laws make citi-
zens do what is good and avoid what is bad. But Alcibiades uses dialectic to
refute the definition; he proves that laws of all kinds of constitutions are not
true law because they do not secure universal agreement but force citizens to
obey them; the laws of a tyrant force all to obey, the laws of oligarchy force
the masses, and the laws of democracy force the minority, which consists of
the owners of property. Alcibiades’ arguments could be read out of context as
the views of Socrates coming out in the pupil; but though Socrates has
taught Alcibiades how to use the dialectic method, Xenophon introduces the
conversation with the proviso that he was barely twenty years old at the time,
which is short-hand for immaturity. Glaucon also attempts to advise the
assembly at this age and is laughed off the speaker’s platform because of his
immature ignorance (III 6.1). Alcibiades has the cleverness only of youth.
Pericles does not refute him, but he does say that he could use dialectic just as
cleverly when he was Alcibiades’ age, which confirms that it is characteristic
of the young. The conversation is also placed in a section of the defence which
takes the charge of corruption to mean that Socrates failed to control, or posi-
tively encouraged, bad desires in the youth, and which argues that though
8 V.J. GRAY
25 Ibid., pp. 175–7.26 C. Gill, Greek Political Thought (Oxford, 1995), p. 51.27 See E. Wood and N. Wood, ‘Socrates and Democracy: A Reply to Gregory
Vlastos’, Political Theory, 14.1 (1986), pp. 55–82, at pp. 59–65 (arguing in these termsagainst Vlastos).
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 9
Socrates controlled Alcibiades and Critias in their early youth, they escaped
Socrates’ control and lost their restraint in their later youth (I 2.12–48). In this
conversation then, Alcibiades is showing the lack of respect for his guardian
that is typical of unrestrained desires, one of which is the desire to prove him-
self wiser than the father-figure.28
Alcibiades’ idea that laws are not valid unless they are based on the consent
of those who live under them recurs in the other two passages relating to the
laws, which reveal the mature views of Socrates himself. But Socrates is
unlike Alcibiades because he defines justice simply as lawfulness.29 In the
conversation with Hippias, he recommends obedience to two types of law: the
laws that members of the polis have written down for themselves in agree-
ment about what to do and what to avoid (IV 4.13), and the unwritten laws that
are universally in force everywhere and because of that seem to come from
the gods (IV 4.19). Here, whereas Pericles was defining the laws of the
democracy (�� �������), Socrates defines the laws of any constitution (hoipolitai). He does however have democracy in mind, as the earlier reference to
how the new concept of justice will settle the disagreements among the votes
of dikastai (IV 4.8) and as the subsequent reference to how obedience to the
laws will win advantage in the ��������� (IV 4.17) show. Socrates’ position
on law indeed puts him in the camp of Pericles, who as leader of the democ-
racy made the same division and recommended the same obedience to both
kinds of law: ‘We do not act contrary to the laws, in obedience to those in
authority and the laws at any time, and especially those designed for the assis-
tance of the oppressed and the laws that though unwritten carry the agreed
penalty of shame when broken’ (Thucydides II 37.3). Pericles’ endorsement
of obedience to ‘rulers’ who implement the law is also echoed, as we will see
below, in Xenophon’s description of Socrates (IV 4.1).
Socrates defends written laws even against the charge that citizens fre-
quently scrutinize and change them (IV 4.14, using the word for ‘testing’
which Pericles had used to Alcibiades). He thinks no less well of a man who
obeys laws that are then changed than of a man who obeys military orders
before the end of a war.30 He points out that those communities which exhibit
the general habit of obedience to written law enjoy homonoia, that unity of
purpose which brings political success and prosperity. He cites the obedience
to the laws of Lycurgus in Sparta as one example of such success, but is still
thinking of other constitutions, including democracy, since he goes on to
28 More general attempts at this same game are found in the subsequent section(I 2.49–55).
29 See D. Morrison, ‘Xenophon’s Socrates on the Just and the Lawful’, Ancient Phi-losophy, 15 (1995), pp. 329–47.
30 Plato allows that laws can be badly made (Hippias Major 284d), but the usual viewwas that laws should remain unchanged: see S. Todd, ‘Lysias against Nikomachos: TheFate of the Expert in Athenian Law’, in Greek Law in its Political Setting, ed. L. Foxhalland A. Lewis (Oxford, 1996), pp. 101–31, at pp. 130–1.
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describe the most successful cities in the plural as being the ones who have
most respect for law: ‘of the rulers in the cities . . . those are best who best
cause the citizens to obey the laws, and the cities in which the citizens most
obey the laws do best in peace and are invincible in war’ (IV 4.15). ‘Rulers’
include the balloted magistrates of the democracy (I 2.9, discussed below).
This homonoia is not restricted to the Spartans, though their homonoia was
legendary (see III 5.16),31 for the reference is again in the plural: ‘Homonoiaalso seems to the cities to be the greatest good and very often in them the coun-
cils of elders and the best men exhort the citizens to think alike (homonoein)
and there is a law (nomos) everywhere in Greece that the citizens swear to
think alike and everywhere they swear this oath’ (IV 4.16).
Socrates goes on to interpret this oath as a law that required obedience to
the laws and then to demonstrate the benefits of obedience, maintaining for
example that the man who obeys the laws will have more victories in the
��������� and fewer defeats (IV 4.17).32 There were indeed oaths that
required obedience to the laws, such as the bouleutic oath (I 1.18) and the
jurors’ oath (IV 4.4). Moreover, Xenophon associates homonoia with the rule
of law and identifies it as characteristic of the democracy that the Athenians
re-established after their defeat of the oligarchs at the end of the Pelopon-
nesian War. Thrasybulus, the leader of the democratic resistance, recom-
mended that both parties live quietly ‘in obedience to the former laws’, and
they subsequently swore oaths ‘not to remember wrong’ (Hel. II 4.42).33
Xenophon expresses his admiration for the democracy of his own times when
he notes that the two parties still conduct their polis in togetherness and
remain by the oaths they swore. Lysias endorses this homonoia as the most
democratic feature of the democrat: ‘they think those most democratic
( �������������) who, wishing you to think alike (homonoein), abide by their
oaths and agreements’ — as their ‘salvation’ and ‘guard’ (25.20, 23, 28–29).
Socrates attributes the encouragement of homonoia to what seem to be aristo-
cratic elements, but the ‘best men’ are operational even in democracy, as the
case of Thrasybulus shows: Xenophon identifies him as ‘good’ at his death
(Hel. IV 8.31).
Socrates does not spell out the relationship between written and unwritten
law, and this leaves room for speculation about possible conflict, and leads to
10 V.J. GRAY
31 See V. Gray, ‘Xenophon and Isocrates’, in The Cambridge History of Greek andRoman Political Thought, ed. M. Schofield and C. Gill (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 142–54.
32 The ��������� failed to reach the right judgment in Socrates’ own case, but here heendorses their operations. His case was complicated by his refusal to offer a properdefence (see Apo. 4).
33 Citizens swore oaths in support of homonoia after the return and reconciliation ofexiles to Mytilene in 324 (Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873–), XII 2, 6, line 30); thereis also a prayer and sacrifice that the reconciliation be respected (lines 38–9). See J.Jones, Law and Legal Theory of the Greeks (Oxford, 1956), Ch. 4 (‘Eunomia, Homonoia,Isonomia’).
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 11
the debate about whether Socrates is truly a legal positivist or an idealist.34
The same distinction in the mouth of Pericles has also been thought to contain
a possible tension, and the possibility has been advanced there that his unwrit-
ten laws are undemocratic.35 However, Socrates’ examples of unwritten law
are honouring the gods, honouring parents, the law against incest, and the law
for repayment of favours, which was the foundation of justice (Mem. IV
4.20–24). These are not aristocratic. Nor can one imagine any community
endorsing incest in their written laws. Other evidence confirms that written
law does confirm unwritten law, and reveals the kind of circumstances in
which communities might write down unwritten law; that is, when it directly
affected their political and constitutional interests. In a conversation in which
he seeks to make his son repay the good care of his mother, Socrates says that
the written legislation of Athens mostly overlooks ingratitude, but makes it a
written law and inflicts the penalty of disqualification from office if a man
does not honour his parents (II 2.13). The written law may then neglect
unwritten law, perhaps culpably, where it is not relevant to political life in the
narrow sense, but it does not gainsay it — and needs to endorse it in cases
where it is of importance to political life. Xenophon agrees, in his Cyropaedia(I 2.7), that ingratitude is seldom treated as a crime in law. The main differ-
ences between written and unwritten law are compatible therefore, rather than
confrontational: unwritten laws are in force throughout the world — ‘in every
land honoured in the same way’ (Mem. IV 4.19; Hippias gives this definition,
but Socrates assents to it) — whereas written laws reflect the unique arrange-
ments of different communities; and the transgression of unwritten law brings
its own penalty (IV 4.21), whereas in written laws the penalty has to be
imposed. The advance Socrates makes on Pericles is that while he sees shame
as the penalty for transgression, Socrates envisages disadvantage of a more
tangible kind: the inbred children produced by incest, the lack of friendship
consequent on ingratitude, and so on.36
A more important tension, not revealed in the conversation with Hippias, is
the inability of law to deal with those cases where the same action could be
just and unjust depending on the use to which it was put. Socrates’ conversa-
tion with Euthydemus reveals this (IV 2.12–23), but does not relate it to the
identification of the legal with the just; he is intent instead on proving that
Euthydemus is merely ignorant of what justice is. Xenophon’s Cyropaedia
34 Morrison, in ‘Xenophon’s Socrates’, comes down on the side of legal positivism.35 Loraux attempts to show this, but in my view is not successful: see N. Loraux,
L’Invention d’Athènes: Histoire de l’Oraison Funèbre dans la “Cité Classique” (Paris,1981), pp. 185–6.
