Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-9dm9z Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-03T10:37:34.538Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reading Xenophon's Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2016

Fiona Hobden
Fiona Hobden*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Get access

Extract

In just over a decade, interest in Xenophon's Symposium has risen dramatically. No longer the poor relation to its author's more popular Socratic works or to Plato's dialogue of the same name, it now merits scholarly attention on a regular basis. However, despite an increased sensitivity to the author's literary and philosophical strategies, modern readings of the text are informed above all by the presence of Socrates. Because the philosopher is assumed to be Xenophon's primary interest, the Symposium is viewed as an apology for the radical philosopher or a promotion of his ideas and methods. This perception derives in part from an old-fashioned dismissal of Xenophon as a poor man's Plato, intellectually incapable of anything more than biography. But it also relates to the work's longstanding association with Xenophon's other Socratic works, namely the Apology, Memorabilia, and Oeconomicus. Since scholarship on Xenophon began, the four texts have been treated as a unit, bound in purpose by their depiction of Socrates. However, although the philosopher certainly features prominently in these four texts, each work is structurally distinct. In the Apology, the narrator invites Hermogenes to replay his final conversation with Socrates and to describe the philosopher's performance in court, in order to correct inadequate understandings of Socrates' choice of death over life. By contrast, the Memorabilia depicts Socrates in extended disputation with many interlocutors on a wide variety of subjects as he seeks to lead them towards virtue and, in the narrator's opinion, demonstrates himself to be kalos kagathos (literally ‘beautiful and good’). Then again, the Oeconomicus records two exchanges, one between Socrates and Critoboulus and another between Socrates and Ischomachus, and juxtaposes their arguments one against the other. And finally, the Symposium locates Socrates within a lively symposion (drinking party) at the house of Callias, son of Hipponicus, in Athens during 422 BCE. Here, the philosopher often directs the conversation. However, his drinking companions also participate freely in the performances and conversations that take place. In short, Xenophon's four Socratic texts all have their own dramatic contexts and conceits, with different structures and ambitions, and different roles for Socrates. Yet even amongst them, the Symposium's dramatic staging of a vibrant and varied symposion particularly stands out.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , 2005 , pp. 93 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

I am grateful to Mike Edwards for an invitation to work at the Institute of Classical Studies, London as a Visiting Fellow in spring 2006, during which time this paper was completed. Thanks are also due to John Davies, Tom Harrison, Jon Hesk, and the journal’s reviewers, all of whom offered comments on earlier drafts, and to Tim Rood who kindly sent me an advanced copy of a forthcoming article (n.28 below).

1. The following books, articles, commentaries and translations devoted to Xenophon’s Symposium have appeared since 1992: Gray, V.J., ‘Xenophon’s Symposion: The Display of Wisdom’, Hermes 120 (1992), 58–75Google Scholar; Bartlett, R., ‘On the Symposium ’, in Xenophon: The Shorter Socratic Writings: Apology of Socrates to the Jury, Oeconomicus and Symposium (Ithaca and London 1996), 173–96Google Scholar; Bowen, A., Xenophon: Symposium (Warminster 1998 Google Scholar); Huss, B., Xenophons Symposion: Ein Kommentar (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1999 CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and ‘The Dancing Socrates and the Laughing Xenophon, or the Other Symposium ’, AJP 120 (1999), 381–409Google Scholar; Garelli-François, M.-H., ‘Le spectacle final du Banquet de Xénophon: le genre et le sens’, Pallas 59 (2002), 177–86Google Scholar; Gilula, D., ‘Entertainment at Xenophon’s Symposium ’, Athenaeum 90 (2002), 207–213Google Scholar; Andrisano, A., ‘Les performances du Symposion de Xénophon’, Pallas 61 (2003), 287–302Google Scholar; Danzig, G., ‘Apologetic Elements in Xenophon’s Symposium ’, C&M 55 (2004), 7–47Google Scholar; Hobden, F., ‘How to be a Good Symposiast and Other Lessons from Xenophon’s Symposium ’, PCPS 50 (2004), 121–40Google Scholar; Wohl, V., ‘Dirty Dancing: Xenophon’s Symposium ’, in P. Murray and P. Wilson (eds.), Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (Oxford 2004), 337–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. And not necessarily good biography at that: one condescending remark by Grant, A., Xenophon (Edinburgh and London 1922), 88 Google Scholar, typifies scholarly opinion of the time: ‘Those who know Plato can “read between the lines” of Xenophon, and see that much which the latter represents as bluntly said was in all probability accompanied by delicate intellectual turns, which the quick and impatient soldier’s mind of Xenophon did not appreciate or think worth reproducing in detail.’ However, recent work on Xenophon has led to a convincing reappraisal of his literary and intellectual talents: see Tuplin, C.J. (ed.), Xenophon and His World (Stuttgart 2004), 13–15 and 29Google Scholar, for a summary of developments. The twenty-five articles in this volume attest to the diversity of this renewed appreciation, as well as its sophistication.

