[89] See below, [ch. xxxviii.]
[90] Cyropæd. viii. 7, 9-19: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 694 D.
Xenophon has good experience of military and equestrian proceedings — No experience of finance and commerce.
Whatever we may think of the political ideal of Xenophon, his Cyropædia is among the glories of the Sokratic family; as an excellent specimen of the philosophical imagination, in carrying a general doctrine into illustrative details — and of the epical imagination in respect to varied characters and touching incident. In stringing together instructive conversations, moreover, it displays the same art which we trace in the Memorabilia, Œkonomikus, Hieron, &c., and which is worthy of the attentive companion of Sokrates. Whenever Xenophon talks about military affairs, horsemanship, agriculture, house-management, &c., he is within the range of personal experience of his own; and his recommendations, controlled as they thus are by known realities, are for the most part instructive and valuable. Such is the case not merely with the Cyropædia and Œkonomikus, but also in his two short treatises, De Re Equestri and De Officio Magistri Equitum.
But we cannot say so much when he discusses plans of finance.
Discourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the condition of Athens. His admiration of active commerce and variety of pursuits.
We read among his works a discourse composed after his sentence of exile had been repealed, and when he was very old, seemingly not earlier than 355 B.C.[91] — criticising the actual condition of Athens, and proposing various measures for the improvement of the finances, as well as for relief of the citizens from poverty. He begins this discourse by a sentiment thoroughly Sokratic and Platonic, which would serve almost as a continuation of the Cyropædia. The government of a city will be measured by the character and ability of its leaders.[92] He closes it by another sentiment equally Sokratic and Platonic; advising that before his measures are adopted, special messengers shall be sent to Delphi and Dodona; to ascertain whether the Gods approve them — and if they approve, to which Gods they enjoin that the initiatory sacrifices shall be offered.[93] But almost everything in the discourse, between the first and last sentences, is in a vein not at all Sokratic — in a vein, indeed, positively anti-Platonic and anti-Spartan. We have already seen that wealth, gold and silver, commerce, influx of strangers, &c., are discouraged as much as possible by Plato, and by the theory (though evaded partially in practice) of Sparta. Now it is precisely these objects which Xenophon, in the treatise before us, does his utmost to foster and extend at Athens. Nothing is here said about the vulgarising influence of trade as compared with farming, which we read in the Œkonomikus: nor about the ethical and pædagogic dictation which pervades so much of the Cyropædia, and reigns paramount throughout the Platonic Republic and Leges. Xenophon takes Athens as she stands, with great variety of tastes, active occupation, and condition among the inhabitants: her mild climate and productive territory, especially her veins of silver and her fine marble: her importing and exporting merchants, her central situation, as convenient entrepôt for commodities produced in the most distant lands:[94] her skilful artisans and craftsmen: her monied capitalists: and not these alone, but also the congregation and affluence of fine artists, intellectual men, philosophers, Sophists, poets, rhapsodes, actors, &c.: last, though not least, the temples adorning her akropolis, and the dramatic representations exhibited at her Dionysiac festivals, which afforded the highest captivation to eye as well as ear, and attracted strangers from all quarters as visitors.[95] Xenophon extols these charms of Athens with a warmth which reminds us of the Periklean funeral oration in Thucydides.[96] He no longer speaks like one whose heart and affections are with the Spartan drill: still less does he speak like Plato — to whom (as we see both by the Republic and the Leges) such artistic and poetical exhibitions were abominations calling for censorial repression — and in whose eyes gold, silver, commerce, abundant influx of strangers, &c., were dangerous enemies of all civic virtue.
[91] Xenophon, Πόροι — ἣ περὶ Προσόδων. De Vectigalibus. See Schneider’s Proleg. to this treatise, pp. 138-140.
[92] De Vectig. i. 1. ἐγὼ μὲν τοῦτο ἀεί ποτε νομίζο, ὁποῖοί τινες ἂν οἱ προστάται ὦσι, τοιαύτας καὶ τὰς πολιτείας γίγνεσθαι.
[93] De Vect. vi. 2. Compare this with Anabas. iii. 1, 5, where Sokrates reproves Xenophon for his evasive manner of putting a question to the Delphian God. Xenophon here adopts the plenary manner enjoined by Sokrates.