36 R. Thomas (‘Written in Stone? Liberty, Equality, Orality and the Codification ofLaw’, in Greek Law, ed. Foxhall and Lewis, pp. 9–31) confirms that a distinctionbetween written and unwritten law is expected in the process of developing a writtencode, but that the two types of law supplement rather than contradict each other; therewas no need to translate into writing those laws that carried their own automatic penalties.
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(I 3.16–17) raises a slightly different tension when his young Cyrus overtly chal-
lenges the identification of justice and law in his decision not to punish the boy
with a cloak too small who took a larger cloak from a smaller boy. The law said
that the big boy’s action was unjust, but the benefit produced shows the limits of
the law in reaching a fitting conclusion. This suggests that law might not be suffi-
ciently comprehensive to take in all the relevant aspects of a case. However, it is
significant Cyrus accepts that his teachers were right to beat him for his decision,
since he was meant to be judging whether a crime had been committed, not
whether the fit was good. This might be another kind of situation in which the
need for �������� prevailed over law that was less than perfect.
The written law of the democracy is not perfect, then, perhaps for reasons
that Socrates does not press, perhaps because justice in its broadest sense is
irreconcilable with the rule of written law. But the citizens may address such
imperfections and change their written laws in agreement after testing them,
perhaps even after being persuaded by politicians such as those educated by
Socrates (see the discussion below). However, the higher interests of the com-
mon good of homonoia prevail in the final analysis, and citizens may not put
their individual likes or dislikes of any particular law above the common
good; to this end they swear to ‘think alike’. Alcibiades develops the need for
persuasion too far, but it contains an essential ideal; the best that communities
could do to implement the ideal was to agree to agree to the idea of obedience,
even if not to each and every individual law. Unwritten law does not normally
impinge on the interests of the polis, but it is not undemocratic, and is trans-
lated into democratic law where the interest of the polis is sufficiently strong,
as in the case of the need to prove gratitude to parents in scrutiny for demo-
cratic office. The need to honour the gods was translated into written law in
the charges against Socrates that he did not honour the gods of the polis, but
introduced other new divinities. The law against incest might also be trans-
lated into approved law, where a community wanted to endorse a eugenic
breeding programme.
IIISocrates’ Obedience to the Athenians’ Laws
Xenophon demonstrates at the beginning of the conversation with Hippias
that Socrates was scrupulous in his own obedience to the laws: ‘in private life
his dealings with others were lawful and helpful, and in public life he obeyed
the rulers and whatever the laws instructed, giving obedience within the polis
and keeping in order alongside the others in military campaigns’ (Mem. IV
4.1–4).37 It has not been noticed that this language recalls the ephebic oath,
which survives in fourth-century inscriptions and is first mentioned in the
12 V.J. GRAY
37 Socrates’ own practice is important. Irwin (‘Socrates’, p. 197) distinguishesundemocratic conviction, such as criticism of government, from undemocratic activity,such as its overthrow.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 13
law-courts by Lycurgus (1.77).38 Ephebes also swore to obey the rulers and
the laws, and not to abandon the man who fought alongside him. Socrates’
allegiance to this oath, which he had himself sworn as a hoplite, might well
provide a firm basis for his allegiance to law. Lycurgus confirms that it held
the democracy together (1.79: �� �������� ��� ����������), and he goes on
to claim that the archon, the juror and the private citizen take the oath as a
pledge of lawfulness. It could certainly require citizens to obey even those
laws to which they did not individually consent. Xenophon also notes that
Socrates ‘did not allow the people’ to put the vote about the proposal to con-
demn the generals of Arginousai en bloc because it contravened the existing
law (Hel. I 7.15, 20–26). He attributes this refusal to his bouleutic oath (Mem.
I 1.18), but the ephebic oath also required the citizen to prevent others over-
throwing the laws.39 Finally, he observed the jurors’ oath when he refused to
appeal for favour at his own trial because this was also ‘contrary to the law’ —
as is confirmed by Lysias: ‘but if, though having no justice, they tell you to
give them a favour, remember that they are teaching you to break your oath
and disobey the laws’ (14.20–22). Plato’s Socrates in his Apology (35b–d)
agrees that the jurors’ oath was to judge ‘according to the laws’, not to bargain
for favour.40
Xenophon also includes in Memorabilia a brief statement of Socrates’
resistance to the illegalities of the oligarchy, which produces an important
proviso on his attitude to laws. He says that Socrates disobeyed the ‘instruc-
tions’ of the oligarchy to bring in citizens for summary execution and not to
talk to the young. He calls their instructions ‘contrary to the laws’, which
means that his disobedience is not unlawful, but it is not clear from this brief
statement how their instructions are contrary to the laws, and there is a further
difficulty if this statement is compared with the earlier account of his dealings
with the oligarchs (Mem. I 2.31–39); for Xenophon had there called the
instruction about the young a ‘law’ and called its author, Critias, a ����������of the Thirty (I 2.31).
The reason why Xenophon now includes that ‘law’ as ‘contrary to the laws’
can be found in the conversation that Socrates then had about that law with
Critias and his fellow ����������, Charicles. Socrates occupies his usual
position when he begins his challenge by indicating that he is ready to obey
the laws, but he seeks clarification about this law’s precise meaning (I 2.34).
He uses his dialectic method to bring these nomothetai to agree that what their
38 For the text, see P. Siewert, ‘The Ephebic Oath in Fifth-Century Athens’, Journalof Hellenic Studies, 97 (1977), pp. 102–11.
39 Ephebes swore ‘I shall not allow’ anyone to overthrow the laws, neither alone norwith others. Socrates opposed the people ‘alone’ on this occasion, but ‘with the help ofthe laws’.
40 On the jurors’ oath, see D. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (London,1978), p. 44.
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law intends is that he ‘avoid’ (the word used to define law at IV 4.13) the cob-
blers, builders and metalworkers, which they agree further means avoiding
‘justice and holiness and connected matters’ (I 2.37). Xenophon does not say
here that Socrates disobeyed the law; he keeps that revelation for the conver-
sation with Hippias. But it is clear that a law that keeps him away from justice
in the sense of not being able to discuss it, also keeps others away from the
justice they might have learned from his discussions of it, and therefore con-
tradicts the definition of law, which tells people to pursue the good.41 Dialec-
tic has tested this law and found it contrary to the definition of law. The
‘testing’ and approval that Pericles says that democratic citizens must give to
their laws would in its ideal philosophic form be the dialectic ‘testing’ that
Socrates uses here.
The need for laws to meet the definition in order to have status as law is an
important proviso on Socrates’ readiness to obey the laws. To judge by his
attitude to oligarchic law, his chosen option where law failed the definition
was to criticize and try to change the laws; if he failed to convince the
law-makers, he honoured his oath to respect laws that were properly consti-
tuted. Socrates might disobey those improperly constituted, but evidence (dis-
cussed below) indicates that he would never resort to violence. The higher
principle that citizens should obey laws in the interest of homonoia evidently
does not apply to laws that defy the definition. Socrates might have found
democratic law more just. Pericles maintains that the democratic majority
makes laws that pursue justice and avoid injustice; that is, they are honestly
intended. The democracy at least did not make conversation with the young
illegal or licence summary execution as the oligarchs did, and the agreement
of the majority meant that individual grudges could not be pushed through,
nor indiscriminate massacre. An easier way of explaining why Xenophon
calls the oligarchs’ instructions ‘contrary to the laws’ might be that their laws
were contrary to the previously existing laws of the democracy. Xenophon
himself distinguishes between the oligarchs’ ‘new laws’ and the democracy’s
‘old laws’ (Hel. II 3.51, 4.42). There is also the possibility that he wrote this
sentence without much thought, but this still leaves the problem in the earlier
passage of the status of a law that obliges citizens to refrain from having dis-
cussions with the young that are designed to promote justice.
