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Xenophon and the Graces of Power A

Greek Guide to Political Manipulation


Vincent Azoulay
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96109_Xenophon_Prelims:Layout 1 30/8/18 11:58 Page i

XENOPHON AND THE GRACES OF POWER


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X ENOPHON
AND THE
G RACES OF P OWER
A G REEK G UIDE TO
P OLITICAL M ANIPULATION

Vincent Azoulay

Translated by
Angela Krieger

The Classical Press of Wales


96109_Xenophon_Prelims:Layout 1 30/8/18 11:58 Page iv

First published in 2018 by


The Classical Press of Wales
15 Rosehill Terrace, Swansea SA1 6JN
Tel: +44 (0)1792 458397
www.classicalpressofwales.co.uk

Distributor
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© 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-910589-69-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Louise Jones, and printed and bound in the UK by Gomer Press, Llandysul,
Ceredigion, Wales
–––––––––––––––––
The Classical Press of Wales, an independent venture, was founded in 1993, initially to
support the work of classicists and ancient historians in Wales and their collaborators from
further afield. More recently it has published work initiated by scholars internationally. While
retaining a special loyalty to Wales and the Celtic countries, the Press welcomes scholarly
contributions from all parts of the world.

The symbol of the Press is the Red Kite. This bird, once widespread in Britain, was reduced by
1905 to some five individuals confined to a small area known as ‘The Desert of Wales’ – the
upper Tywi valley. Geneticists report that the stock was saved from terminal inbreeding by the
arrival of one stray female bird from Germany. After much careful protection, the Red Kite now
thrives – in Wales and beyond.

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CONTENTS

Page

FOREWORD ix

INTRODUCTION 1
Xenophon, or the Itinerary of a Traitor? 2
A Corpus in All its Fragmentary Splendor 4
The Masks of a Multifaceted man 8
From Charisma to Charis 10
Charis in All Its Forms 11
The Limits of Analysis and Methodological Gains 15

CHAPTER 1 – CHARIS AND ITS CHALLENGES 21


I. The Law of Charis 21
A Social Norm 21
A Universal Form of Anthropology 23
An Immanent Model 25
II. Charis and Authority 27
Horizontal Exchanges and Vertical Links 27
The Delicate Position of the Recipient 32
On the Strangeness of Thracian Customs? 40
III. Charis in Democracy 43
Athens and Its Allies: Imperial Charis 43
Within the City: Charis Placed Under Supervision? 44
The Emergence of a Democratic Form of Charis 46

CHAPTER 2 – LEGITIMATE FAVORS 52


I. Xenophon’s Three Graces 52
Euergetic Spending 52
Honorific Distinctions 56
Charismatic attentions 61
II. Supreme Benefits: Feeding Bodies and Minds 64
An Economy of Alimentary Charis 65
Dangerous Foodstuffs? 67
The Art of Dining 73
From Alimentary Prodigality to Philosophical Euergetism 76

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Contents

III. Contextualizing Favors: The Differential Effectiveness


of Gifts 80
The Spirit of the Gift 81
Xenophon and the Transmutation of Benefits 82

CHAPTER 3 – FROM GOOD DEEDS TO MISDEEDS: THE CORRUPTING


POWER OF CHARIS 89
I. The Ambiguities of Xenia 90
II. Agesilaus and Xenophon: The Incorruptibles? 93
III. From Material Corruption to Spiritual Corruption 98

CHAPTER 4 – BETWEEN CHARIS AND MISTHOS : XENOPHON


AGAINST THE MERCHANTS? 103
I. ‘The Hostile World’ of Goods 104
Buying Gratitude and Selling Favors? 104
Enslaved by Misthos: Democratic Prostitution 107
Refusing Coinage, Rejecting Merchants 111
The Aristocrat and the Mercenary 114
II. The Ambiguous Virtues of Commercial Exchange 122
Small Deals with the Market 122
On the Art of Giving a Salary 124
The Proper Use of Mercenary Service 128
The Poroi: A Conversion to Civic Misthos? 133

CHAPTER 5 – CHARIS AND ENVY 139


I. The Omnipresence of Phthonos: The Social Genesis
of a Feeling 140
The Envy of the People 140
‘Intra-elite’ Rivalries 142
II. Leveling From the Bottom or Redistributing From the Top? 145
Spartan Standardization 145
The Benefits of Charis 149
III. Phthonos and Charis: Dangerous Liaisons 157
Socrates and Envy 157
Self-Praise and the Jealousy of Others 160
Royal Charis and the Phthonos of the Elite 164

CHAPTER 6 – CHARIS AND PHILIA: THE POLITICS OF FRIENDSHIP 169


I. The Debate over Philia 169
Democratic and Aristotelian Philia 169
Xenophon’s Friendships 173

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Contents
II. Philia and Patronage 174
Socrates and Unequal Friendships 174
Crito, Critobulus, and Their ‘Friends’ 176
Philia and Public Patronage 180
III. From Philia to Philanthrōpia 191
The First Philanthropists 192
Cyrus, Friend of All Men 193
An Inaugural Shift? 195

CHAPTER 7 – CHARIS AND PATERNITY 199


I. From Fraternal Union to Paternal Love 200
Fraternity, or the Power of Solidarity 200
Paternity, or the Paradigm of Debt 204
II. Paternal Power: An Unattainable Dream? 207
Agesilaus: A Father in the City of Brothers? 207
Xenophon, or the Frustrated Father 209
Socrates and the Jealous Fathers 214
III. Cyrus, or the Universal Father 219
From the Perfect Son to the Benevolent Father 220
The Fostering Father 224
Symbolic Fathers and Ideal Sons:The King and the Eunuchs 227

CHAPTER 8 – THE GRACES OF LOVE 229


I. Erotic Reciprocity and Its Dangers 230
Erōs in the Game of Exchange 230
Erōs Goes to War 234
II. The Political Power of the Erōmenos 239
From Love of the City to Love of the Leader 239
Three Paradoxical Erōmenoi 244
III. From Socrates to Cyrus: The Rivalry of Two Graces 249
Strange Beauty Contests 249
Cyrus, or Prince Charming 252
The Politics of Radiance 259
IV. Epilogue: On the Love of Men and the Veneration
of the Gods 266

CONCLUSION 269
Power and Time: The Charismatic Paradox 271
The Miscontemporary 277

PHILOLOGICAL ANNEX: CHARIS IN XENOPHON’S CORPUS 279

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Contents

NOTES 281

BIBLIOGRAPHY 353

GENERAL INDEX 415

INDEX LOCORUM 433

viii
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FOREWORD

Published in 2004, the original French version of this book grew out of
the thesis that I defended at the Université Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in
December 2002 – a long time ago in terms of academic research. The
current revised English edition therefore bears some obvious limitations.
In the original French version, it was possible to take into account
publications dating up until 2002 and even some that appeared in 2003.
For this edition, however, it would have been impossible to read and
comment on everything that has been published in the years since then, so
great was the volume of books and articles about Xenophon that were
being released – even if many of these new books are in fact textbooks or
‘companions’ of various sorts. I have thus been very selective in
introducing recent scholarship into the footnotes.
This decision – primarily dictated by time constraints – inevitably dates
this book, which could cast doubt over whether or not it is still worth
publishing in English. However, I consider this publication justified
because language was what largely prohibited it from being read outside of
France. After all, asking a reader with some but not complete knowledge of
French to read five hundred pages is quite a demand!1
In a nutshell, this book has a number of aims. First of all, it seeks to
offer a general interpretation of Xenophon’s corpus rather than adopting
an approach divided according to specific works or genres. In particular,
I have tried to combat the sterile distinction between ‘Socratic works’ and
‘historical works’ and the way it splits the research among historians,
philologists, and philosophers.
Nonetheless, this global approach does not mean that it is not possible
to pay specific attention to the context in which each work was produced

