Xenophon's Virtues

Gabriel Danzig, David M. Johnson, David Konstan

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9783111314006
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

While Plato's and Aristotle's theories of virtue have received extensive scholarly attention, less work has been done on Xenophon's portraits of virtue and on his attitude towards the theoretical issues connected with it. And yet, Xenophon offers one of the best sources we have for thinking about virtue in ancient Greece, because he combines the analytical interests of a Socratic with a historian's interest in real life.

Until recently, scholars of Xenophon tended to focus either on the historiographical writings or on the philosophical writings (chiefly Memorabilia, with some attention to the other Socratic writings and Hiero ). Cyropaedia was treated as a separate entity, and Xenophon's short and more technical treatises were generally studied only by those with particular interest in their specialized topics (such as horsemanship, hunting, and Athenian finances). But recent work by Vincent Azoulay and by Vivienne Gray have shown the essential unity of his writings. This volume continues this pan-Xenophontic trend by studying the virtues across Xenophon's oeuvre and connecting them with a wide range of Greek literature, from Homer and the tragedians to Herodotus and Thucydides, the orators, Plato, and Aristotle.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Xenophon’s virtues
• Chapter 1 Xenophon on virtue, an overview
• Chapter 2 The cardinal (and other) virtues in the story of the Ten Thousand
• Chapter 3 Courage in Xenophon
• Chapter 4 Pre-eminent in phronēsis: Xenophon and Aristotle on the intellectual virtues
• Chapter 5 Piety and moderation
• Chapter 6 Kalokagathia in Xenophon: Is it a virtue?
• Chapter 7 Magnificence and magnanimity in Xenophon (and Aristotle)
• Chapter 8 The charlatan, the boaster, the fraud: Xenophon’s critique of alazoneia
• Chapter 9 Laughing matters: The ability to endure ridicule as a form of self-control (enkrateia, akrasia and karteria)
• Chapter 10 Sōphrosunē and self-knowledge in Xenophon and the fourth century
• Chapter 11 Sōphrosunē and enkrateia in Xenophon’s writings
• Chapter 12 The problem of (in)discipline: Akolasia and kolasis in Xenophon’s works
• Chapter 13 Relational virtues and moral emotions: Xenophon’s psychology of χάρις
• Chapter 14 Xenophon on Spartan Obedience: Virtue or Vice?
• Chapter 15 Xenophon and Aristotle on freedom
• Chapter 16 Virtue and vice in the cities of Xenophon’s Hellenica
• Afterword: Before virtue
• Index