IVSocrates and Democratic Ballot
There is a need to consider in this context the accusers’ earlier allegations that
Socrates taught his pupils to violate the established laws by declaring that it
was foolish to choose ‘rulers’ (archontas) by the process of sortition (Mem.
I 2.9). The connection between contempt for the laws and opposition to
14 V.J. GRAY
41 Cf. L.-A. Dorion, Xénophon: Mémorables (Paris, 2000).
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 15
sortition is that the rulers chosen by sortition are despised because they have
no necessary expertise. Since ‘rulers’ tell you what to do and what not to do
(III 9.11), which is the function of the laws (I 2.42, IV 4.13; cf. IV 4.15),
contempt for them is synonymous with contempt for the laws. Much has
been made of the fact that Xenophon does not deny that Socrates opposed
sortition.42 Indeed, Socrates considers it one of a range of invalid devices for
choosing leaders: neither sortition nor election, neither the bean nor the scep-
tre, can define the real ruler, said Socrates; the only valid test is knowledge
(III 9.10). Xenophon however does go on to say that Socrates did not teach
violent overthrow of the laws, but the way of persuasion, which implies the
desire to gain the consent of the governed. This persuasion, which emerges
from many other passages, is directed at the citizens through the democratic
assembly; it is expressed in this passage as ‘teaching the citizens’ (didaskeintous politas). The conversation with Hippias confirms that the citizens may
change the established laws if they wish and this can be the result of persua-
sion. The conversation between Alcibiades and Pericles certainly shows the
need for persuasion to make the laws valid. There is nothing inherently
undemocratic about wishing to change the constitution with the agreement of
the citizens.43 Until such time as persuasion works, Socrates worked within
the system, defending the laws as a balloted member of the council for
instance during the trial of the generals who fought at Arginousai (Hel. I 7).
Sortition may be thought today too fundamental to abandon without
destroying the democracy, but this is not in line with other evidence.44
Isocrates argues that it is essentially undemocratic because it allows oligarchs
to reach office (Areopagiticus 22–3). Ober considers this argument spe-
cious,45 but Lysias (26.9) in a democratic law-court also qualifies the merit of
sortition when he puts forward the argument that the process of dokimasiaalone ensures the exclusion of oligarchs from balloted office, and then from
the exalted heights of the Areopagus, into which archons passed at the end of
their year in office. Socrates modifies the bad effects of the ballot in the same
way when he argues in his conversation with Pericles that the Areopagus con-
sists of ‘those who have passed dokimasia’, who, for this reason, in spite of
their selection by the ballot, judge with justice and dignity and respect for the
laws (Mem. III 5.20). His developed position on the selection of magistrates
through the ballot then, if these two insights are combined, is that it was fool-
ish, but that preliminary scrutiny limited the damage by preventing undesirable
42 Vlastos, Socratic Studies, p. 89.43 Plato’s Socrates also envisages two alternatives: obeying the laws of the polis, or
persuading the polis what justice consists in. See M. Schofield, ‘I. F. Stone and GregoryVlastos on Socrates and Democracy’, Apeiron, 34 (2000), pp. 281–301, at p. 282.
44 H. Erbse, ‘Die Architektonik im Aufbau von Xenophons Memorabilien’, Hermes,89 (1961), pp. 257–87, at p. 261 (also finding reasons to soften the effect).
45 Ober, Political Dissent, p. 280.
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citizens from attaining power. Since this scrutiny represented the judgment of
the demos (as is made clear at II 2.13), Socrates thinks that democracy miti-
gated the worst effects. Lysias shows that this was indeed the purpose of
dokimasia.
Xenophon does not offer this argument in mitigation of sortition in the
original passage in Memorabilia (I 2.9) because of his greater focus there on
the corruption of the youth and his concern to argue against the charge that
Socrates taught political violence. Nor does he need to rehearse the draw-
backs of sortition in the second passage (III 5.20), which focuses on proving
how dokimasia ensures excellence. This is one of the problems in Memora-bilia — the evidence is contextualized within separate conversations with
separate agenda. The gaps allow us to speculate that Socrates might have
opposed sortition not only because of the need for experts, but also in the
higher interests of obedience to the laws, on the grounds that people disobey
the laws if those who implement them do not command respect.46 Socrates
adds that those ‘rulers’ in any constitution are best who best cause the citizens
to obey the laws (IV 4.15). The ballot did not always secure such people. Soc-
rates championed the laws against the demos when he presided as balloted
member of the council in the trial of the Arginousai generals. In a curious
way, this vindicates his criticism, since the demos did not respect him as their
balloted officer or the laws he championed; they pushed the illegal motion
through. Xenophon says that any other balloted person in this situation would
have caved in to the demos (IV 4.2).
VSocrates’ Views on Oligarchy and Democracy in Athens
In the time of Socrates, the reaction of an Athenian to the oligarchic regime
installed by the Spartans at the end of the Peloponnesian War was a part of the
test of the democrat.47 It has been argued that Socrates proved his hostility to
democracy merely by remaining in Athens and presumably being enrolled as
one of the Three Thousand.48 However, Lysias shows a more sophisticated
appreciation of democratic behaviour. He defines ���� ���� as participating
in this oligarchy (26.21), but his speeches do not automatically condemn a man
who merely remained in the city under their rule; it depends on what he did
there: particularly whether he served in their cavalry, or on their council, or
co-operated in their persecutions (25.1–2, 15–16). It is, therefore, significant
16 V.J. GRAY
46 In his Constitution of the Spartans (8.1, 3), Xenophon indicates — in a passagedevoted to their obedience — that the ephors needed to be able to ‘terrify the citizens’ toachieve this end.
47 This attitude continued to be a test of the democrat for Isocrates (Areopagiticus64–69).
48 Schofield, ‘Stone and Vlastos’, p. 287; Wood and Wood, ‘Socrates and Democ-racy’, pp. 70–5.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 17
that Xenophon shows that Socrates gave them no co-operation, but quite the
opposite. Indeed he suggests that Socrates did not leave Athens because he
believed in critical engagement (Mem. I 2.29–38); he desired to reform the
oligarchs, and defied their instructions at risk to his life when they failed to
respond. Socrates not only criticized their laws but the unrestrained lust of
their leader Critias for Euthydemus and the entire nature of the regime, which
murdered and corrupted the citizens and failed to meet the basic test of suc-
cessful government, which was to make the citizens more numerous and more
just (I 2.32; see Hel. II 3.11–4.42).
Luccioni used a conversation between Socrates and the son of the great
Pericles (Mem. III 5) to maintain that Socrates deplored the ‘disorder of cus-
toms and ideas’ in the contemporary democracy.49 Yet in this conversation it
is Pericles who describes the indiscipline of Athenians and Socrates who has
faith that it can be remedied; moreover, indiscipline is among the hoplites and
cavalry. Socrates appears to think that the lower economic classes do show
discipline in their various corporate activities. This turns out to be that disci-
plined obedience to lawful authority which is the mark of the good citizen.
The younger Pericles, who has been elected general, complains to Socrates
about the quality of the armed forces. Socrates replies that they would
improve if they emulated the achievements of their ancestors or other appro-
priate models (he means the Spartans) and he cites as proof of their ancestral
military excellence the topoi that are traditionally found in the Athenian
epitaphios (III 5.9–12).50 In response to Pericles’ further complaints that in
contemporary Athens there is no respect for elders or exercise, no obedience
and no homonoia — such as is found in Sparta (III 5.15–17), Socrates praises
contemporary naval practices, athletic and choral competitions; how the
Athenians are ‘obedient to commands’ in the fleets, and ‘obedient to com-
mands and to authorities’ in gymnastic competitions, and how they ‘obey
49 Luccioni, Les Idées, pp. 118–19.50 The epitaphios praised the military strength of the Athenian ancestors. It often ‘de-
mocratized’ earlier forms of government, and even praised contemporary democracy;but this praise regularly ignored features which might be considered definitive fordemocracy (such as the ballot, rotation of office and accountability), or the navy — as inThucydides’ version of Pericles’ epitaphios. See Loraux, L’Invention d’Athènes, pp.175–224. Socrates’ instances of ancestral achievement are: the judgment of the gods inthe time of Cecrops (presumably in the dispute between Ares and Poseidon concerningrape and murder on Areopagus: see F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischenHistoriker (Leiden, 1923–58), 239, 3); the birth and nurture of Erechtheus under the pro-tection of Athena, and the wars he fought against his neighbours; wars subsequentlyfought on behalf of the Heraclids and those fought by Theseus; the Persian Wars; theautochthony retained through military excellence; the Athenians’ role as arbitrators ofaffairs of others and Athens as a place of refuge for the oppressed.