3. Research into the manuscript tradition of the Symposium by Cirigano, J., ‘The Manuscripts of Xenophon’s Symposium ’, GRBS 34 (1993), 187–210Google Scholar, shows that the four texts were rarely transmitted side-by-side or even together in one folio. Despite this, they have been published together in single volumes: for example, Marchant, E.C., Xenophontis Commentarii, Oeconomicus, Convivium, Apologia Socratis (Oxford 1901 Google Scholar), and Marchant, E.C. and Todd, O.J., Xenophon. Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium and Apology (Cambridge MA 1923 Google Scholar). In accordance with this, they have been treated as a coherent group of biographical works on Socrates from the earliest scholarship: see Dorion, L.A. and Bandini, L., Xénophon Mémorables, Tome 1: Introduction Generate (Paris 2000 Google Scholar). For example, Delebecque, E., Essai sur la vie de Xénophon (Paris 1957), 345 Google Scholar, attributes the Socratic writings to their author’s desire to offer homage to the memory of Socrates. This notion has been supported most recently by R. Waterfield, ‘Xenophon’s Socratic Project’, in Tuplin (n.2 above), 79–113.

4. See Gray, V., ‘Xenophon’s Defence of Socrates: The Rhetorical Background to the Socratic Problem’, CQ 39 (1989), 136–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vander Waerdt, P.A., ‘Socratic Justice and Self-Sufficiency: The Story of the Delphic Oracle in Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates ’, OSAP 11 (1993), 1–48Google Scholar; T. Pangle, ‘On the Apology of Socrates to the Jury’, in Bartlett (n.1 above), 18–38.

5. Gray, V., The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Interpretation of Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Stuttgart 1998 Google Scholar); Dorion and Bandini (n.3 above).

6. The ‘nesting’ of conversation in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus is discussed briefly by Pomeroy, S.B., Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary (Oxford 1994), 17f Google Scholar. See Stevens, J.A., ‘Friendship and Profit in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus ’, in P.A. Vander Waerdt (ed.), The Socratic Movement (Ithaca and London 1994), 209–37Google Scholar, on its implications for Xenophon’s philosophical intent.

7. On the relationship between the two Symposia and the controversy surrounding their respective dating, see Danzig, G., ‘Intra-Socratic Polemics: The Symposia of Plato and Xenophon’, GRBS 45 (2005), 331–57Google Scholar.

8. The articles collected in the following volumes provide a useful introduction to this evidence, and to the symposion: Murray, O. (ed.), Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion (Oxford 1990 Google Scholar); Slater, W.J. (ed.), Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor 1991 CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Murray, O. and Tecusan, M. (eds.), In Vino Veritas (London 1995 Google Scholar); Pallas 61 (2003 Google ScholarPubMed). The diversity of experience has been highlighted in particular by more recent studies which address the place of the symposion in the democratic Athenian city: for example, Fisher, N.R.E., ‘Symposiasts, Fish-eaters and Flatterers: Social Mobility and Moral Concerns’, in D. Harvey and J. Wilkins (eds.), The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy (London 2000), 355–396Google Scholar; Steiner, A., ‘Private and Public: Links between Symposion and Syssition in Fifth-century Athens’, ClAnt 21 (2002), 347–80Google Scholar.