1 While the book was well received in France, it has not been cited much in the

Anglophone world. Indeed, the only review devoted to it in English was also the
only unfavorable review the book happened to receive. See AC, 76, 2007, 264–6
(Odile De Bruyn); Anabases, 4 2006, 299–300 (Marie-Laurence Desclos);
Athenaeum 94, 1, 317–21 (Cinzia Bearzot); CR n.s. 56, 1 2006, 43–5 (Vivienne J.
Gray); REA 108, 2, 2006, 756–60 (Pascal Payen); REG 119, 1, 2006, 460–2
(Paul Demont); RH 130 (1) 2006, 146–8 (Pierre Pontier); RPh 3e sér. 78 (2) 2004,
375–6 (Claude Mossé); Gnomon 81 (8), 2009, 676-9 (Christian Mueller-Goldingen);
Mouseion (Canada) 6 (1) 2006, 42–5 (Louis L’Allier); Annales HSS 63, 5, 2008,
1037–8 (Patrice Brun).

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Foreword

(be it rhetorical, political, or historical). This subtle recontextualization has


allowed me to reveal not only the complexity of Xenophon’s thinking, with
all its variations and even evolutions, but also the political coherence of
his message. The book sheds light on the underlying mechanisms of his
conception of power, the originality of which emerges when it is examined
alongside the positions of other thinkers in the Athenian intellectual field
(Ober 1998; Azoulay 2007b).
This study reveals how Xenophon’s political thinking was shaped by
charis – a notion that covers an immaterial and impalpable form of power
composed of services rendered, acknowledged loyalty, respect, and
dependency. This charismatic conception ultimately means examining
power ‘at ground level’, not as a fixed object but as something that
circulates. It encounters the tendency in modern historiography to consider
power beyond strictly institutional paths, trying to escape the ‘constitutional-
law trap’ (Finley) that characterizes most of Greek political studies.
Beyond its political content, this study is based on two methodological
biases. It distances itself from Leo Strauss’s theses, which carry so much
weight in the Anglophone world and which tend to make Xenophon a
master of irony, disguising his real intentions ‘between the lines’ of his
books (see, most recently, Burns 2015). If Xenophon is to be taken
seriously, nothing proves that he encrypted his message for a chosen few.
This book also seeks to feed the dialogue between antiquity and the social
sciences. This study is part of a broader reflection on the way in which
historians can appropriate a notion taken from the social sciences – in this
case, charism, which Max Weber conceptualized in his time, and also gift-
exchange, as Marcel Mauss theorized it. It examines how to ensure the
translatability of notions across all disciplines (sociology, anthropology,
history, philosophy, and political science: Azoulay 2014b).
Last but not least, I am pleased to acknowledge the numerous
intellectual and amicable debts that I have contracted all along the way.
I would first like to express my gratitude to Pauline Schmitt, who so
warmly communicated the joy of research and has continually guided me
in my reflections since I first came knocking on her door in 1996 with the
still embryonic idea of working on Xenophon. As this project developed,
a lecture given by Catherine Darbo-Peschanski helped me to formulate my
first working hypotheses. My thoughts equally extend to the prematurely
departed Yvon Thébert, who never stopped encouraging me with his
characteristically communicative enthusiasm. I cannot forget the comments
of my dissertation committee, which helped me avoid numerous errors
and inaccuracies. I am pleased to thank Jean-Marie Bertrand, Patrice Brun,
Paul Cartledge, and François Hartog for their equally thoughtful and

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Foreword
precise reading of my work. Paul Cartledge, in particular, deserves special
recognition for the wonderful help he offered when the time came to revise
the English manuscript. I owe Anton Powell a great deal of gratitude for
agreeing to publish the English version of the book at the Classical Press
of Wales and for his invaluable suggestions concerning the manuscript.
The reader for the Press, J. M. Trappes-Lomax, has also done an extra-
ordinary job verifying the accuracy of my manuscript, which has allowed
me to substantially improve the final text.
I have also been lucky to have enjoyed exceptional working conditions
for several years. I owe them to my colleagues and students at the
Université de Paris I and the Université Marne-la-Vallée, whom I am happy
to thank. A few other institutions have provided precious support. The
Centre Gustave Glotz and the Centre Louis Gernet as well as the
“Phéacie” group to which I belong offered favorable places for engaging
in stimulating intellectual exchange. The École française d’Athènes offered
a pleasant and fruitful working environment thanks to two study grants.
My research has additionally benefitted from a generous group of
friends. Numerous people have followed the development of this work in
varying degrees, subjecting themselves to my moods and kindly spending
time rereading and discussing drafts. I would like to express my appreciation
to Raphaëlle Branche, Christophe Brun, John Dillery, Pierre Fröhlich,
Sophie Lalanne, Bernard Legras, and Yann Potin. Two people in particular
deserve special recognition: Patrick Boucheron, whose critical rigour was
always useful, and Jean-Baptiste Bonnard, whose availability and relevant
opinions never ceased to surprise me. Their critical readings allowed me to
make the manuscript of this study less imperfect.
I could not conclude these acknowledgements without thanking my
brother Pierre and especially my parents, Jacques and Danièle Azoulay,
whose unconditional support has taught me the real meaning of charis.
There is also one last person who alone knows how much this work owes
her, having gently accompanied it, rigorously transformed it, and imbued
it with such grace.
I dedicate this work to Cécile Chainais.

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INTRODUCTION

As early as the Hellenistic period, Xenophon was celebrated for his


remarkable talent as a writer. The gentleness of his style earned him the
nickname ‘Attic Muse.’1 In one of the earliest known stylistic treatises, the
rhetorician Ps.-Demetrius of Phaleron repeatedly praised him for the
‘grandeur, forcefulness, and grace (χάρις)’ of his writing.2 Athenaeus even
deemed him ‘the most graceful Xenophon (ὁ χαριέστατος Ξενοφῶν),’ 3 an
epithet that was still applied to him in the third century AD by the
rhetorician Menander of Laodicea.4
However, the notion of grace – or charis – is not only relevant when it
comes to describing Xenophon’s style of writing. It constitutes a favorable
means of understanding and characterizing how Xenophon thought about
power.5 The concept of charis recurs throughout his corpus, in which he
mentions the term and its derivatives no fewer than three hundred times.
Analyzing charis therefore makes it possible to remain faithful to both the
letter and the spirit of the text.
At the same time, Xenophon did not theorize charis and its effects as
such. He did not linger over it like a philosopher, in the manner of Aristotle
or Plato. Rather, his remarks were scattered across various literary and
historical contexts. The consequent challenge facing the research presented
in this book is to show that, in spite of and beyond this apparent
fragmentation, Xenophon elaborated a coherent system of thought
(at once undeniably theoretical and practical) around the concept of charis,
thus reflecting transversally on authority and the mechanisms behind it.
Xenophon’s writings also reveal a pivotal period in Greek history, a
transitional era between the world of the cities and that of the Hellenistic
kingdoms. In fact, Xenophon’s works form an appropriate prism for
tackling not the supposed ‘crisis of the city’ during the fourth century, but
the various tensions traversing the Greek world at the time: political and
military tensions between the various hegemonies of Athens, Sparta, and
Thebes; tensions between the Greeks and the Persians, whose relations
oscillated between rejection and fascination; social and political tensions
between oligarchs and democrats within the cities and, in particular,
Athens; and the tensions within the elite itself, which had been upset by
monetarization and haunted by the specter of corruption. Such was the
era that is revealed and in which Xenophon was not a mere witness, but a
melancholic actor.

