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96109_Xenophon_Prelims:Layout 1 30/8/18 11:58 Page i
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
Distributor
I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd,
6 Salem Rd,
London W2 4BU, UK
Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7243 1225
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7243 1226
www.ibtauris.com
© 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
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Contents
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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
CONCLUSION 269
Power and Time: The Charismatic Paradox 271
The Miscontemporary 277
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Contents
NOTES 281
BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
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).
ix
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Foreword
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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
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Introduction
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
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Introduction
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
5
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Introduction
‘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
6
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Introduction
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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Introduction
Xenophon was unanimously esteemed for his diverse qualities, which were
at once literary, political, and philosophical.
8
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Introduction
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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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.
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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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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
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Introduction
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!
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uudelleen, teen kysymykseni vielä kerran ja toivon ajan auttavan
minua.»
*****
Ja minä olen elänyt, sillä olen tuntenut, tuntenut niin, että sydän on
ollut haljeta ilosta ja surusta.
Loppu.
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