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their trainers’ in the choruses, no less than any others (III 5.18).51 This
eutaxia is a quality Socrates himself showed on military campaigns (IV 4.1:
��������). In the polis too citizens had to obey such instructions as were
issued by the overseers of their corporate activities, such as naval and choral
activities. Pericles recognizes that Socrates is attributing this discipline to the
common people when he laments that though ‘men of that sort’ show the
desired qualities, the cavalry and the hoplites, who are generally considered
the cream of the citizens, do not. Socrates, in response to that complaint,
points to the members of the Areopagus who have passed dokimasia (and are
in that sense the best citizens) and who uphold the laws and justice with integ-
rity. He uses this example to dispel Pericles’ final worries.
This admiration for the discipline of ordinary Athenians seems remarkably
different from the usual view of the ordinary people attributed to Socrates. Ref-
erences to the discipline of their navy are also exceptional. The hoplites and
cavalry remained important in the democracy of Socrates’ time even though
their roles gradually became more defensive52 — roles that Socrates envisages
them playing in this conversation (III 5.25–28). Socrates’ faith in the discipline
of contemporary democratic institutions should not of course be read out of
context. He is arguing against a man who is disillusioned and needs encourage-
ment. There is also some irony in having Socrates praise the Athenian ancestors
to the younger Pericles since Thucydides had the father of this Pericles deliver
praise of contemporary Athenians too. Thus there seems no real reason to ques-
tion Socrates’ exemplification of obedience to the laws of Athens.
VISocrates and the ‘Royal Art’
Vlastos has argued that the earlier Platonic dialogues offer the truest represen-
tation of the ‘historical’ Socrates and reveal a ‘royal art’ of government that is
democratic because accessible to everyone — making him d�motikos and
����� ����, instead of ���� ����.53 In Vlastos’ view, Xenophon’s version of
the ‘royal art’ is oligarchic because it restricts rulership to the few (‘stipulating
the conditions of legitimacy of the tenure of political power’), and produces
political expertise rather than morality in the ruler, and material happiness
18 V.J. GRAY
51 See [Xenophon], Constitution of the Athenians, 1.13 (showing that the poor didtake part).
52 V. Hanson, ‘Hoplites into Democrats: The Changing Ideology of Athenian Infan-try’, in ����������: A Conversation on Democracies, Ancient and Modern, ed. J. Oberand C. Hedrick (Princeton, 1996), pp. 289–312, at pp. 295–9.
53 Vlastos, Socratic Studies, p. 105. Wood and Wood (‘Socrates and Democracy’,pp. 66–7) argue that Vlastos’ theory could not accommodate democracy before themasses completed their own education in this art, and ask: ‘what are for Socrates theappropriate political arrangements before the happy day of universal virtue arrives?’.See Schofield, ‘Stone and Vlastos’, pp. 294–7.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 19
rather than virtue in the communities they rule.54 Yet this version does require
dialectical knowledge of virtue, and it produces eudaimonia for the commu-
nity which makes them virtuous, even if through habituation rather than true
knowledge.55 Socrates teaches Euthydemus that the ‘royal art’ (Mem. IV 2.11:
��������) requires knowledge of justice (IV 2), piety (IV 3) and the self-
control or self-rule that is the sine qua non for dialectic inquiry (IV 5, esp.
5.11–12). The dialectic discussions that follow (IV 6) reveal the role of this
inquiry in defining the virtues. As for its function in producing virtue in those
under rule, Socrates uses Agamemnon to show that the good leader achieves
eudaimonia for his community by feeding it, keeping it secure and ensuring
that it defeats its enemies, but also by securing ‘the best life’ possible, which
suggests a moral dimension (III 2.1–4). His criticism of the oligarchs for
diminishing the numbers of the citizens by executing good men and diminish-
ing the moral qualities of those who remained by turning them towards ‘injus-
tice’ (I 2.32) confirms that good government means making citizens just. In
an unfinished conversation designed to illustrate his method of dialectic
rather than produce a full definition, Socrates defines the good citizen as one
who makes the polis materially prosperous (IV 6.14), but this does not
exclude the possibility that a more complete form of the conversation would
require a good citizen to have knowledge of virtue and an ability to make the
citizens virtuous.
As for accessibility, Xenophon’s Socrates makes ‘royal’ rulers out of women
and perhaps slaves; in fact, when he declares that knowledge alone legiti-
mizes rule, which is so often taken to be exclusive, Socrates extends the prin-
ciple to women, who rule men in woolwork (III 9.10–11). His belief that the
same art was exercised in the polis as in the household or other ‘associations’
made it accessible to a wide variety of people (III 4.16). Ischomachus
explains to Socrates that he exercises the art in his household and invites his
wife to exercise it too, not only over their household servants but also over
himself (Oeconomicus 7.42). He further claims he has taught the art to slaves
in his household, including self-control and justice and the other virtues, and that
they in turn teach these same qualities to those they rule (9.11–13, 12.1–15.1).
Socrates appears to endorse the teaching of virtue to slaves when he blames the
master for the greed and laziness of his servant (Mem. III 13.4: ��������). Their
opposite qualities — such as restraint of the appetites and endurance of toil — are
the virtues that elsewhere he requires of rulers (II 1.1–3).
54 Vlastos, Socratic Studies, pp. 96–105.55 Dorion argues that the ‘royal art’ does not amount to a ‘savoir moral’ but rather a
‘disposition morale’ which comes from self-control: see L.-A. Dorion, ‘Socrate et la�������� ������: essai d’exégèse comparative’, in Socrates: 2400 Years Since His Death,ed. V. Karasmanis (Athens, 2004), pp. 51–62.
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VIISocrates and the Assembly
The relationship of ‘leaders and followers’ is problematic for democracy.56
The division that Xenophon’s Socrates endorses between rulers and the ruled
might produce an undemocratic relationship between the demos in Assembly
and its leaders. Yet he insists that leaders should persuade the citizens to fol-
low their policies, and this makes the ‘rulers’ less than autocratic and the
‘ruled’ more than authoritative. Moreover, recent opinion recognizes the
greater executive activity of the wealthy and discrimination against thetes (the
lowest class of citizens at Athens) as a pragmatic fact of life in Athens.57 One
modern theory is that the demos were their own masters, learning the business
of politics through their daily administration of the deme or council or their
committees,58 but even in speeches addressed to the demos in the law-courts
Lysias recognizes the wealthy as those who ‘do politics’ (16.21: �������� ���������� �������� ��� ��!��� ����� ��� ������), while the role of the demos is,
in his view, to retain ultimate power as their ‘judges’ (kritai). In the Assembly
too those who spoke were men of wealth, but the demos had the final say.59
The poverty of the demos is a distinction that no amount of pay for office
could remedy. Pericles even distinguished those whose ‘care’ for politics is
synonymous with care for their own affairs, from those who work for their
living and are merely ‘not deficient in understanding politics’ (Thu. II 40.2).
He may further extend the distinction between those who do politics and those
who judge them when he adds: ‘We judge rightly or we reflect rightly.’60
20 V.J. GRAY
56 M. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern (London, 1985), pp. 3–37, esp. pp.11–12.
57 P. Cartledge, ‘Athenian Democratic Equality’, in ����������, ed. Ober andHedrick, pp. 179–80: ‘In practice, however, Athenian citizens neither were, nor wereconsidered for all purposes to be, exactly equal, identical and the same, in all relevantrespects. They were not so, most conspicuously, with respect to their executive capabil-ity, especially since political capacity was deemed to depend crucially on wealth. Hencethe Athenians’ pragmatic resort to election rather than sortition for the greatest militaryand financial offices of government . . . The other side of this elitist pragmatism, perhaps,is the negative ideological discrimination against Athenians of the lowest socio-economicclasses, the thetes.’ See K. Raaflaub, ‘Equalities and Inequalities in Athenian Democ-racy’, in ����������, ed. Ober and Hedrick, pp. 139–174, at p. 155, which refers to ‘in-equalities despite democracy’. The theory is that thetes acquired power under the democ-racy because they rowed the ships and demanded equal privilege with those who servedas hoplites, but the property qualification was retained for council; thetes appear not tohave had a separate register of individual ������ either, as hoplites and cavalry did.