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Introduction

Xenophon, or the itinerary of a traitor?


Truly, no state has ever expelled a more degenerate citizen than Xenophon.
Neither was Plato a good citizen; he was not worthy of Athens, adopted
incomprehensible positions, and was like a sinner before the saints that were
Thucydides and Demosthenes, but nonetheless so different from this old
madman! Niebuhr 1826/8, 467.

Retracing Xenophon’s life is rather difficult. To do so, the historian must


make do with late sources (a chapter by Diogenes Laertius and a brief note
in the Souda), which must be combined with the sparse indications that
Xenophon himself provided in his corpus.6 Every aspect of his complex
life can be debated, stimulating the imaginations and speculations of the
scholars interpreting his work and rousing insoluble quarrels among them.
Academic disputes have centered on the date of his birth, the date and cause
of his exile from Athens, the date when his banishment was lifted and he
eventually returned to his homeland, and, of course, the date of his death.7
Out of this accumulation of controversies, a few certainties have
nonetheless emerged. Born around 428, near the start of the Peloponnesian
War, Xenophon was registered in the Athenian deme of Erchia.8 He most
probably descended from a well-to-do family, since he presented himself
in the Anabasis as a horseman (only the rich were able to possess and
maintain horses).9 As a hunting enthusiast (the supreme aristocratic
pastime), the young Xenophon was therefore part of the Athenian
horsemen, who were easily identified by their long hair10 and conservative
political opinions. The hippeis largely supported the oligarchic revolution of
411 and were eventually subjected to intense discrimination after the
democratic regime was restored.11 Following the military collapse of
Athens in 404, they naturally sided with the oligarchs, although some were
reluctant to do so (Bugh 1988, 120–53). It is difficult to say what
Xenophon’s precise role during this bloody period was exactly. There is a
good reason for this, since he carefully eliminated all traces of
autobiography in his account of the civil war in the Hellenica, making
relatively fanciful speculations possible.12 The fact remains that he seems
to have been involuntarily compromised in the exactions of the Thirty.13
Despite the amnesty imposed in 403, horsemen could not feel entirely
at ease under the restored Athenian democracy. Many of them seem to
have left Athens to escape the hostile atmosphere that reigned there.14 This
heavy ambiance became even more oppressive when the last oligarchic
bastion at Eleusis fell despite the renewal of the amnesty (401/0). Tensions
culminated in 399, when the Athenians sent three hundred horsemen
to support the Spartan Thibron in Asia Minor, hoping they would die in

2
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Introduction
the process (Hell. 3.1.4). That same year, Socrates was prosecuted and
condemned to death (Anab. 3.1.5–7; Mem. 1.3.9–13).15
However, the young horseman was no longer in Athens when the
philosopher was forced to drink hemlock. In 401, Xenophon had placed
himself in the service of Cyrus the Younger, who, as recounted in the
Anabasis, aspired to the Persian throne. This is the only period of his life
for which a great deal of information is available – though it is not
objective. Following Cyrus’s death in Cunaxa (near present-day Babylon)
and the assassination of the Greek army’s chiefs, Xenophon seems to have
played an important role in the mercenaries’ retreat from Armenia to
Trapezous on the Black Sea during the winter of 401/0 and then toward
Greece and Thrace during the winter of 400/399.
Back in Asia Minor, it seems that Xenophon continued to manage what
remained of the Ten Thousand’s army until 395, serving various Spartan
commanders sent overseas. There he became attached to a new patron:
Agesilaus, King of Sparta.16 Xenophon accompanied him during his Asian
campaign in 394 and also followed him when the sovereign had to return
quickly to Greece to quell the revolt in the cities provoked by Persian gold.
In 394, Xenophon undoubtedy fought against his own compatriots at
Coronea (Hell. 4.3.15–23), definitively burning all bridges with his
homeland – even if some historians estimate that his banishment really
dated back to a few years earlier.17
The fact remains that Xenophon stayed away from Athens for over
thirty years. He hardly suffered materially. Thanks to Agesilaus’s patronage,
he enjoyed a comfortable retirement in Scillus, in the Peloponnese, on
territory Sparta had snatched from Elis (Anab. 5.3.5–7).18 There he married
Philesia, with whom he had two children: Gryllus and Diodorus (DL
2.52).19 However, political vicissitudes put an end to this peaceful period.
He was expelled from his property in 371, following the Spartan defeat at
Leuctra and the major comeback of the Eleans (DL 2.53).20 Nonetheless,
this difficult period coincided with the rapprochement between Athens
and Sparta, now united against the increasing danger represented by
Thebes. Thanks to this reconciliation, Xenophon’s native country seems
to have restored his civic rights, perhaps as early as 369.21
Historians are divided into two camps regarding whether or not he
returned to live in his native city. According to some, he settled in Corinth,
perhaps definitively (Pausanias 5.6.6).22 Others take it for granted that
Xenophon came back to Athens, probably following a stay in Corinth.
Although the latter thesis is based on a questionable isolated account
(Istros, FGrHist 334 F 32), numerous clues suggest that it is true.23 His son
Gryllus served in the Athenian cavalry and died courageously during the

3
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Introduction

Battle of Mantinea in 362 (Ephorus, FGrHist 70 F 85).24 Furthermore,


Xenophon’s final works, On the Cavalry Commander and the Poroi, were
explicitly aimed at reforming Athens’ military and financial system.25 It is
therefore probable that he later returned to his native country. Perhaps he
even had a certain air of prestige in Athenian intellectual circles at the time,
since many authors, including Isocrates and Aristotle, seem to have written
eulogies for Gryllus after his death with the avowed goal of honoring the
father through the son (DL 2.55 and Quint., Inst. 2.17.14).26
Xenophon wrote the better part of his works during this very period, in
the calm climate of Athens under Eubulus.27 With the exception of the
Lakedaimonion Politeia (drafted between 394 and 371), nearly all of his works
seem to have been written after 370 (even if the debates surrounding the
dating of the Apology of Socrates and the Anabasis are far from over). After
many years of exile, he finally found a suitable setting for his works and a
broader readership before dying in 355 or shortly after.28

A corpus in all its fragmentary splendor


Despite the gaps in the available sources, Xenophon’s trajectory offers a
glimpse of a complex figure who committed multiple transgressions.
A disciple of Socrates, this young elite-member began his career in Asia
among the troops of the barbarian prince Cyrus the Younger, thus crossing
the frontiers between the Greeks and the Persians. He equally crossed the
boundaries separating Athens and Sparta, long living in exile with his city’s
worst military and political enemies. In his writings, he fought democracy
both within and outside Athens. Xenophon cannot be easily reduced to a
specific political position or a stereotyped system of thought. He was in
turn a member of a troop of mercenaries and a rich landowner, at once
Athenian by birth and Lacedaemonian at heart, exiled and then reintegrated
in his city at the end of his life, and fascinated by the noble Cyrus’s Persia
while simultaneously a fervent advocate of Panhellenism.
These perpetual oscillations are expressed in the vast fragmentation of
his work. There is the plurality of the ‘literary’ genres he explored, for
Xenophon – ever the polymorphous writer – left an imposing and varied
body of work. He devoted as much time to history (Hellenica) as to the
works of praise (Agesilaus), advice (Hiero), and defense (Apology of Socrates).
He wrote his war memoirs (Anabasis) as well as numerous technical
treatises (On the Art of Horsemanship, On the Cavalry Commander, the Poroi,
and On Hunting), Socratic dialogues (Oeconomicus, Memorabilia), a Symposium,
and even a form of ‘historical novel’ (Cyropaedia). Then there is the plasticity
and variety of his style. Unlike many of the writers who were his
contemporaries, Xenophon deftly handled different forms of eloquence,

