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Xenophon and Callicratidas*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

J. L. Moles
J. L. Moles
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

Despite increasingly sophisticated theoretical debate, scholars concerned with ancient historiography effectively still divide into two camps: historians, who want to use the texts as sources and assess them by criteria of accuracy, reliability, completeness of record and presence or absence of prejudice according to their presumed relationship to the facts which they purport to represent; and literary scholars, who want to interpret the texts as texts, with their own internal logic.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 114 , November 1994 , pp. 70 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1994

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References

1 E.g. Woodman, A.J., Rhetoric in classical historiography (London 1988)Google Scholar, with the reviews by myself, History of the Human Sciences iii.2 (1990) 317–21, and Brock, R., LCM xvi (1991) 97–102Google Scholar, and my ‘Truth and untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in Gill, C.J. and Wiseman, T.P. (edd.), Lies and fiction in the ancient world (Exeter 1993) 88–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Typical are Cawkwell, G.K. in Xenophon: A history of my times, translation by Warner, R., introduction and notes by Cawkwell, G.K. (Harmondsworth 1979) 7–49Google Scholar, and Cartledge, P.A., Agesilaos (London 1987) 61–6Google Scholar (both, however, provide excellent introductions to the problems and exhibit exasperated affection for Xenophon).

3 E.g. Henry, W.P., Greek historical writing: a historiographical essay based on Xenophon's Hellenica (Chicago 1966)Google Scholar; Higgins, W.E., Xenophon the Athenian (New York 1977), especially 99–127Google Scholar; Proietti, G., Xenophon's Sparta: an introduction (Leiden 1987)Google Scholar; Gray, V., The character of Xenophon's Hellenica (London 1989) (see my review in CR xlii [1992] 281–4)Google Scholar; Tuplin, C.J., The failings of empire: a reading of Xenophon Hellenica 2.3.11–7.5.27 (Stuttgart 1993) (both ‘historical’ and ‘literary’).Google Scholar

4 Grote, G., History of Greece viii (London 1851) 218–37Google Scholar; Xenophon: Hellenica, text by Marchant, E.C., notes by Underhill, G.E. (Oxford 1906, repr. New York 1979) xxiv-xxv, 24Google Scholar; Breitenbach, H.R., Die historiographische Anschauungsformen Xenophons (Freiburg 1950) 108Google Scholar; Westlake, H.D., ‘Individuals in Xenophon, Hellenica’, BJRL xlix (1966) 249–69Google Scholar, reprinted in Essays on the Greek historians and Greek history (Manchester 1969) (to which subsequent references refer); Anderson, J.K., Xenophon (London 1974) 70–1, and JHS cxi (1991) 225, reviewing Krentz (below)Google Scholar; Cawkwell (n. 2) 43, 79n.; cf. also YCS xxiv (1975) 63–4; Bommelaer, J.-F., Lysandre de Sparte: histoire et traditions (Paris 1981) 86–7Google Scholar; Ronnet, G., ‘La figure de Callicratidas et la composition des Helléniques,’ RPh lv (1981) 111–21Google Scholar; Cartledge (n. 2) 190; Higgins (n. 3) 10–12; Gray (n. 3) 22–4, 81–3; Krentz, P., Xenophon: Hellenika 1–113.10 (Warminster 1989) 145–56Google Scholar; Tuplin, C.J., LCM xvi (1991) 25–26 (reviewing Krentz)Google Scholar; Proietti, G., Xenophons Sparta (Leiden 1987) 11–25; 106–7.Google Scholar