58 On the various roles the demos could collectively play, see S. Wolin, ‘Transgres-sion, Equality and Voice’, in ����������, ed. Ober and Hendrick, pp. 63–90.
59 See Finley, Democracy, p. 24.60 See Loraux, L’Invention d’Athènes, pp. 185–6.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 21
Xenophon’s Socrates makes the same distinction between those who ‘do
politics’ and those who ‘judge’ it in his conversation with Charmides (Mem.
III 7). He tells Antiphon that he educated some people to ‘do politics’ rather
than engaging in politics on his own because this had greater impact (I 6.15).
To ‘do politics’ required in its most illustrious form implementation of the
‘royal art’, which required the moral knowledge gained through dialectic and
the practical knowledge gained through expertise. The demos ordinarily
lacked this education and knowledge, but Xenophon’s Socrates believes that
they were competent judges of those who addressed them in their Assembly.
He describes them elsewhere as ‘obeying the wisest of those who speak’ and
electing those whom they believe to be �������������� in military matters too
(Apo. 20). Their preference for the wise is evidently based on their ability to
recognize wisdom, since Socrates sets it against any natural preference for
their own relatives or others with less appropriate qualifications. For he
declares that people do not turn to their relatives to cure their medical ills, but
to those who know about such things (doctors), and the same applies in all
walks of life, including politics (Mem. I 2.51–55). Nor are members of the
demos deluded in their preferences: the demos exercise right judgment
against one who is not wise, rightly laughing the ignorant Glaucon off the
speaker’s platform (III 6). Socrates seems to endorse their wisdom when he
shows Glaucon to be ignorant of the income and expenditures of Athens, and
of other things, that those possessing the ‘royal art’ should know. They again
quite rightly pass over the man with distinguished military service and choose
Antisthenes as general, because he can collect revenue and manage choruses
(III 4). Socrates again shows that the demos has chosen well, saying that
Antisthenes has the kind of experience that will serve the army too.
Socrates thinks that the demos in Assembly reaches correct opinion about
its leaders through their experience of them. This is the case with Antisthenes
and Glaucon. Socrates seems to reflect their experience when he wonders
how Glaucon will ever persuade the polis to let him look after their collective
estates, when he has not even been able to persuade his uncle to let him experi-
ment on his (III 6.15). Another passage (I 7.3–4) confirms that experience
will identify for the demos those who are unable to carry out their assigned
tasks and they will get no forgiveness from those they have deceived. In Sym-posium, Socrates indicates that aristocratic credentials of lineage, priesthood
and physical strength will make the polis put itself into the hands of Callias as
their champion, likening the leader to the aristocratic lover and the polis to the
beloved (8.40–43). But the requirement that the lover ‘please’ the beloved is
not corrupt flattery, as Plato would have it; this pleasure is to come from vir-
tue, and the polis will see through a champion who has no virtue because it
will be proved from ‘experience’ of him (Sym. 8.43).
But although proving them astute judges, Socrates describes the Assembly
(Mem. III 7.5) as made up of those who make and sell things, middlemen who
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buy cheap and sell dear, and farmers and traders, and he calls these ‘those with
fewest resources or wits’ — this is his most celebrated undemocratic image.61
The traditional contempt for the minds and bodies of those who practice the
banausic trades explains the description, but the inclusion of the farmers is
odd, since farming promotes admirable qualities (Oec. 4.2, 5–6). The focus of
the description may rather be the other part of the traditional criticism: that
those who work for a living lack leisure to look after friends and polis, which
means to ‘do politics’ (Oec. 4.3). This is how their description is glossed in
the Memorabilia passage: ‘those who have never given thought to politics’
(III 7.7). Poverty is also the basis of the distinction that Thucydides’ Pericles
makes between citizens who ‘care for politics’ as their own affairs, and those
who are ‘turned to the pursuit of trades’ and merely ‘not deficient’ in under-
standing politics.
Socrates’ description is nevertheless a fairly brutal statement of reality. Some
explanation of the context softens this impression. Socrates is trying to make
Charmides give the public Assembly the sound advice and criticism that he
gives more powerful men in private meetings (III 7.3). Charmides resists doing
this because he fears the disgrace that would come from the contempt and
laughter of the Assembly. It is in order to dispel this fear that Socrates draws his
analogy between the men of power and wisdom who ‘do politics’ and whom
Charmides does not hesitate to advise, on the one hand, and the members of the
Assembly, whom he fears to advise because of their judgment, on the other. It is
in this context of polarity that he describes the first group as ‘most powerful and
quick-witted’ and the other as ‘most weak and foolish’. Such polarity produces
extremes, and due account should be made of the strength of Charmides’ fear
and the empowering effect that Socrates’ abuse of the demos will have on him.
Some account should also be made of the metaphor that drives the conversation.
Politics is represented as a wrestling match (III 7.1) in which the demos will
laugh at the loser; yet they are amateurs, while Charmides is a professional (III
7.7). Socrates’ description of them fits their metaphorical role as amateurs,
lacking in the strength or the skill that the competition requires, and if his
description is contemptuous of them, it is only a fair response to their contemp-
tuous laughter at those who fail to impress them.
Xenophon’s Socrates thus emerges as one who engages with the demos as
it is in order to improve it. He does not criticize their role as judges.
Charmides points out that they can laugh at good advice as well as bad, but
Socrates retorts that this is true of the men of power as well, and since
Charmides deals with them, he can deal with the demos (III 7.8). He accepts
that ridicule and uproar are the legitimate weapons of the demos in judging
policies,62 but he does blame the man of talent for not having the courage to
22 V.J. GRAY
61 Luccioni, Les Idées, pp. 114–15; Vlastos, Socratic Studies, pp. 98–9.62 Ober (Political Dissent, p. 235) calls this laughter the ‘awesome hegemonic power
of popular ideology’. See Plato, Republic 492b–d.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 23
persist with it. He in effect asks Charmides to be a philosophic missionary in
his own style, enduring their noise and ridicule as he does at his own trial
(Apo. 14–15). Socrates does not suggest that it is futile to give the demos good
advice or that ‘doing politics’ has fatal consequences; or if he does, he thinks
the risks worth taking.
Socrates sees self-interest as the reason why people should ‘do politics’. He
describes Charmides as hesitating to ‘take the affairs of the polis in hand, even
though he must have a share in them since he is a citizen’ (Mem. III 7.2).
Self-interest dictates the need to participate, Socrates tells Charmides directly:
‘don’t neglect the affairs of the polis, if there is something you can improve; if
the affairs of the polis prosper, not only the other citizens, but your friends, and
you yourself not least of all, will benefit’ (III 7.9). Socrates insists in other con-
versations too that his associates engage with democracy. For instance, when
the untutored Aristippus characterizes the demos as tyrant, making demands of
their leaders as of slaves and punishing them if they fail to meet them, Socrates
directs his attention to the benefits of serving the demos voluntarily (II 1.8–9,
18–19), pointing out also that he is bound to share in the polis because it is not
possible to live in security outside it (II 1.11–16).63 Charmides must endure
their laughter; Aristippus is to endure their punishment of him, if he fails them.
Charmides presents the same image of the demos as tyrant in Symposium(4.29–33) and has Callias recognize this as the relationship he also has with
the demos (4.45), but once again Socrates urges Callias to serve the demos
throughout his final speech (8.7–43), using the more positive image of Callias
as the lover of the polis, with the polis as his beloved.
VIIISocrates as ���������
The definitions of the democrat in the discussions of Plato’s Socrates go
beyond support for democratic laws, institutions and processes to include
democratic values such as philanthropy. Socrates’ dialectic method has itself
been read as an essentially democratic discourse because it seeks to see things
from another’s perspective, and his dramatic polyphony has yielded ambiva-
lent readings which do not support the simple undemocratic image; but his
63 Socrates’ distinction between ruling and being ruled may appear to contradictdemocratic principles (cf. Aristotle, Politics 1317b19–20), but Socrates’ conversation isdesigned expressly to prevent Aristippus from being ruled. He proposes the division on apurely theoretical level. Moreover, his distinction does not produce a class who will bebarred from ruling by outside authorities; rather he distinguishes between those who willbe fit to rule and those who will ‘not even claim to rule’ (II 1.1, cf. 1.7) because they willhave been educated to a life of pleasure, and will find rule to be a barrier to this — asAristippus himself does (II 1.8–9). Aristippus also calls this second group directly ‘thosewho do not wish to rule’ (II 1.8).