4
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Introduction
thus earning the admiration of rhetoricians during the imperial period (e.g.
Dio Chrysost., 18.14–17).29
The diversity of subjects and forms leads to the variety of geographical
spaces in Xenophon’s corpus, between the Athens of the Oeconomicus and
the Sparta of the Lakedaimonion Politeia, between the Persia of the Cyropaedia
and the Sicily of the Hiero. Responding to this spatial diversity is a certain
temporal fragmentation. While the Hellenica and the Anabasis resemble
logbooks based on the current events of his day, Xenophon also enjoyed
meditating on Cyrus the Elder’s bygone Persia or conjuring up the vanished
Sparta of Lycurgus. Finally, there is the fragmentation of the points of view
employed for the same topic. What do Agesilaus’s praise of frugality have
in common with the celebration of Cyrus the Elder’s sumptuous lifestyle?
How is it possible to reconcile Xenophon’s proclaimed admiration for
certain Persian royal practices and the Panhellenic rhetoric found in the
Agesilaus?30 How should the critique of democratic functioning (as it is
emphasized in the Memorabilia and the Hellenica) be articulated alongside
the proposals for democratic reform formulated in the Poroi?
In order to compensate for this disparate impression, some interpreters
have tried to trace the chronological evolution of Xenophon’s thinking,
speaking of his conversion to ‘monarchist ideas’ following a period of
real laconophilia and his much later rallying to the democratic regime.31
Nonetheless, these efforts to recreate a coherent chronological timeline
seem bound to fail, if only because of the uncertainty involving the dating
of the works. The Cyropaedia – which was unquestionably monarchist in its
inspiration – was composed at the end of the 360s, during the same period
when it seems that Xenophon wrote the Cavalry Commander in the hope of
gently reforming the army in democratic Athens.32 These contradictions
again do not only arise when different works are placed alongside each
other. Xenophon did not hesitate to abruptly shift perspective within a
given work, as attested by the disillusioned chapters in the Lakedaimonion
Politeia and the Cyropaedia or the changing viewpoints proposed by the
protagonists of the Hellenica.33
Other ways of reading Xenophon have been proposed in order to
eliminate this disparate impression. The American philosopher Leo Strauss
developed an original approach to Xenophon’s corpus by identifying an
underlying organizing principle: irony. Wishing to ‘reconsider the
traditional view of Xenophon,’ which was almost ‘an insult to this truly
royal soul,’ Strauss claimed that ‘such a man was he that he preferred to go
through the centuries in the disguise of a beggar rather than to sell the
precious secrets of Socrates’ quiet and sober wisdom to a multitude.’34
To put it differently, Xenophon apparently concealed precious teachings

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‘between the lines’35 of his text so that a scholar of Strauss’s caliber might
unearth such priceless nuggets. The idea was emulated by many, with
numerous commentators pursuing the irony and double meanings in
Xenophon’s texts.36
Such an approach sometimes seems debatable, since it relies on the
heavy presupposition that the author was a persecuted man whose work
was marked by this status.37 The fear of criticism and insults allegedly led
Xenophon to disguise his intentions ‘between the lines.’ Yet nothing
supports such an interpretation. It is difficult to see what threat would have
restricted the author from writing to the point that he would encrypt his
message for a chosen few, since Athenian writers never hesitated to drag
the democratic regime through the mud. Far from being representative,
Socrates’s trial was something of an exception in this respect.38 Supposing
that he wrote part of his work in Scillus, Xenophon would not have needed
to conceal his intentions. If he wrote it in Athens, again, nothing forced
him to disguise his thinking in order to criticize the regime. Provided that
they were kept a distance from the political arena and its struggles, every
opinion could in fact circulate freely, as the very existence of the Academy
attested. While the pressures of Xenophon’s political and social context
were undeniable (he never attacked the democratic regime directly),39 they
were never strong enough to justify the hypothesis supporting an esoteric
art of writing.
Furthermore, Strauss’s interpretation is accompanied by a highly
debatable method of reading. Despite basing his interpretation of the texts
on Xenophon’s supposed persecution, Strauss paradoxically refuses to
take into account the ‘historical situation’ in which the author lived,40
subsequently sinking into a hermeneutical confinement that leads to a form
of interpretive delirium.41 For him, each of the Athenian writer’s phrases
becomes enigmatic and even ironic, and the whole body of work is
transformed into something that needs to be deciphered. In the end, the
Straussian way of reading reveals far more about Strauss’s own subtlety
than Xenophon’s.42 Worst of all is that such an approach continues to take
the writer for a fool. ‘Straussian’ interpreters desperately want to find
hidden meaning in Xenophon’s work because they consider his explicit
statements exceedingly vulgar and clumsy. Despite reaching diametrically
opposed conclusions, they ultimately take up the same premises as the
writer’s staunch detractors.
But does abandoning this sort of reading not precisely present the
risk of returning to the usual hypothesis, which stresses the author’s
fundamental incoherence? According to a fashionable opinion during the
nineteenth century, Xenophon had exhausted himself with projects that

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were too great for his weak intellectual caliber.43 That would explain the
disparate nature of his corpus, since he dissipated himself in multiple
activities, fluttering from one topic to the next without ever mastering any
of them.44 As a pale imitator of Thucydides, he was said to be of limited
interest to historians;45 as a mediocre copy of Plato, he only deserved
disdain from philosophers.46 From this perspective, Xenophon has often
been considered with condescension, viewed as a stale old military man
who wrote his memoirs in order to edify his contemporaries47 when he
was not being taken for both a traitor and an officially acknowledged fool.48
Nonetheless, his reputation for incoherence only dates back to the
nineteenth century.49 It owes much to the disciplinary categorizations of
the time, which distanced philosophers from historians and literary critics.
It would be wrong to forget that, up until the eighteenth century, Xenophon
was universally admired for his didacticism as well as for his political
observations and remarkable style. During the Renaissance, he was
appreciated precisely for his eclecticism. In 1581, Henri Estienne reedited
Xenophon’s works by adding a discourse entitled Sur le Devoir de joindre Mars
aux Muses: l’exemple de Xénophon (De coniungendis cum Marte Musis, exemplo
Xenophontis). In this opuscule dedicated to James VI, King of Scotland,
Estienne delimits the best education for leader and prince, advocating a
happy symbiosis between military education and philosophical and literary
learning. In this ‘mirror for princes,’ Xenophon embodies the model to be
followed for his dual position as disciple of Socrates and improvised leader
of the Ten Thousand, since he symbolized the happy alliance between the
pen and the sword, or beautiful style and military art.50
The variety of Xenophon’s talents was appreciated in antiquity. His
Cyropaedia was a lauded and imitated model, considered one of the
precursors of the Greek novel that emerged in the imperial period.51 There
is endless proof of the favor Xenophon enjoyed. Other than Xenophon of
Ephesus, the Souda claimed that two other novelists adopted his name
when they wrote: Xenophon of Antioch, author of the Babyloniaca; and
Xenophon of Cyprus, author of the Cypriaca.52 When writers were not
directly borrowing his name during the imperial period, they paid homage
to the titles of his works. Arrian, for example, recounted Alexander’s
conquest in an Anabasis that was destined to rival Xenophon’s work
(Arrian, Anab. 1.12.3).53 Far from being appreciated solely for his style,
Xenophon was simultaneously admired for his political and moral
teachings. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, his reflections served
as a useful vade-mecum for all politicians. Alexander probably read him,
Cato the Elder admired him, Scipio procured his books as soon as he
could, Caesar knew him well, and Cicero even translated him.54 Thus,

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Xenophon was unanimously esteemed for his diverse qualities, which were
at once literary, political, and philosophical.

