After finishing Herodotus, I was hungry for more ancient history. Herodotus had thoroughly entertained me for large swathes, and so I felt eager for more.
Given my hunger, and a pre-existing irritation that The Peloponnesian War was incomplete, leaving the closing chapters of the war untold, it seemed that Xenophon’s Hellenica was the best bet for me to read next. I was also heartened by the existence of a Landmark edition, with a new translation by John Marincola.
It turns out that the Landmark edition has a huge, and extremely helpful introduction. Hellenica is a complicated work. The history it recounts is flawed in many ways; Xenophon tells a history which pre-assumes reader knowledge of many major events… without actually recounting said events himself. He also appears to exhibit a variety of biases (pro-Spartan, anti-Theban) which affect the way he tells his history.
The History
Hellenica starts very nearly at the end of Thucydides, as to provide a continuation of the Peloponnesian War. Maybe it was my time away from Thucydides, but I found Xenophon’s continuation to be dry and laconic. It mostly felt… obligatory. The best parts of Xenophon only start after the end of the Peloponnesian war. His recounting of the Thirty Tyrants , a bloody oligarchy installed in Athens at the end of the war with the support of Sparta, was a fascinating account of a horrid time, and extremely helpful.
There are sections of Xenophon that shine, where his writing totally comes alive. I was particularly impressed with his description of Jason of Pherai via his tale of Polygamous of Pharasulus which opens Book Six. By the end of his discussion of Jason, I half expected a movie starring Jason Momoa to be in production.
Xenophon covers some interesting parts of ancient history: the Battle of Leuctra, where the Spartans faced a huge defeat (the trophy erected there was eventually replaced by a permanent monument, which stands today), and the rise of Thebes.
Greek histories are fascinating at least partially because of the way in which they show how many Greek ideas form the headwaters of an intellectual tradition we live in today. I continue to be fascinated by the way in which many of our ideas of government harken back to Athens (often intentionally!). I enjoyed the places where you could see the construction (deconstruction and reconstruction) of the Athenian state, and the pieces reflected in modernity. Occasionally I lose touch that these are the tales of real people who really lived and died. Seeing photos of archeological sites and contemporaneous artifacts reminds me. This has reinforced a desire to visit Greece one day to see some of these sites myself.
Thoughts
Despite some strong sections, I struggled with Hellenica quite a bit compared to Herodotus, and even Thucydides. Despite Herodotus’ discursive style, both he and Thucydides were much more focused in their writing. Each book can be given a single sentence thesis statement: Herodotus recounts (along with everything he knows about the world) the Greek victory over an enormous invading Persian force. Thucydides recounts (most) of the Peloponnesian war, a 27 year long war between Athens and Sparta.
I cannot make a similar thesis statement for Xenophon’s Hellenica. He starts by recounting the end of the Peloponnesian war, starting off where Thucydides ends, but then simply seems to tell of most battles involving Sparta for the next 40 years or so. You could perhaps say he’s telling history as it was important to him and his family; the history ends shortly after the fall of his son Gryllus who died at the Battle of Mantinea). Yet the scope of the work is far too broad to be just a memoir. However, where both Thucydides and Herodotus had (different, but) clear methods to their histories, Xenophon rarely hints at any methodology. Mostly you have no idea where any of his information is coming from, which poses a particular challenge when other sources have contradicted him.
The Landmark edition of Xenophon leans into this challenge by providing selected translations of Diodorus Siculus and The Oxyrhynchus historian (a.k.a P). I didn’t read all these parallel histories; it became exhausting after a while, but I am glad that they were included. (I am also very happy to have learned the story of Oxyrhynchus Papyri via the inclusion of P’s work. )
Unlike Herodotus, I leave Xenophon with no energy to seek out more ancient history at the moment. I need a break. I don’t think reading Xenophon was a waste of time, but it wasn’t as enlightening or interesting as the previous two histories I’ve read. At the end of Hellenica, we are left just about where Philip II of Macedon begins to take over Greece; his son would be Alexander the Great. Interestingly, despite this incipient change, Xenophon barely mentions the Macedonians in his history. If I wanted to continue a chronological exploration of the Ancient Greek world I’d seek a history of the rise of Macedon next.
Random Notes
- “Alketas the Spartan was keeping guard over Oreos…” is a sentence… apparently Oreos was a place!
- The Landmark Edition calls the work Hellenika, whereas many others render it as Hellenica. I am not sure what the deal is there.