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III. The Greek Household and Personal Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2024

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Extract

Xenophon's thought on life and relationships within the household yields compelling insights into domestic life in ancient Greek cities, and attitudes towards the personal relationships which connected citizens to each other. The household also provides a location in which values and knowledge are transmitted between husband, wife, and subordinate workers (Oeconomicus), and in which discussions between friends and citizens can take place (Symposium). The presence of Socrates signals the normative and prescriptive element of these works. The good order of the household, and the behaviour of husband and wife within it, can be paralleled in Xenophon's taxonomy of social organization with the order of society at the level of city, army, and empire. The placing of the domestic within this normative structure means that one should be cautious in interpreting his work as straightforwardly descriptive of Athenian domestic life.

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Chapter
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 48: Xenophon , 2018 , pp. 26 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2024

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References

1 Compare the topics and organization of Aristotle's Politics Book 1; see Schmitt Pantel 1992: 78–9; Natali 1995.

2 Pomeroy 1994: 41–6.

3 L. Strauss 1972, with further argument by Danzig 2003b.

4 Trans. Hammond in Hammond and Atack 2023.

5 Brock 2004: 247–9; Atack 2020a: 152–62.

6 Higgins 1977: 28–9; Pontier 2006: 238.

7 Rosenmeyer 2001: 221–4.

8 See Aeschines SSR VIA 70 = Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.51–3; Johnson 2021: 254–5.

9 Erbse 1961; Gray 1998: 130–2.

10 Pangle 2018: 80.

11 B. Strauss 1993: 19.

12 [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 45.3, 55.2–4; Lysias’ dokimasia speeches (Lys. 16, 25, 26, 31) give a flavour of the kinds of argument used.

13 Pangle 2018: 84.

14 Trans. Hammond in Hammond and Atack 2023.

15 For example, a funerary stele showing a seated woman as her (slave) attendant takes the baby away, British Museum 1894,0616.1.

16 Sophocles uses the image for both political and social domination; see Griffith 2000 ad 477–8. Xenophon also uses the analogy to describe the uneducated (Mem. 4.1.3).

17 Cf. Pl. Meno 71e, possibly drawing on Gorgias.

18 Critobulus’ need for education drives the discussion in Plato's Euthydemus; he is also present in Xen. Symp., and mentioned in Pl. Ap. and Phd. See Nails 2002: 116–19.

19 Cox 2010; Glazebrook and Olson 2013.

20 Pomeroy 1994: 268–9.

21 This unusual status also attracted ridicule from comic poets (Ar. Ach. 526–9; see Henry 1995: 19–28; Kennedy 2014: 74–8).

22 Cf. Pl. Menex. 235e–236b.

23 Ar. Lys. 574–86; McClure 2015.

24 On the nomos/physis opposition, see Lloyd 1966: 124–5; on its use in the discussion of justice, see Bonazzi 2020: 65–95.

25 Hom. Il. 2.87–93; Semonides fr. 7.84–94; see Osborne 2001 on Semonides’ sympotic context. Xenophon uses the queen bee image again (Cyr. 5.1.24), in a masculine, Persian context (Brock 2004: 254).

26 Care: ἐπιμελεῖται 7.34; ἐπιμελητέον 36; ἐπιμελημάτων, ἐπιμελητέον 37; ἐπιμελοῖο 39; ἐπιμέλειαι 41. Knowledge: προνοητέον 36, ἐπιστήμονα 41.

27 Cf. the nomophulakes of Plato's Magnesia, introduced at Pl. Leg. 6.752d.

28 Pomeroy 1994 does not make this link, but David Johnson (2021: 226) compares the Symposium with Wasps.

29 This Chrysilla, after the death of her husband, moved in with her daughter and became the mistress of her son-in-law Callias, the same Callias who is the host of Xenophon's Symposium. See Davies 1971: 265–8 and Nails 2002: 94–95; with further analysis from Hobden 2017: 168–73 and Johnson 2021: 269–73.

30 Murnaghan 1988: 9; Baragwanath forthcoming.

31 Socrates’ reference to the painter Zeuxis links this discussion to the appearance of his rival Parrhasius in Mem. 3.10.1–5.

32 Xenophon's insistence that character can be apprehended by sight (Mem. 3.10) contrasts with the Platonic deprecation of direct perception of the material world in favour of intellection of the Forms (Rep. 5–6, especially 5.476b; lovers of sights and sounds).

33 See Chapter 6 for Xenophon's thought on the self-presentation of monarchs.

34 See Goldhill 1998; Atack 2024.

35 Compare the depiction of the physically active Spartan woman Lampito at Ar. Lys. 78–84.

36 Cartledge 1981.

37 Humble 2022: 97.

38 Baragwanath 2012.

39 See Atack forthcoming. On Aristotle's thought on enslavement, see Schofield 1990.

40 See Chapter 4.

41 Note the use of the use of the same word (despotēs) for the head of household and tyrannical ruler. See Arist. Eth. Nic. 8.10.1160b27–30.

42 On friendship in the classical polis, see Konstan 1997: 53–92.

43 On Aristotle's models of friendship, see J. Cooper 1977; Price 1997; Schofield 1998.

44 Ar. Nub. 144–7, 156; Pl. Ap. 20e–21a; Moore 2013: 286–7.

45 Azoulay 2018b.

46 Most fully explored in Arist. Eth. Nic. 5.5; see Harvey 1965.

47 Compare Aeschines, Against Timarchus; see Fisher 1992; Lear 2015; Atack 2021.

48 Tamiolaki 2018; Berkel 2020: 263–329.

49 Plato (Phdr., Symp.) is not entirely consistent on this point.

50 Hobden 2005; Tamiolaki 2018.

51 Huss 1999b; Johnson 2021: 187–230; Baragwanath and Verity 2022; Gilhuly 2024.

52 Huss 1999a.

53 Danzig 2005, Pl. Smp. 176e, 178e (Phaedrus' speech).

54 For an exhaustive survey, see Bourriot 1995.

55 See Pl. Meno 70a–73d; Lach. 190bd; Prt. 323c–328a.

56 Carter 1986.

57 See L. Strauss 1970; Pangle 2020: 77–84.

58 Johnson 2021: 259–60.

59 Johnson 2021: 234.

60 On Plato, Xenophon, and business, see Ober 2022: 295–344.

61 Christ 2020: 97–101.

62 Loraux 1982; Johnstone 1994.

63 Azoulay 2018a: 73–6.

64 See Phillips and Willcock 1999.

65 Compare Pl. Leg. 8.822d–824a.