The masks of a multifaceted man


Without pleading for a return to blissful admiration, I would like to
propose a few reading guidelines that respect the variety of the corpus,
take into account what is explicitly said in Xenophon’s texts (which in no
way excludes the existence of irony), and strive to link this back to the
context of rhetorical, political, and historical production. With this in mind,
Xenophon’s corpus seems marked less by irony than by a plurality of
points of view. Depending on the context, Xenophon summoned different
facets of his character without making it necessary for the reader to seek
out the inner irony or incoherence at all costs. This study calls for a way
of reading that, according to a perspective first explored by Maurice
Halbwachs,55 remains sensitive to the individual actors’ many affiliations,
their successive or simultaneous socialization in various groups, and the
many points of view they can raise. In fact, the multiple contexts for action
invoke the dispositions of individuals (themselves plastic) differently.
Xenophon was not an incoherent human being, but a multifaceted man.
This plurality first emerges in the multiple disguises Xenophon adopted
as a writer. He wrote part of his work using disguises for the occasion and
skillfully handled the art of ‘feigning not to write.’56 In his historical work
the Hellenica, he thus voluntarily concealed himself behind his illustrious
elder Thucydides. Not only did he not seek to appropriate his predecessor’s
work (of which he was perhaps the editor),57 but he inscribed his own
account within the absolute continuity of the History of the Peloponnesian War.
The Hellenica begins almost exactly where Thucydides’s work ends, without
Xenophon deeming it necessary to insert a preface claiming his role as
author.58 Similarly, he chose to attribute the paternity of the Anabasis, his
best-known work, to someone else: Themistogenes of Syracuse.59 As for
the Memorabilia, his major Socratic work, it also perhaps corresponded to
a certain denial of his role as author. According to Luciano Canfora, the
work may have first circulated not under Xenophon’s name, but as a
collection of accounts emanating from Socrates himself. Once again, the
writer apparently concealed himself behind one of his mentors, leaving a
work with no signature or auctor.60
Xenophon did not only like to conceal himself as an author. In his
corpus, he sometimes effaced all traces of his presence as a direct participant
in the events he recounted. In the Hellenica, he thus continually hides
himself, making abundant use of periphrasis that, while still making his
presence felt, never openly admits to it. He is undoubtedly speaking of

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himself in veiled terms when he evokes ‘the leader of Cyrus’ former
troops,’ and he is also probably including himself implicitly among ‘the
men who had made the march up country with Cyrus’ or ‘the very stalwart
horsemen who were about’ the king of Sparta (respectively Hell. 3.2.7;
3.1.6; 4.3.6; Ages. 2.2–3).61 But nothing explicitly proves this. When he
suddenly makes an explicit appearance, he does not always do so in a
favorable light. In the Memorabilia, he depicts himself as a thoughtless man,
reprimanded by Socrates who even goes as far as calling him a fool (Mem.
1.3.13).62 In the Anabasis, he portrays himself as a reckless young man,
incapable of understanding the precious advice that Socrates shares with
him (Anab. 3.1.5–7).63
Xenophon’s difficulty assuming his roles as author and actor was
probably not the sign of an uneasiness specific to him alone. In some ways,
all of this hiding behind another character was a way for him to make
himself known to a specific group of readers and to plead his own case
mezza voce.64 Like a hunter hiding his tracks, he could indulge in a subtle
apology for his behavior, whether this be during the delicate period of the
Thirty or his enlistment with the Spartans in Asia Minor. These various
masks left him more free to respond to the implicit or explicit accusations
that both democrats and his elite peers aimed at him (see infra, chapters 3
and 4). Concealing himself also offered another advantage. It allowed him
to make a grand entrance in a story when he eventually decided to appear
in it. In this respect, the Anabasis represents a real tour de force, with
Xenophon deliberately delaying his appearance as a protagonist in the
account until Book 3 in order suddenly to emerge heaven-sent when all
seems lost.65
Thus, the changing political contexts contribute to explaining
Xenophon’s use of masks. Yet it in no way implies that there are messages
hidden between the lines. On the contrary, Xenophon did not adopt
pseudonyms to travesty what he was saying. Rather, he did so in order to
lend an even greater power of conviction to his words (Plutarch, On the
Fame of the Athenians 345e). This apologetic – and not ironic – desire is
omnipresent in his writings, often justifying the many points of view he
adopts. Through his journey in Asia and his friendships, Xenophon was
under a great deal of pressure, and he constructed his corpus according to
the accusations made against him and his friends by responding to these
attacks. For instance, the Anabasis was intended as an act of retaliation
against those who accused him of participating in Cyrus the Younger’s
questionable campaign. There was also an apologetic goal in the Apology of
Socrates (of course) as well as in the Memorabilia and the Symposium, works
offering all sorts of opportunities to clear Socrates of the accusations aimed

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against him.66 Similarly, his posthumous praise for Agesilaus sought to


respond to the criticisms that the Spartan king’s behavior had generated
(see infra, chapters 3 and 4).
These pleas were in no way an expression of disinterested concern. By
thus defending his intellectual and political patrons, Xenophon indirectly
pursued his own apology, since he implicitly replied to those who might
have reproached him for associating with unsavory men. Nonetheless, his
position was not purely defensive. In fact, he was convinced that he had
found true models of authority in Socrates, Agesilaus, both Cyruses, and
himself. Having lived according to alternating hegemonies and having been
disappointed by the civic institutions of his time, Xenophon was in search
of exceptional men whose power could resist the onslaught of time and
ensure the serenity of the ‘best’ – or, it might as well be said, prominent
citizens. This quest for an ideal leader, which was often a melancholic and
sometimes disillusioned one, was one of the guiding threads behind his
writings. In order to respond to the crumbling of the old principles of
authority, Xenophon conceived a complex intellectual construction around
the figure of an ideal and charismatic leader.

From charisma to charis


In his works, Xenophon described many forms of power built on legal,
dynastic, and traditional foundations. When he revealed the things he truly
admired, however, he never highlighted such aspects. When writing the
Lakedaimonion Politeia, he emphasized that laws and institutions were not
what made the Spartan regime so unique but, rather, the Spartan way
of living (ἐπιτηδεύµατα: Lak. Pol. 1.1). For the Greeks and especially
Xenophon, a politeia could not be reduced to an abstract governmental
structure. It also encompassed the attitudes, traditions and customs specific
to a particular regime.67
In any case, Xenophon distrusted institutional rules whenever they were
not guaranteed by the presence of a competent guardian. As he strongly
recalls in the Cyropaedia (8.1.8): ‘whenever the person in charge (ὁ ἐπιστάτης) is
better, the established institutions (τὰ νόµιµα) are purer; but when he is worse,
norms are more corrupt.’68 While this assertion, which Xenophon
continually repeated, is by no means original,69 it is nonetheless symbolic
of his views. Focusing his attention on the ruler simultaneously did away
with the institutions, or at least marginalized their role. The leader became
the repository for a heroic mission, on the condition that he garnered the
support of his subordinates without outside help and without relying on
civic loyalty or the prestige of dynastic continuity.70 According to Weber,71
that was the very definition of charismatic authority, a definition that the

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German sociologist applied (no doubt incorrectly) to the relationships
established between Athenian demagogues and the dēmos.72
Concrete content for this charismatic domination needs to be given.
The notion is all too often reduced to an undefinable form of political
seduction – one that resists a set definition and concerns the ineffable and
the mystical.73 Xenophon’s corpus provides much more concrete content,
or at least that is my hypothesis. In his view, charisma is constructed
through specific procedures and techniques that can be grasped across the
multifaceted concept of charis (‘grace’, ‘favor’) in all its forms.