9. See Hobden (n.1 above), 127–30.

10. For this group of poems, see Bowie, E., ‘Greek Table-talk before Plato’, Rhetorica 9 (1993), 360 Google Scholar.

11. See, for example, the advisory poetry assigned to Theognis, where (i) the poet’s authority is invested in first-person utterances: 27–30, 39–52, 219f, 235f, 331f. W; and (ii) instructional imperatives and exhortations are issued: 31–38, 53–68, 69–72, 75f., 101–12, 129f., 145–48, 159f., 173–78, 179f., 219f., 323–28, 331f., 333f., 335f., 355–60, 371f., 1133f., 1179f. W. Moreover, Theognis’ poetry constructs an authoritative voice for its singer by highlighting his education at the hands of good men (27f. W), configuring him as a father giving good advice to his son (1049f. W) and anticipating his recognition as the source of the best advice (37f. W). The authoritative persona of Alcaeus is addressed by Rösler, W., Dichter und Gruppe: Eine Untersuchung zu den Bedingungen und zur historischen Funktion früher griechische Lyrik am Beispiel Alkaios (Munich 1980 Google Scholar). And on the poetics of parainesis in Solon and the symposion, see Irwin, L., Solon and Early Greek Poetry (Cambridge 2005 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

12. Collins, D., Master of the Game: Competition and Performance in Greek Poetry (Cambridge MA 2004), 84–134Google Scholar.

13. This fragment is discussed by Collins (n.12 above), 137.

14. The assertion by Gray (n.1 above, 62f.) that Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages derived from an earlier tradition featuring Simonides and other Wise Men is given credence by investigations into Near Eastern and Indian traditions by Martin, R.P., ‘The Seven Sages as Performers of Wisdom’, in C. Dougherty and L. Kurke (eds.), Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, Performance, Politics (Cambridge 1993), 108–28Google Scholar. However, her principal contention that Xenophon responds directly to this tradition in the Symposium by representing Socrates as a Wise Man for a new generation is weakened by the dynamics of performance identified here.

15. Epideixis is so defined by Thomas, R., ‘Prose Performance Texts: Epideixis and Written Publication in the Late Fifth and Early Fourth Centuries’, in H. Yunis (ed.), Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 2003), 162–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 174.

16. Collins (n.12 above), 162.

17. Antisthenes’ mode of questioning described as elenchos: 4.2–4; cf. 6.5. Investigations into the origins of elenctic inquisition by Lesher, J.H., ‘Parmenidean Elenchos ’, in G.A. Scott (ed.), Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato’s Dialogues and Beyond (University Park PA 2002), 19–35Google Scholar, emphasise that elenchos is not just a matter of refutation, even according to Plato’s Socratic model, but also includes testing and examination.

18. In their analyses of this episode, this implication is recognised by Gray (n.1 above), 73, but missed by Danzig (n.1 above), 31f.. The former, however, ignores Socrates’ supporting role in her assessment of Callias’ contribution, while the latter takes it at face value, positing instead a tension between the two attendant philosophers.

19. Horn. Il. 23.335–37, responding to Antisfhenes’ quotation of 3.179; Il. 11.630.

20. Ford, A., The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece (Princeton 2002), 204 Google Scholar.

21. ‘Add relish’: Ford (n.20 above), 206.

22. For a recent perspective on the rhetorics and norms surrounding male homosexuality in classical Athens, see Davidson, J., Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Ancient Athens (London 1997 Google Scholar), and Fisher, N.R.E., Aeschines: Against Timarchos (Oxford 2001), 25–53Google Scholar.

23. The translation of as ‘futile’ by Bowen (n.1 above), 40, befits the beneficial pretensions of the present discussion; on the adjective’s broader connotations in Xenophon’s writing, see Huss (n.1 above Kommentar), 192.

24. These two episodes are discussed in detail by Hobden (n.1 above), 130–34; cf. Wohl (n.1 above).

25. Both processes were accepted ways of engaging with the written word. See Johnson, W.A., ‘Towards a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity’, AJP 121 (2000), 593–627Google Scholar, at 593–600. This is conveyed by the verb , which can mean ‘to read’ or ‘to listen’: Schenkeveld, D.M., ‘Prose Uses of AKOUEIN “To Read”’, CQ 42 (1992), 129–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In Isoc. 12.246, quoted in section 3 of this paper, the speaker either blurs or conflates both processes in his analysis of Isocrates’ encomium by using this verb. In a spontaneous oration about a work which he has read, following the recitation of a speech written in its defence, he talks firstly of possible techniques for readers of the text (), and later of the benefit and pleasure it brings to its ‘reader/listeners’ ().