5 Except Lotze, D., Lysander und der peloponnesische Krieg (Berlin 1964) 15–26.Google Scholar

6 Westlake 217; Cawkwell (1975) 64.

7 Grote 218; cf. Ronnet 111: Anderson (1991) 225.

8 The possible political implications (e.g. Cartledge 81) are here irrelevant.

9 Gray 14–22; Krentz 135–37; Higgins 11; Proietti 10–11.

10 Pace Gray 23–4; Krentz 145–6.

11 Hell, iii 4 7–10 with Gray 46–9 (conceding Lysander's insubordinate behaviour).

12 Lys. 6.2, cf. Tuplin 25.

13 Gray 23 and nn. 6 and 7 on 199, cf. Krentz 145, cl. Xen. Ages. 8.2.

14 Hdt. iii 122.2, v 8 3.2; Thuc. i 4.1, viii 63.1; Hornblower, S., A commentary on Thucydides, Volume I (Oxford 1991) 18ff.Google Scholar; Figueira, T.J., Excursions in epichoric histoiy: Aiginetan Essays (Lanham MD 1993) 46–50.Google Scholar

15 Krentz 146 (without drawing my conclusion).

16 Presumably Lysander intended another resonance: challenge to Athenian claims to thalassocracy, but this is scarcely relevant to Xenophon here, though it becomes relevant at i 6.15 (Callicratidas' own boast, below]).

17 This contrast, well explored by Proietti 11–21, is already implicit in Diodorus (xiii 76.2) and Plutarch (Lys. 5.7, 7.1), both varyingly dependent upon Ephorus. I write ‘Objective’, because it may be Xenophon's considered view that ‘unSpartan’ Spartans ultimately ruined Sparta; if so, ‘Objective’ analysis has moral implications.

18 There are textual problems: the Loeb gives good sense.

19 Cf. Diod. xiii 70.4; Plut. Lys. 5.3–5, 22.3–4; they underpinned the notorious decarchies.

20 Gray 79–140; Krentz 146; Hatzfeld, J., Xénophon Helléniques i (Paris 1954) 11.Google Scholar

21 Gray 81 n. 1 cites Dover, K.J., Greek popular morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle (Oxford 1974) 230–2.Google Scholar

22 Proietti 11–13, cl. Xen. Lac. 14.2, 4 and Thuc. i 70.4 (Spartan ‘home-lovers’); Xen. Lac. 2.2, 10; 4.6; 8.1–5; Mem. iv 4 15 (Spartan obedience).

23 Higgins 11; Gray 82–3; Krentz 147.

24 Grote 221; Breitenbach 108; Westlake 217; Cawkwell (1975) 64; (1979) 79; Ronnet 112; and indeed Plut. Lys. 6.4–7.

25 Proietti 13–14.

26 Cf. Xenophon's criticism of Teleutias, whom he otherwise portrays so favourably, as guided by ‘anger’ rather than ‘judgement’ at Olynthus (v 3.7).

27 Krentz 147; similarly Gray 83.

28 Hell, vi 3; vi 5.33–48; vii 1.1–14; cf. vii 1.37–38; on these Gray 112–31 is excellent.

29 Cawkwell 28–33 is an excellent statement of this case, Gray's book an excellent statement of the case for the Hellenica's overall unity, though she does not tackle the problem of i 1.1 -ii 3.10 properly. Krentz 5 surveys the problem succinctly, cf. also Tuplin (1993) 11–12.

30 Cawkwell 249–50; Cartledge 195.

31 Xenophon's Panhellenism: e.g. Cawkwell 39–41, 249–50 and CQ xxvi (1976) 66–71, especially 71; Cartledge 180ff.; contra Hirsch, S.W., The friendship of the barbarians: Xenophon and the Persian Empire (Hanover NH 1985)Google Scholar, concluding (141): ‘Panhellenism is not [outside the Agesilaus] a significant component of Xenophon's thought’. It depends on ‘significant’; Panhellenism plays some role in Xenophon's thought. The Hellenica's dating is controversial (and connected with the problem of unity), but for a late dating of c 355 for most of it see e.g. Cawkwell 17f; Higgins 101; Tuplin (1993) 31.

32 Krentz 147; for the Spartan ideal of waging war at enemy expense Proietti 17 n. 15 cites not only Hell, v 1.17, but also Ages. 1.8, Lac. 12.6–9, Cyr. iii 3.16 and Oec. 11.8.