Charis in all its forms


The semantic field of charis has been delineated by philologists over a
century. They all agree on the fundamental signification of the term,
whereby charis first refers to everything that produces joy and pleasure.74
The noun has subsequently evolved based on this central signification.75 As
early as the Homeric epics, the word had already assumed various meanings
that can roughly be separated into two groups. Firstly, charis designated an
individual’s or an object’s power to seduce. It thus included the ‘celestial
grace’ that Athena bestowed upon Odysseus as well as the ‘radiance’ of a
pair of earrings, or the ‘charm’ of a certain discourse (Od. 6.229–35;
23.156–7; Il. 14.182–3; Od. 8.167). The value of the noun, which was
common to all eras, originated in the idea of ‘grace’ and ‘beauty,’ which
could bring delight and joy.76
Charis could also refer to a gift or a favor.77 In fact, it sometimes assumed
the concrete signification of ‘benefaction’ and applied to the service
granted to someone in order to delight or please. Here, the link to the
original signification – that which produces joy – remains quite clear. Yet,
gift and countergift are etymologically linked in Indo-European languages,
which is why charis quickly came to designate the payment in return, or the
countergift destined to respond to the initial benefit.78 Finally, much later
on (after Homer), the term again evolved, assuming the abstract meaning
of ‘gratefulness’ and ‘gratitude.’79
Charis thus appears to have covered all aspects of relationships of
reciprocity, defining the range of reciprocal social pleasures.80 In fact, if
the term’s various connotations are analyzed, it becomes clear that charis
indicated either the subject’s state (joy or pleasure), the object’s attribute
(radiance, charm, or beauty), an act of generosity (benefit, good deed), or
an attitude resulting from it (gratitude).81
Xenophon’s writings do not put all of these meanings into equal practice.
Nearly all of the occurrences in fact refer to the realm of reciprocity and
the exchange of benefits, at the expense of the register of charm and

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radiance.82 Nonetheless, such a general observation does not suffice. The


plasticity of charis cannot be confined to its capacity to designate the back-
and-forth nature of exchange, and a philological study alone cannot reveal
the large gamut of exchanges that the term can cover. Depending on the
situation, charis corresponded to material or symbolic transactions, capable
of describing at once an exchange (political or sexual), an economic
or philosophical transaction, and a familial or religious tie. A purely
philological approach to this notion also encounters another uncertainty.
Depending on the context, charis assumed either a positive or a negative
meaning and could designate both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ gifts, misdeeds as well
as good deeds. Only a close study of the texts and their contexts can reveal
these normative connotations.
But it would be illusory to remain limited to a strictly philological
approach, which would inevitably lead to a reification of the term by
transforming it into some sort of magical formula. In order to understand
how the notion of charis works in Xenophon’s corpus historically, the
methodological approach must be broadened in three ways.
The first approach remains philological. Charis provides a guiding thread
and a solid mooring for this study because it articulates a whole series of
complex notions that have to be taken into account in order to grasp how
the exchange generally functions. Without professing to be exhaustive, the
verbs eu poiein and euergetein (to do good deeds or, in the passive voice, to
receive good deeds) should be cited, along with their derivatives euergesia
and euergetēs; vocabulary surrounding the gift also comes to mind,
implementing nouns such as dōron and dōrea, verbs such as lambanein,
didonai, and dōreisthai, and closely-related notions such as philanthrōpia, all
occurrences that equally deserve to be considered.83 By thus broadening the
philological field of investigation, I intend to access the social phenomenon
behind the words.
The second opening is more directly historical, since charis not only
carried multiple connotations. In Xenophon’s time, the term was already
similar to a concept that had been distorted by historical evolution, and
the writer was in some ways a recipient of underlying intellectual and
political traditions that, from Homer to Herodotus, informed his thinking.
Being a member of the aristoi, he called upon certain archaic resonances of
the concept, referring to a time when the notion was still intimately
associated with the lifestyle of the social and cultural elite of the Greek
world:84 ‘Grace (χάρις) was the highest virtue of aristocratic style, denoting
the perfection of bodily form and movement, the numinous value
bestowed on agalmata, the radiant circuit of gift exchange, and the pleasures
of festivity.’85 Added to the weight of this heritage was the immediate

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impact that the society of his time had on Xenophon’s work. Through the
reciprocity it implied, charis harmoniously blended into the Athenian
ideological panorama.86 It thus played a central role in tragedy, which often
played on the ambiguities surrounding the notion.87 It also occupied a
privileged place in orators’ arguments88 and honorific decrees,89 two other
types of sources that specifically dealt with democratic practices and
imaginary.
Xenophon’s conceptions can only be understood in the light of this
overall context, since he maintained an ambivalent relationship to the
democratic political culture of his time. While he often virulently criticized
the practices of his native land Athens, he was no less a recipient of the
realm of references that constitute the indispensable framework for
understanding his positions. The ideas Xenophon advocated should also
be related to those held by other Athenian dissenters who were writing
during the same period. By situating the author halfway between those
who would in some ways end up reconciling themselves with democracy
(such as Isocrates and Aristotle) and those who, like Plato, were radically
opposed to it, the originality of his positions can be gauged.90 A historical
reading thus implies shedding more light on and multiplying the number
of external references to which his work is compared. Here more than
anywhere else, an understanding of what made him unique has to be
refracted through an understanding of the general.91
No reading would be satisfying without one final attempt at broadening
the approach. Inasmuch as charis largely refers to the sphere of exchange
in Xenophon’s works, no analysis can dispense with the anthropology of
the gift that was elaborated following Marcel Mauss’s study.92 While the
question of the exchange, as it appeared in Mauss, was forged across distant
areas of investigation (the Maori and some Indian tribes in northwestern
America), it found a relevant sphere of application in Greece. With its
implied reciprocity, charis corresponds perfectly to a system of reciprocal
services and the continuous exchange of gifts and countergifts that were
foundational for the Maussian theory of the exchange. According to Denis
Vidal, charis shaped Mauss’s thinking, perhaps without his awareness of it,
for there is no explicit allusion to it in his corpus.93
In return, the anthropology of the gift makes it possible to clarify how
the charis functions. From Mauss, the fundamental idea of a system of
services, at once free and mandatory, is retained. While it is crucial that the
appearances of freedom in the exchange be respected, transactions are
rigorously obligatory at heart. In this respect, the gift is always a vector of
authority, even if it is not explicitly asserted as such. Mauss’s work also
teaches that the exchange is not restricted to material and substantial gifts.