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discourse is also read as the opposite of openness.64 However, the importance
of philanthropy for the democratic image is uncontested: ‘The demotic public
fora required that speakers adhere to prescribed forms . . . But especially for
those who could point to a record of philanthropy, the required level of adher-
ence did not constitute a very tight-fitting straightjacket.’65 It is significant
therefore that Xenophon refers to Socrates as ‘both democratic and philan-
thropic’ (Mem. I 2.60: ��� �������� ��� �������������).66 This seems prime
evidence for the democratic image.67
This affirmation of Socrates as �������� occurs in the last part of Xenophon’s
defence of Socrates against the charge that he used Hesiod and Homer to
make his associates ‘tyrannical wrong-doers’ (I 2.56–61). The accusers have
said that Socrates used Hesiod’s phrase ‘work is no shame but worklessness is
shame’ to teach people that they should shrink from no ‘work’ at all, however
shameful, as long as it brought profit; but Socrates, Xenophon argues, defined
‘work’ as that which was by definition honourable.68 True to his interpreta-
tion, Socrates later endorses putting even free-born women to woolwork to
support a household, defending the work as not disgraceful for women and as
encouraging learning and memory, developing physical condition and keep-
ing you from dishonest gain (II 7.7–9). Work also benefits the polis since it
makes the household able to undertake many liturgies (II 7.6). The poor
already work for their living, so the exhortation is appropriately addressed to
the leisured rich. Socrates thus endorses the honest ‘revalorisation du travail’
which Loraux calls an ‘essential characteristic of democracy’.69
The ‘work’ that the wealthy might do is further addressed in Socrates’
interpretation of the passages from Homer (Iliad 2.188–191, 198–202). The
accusers say Socrates taught people to beat their fathers and used this passage
to teach them to beat ordinary members of the demos as well. Their identifica-
tion of these as ‘poor and common’ (Mem. I 2.59) points to the political reading;
the terms are synonymous because poverty defined the demos (IV 2.37–9).
Beating was of course unlawful in the democracy, the ultimate demonstration
of that violence which Socrates is shown to have curbed. The charge of hybrisprotected poor and rich alike before the laws against the physical abuse that
24 V.J. GRAY
64 J. Euben, ‘Reading Democracy: “Socratic” Dialogues and the Political Educationof Democratic Citizens’, in ����������, ed. Ober and Hedrick, pp. 327–60; cf. B. Bar-ber, ‘Misreading Democracy: Peter Euben and the Gorgias’, in ����������, ed. Oberand Hedrick, pp. 361–76.
65 Ober, Political Dissent, p. 288.66 Vlastos (Socratic Studies, pp. 106) argues that Plato’s Socrates is ‘demotic’
though Plato never uses that term, and that Xenophon’s Socrates is not ‘demotic’ thoughMem. calls him that.
67 On this passage, with bibliography, see Dorion, Xénophon, pp. 118–22.68 This accords with his definition of ‘leisure’ elsewhere (Mem. III 9.9). Dorion dis-
cusses Critias’ interpretation of the same line in Plato’s Charmides (163b).69 Loraux, L’Invention d’Athènes, pp. 184–5, with p. 418 n.63.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 25
denied them the freedom of their persons. Yet the lines quoted from Homer
are about the differing treatments of two classes of men when they wish to
abandon the common cause of the Greeks at Troy.70 Odysseus discourages the
‘kings’ ‘with gentle words’, but threatens with Agamemnon’s sceptre ‘the
man of the demos’ when he lifts his voice, calling him ‘unwarlike and cow-
ardly’ and telling him to listen to his betters.
Xenophon has two answers to this charge. The first is that Socrates could
not have endorsed beating the ‘poor and common’ without considering him-
self worthy of that beating — because he was poor. But of course Socrates is
poor and common in a way different from the masses, in his deliberate adop-
tion of poverty and his re-definition of the concept.71 He said that those who
were able to live within their means were not poor, however meagre their pos-
sessions, while those of great wealth who could not live happily on their
greater means, were poor; the tyrant could be poor and the commoner wealthy
by this definition (IV 2.37–39).72 One could consider his identification with
the demos a subversion of a truly democratic character, which insulted the real
poverty and material aspirations of the demos. Yet in the defence Xenophon
will go on to present Socrates as a patron who serves to remedy their poverty
and improve their prosperity. He does not devalue their poverty either when
he adopts Hesiod’s principle of measuring a person’s contribution in sacrifice
‘according to ability’, which gives more value to the poor man who gives to
the best of his ability and less value to the rich man if he does not sacrifice
according to the greater ability of his greater resources (I 3.3 and IV 3.15–16).
Socrates’ interpretation of Homer’s lines therefore transfers attention to the
rich chiefly and endorses the need of both rich and poor to make their contri-
bution to the common cause, but particularly the rich. Socrates said that those
who were capable of helping ‘the army, polis, or the demos itself, should the
need arise’ should be ‘checked’ (��������) if they do not give assistance —
70 The selective quotation omits material that could be said to be undemocratic (seeDorion’s discussion), but it seems to be the accusers who make the selection; the reasonfor the omission cannot therefore be in order to conceal undemocratic material. On thesepassages, see Gray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes, pp. 119–32.
71 Other features of Socrates also identify him with the poor and common. SeeK. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Oxford, 1974),p. 201 n.10, suggesting that Socrates’ �������� is democratic in its refusal to assertsuperior knowledge. His �������� is the desirable opposite of ‘fraudulence’ (alazoneia):see Mem. I 7.5.
72 Socrates’ service as a hoplite at Potidea and Delium is held to support the notionthat he was moderately wealthy, but A. Jones, Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1957), pp.31–2, proves there were poor hoplites who could not afford to support their militaryexpeditions. In a context which mentions Cyrus’ association with Lysander and suggeststhe closing stages of the Peloponnesian war (Oec. 2.3), Socrates says that his estate con-sisted of a house and its goods, and was worth five minae, whereas Critobulus’ estate wasworth five hundred. Jones (Athenian Democracy, pp. 79–81) says that only a bachelorcould survive on twenty minae.
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‘particularly if’ they were ‘bold’ (thraseis), ‘even if’ they were ‘rich’ (I 2 59).
In his defence against the charge of corruption of the young, Xenophon says
Socrates ‘checks’ bad desires and encourages good ones. Here, those who fail
to contribute to the common cause should be checked regardless of their class
if they do not contribute. Homer’s Odysseus also ‘rebukes and checks’ both
rich and poor, even though he uses different manners of rebuke. Xenophon’s
‘particularly if’ they are bold and ‘even if’ they are rich acknowledge that
commoners should be checked, but that the role of the wealthy is a more
important issue.73 The need for those who have the means to make their con-
tribution is the principle according to which Socrates ‘checks’ Charmides
(III 7) for his unwillingness to serve the demos as advisor even though he was
capable of it.74
This interpretation may be thought too ingenious, but Antisthenes, who
was a leading interpreter of Homer and a close associate of Socrates (Sym.
4.34–44, 8.4–6), allegorized whole Homeric scenes to make them mean other
than what they appear to mean,75 as Socrates does in our passage. Antisthenes
was particularly interested in Odysseus, and Xenophon’s Socrates shares this
interest: he interprets Circe’s inability to turn Odysseus into a pig as an alle-
gory for his self-control rather than the effect of the potion the god had given
him (Odyssey 1.281 ff.; cf. Mem. I 3.7), and the Sirens’ formulaic description
of Odysseus as an allegory of how to win friends through praise rather than as
proof of the power of song as in Homer (Ody. 12.184 ff.; cf. Mem. II 6.11).
Socrates also turns Odysseus into a proto-philosopher: his ‘safe oratory’ is
taken to be the habit of proceeding through agreed stages in the process of
dialectic (Ody. 8.165 ff.; cf. Mem. IV 6.15), even though Homer defines it as
oratory that uses gentle words (Ody. 8.236).76
It might even be argued that Socrates’ interpretation is so true to the known
tendencies of his associate Antisthenes that it must be historical. Socrates’
obedience to military commands (Mem. IV 4.1) and his general endorsement
26 V.J. GRAY
73 Socrates confirms (Mem. III 5.5) that boldness leads to disobedience. Homer’sThersites, who continues to disobey Odysseus and whose name recalls ‘boldness’(tharsos) exemplifies this.
74 There was a special form of contribution from the rich to the ‘army, polis, demos’through the liturgies. Socrates confirms this democratic expectation of service (Oec.2.6), mentioning the burdensome contributions to the rearing of horses (hippotrophia),the production of a dramatic chorus (�����!��) and gymnastic competitions (gymnasi-archia), presidencies, the upkeep of a trireme (�����������) and war-taxes (eisphora).
