The anecdote here recounted by Xenophon is interesting, as it illustrates his sincere faith, as well as that of Sokrates, in the Delphian oracle: though we might have expected that on this occasion, Sokrates would have been favoured with some manifestation of that divine sign, which he represents to have warned him afterwards so frequently and on such trifling matters. Apollo however was perhaps displeased (as Sokrates was) with Xenophon, for not having submitted the question to him with full frankness: since the answer given was proved by subsequent experience to be incomplete.[7] After fifteen months passed, first, in the hard upward march — next, in the still harder retreat — of the Ten Thousand, to the preservation of whom he largely contributed by his energy, presence of mind, resolute initiative, and ready Athenian eloquence, as one of their leaders — Xenophon returned to Athens. It appears that he must have come back not long after the death of Sokrates. But Athens was not at that time a pleasant residence for him. The Sokratic companions shared in the unpopularity of their deceased master, and many of them were absent: moreover Xenophon himself was unpopular as the active partisan of Cyrus. After a certain stay, we know not how long, at Athens, Xenophon appears to have gone back to Asia; and to have resumed his command of the remaining Cyreian soldiers, then serving under the Lacedæmonian generals against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. He served first under Derkyllidas, next under Agesilaus. For the latter he conceived the warmest admiration, and contracted with him an intimate friendship. At the time when Xenophon rejoined the Cyreians in Asia, Athens was not at war with the Lacedæmonians: but after some time, the hostile confederacy of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, against them was organised: and Agesilaus was summoned home by them from Asia, to fight their battles in Greece. Xenophon and his Cyreians were still a portion of the army of Agesilaus, and accompanied him in his march into Bœotia; where they took part in his desperate battle and bloody victory at Koroneia.[8] But he was now lending active aid to the enemies of Athens, and holding conspicuous command in their armies. A sentence of banishment, on the ground of Laconism, was passed against him by the Athenians, on the proposition of Eubulus.[9]
[7] Compare Anabas. vi. 1, 22, and vii. 8, 1-6.
See also Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 33 C, and Plato, Theagês, p. 129; also below, [ vol. ii. ch. xv.]
Sokrates and Xenophon are among the most imposing witnesses cited by Quintus Cicero, in his long pleading to show the reality of divination (Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 25, 52, i. 54, 122). Antipater the Stoic collected a large number of examples, illustrating the miraculous divining power of Sokrates. Several of these examples appear much more trifling than this incident of Xenophon.
[8] Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 6; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 18.
[9] Diog. L. ii. 51-69. ἐπὶ Λακωνισμῷ φυγὴν ὑπ’ Ἀθηναίων κατεγνώσθη.
His residence at Skillus near Olympia.
How long he served with Agesilaus, we are not told. At the end of his service, the Lacedæmonians provided him with a house and land at the Triphylian town of Skillûs near Olympia, which they had seemingly taken from the Eleians and re-colonised. Near this residence he also purchased, under the authority of the God (perhaps Olympian Zeus) a landed estate to be consecrated to the Goddess Artemis: employing therein a portion of the tithe of plunder devoted to Artemis by the Cyreian army, and deposited by him for the time in the care of Megabyzus, priest of Artemis at Ephesus. The estate of the Goddess contained some cultivated ground, but consisted chiefly of pasture; with wild ground, wood and mountain, abounding in game and favourable for hunting. Xenophon became Conservator of this property for Artemis: to whom he dedicated a shrine and a statue, in miniature copy of the great temple at Ephesus. Every year he held a formal hunting-match, to which he invited all the neighbours, with abundant hospitality, at the expense of the Goddess. The Conservator and his successors were bound by formal vow, on pain of her displeasure, to employ one tenth of the whole annual produce in sacrifices to her: and to keep the shrine and statue in good order, out of the remainder.[10]
[10] Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 8-12; Diog. L. ii. 52: Pausanias, v. 6, 3.
φησὶ δ’ ὁ Δείναρχος ὅτι καὶ οἰκίαν καὶ ἄγρον αὐτῷ ἕδοσαν Λακεδαιμόνιοι.