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Far from exclusively involving ‘property and wealth, movable and


immovable goods, and things economically useful,’ the exchange is above
all expressed by ‘acts of politeness: banquets, rituals, military services,
women, children, dances, festivals, and fairs.’ 94 Once again, this is a way of
uniquely echoing the concept of charis, which can precisely include rather
diverse types of transactions.
Without delving into the debates that Mauss’s work has raised,95
numerous critical rereadings have provided useful clarifications to help
investigate further the functioning of charis and exchange in Greece and,
especially, in Xenophon’s writings. Moving away from the structuralist
vision that turns the theory of the gift into a scientific and mechanical type
of law,96 Claude Lefort has thus stressed the conflictual aspects of the
exchange, whereby all services are to some degree agonistic, marking men’s
and women’s struggle for mutual acknowledgement.97 In opposition to the
concept of ‘pure gift’ developed by British and American anthropologists,
Pierre Bourdieu has emphasized the way in which the exchange, beneath
its altruistic façade, is always the founding act of a moral debt, which is
itself a principle of personal domination. Benefits often seem gratuitous
because ‘the lapse of time between the gift and the countergift makes it
possible to mask the contradiction between the experienced (or desired)
truth of the gift as a generous, gratuitous, unrequited act, and the truth that
emerges from the model, which makes it a stage in a relationship of
exchange that transcends singular acts of exchange.’ 98
These rereadings encourage sensitivity to the social differentiations and
political struggles that are played out in the exchange. They highlight the
fundamental heterogeneity of reciprocity according to the respective places
that the diverse partners occupy within it. Gifts can be hierarchical – for
example, aiming to create or symbolize differences in status – or, on the
contrary, they can be redistributive and egalitarian, destined to reestablish
an equality that has been lost. This perspective encourages the develop-
ment of a typological approach capable of taking these differences into
account. I will speak of ‘balanced reciprocity’ when the gift and the
countergift are relatively equivalent and the partners in the exchange enjoy
a similar status and of ‘unbalanced’ or ‘asymmetrical reciprocity’ when
transactions do not compensate for each other and involve individuals
whose statuses are too different from each other.99
But a study of charis that only adopts a social and political approach to
the exchange is hardly satisfactory. Anglo-Saxon anthropologists have
challenged the very use of the concept of the gift as a univeral key valid for
all times and places. According to them, the very idea of the ‘gift’ must be
historicized. It is not enough to highlight the role of time within the

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exchange; the way in which time and historical processes transform the
actual structure of the gift, which is all too often conceived as atemporal,
must also be understood. All things considered, the ‘gift’, as Mauss theorized
it, seems to be a mythical construction or by-product of Occidentalism.100
Its emergence in the works of anthropologists paradoxically owes much to
the imaginary capitalist order. The ideology of the ‘gift’ has been constructed
as the mirror of the market relations that have blossomed throughout the
Western world with the capitalist revolution of the nineteenth century: ‘the
question arises of whether the postulated gift is anything other than the
inversion of the commodity’; as Nicholas Thomas puts it, ‘the older
anthropological construct of the gift depended more upon an inversion of
the category of the commodity than upon anything which really existed in
indigenous Oceanic societies.’101
While the critique is strong, it in no way challenges the use of the
anthropology of the gift within the context of the Greek world. In fact,
Greece was the place where the first monetarized economy in history
emerged. In this respect, Greek society is distinct from most of the
societies studied by anthropologists. Feeling the threat represented by the
irruption of coinage and the development of market exchange, the elite of
the archaic and early classical periods constructed their own ideology of the
gift in a way that was diametrically opposed to the ideology of commerce.
Greece therefore represents a privileged field of study when it comes to
noticing the overlapping redefinitions of ‘gift’ and ‘market,’ charis and
misthos, without one being able to challenge the relevance of such a
distinction, since Greece was the very birthplace of this opposition.102
Using this philological and anthropological basis, I would like to weave
together strands that, despite being disjointed, are no less complementary,
all within a properly historical perspective. A solid philological foundation
– the notion of charis – should make it possible to ask questions in the very
terms in which the Ancients formulated them: in short, ‘to think Greek
about what is Greek’.103 At the same time, the anthropological perspective
is likely to provoke a decentering and establish a circulation between
modern and ancient concepts in what I hope will be a fruitful exchange.104

The limits of analysis and methodological gains


By making charis the cornerstone of this study, I am deliberately renouncing
the task of exhaustively describing the manifestations of power in
Xenophon’s corpus. Such an undertaking has already been more or less
positively attempted using the handy divisions passed down through the
classical political tradition.105 Furthermore, my study does not shed light on
another important pillar of authority alongside charis: phobos, or fear. Fear

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conceals a singular power over men. It is, as Xenophon himself said, what
‘cast[s] down the soul more than all other passions’ (Cyr. 3.1.25) and ‘makes
men more attentive, more obedient, and more amenable to discipline’.
(Mem. 3.5.5) As a military chief, he himself did not hesitate to resort to
terror when the circumstances demanded it (Anab. 5.8.18 and 20).106 As for
the Spartan political system, a great deal of its effectiveness resided in the
fear that the magistrates inspired in the rest of the Lacedaemonians.107
However, fear was not enough to guarantee lasting authority in the long
term. Clearchus’s misadventures in the Anabasis each demonstrate the
limits of a strict policy based on terror. As soon as the Greek soldiers were
able to, ‘many would desert him [Clearchus]; for he was not gracious
(ἐπίχαρι), but always severe and rough, so that the soldiers had the same
feeling toward him that boys have toward a schoolmaster.’ (Anab. 2.6.12)108
In order to establish his power in a lasting way, the charismatic leader had
to know how to to handle deftly both the carrot and the stick, benefits and
fear, charis and phobos, all according to the model embodied by Cyrus the
Elder and celebrated as soon as the Cyropaedia begins (1.1.5): ‘He ruled over
these nations, even though they did not speak the same language as he,
nor one nation the same as another; for all that, he was able to cover so vast
a region with the fear which he inspired (τῷ ἑαυτοῦ φόβῳ), that he struck all men
with terror and no one tried to withstand him; and he was able to awaken
in all so lively a desire to please (χαρίζεσθαι) him, that they always wished to
be guided by his will.’109
Nonetheless, while fear occupies a certain place in the ideology of power
displayed by Xenophon, its place remains marginal in his corpus. Despite
this first assertion at the beginning of the Cyropaedia, fear tends to disappear
from the narrative (with a few rare exceptions) and gives way to an analysis
of the sovereign’s magnanimity, which radiates from charis.110 The same
observation holds for Cyrus the Younger, Agesilaus, and especially Socrates.
On the condition that it is granted its rightful place in Xenophon’s
corpus (in other words, that of a concept which, while central, hardly sums
up all of Xenophon’s conceptions), charis presents a number of metho-
dological advantages. Through the reciprocity it implies, charis makes it
possible to tackle the question of power in terms of relationship and not
institution. It encourages the identification of authority with a constantly
mobile relational network often not guaranteed by any political or social
institution. Charis covers an immaterial and impalpable form of power
composed of services rendered, acknowledged loyalty, respect, and
dependency. Examining authority based on the concept of charis ultimately
means looking at power ‘at ground level,’ as something that circulates and
not as a fixed object.111

16
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mies, tahdonko ruveta hänen vaimoksensa!

Vähää ennen joulua olin lukenut, että rakastettuni oli nimitetty


sairashuoneen lääkäriksi pieneen, kaukana olevaan seutuun, ja nyt
vei hän vaimonsa kotiinsa.

Tuntui surkealta ja häpeälliseltä seurata hänen elämänsä


tapauksia aivan samalla tavalla, kuin muut saattoivat sen tehdä, ja
kun käteeni rutistin sanomalehden, minä melkein halveksin häntä ja
tuntui hyvältä ja helpottavalta olla katkera ja kova.

En tahtonut häntä muistella; en hetkeäkään ajatella, että hän nyt


palkitsisi tuon alttiin sielun seitsemänvuotista uskollisuutta.

Kuumeen polttaessa suoniani ehdotin, että päivä kulutettaisiin


huvituksissa — iloissa.