75 See N. Richardson, ‘Homeric Professors in the Age of the Sophists’, Proceedingsof the Cambridge Philological Society, 201 (1975), pp. 65–81, p. 67; L. Navia,Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright (London, 2001), pp. 39–52.
76 Odysseus was not the only exemplum. Epithets for Agamemnon suggest the defi-nition of a good leader in the Socratic mould (Mem. III 2) and Socrates etymologizesGanymede’s name to prove that Zeus was attracted by his intellectual rather than hisphysical beauty (Sym. 8.30).
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 27
of the law, probably mean that he did endorse the beating of the man of the
demos who refused to obey military commands. Xenophon himself defends
this in a crisis — in the common interest (Anabasis V 8). Even Homer’s ‘mul-
titude’ laughs to see Thersites beaten for continuing to refuse to serve the
common cause (Il. 2.212–277).77 The ability of the poor to make a military
contribution has been called ‘an ideological battle-ground’,78 but Socrates
does not disempower the demos on these grounds. He presents the demos as
an entity to be passively ‘assisted’ by the wealthy, but this is in the nature of
the democratic paradigm of the liturgist. The demos itself is presumably
obliged to assist to the best of its own ability, which means obeying com-
mands, something that Socrates thought they did quite well (Mem. III 5). Par-
ticipation in the rowing of a trireme has been thought to have taught the poor
the power of corporate solidarity that they transferred to their political opera-
tions.79 Yet what they learned on the trireme and in choral and other competi-
tions was that obedience to those with expertise did achieve the best results
(III 9.10).
Xenophon further judges Socrates by his own principle of service to the
demos to be both democratic and philanthropic because he gave ‘his resources’
to any citizen or foreigner who wanted them, and never made a profit (see I
2.7–8), while others took these from him for free and sold them on at a great
price to others, which made them undemocratic.80 Socrates’ ‘resources’ are of
course his wisdom, so that, though poor by the ordinary definition, he fulfilled
his own service to the demos ‘according to his ability’ — massaging the defi-
nition of wealth in order to produce a democratic currency that included the
wisdom of his company. Indeed, he gave of this wisdom not only according to
his ability, but ‘abundantly’ (I 2.60).81 One could argue that the poor would
find this generosity cold because they wanted material prosperity. Similar
claims to generosity in Plato’s Apology have been considered subversive
because Socrates does not supply the material support that is normally
77 His beating would be even more significant if he were not a man of the demos but achieftain: see G. Kirk, The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. I (Cambridge, 1985).
78 Raaflaub, ‘Equalities and Inequalities’, p. 155.79 B. Strauss, ‘The Athenian Trireme School of Democracy’, in ����������, ed.
Ober and Hedrick, pp. 313–26.80 Dover sees ‘philanthropy’ as a democratic value and ‘democratic’ as the ‘generous
treatment of the ordinary individual’ (Greek Popular Morality, pp. 177, 201, 289). SeeDorion, Xénophon, pp. 120–1. Xenophon attributes ‘philanthropy’ to the gods (Mem. IV3.6,7), to Cyrus the Great (Cyr. I 2.1) and to the ps�phismata of the Assembly that werepassed to win the support of the metics (Poroi 3.6).
81 Louis-André Dorion pointed out to me that Socrates here assists his friends furtherthan even he recommended at Mem. II 7.1. Gray (Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes,pp. 304–12) discusses the importance of the concept of ‘according to ability’ mentionedhere.
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expected of a patron, nor even the advice that might lead to this.82 Xenophon’s
Socrates is different from Plato’s however, in that he does use his wisdom to
assist the demos to secure material prosperity. He achieves this through his
endorsement of political service to Aristippus and Charmides, and his endorse-
ment of material prosperity as part of the eudaimonia that the demos achieves
through such leadership (see III 2).
ConclusionXenophon and Socrates
The undemocratic interpretation of Xenophon’s Socrates takes heart from the
assumption that Xenophon’s life and works show that he was also undemo-
cratic. Some comment is thus also needed on this impression.83 In fact,
Xenophon’s own attitudes to democracy are even more democratic that those
of his Socrates. If he learned these from Socrates, then his (adequately) demo-
cratic presentation of the master is accurate. If he developed them himself,
then he may have made his master in his own image.
Xenophon, for example, is said to have been disaffected from the Athenian
democracy that exiled him and executed Socrates. Yet he gives the restored
democracy that was responsible for both these events a good press, while
painting a black picture of the oligarchy that preceded it (Hel. II 3–4). Within
the oligarchy he has Critias show unrestrained violence against innocent peo-
ple and execute his former friend Theramenes contrary even to the laws that
he has made himself (II 3.9–56). He admires Theramenes’ self-control in the
face of death (II 3.56) and has been credited with sympathy for his preferred
constitution, which is based on enfranchising ‘those who have the power to
assist with horses and shields’ (II 3.48), but this occupies the broad ground
between the two extremes of enfranchising ‘slaves and those who through
28 V.J. GRAY
82 Ober, Political Dissent, pp. 175–7.83 See Luccioni, Les Idées. Diogenes Laertius (2.48–59) offers a summary of
Xenophon’s life, based especially on Anabasis (III 1.4–7; V 3.4–13; VII 7.57). The casefor the undemocratic life is briefly: (a) the possibility that he was wealthy and served inthe oligarchic cavalry; (b) his departure from Athens to pursue a friendship with theyounger Cyrus of Persia, an enemy who had helped defeat Athens in the PeloponnesianWar and a Persian prince who sought to become the King; (c) his subsequent exile by thedemocracy for this friendship and service under the Spartans, old enemies of Athens;(d) his establishment as their colonist at Scillus. It is admitted that he eventually returnedfrom exile and was reconciled with the democracy, but this is seen as grudging, eventhough his son died fighting for the Athenians at the battle of Mantinea in 362 (Hel. VII5.19–25). Xenophon’s life could be presented with more sympathy however: (a) wealthwas not automatically associated with oligarchic leanings; (b) he presents his decision tojoin Cyrus not as the result of disaffection from democracy, but as the rash decision of ayoung man who ignored Socrates’ prediction of the outcome (Ana. III 1.4–7); (c) heshows no bitterness about his exile; (d) he presents his early relationship with the Spar-tans as most insecure (Ana. IV 6.14–16; VI 1.26–29, 6.12–16; VII 1.25–31).
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 29
poverty would sell the polis for a drachma’ and the tyranny of the very few.
He writes only three speeches in his account in Hellenica of the civil war at
Athens, all of them against the oligarchy and in favour of the democracy.
Cleocritus, the herald of the mysteries, finds the oligarchs responsible for the
breaking-down of the homonoia in the civil war that the citizens had enjoyed
under democracy (II 4.20–22). Thrasybulus delivers two speeches, one before
the battle of Munychia to the democratic partisans, whom he calls ‘warriors’
and ‘citizens’, even though they include ‘missile men’, peltasts, javelin
throwers and stone throwers (II 4.12); these defeat the oligarchs and resist the
Spartans (II 4.33). In the other speech he reminds the survivors of the oligar-
chy that they lack the justice, courage and wisdom of these poorer men (II
4.40–42). He secures a reconciliation in which both parties adopt the old laws
and swear oaths ‘not to remember wrong’; and in a rare narrative prolepsis,
Xenophon commends the democrats of his own time too: ‘they still live
together now as citizens and the demos remains in its oaths’ (II 4.43). This
good impression of the restored democracy continues when Thrasybulus
repays the Thebans with greater favours than Athens has received (III 5.16),
endorsing Socrates’ ‘unwritten law’ about the importance of gratitude (Mem.
IV 4.24) as well as Pericles’ praise of Athenian magnanimity (Thu. II 40.4).
Xenophon praises him as a ‘good man’ at his death (Hel. IV 8.31). In the end
Xenophon presents Athens itself as made moderate through suffering and
rising to match her mythical greatness as the champion of the oppressed (VI
3.10–11, 5.33–52).
In Poroi, Xenophon adopts the role that Socrates assigned to those who ‘do
politics’ in the democracy. He says in his introduction that the leaders
(prostatai) of the demos have claimed that they cannot feed the demos with-
out unjustly exploiting the allies, but he will show how the politai can be fed
from their own resources — which he calls ‘most just’ — and how to remedy
their unpopularity with their allies — whom they currently exploit unjustly
(1.1). He offers economic advice designed to do that: he associates prosperity
with justice towards their imperial allies, thus confirming the connection
between the material and moral aims of the ‘royal art’. The details of his
reform show an impressive command of economic expertise that goes well
beyond the ignorance of young Glaucon (discussed above), such as the advan-
tages of their geography (1), measures to improve conditions for the metics to
encourage them in commerce and trade (2.1–7), ways to encourage commerce
and raise capital for trading ventures (3.1–14), and how to maximize profits
from the Athenian silver mines (4). Peace according to Xenophon will pre-
serve the Athenians’ prosperity and their empire more than war (5). The pro-
cesses that Xenophon recommends to implement these evidently democratic
reforms are also democratic ones, such as the ‘philanthropic decrees’ he men-
tions (3.6). While he does not directly advise the Assembly, others could put
the measures before them — ‘if these measures seem good to you to do’ (6.2).
