Xenophon: Philosopher-Statesman (David Bahr - Forbes)

Xenophon The Athenian: Not Your Average Pasty-Faced Philosopher

David Bahr, Forbes
5.31.17

...Xenophon is one of Socrates’ most famous students, responsible for presenting in his Memorabilia, Apology, Oeconomicus and Symposium, dialogues between his famous teacher and certain noble Athenians. But unlike his colleague Plato, Xenophon also wrote a famous history, a continuation of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War (Hellenica), character studies of great men (the Education of Cyrus), interpretations of the Athenian and Spartan constitutions and various treatises on hunting, horsemanship and happiness. He is unique in the history of Western thought: what one might call a philosopher-statesman. 

Sadly, modernity, until very recently, found little reason to pay attention to Xenophon. Once studied and revered by men like Machiavelli and Alexander the Great, classicists and historians in the early 20^th century somehow formed the notion he was a bit of a dullard. His writing, they noted, was too simple; his ideas lacked philosophic nuance. He was clearly, they thought, a poor pupil of Socrates. (Interestingly, the professoriate class never seemed to consider why men of Machiavelli’s and Alexander’s intelligence found Xenophon worth studying!) Today, and in large part to the renewed, respectful attention of political philosophers like Leo Strauss, however, Xenophon’s quiet grandeur and esoteric playfulness are slowly getting recognized anew...link

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