Teimme ensin rekiretken; sitten tarjosi pormestari päivällistä


shampanjan kera — ei sovi keski-ikäisen naima-aikeissa olevan
ruotsalaisen tyytyä vähempään — ja sitten joimme kahvia ja
kuuntelimme musiikkia kullatussa kahvilassa ja tulimme kotiin
myöhään hämärissä.

Olisimme päättäneet päivän eräässä teatterissa, mutta täti Agneta


ei jaksanut enää ja uskoi, että me toisetkin voisimme paremmin, jos
joisimme teetä kotona rauhassa.

Tuli oli sammunut vieraskamarin pesässä; punainen hiillos henki


vielä lämpöä ja heikkoa valoa. Huoneessa tuntui hyasintin ja kielon
tuoksua ja kodin lämmin, hauska ilma lehahti meitä vastaan.

Istuuduin korkeaselkäiseen iso-isäntuoliin. Täti Agneta tipsutti


keittiöön ja pormestari käveli edestakaisin lattialla.
»Te olette ollut niin iloinen tänään, neiti», sanoi hän pysähtyen ja
laski kätensä tuolini selustalle. »Minulle on ollut mieluista nähdä teitä
sellaisena. — Ensi aikoina olitte niin kalpea ja hiljainen. Mutta
olittehan ollut sairas?»

»Niin, olin ollut sairas.» vastasin hajamielisesti. Ehkäpä hehkui


palanut roihu toisessakin kodissa illanhämyssä? Ehkä oli ilma
sielläkin hellä ja lämmin? Ei, ei ajatella, ei ajatella!

Pakotin itseni kuuntelemaan pormestaria, joka seisoi puhellen


hiukan pitemmältä ilostaan, nähdessään minut iloisena ja sitten
yksinäisestä kodistaan, ja kuinka hän tulisi meitä kaipaamaan. Ja
kuinka olikaan, kysyi hän minulta enkö voisi päättää tulla
sulostuttamaan tätä yksinäistä kotia.

»Ymmärrän kyllä hyvin, ettette te koskaan voi tuntea minua


kohtaan sitä kuin minä teitä», jatkoi hän lämpimämmällä äänellä, »ja
mielessäni välkähti, että tekisin viisaasti, jos vastaanottaisin hänen
rehellisen kätensä, sillä minä — minä rakastan teitä.»

Tuo sana koski minuun, en saattanut sitä kuulla, ja minä ojensin


käteni estääkseni sen toistamista.

Mutta tämän käsitti kosijani kehoitukseksi, hän kumartui


lähemmäksi minua ja hänen silmiinsä syttyi äkkiä tuli, joka samalla
sammui, mutta joka kertoi minulle, että minua hän pyysi ja tahtoi
omistaa eikä vaimoa noin vain ylimalkaan.

Tätä en ennen tullut ajatelleeksi: taikka olin ajatellut, niinkuin sitä


koneellisesti ja kylmästi ajattelee kaikenlaisia kohtauksia — en ollut
tuntenut sitä. — Mutta samalla kuin tunsin sen, tiesin myöskin, ettei
hän koskaan voisi saada sitä, mitä pyysi.
Huuliani, joita yhden ainoan lemmensuutelot olivat pyhittäneet, ei
saanut toinen koskettaa.

Kauvas häipyivät arkionnen unelmat ja kotoiset hauskuudet hänen


rinnallaan. Minua tympäisi tuo kunnon mies ja hänen lempivä
katseensa. — Mitäpä voisi hän minulle tarjota? Ei hän voinut saada
verenpisaraakaan minussa liikkeelle.

Siirsin tuolini kauvemmaksi ja aloin, hämilläni ja änkyttäen, outoa


työtä, rukkasten antamista.

Ja tein sen niin huonosti, että pormestari katsoi vastaajan syyt


mitättömiksi ja täydensi omaa puhettaan.

Hän kävi kaunopuheiseksi ja innokkaaksi ja puhui itsensä


lämpimäksi, mutta lämpöä minä vähimmin halusin.

Viimein täytyi minun sanoa hänelle, että aivan hiljattain olin


rakastanut, toista niin, kuin minulle oli mahdollista ja etten vielä
voinut kuvitellakaan voivani antaa toiselle hituistakaan siitä
mieltymyksestä, jota vaimon tulisi tuntea miestänsä kohtaan.

Sanan »vielä» pistin lauseeseen kohteliaisuudesta häntä kohtaan,


mutta hän tarttui siihen, kuin olisi se ollut pääasia puheessani.

»Emme puhu siitä nyt sen pitemmältä.» sanoi hän, »minä voin
odottaa. Te olette minulle niin rakas. — Kesän puoleen tulen
uudelleen, teen kysymykseni vielä kerran ja toivon ajan auttavan
minua.»

Luulen, että hän piti aikaa korkeampana oikeuspaikkana, jossa


jutut hitaasti päätettiin. Herra pormestari »kävi kuninkaissa»
kosimisensa kanssa. Kuningas Aika parantavalla voimallaan
varmaan päättäisi asian hänen edukseen.

Seuraavana päivänä matkusti hän hallitsemaan kaupunkiansa ja


koska täti Agneta näytti vähemmän pettyneeltä, kuin mitä luulin,
otaksun minä, että hän oli tehnyt toivehikkaan aikateoriiansa
tädillekin selväksi.

Keskusteluamme emme uusineet. Vähää ennenkuin hän matkusti,


täti
Agnetan hyväntahtoisesti kadottua, sanoi hän vainen:

»Luvatkaa minulle, armas, kalpea lapsi, että toisinaan muistelette


minua, joka tästä päivästä alkaen, siihen asti, kunnes kesä-aurinko
paistaa, joka päivä tahdon ajatella sitä hetkeä, jolloin taasen saan
pyytää onneani.»

Hän suuteli kättäni monta kertaa ja painoi sitä rintaansa vasten


nöyrällä hellyydellä, joka ei mitään pyytänyt, vaan ainoasi antoi. —
Ja siilon houkutteli hänen hellyytensä minua eikä tympäissyt.

Mutta ei, en tahdo antaa pelkurimaisen suojaa, turvaa ja kotia


kaipaavan tunteen houkutella itseäni. Se ei kumminkaan koskaan
voisi korvata sitä, mitä vainen yksi voipi antaa.

*****

Ajatukset liikkuvat vyöryävässä sekasorrossa nyt, kun teen


tilinpäätökseni vuoden viimeisenä päivänä.

Kirkas ja kylmä on talviyö, kalpeita ovat kuvat niistä ihmisistä, joita


olen kohdannut — nyt kun ne kulkevat sisäisen katseeni sivu.
Hänelläkin, jota rakastan, on harso silmillä, mutta lempeni elää.
Vieläkin saatan tuntea autuaan väreilevän tunteen hänen
syleilyssään; vieläkin saatan kuulla sydämellisen sävyn hänen
äänessään. »Rakastaa sinua enemmän kuin kaikkia muita — se ei
olisi paljon!» sanoi hän kerran.

Kun kesäinen onni oli täysinäinen, hallitsin minä ihanaa


nykyisyyttä. Nyt hallitsee ajatukseni ihanaa menneisyyttä, jota ei
mikään maailmassa voi riistää minulta pois. Koskaan ei muistojeni
onni saata kuolla, rakkauteni ei koskaan muuttua tavaksi.

Ja minä olen elänyt, sillä olen tuntenut, tuntenut niin, että sydän on
ollut haljeta ilosta ja surusta.

Maljani on täysi muistojen primuloita, jotka eivät koskaan kuihdu.

Loppu.
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KUUKAUTTA ***

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