26. Both options are plausible in a Symposium whose performances critique the virtue of and challenge Socrates’ recommendations for the party: Hobden (n.1 above). Note that the potential disruption of Socrates’ wisdom by those with whom he converses also occurs in the Platonic corpus. Beversluis, J., Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato’s Early Dialogues (Cambridge 2000 Google Scholar) reveals that even in Plato’s Socratic dialogues the contributions of the interlocutors are as integral to the texts’ philosophical processes as Socrates, and that their performances can undermine the philosopher’s technique and theories too.

27. See n.6 above.

28. Rood, T., ‘Advice and Advisers in Xenophon’s Anabasis ’, in D. Spencer and E. Theodorakopoulos (eds.), Advice and Advisers in the Ancient World (Bari 2006, forthcomingGoogle Scholar). The text’s flexibility is demonstrated by developments in its interpretation from a didactic model for kingship to a deliberative critique of (variously) pedagogy, leadership and political form: see Due, B., The Cyropaedia: Xenophon’s Aims and Methods (Aarhus 1989 Google Scholar); Tatum, J., Xenophon’s Imperial Fiction: On the Education of Cyrus (Princeton 1989 CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Gera, D.L., Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: Style, Genre and Literary Technique (Oxford 1993 Google Scholar); Too, Y.L., ‘Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: Disfiguring the Pedagogical State’, in N. Livingstone and Y.L. Too (eds.), Pedagogy and Power: Rhetorics of Classical Learning (Cambridge 1998), 282–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nadon, C., Xenophon’s Prince: Republic and Empire in the Cyropaedia (Berkeley 2001 Google Scholar).

29. Rood (n.28 above).

30. Tuplin, C.J., The Failings of Empire: A Reading of Hellenica 2.3.11–7.5.27 (Stuttgart 1993), 20 and 164fGoogle Scholar.

31. Rood (n.28 above). See also the role of speech-making in stimulating political analysis of how the army works as a community in Xenophon’s Anabasis, addressed in detail by Rood, T., ‘Panhellenism and Self-Presentation: Xenophon’s Speeches’, in R. Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven and London 2004), 305–29Google Scholar.

32. C.J. Tuplin, ‘The Persian Empire’, in Lane Fox (n.31 above), 154–83, at 182.

33. Glazebrook, A., ‘Reading Women: Book Rolls on Attic Vases’, Mouseion iii ser. 5 (2005), 1–46Google Scholar, at 27–32, provides a useful summary of the evidence deployed in scholarly debates to date.

34. Ford (n.20 above), 229–47.

35. See, for example, Loraux, N., The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City, tr. A. Sheridan (Cambridge MA 1986), 179 Google Scholar, where Phaedrus’ assertion that speakers refuse to write their speeches down for fear of being labelled a sophist (Pl. Phdr. 257d) is used as evidence for widespread democratic distrust of writing and to help explain the democracy’s rejection of writing as an ‘instrument of theoretical reflection’.

36. On Plato’s textual strategies in the Phaedrus, see H. Yunis, ‘Writing for Reading: Thucydides, Plato, and the Emergence of the Critical Reader’, in Yunis (n.15 above), 189–212, at 204–12. See Goldhill, S., The Invention of Prose (Oxford 2002), 80–98Google Scholar, for Plato’s broader attempts to engage his reader in philosophy through his written dialogues.

37. Ford (n.20 above), 246.

38. Translation by Too, Y.L., The Rhetoric of Identity in Isocrates (Cambridge 1995), 126 Google Scholar.

39. On the Panathenaicus’ ‘dramatised criticism’, see von Reden, S. and Goldhill, S., ‘Plato and the Performance of Dialogue’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds.), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge 1999), 257–89Google Scholar, at 277–84.

40. Too (n.38 above), 72.

41. Xen. Mem. 4.2.10–19.