Socrates and Xanthippe “Socrates,” asked Antisthenes, “how does it come that you don’t practise what you preach by yourself educating Xanthippe, but live with a wife who is the hardest to get along with of all the women there are—yes, or all that ever were, I suspect, or ever will be?” “Because,” he replied, “I observe that men who wish to become expert horsemen do not get the most docile […]
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“Economics” by Xenophon
The word economics is derived from Greek roots meaning literally “household management”. Praise of Husbandry For the pursuit of [husbandry] is in some sense a luxury as well as a means of increasing one’s estate and of training the body in all that a free man should be able to do. For, in the first place, the earth yields to cultivators the food by which men live; she yields besides […]
Read more“Memorabilia” by Xenophon
I find it very interesting to read the respective accounts of Socrates’ life and teachings by Plato and Xenophon. It is sort of like reading in the Gospels the life and teachings of Jesus, from four different perspectives, which provides not only depth of perception, but also the manifold meanings that a single narrative lacks. Xenophon and Plato correspond well with one another in their interpretation of Socrates, the former […]
Read more“The Apology of Socrates” by Xenophon
Compared to the Socrates of Plato, a dialectician with irony and inwardness, Xenophon’s Socrates is more of a rhetorician, direct and assertive. Nevertheless, their respective accounts of the trial and death of Socrates create a compelling and lasting image of their master, whom I would consider myself fortunate to meet. Socrates’ Self-Approval Who is there in your knowledge that is less a slave to his bodily appetites than I am? […]
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