33 Krentz 147 comments: ‘Kallikratidas' attitude makes his safe return seem doubtful’, which I find excessive; of course, Kallikratidas' ‘if’ may acquire retrospective tragic irony, especially as tragedy becomes the model for his ultimate failure (below).

34 Tuplin 25, contra Krentz 147.

35 Brownson's excellent Loeb translation of έξηγεῖσθαι.

36 Gray 83; Krentz 147.

37 Proietti 14.

38 Ionian attitudes to the Persians at this period: Lewis, D.M., Sparta and Persia (Leiden 1977) 115–23Google Scholar, for whom Callicratidas’ speech may reflect reality.

39 Proietti 15.

40 Krentz 147.

41 Krentz 148; Tuplin 25.

42 Proietti 15; Plut. Lys. 6.1 makes Lysander return the money before meeting Callicratidas, but this cannot be used to interpret Xenophon (though it may have historical value). Of course the tensions between patriotism and international aristocratic relationships raised difficult issues historically: Herman, G., Ritualised friendship and the Greek city (Cambridge 1987), especially 156–61Google Scholar; I doubt their difficulty in Xenophon's text here.

43 Gray 82.

44 Both Diodorus and Plutarch stress Callicratidas' extreme financial probity.

45 Proietti 16.

46 Proietti 17, n. 16, has an excellent note on the ambiguous άνδράποδα.

47 Especially Grote 224.

48 Higgins 11; Krentz 148.

49 Diod. xiii 76.5 regards Callicratidas' behaviour at Methymna as clement, though (again) the evidence of another text cannot be used to interpret Xenophon.

50 Higgins 11; Gray 24; Krentz 149.

51 Tuplin 26.

52 Proietti 18.

53 Proietti 19.

54 Henderson, B.W., The Great War between Athens and Sparta (London 1927) 456Google Scholar, opines: ‘Callicratidas made his one fatal error…the Spartan divided his great fleet’. But this was an error only if Callicratidas was certain to fight. One must anyway distinguish between interpretation of the historical facts and interpretation of Xenophon, whose tone seems neutral.

55 The vexed textual problem (Krentz 152–53) is here irrelevant.

56 Krentz 153.

57 Scholarly debate about this battle does not concern this paper.

58 The small textual problem here (Krentz 156) does not affect interpretation.

59 Rutherford, R.B., JHS cii (1982) 156–57 (on the Iliad)Google Scholar; Bischoff, H., Der Warner bei Herodot (Diss. Marburg 1932)Google Scholar; Lattimore, R., ‘The Wise-Adviser in Herodotus’, CPh xxxiv (1939) 24–35Google Scholar; Fehling, D., Herodotus and his ‘sources’, trans. Howie, J.G. (Leeds 1989) 203–9; Gray 148.Google Scholar

60 Καλóς of time: LSJ II. 1.

61 Proietti 20; Krentz 156.

62 Proietti 20 adumbrates these points.

63 On this type of stratagem, also employed by Agesilaus, see the useful analysis of Gray 149–53; Xenophon undoubtedly approves. Agesilaus' stratagem at iv 3.13–14 is significantly parallel to Eteonicus’ (below).

64 Proietti 105–7.

65 Pace Gray 83.

66 I discuss ancient historical writers' preoccupation with ‘universal truths’ in Plutarch: Cicero (Warminster 1988) 41–42, and in my Exeter paper (n. 1).

67 Higgins 115-118; Cartledge 63; Proietti 108-11; Gray 179-81, and, rather differently, Tuplin, PCA lxxiv (1977) 26-7, and Tuplin (1993) 163-8.

68 Woodman (n. 1 above) 122 (with bibliography on 147 n. 13); cf. also my own (brief) discussions in PLLS vi (1990) 373 n. 25, and PLLS v (1985) 37f. and 56 n. 29, where it is argued that such ‘marker references’ can have the function of anticipating final interpretative ‘solutions’.