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The result of Xenophon’s proposed reforms will be a prospering democracy
in which ‘the demos will be well-fed, and the rich will be spared the expense
of war; and further, with a lot of surplus, we will conduct feasts even more
magnificent than now, we will build temples, re-build walls and dockyards,
give their ancestral due to priests and council, magistrates and cavalry’ (6.1).
The distinctions between the demos, the rich and ‘we’ indicate that the author
identifies with a united Athenian polis, as an advisor with the interests of both
classes at heart.
Luccioni explained the democratic sympathies of Poroi as the result of a
period in Xenophon’s life when he was seeking the favour of the democracy
for his return from exile.84 This would mean that he also wrote Hipparchicusfor the same reason, since he seeks to improve the standards of a cavalry com-
mander in Athens, as is made clear in references to �������"�, ����� and
festivals of the Athenians (1.9, 13, 17; 3.1; 7.2). Democratic sympathies in
Hellenica, which is dated to the same period, might be similarly explained
away.85 Yet the argument risks wearing thin when too many works are
involved. Cyropaedia shares some democratic features too. This work more-
over creates a utopia in which Xenophon is almost entirely free to express his
ideals. It is therefore significant that this work shows how the common man
could achieve equality with a previously existing elite under the guidance of
an expert practitioner of the ‘royal art’ in Cyrus the Great, the Persian King.86
In Cyropaedia, Xenophon takes democratic thinking beyond the realities
of democracy, in which the poor were never quite as equal as the rich, and he
directly tackles the question of the way in which poverty ordinarily prevented
the common man from having access to privilege and an education in the
royal art. Xenophon credits the Persians with an education system that allows
every citizen access, produces virtue and places a man among the elite: ‘none
is driven out by law from honours and offices, but it is open to all Persians to
send their sons to the schools of justice’ (Cyr. I 2.15). However, in practice,
‘those who are able to support their children without working send them, but
those who have no means do not’ (II 3.7), and these end up making their living
from farming or industry and supporting the elite. Pheraulas is one such ‘man
of the demos’ (II 1.15), the son of a farmer who could not afford to keep him at
school for long because of his poverty (VIII 3.37). Yet Cyrus breaks with tra-
dition when he promotes him to equality with the elite and makes him embody
the democratic ideal of Thucydides’ Pericles (II 37.1–2) in which no-one is
prevented by poverty from making a political contribution. He does so in
order to create the warriors he needs to defend the land against its enemies. He
30 V.J. GRAY
84 J. Luccioni, Xenophon et le Socratisme (Paris, 1953), pp. 161–3. Poroi 5.8–9 datesthis work to 355. For a more democratic reading, see Gauthier, ‘Le Programme’.
85 Hel. 6.4.37 dates this work to c.357–5.86 On the elevation of Pheraulas, see Gray, Xenophon’s Mirror of Princes, pp. 283–8,
376; but cf. C. Nadon, Xenophon’s Prince (Berkeley, CA, 2001), pp. 63–76, 150–2.
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XENOPHON’S SOCRATES AND DEMOCRACY 31
tells the commoners that their inequality is not the result of natural inferiority
of mind or body, but merely of their poverty and their need to earn a living,
and he makes them the military equals of his former peers when he supplies
them with the same armour and training (Cyr. II 1.14–19). Pheraulas, indeed,
is said to have a body and a soul ‘like that of a not ignoble warrior’ (II 1.15).
Xenophon shows how Cyrus translated theoretical equality into hard reality in
the training programmes that he develops to level inequalities (II 1.20–31),
and in the use of humour to break down class barriers (II 2). Pheraulas plays
his part in continuing to break down these barriers through his own deferential
character (VIII 3.5–8). He has philanthropy, like Cyrus, and practices that
reciprocal friendship that secures the willing obedience essential to rule (I
6.20–25); his success with the Sacian, to whom he gives over the management
of his new-found wealth in order to pursue friendship, suggests that he has
learned that part of the ‘royal art’ (I 3.8–13; cf. VII 3.37–49).
Cyrus thus elevates the commoners from the sub-class of producers to a
position of honour and power and wealth among the military and administra-
tive elite. Instead of relying on the goods that the commoners once produced,
the ‘Equals’ now secure the willing obedience of other nations who produce
the goods, and these goods now support the commoners as well as the peers —
the imperial vision of happiness. Pheraulas secures advancement because of
the same usefulness that Socrates endorses as the main claim to honour and
advancement (Mem. I 2.51–55).87 The poverty that prevented the advance-
ment of a commoner like Pheraulas was also the barrier to advancement in the
democracy, but Thrasybulus had demonstrated that the poor had an equal con-
tribution to make when he marshalled them alongside the hoplites to defeat
the oligarchs in the civil war; they had been long-range fighters (Hel. II 4.12,
33) like the Persian commoners (Cyr. II 1.11). Xenophon explores the notion
of equality even further when he has Pheraulas endorse equal opportunity for
all in the new army, but equal outcomes only according to merit when he says
that the individual’s share of the profits should depend on the part that he
played in securing them, since this will be an incentive to individual effort
(II 3.7–15).88 There is a strong school of thought89 that seeks irony in
Xenophon’s praise of monarchs, such as Hiero and Cyropaedia; but even
such a reader admits of the portrayal of Pheraulas that
In all of classical literature it is difficult to find a more sympathetic portraitof the plight and potential of the exploited classes. That we should find it inthe pages of a book written by an author whose views are routinely
87 See Gray, The Framing of Socrates, pp. 51–3.88 See F. Harvey, ‘Two Kinds of Equality’, Classica et Mediaevalia, 26 (1965),
pp. 101–46, at pp. 126–7.89 See W. Higgins, Xenophon the Athenian (New York, 1977); see also L. Strauss, On
Tyranny (Ithaca, NY, 1963) and Nadon, Xenophon’s Prince.
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considered to be nothing more than an expression of oligarchic class preju-dices only confirms the need to re-consider Xenophon’s reputation.90
* * *
The Athenians had practised democracy for over one hundred years before
they executed Socrates, with the exception of only two short periods of oligar-
chy. The democratic currency is so strong in most forms of their discourse that
it democratizes even archaic Athens, making Theseus himself the founder of
democracy.91 So it is with Xenophon’s Socrates. Xenophon gives no complete
whitewash of his Socrates, but makes him an adequate democrat within the
terms of normal democratic ideology. Xenophon’s Socrates emerges as an
unusual patron of the demos, teaching his associates to enrich the demos in
ways that were material as well as moral and endorsing their political engage-
ment for this purpose regardless of the risks. If he abused the demos in Assem-
bly as Odysseus abused the commoners, he did so with the higher democratic
interest of getting capable men to serve them. He admired the discipline of the
demos and respected their mass judgments, even while hoping to improve
them. He supported the unwritten laws and the laws that citizens agreed on,
which he saw as compatible, but he also endorsed the processes that led to
peaceful change of the written laws because he acknowledged their imperfec-
tions. He believed that obedience to any system of law was a good thing, but
he did not obey instructions that contradicted the requirement of law to pursue
justice. He opposed sortition, perhaps because it reduced respect for the
laws as well as admitting those who had no expert knowledge, yet he saw
dokimasia as a way of limiting the damage. He also sought to show wealthy
individuals how to secure their own success through virtue, but some of the
obligations they learned were service to the army, polis and demos. Xenophon
seems to have written Poroi as a Socratic practitioner of those obligations.92
Vivienne J. Gray THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND
32 V.J. GRAY
90 Nadon, Xenophon’s Prince, p. 73 n.29.91 Loraux, L’Invention d’Athènes, pp. 107–8, 207–8 (citing Euripides, Suppliants,
and Isocrates, Panathenaicus 126–8).92 Editor’s Note: Polis would like to express thanks to the editors of Les Etudes
Philosophiques and its publisher (Presses Universitaires de France), for their permissionto publish this revised English version of Professor Gray’s 2004 essay. Special thanks aredue to Dustin Gish who has put in so much hard work in supervising this project and edit-ing the article for press.
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