This chapter argues that notwithstanding the Symposium’s debt to its more famous Platonic predecessor, Xenophon exploits the symposiastic setting to serve his own purposes and interests, as Socrates, assisted by Antisthenes, seeks to educate Callias, a super-rich Athenian, concerning proper elite values and behavior in the democracy. Callias’ naive assumptions concerning his wealth and its capacities are challenged and laid bare, and ultimately Socrates instructs him on how he can live up to the high expectations of a man of wealth and high birth by seeking political knowledge, pursuing leadership positions within the city, and fostering the same ambitions in the boy Autolycus, whom he loves, within the context of a mutually supportive friendship (philia). As such, the Symposium constitutes a case study in the education of a conspicuous member of the Athenian elite concerning the political role to which he should aspire within the city. Although Xenophon portrays Callias as a challenging student to educate, he shows his Socrates doing his best to recruit a prominent elite Athenian to serve the democratic city.

Xenophon’s interest in the political role of the elite is especially conspicuous in the Memorabilia, where he portrays Socrates interacting critically with members of the Athenian elite and seeking to motivate and guide them to become worthy of the leadership roles that fall to them under the democracy. Although Xenophon frames the Memorabilia as a defense of Socrates from the charges that led to his execution in 399 BC, within this framework he considers in detail how elite Athenians can thoroughly prepare for and effectively carry out essential civic roles, especially that of orator and of military commander. Xenophon’s Socrates, in his conversations with elite Athenians, exposes how absurd it is for them to believe that they deserve to lead the city merely on the basis of their wealth or lineage and urges them to seek out through education the values, knowledge, and skills that they need to lead well. In so doing, he challenges his elite interlocutors to alter their understanding of what it means to be a gentleman (kalos kagathos) and to reconcile this with being good citizens who contribute to the success of the democratic city, especially by providing good leadership.

Xenophon’s interest in the role of elite Athenians in the democratic city is evident not only in his manifestly Athenian works where this is an explicit concern but also elsewhere in his corpus, most notably in his Anabasis, the focus of this chapter. Although this work tells the story of how a band of Greek mercenaries marched with Cyrus into the heart of the Persian Empire in 401 BC, Xenophon’s account is profoundly affected by his Athenian experience and interest in elite political behavior within the Athenian democracy. The Anabasis broadly evokes the political situation in Athens and the complex interactions of mass and elite as Xenophon depicts the importance of and challenges for elite leadership in the quasi-democratic setting of the Cyrean army. In setting forth how a versatile elite Athenian – Xenophon himself – succeeds as a leader of the Cyreans, it confirms in action the principles that Xenophon lays down elsewhere for effective elite leadership within the Athenian democracy. It portrays Xenophon not just as a talented general but as a capable democratic orator who wins over the Cyrean masses in deliberative and forensic contexts that recall their Athenian analogs.

If Xenophon employs Socrates’ conversations with elite Athenians as a vehicle for communicating with his reading audience concerning their responsibilities within the democracy, he adopts a more direct approach to this in his Hipparchicus and his Poroi, where he addresses his readers in his own voice as an expert who can help them succeed in specific leadership roles. Xenophon’s advice in Hipparchicus concerns how a cavalry commander can best carry out this important elected office. His ideal cavalry commander is an astute political actor who carefully and self-consciously manages his relations with individuals, the Council, and the public at large; and while he seeks to carry out his duties in keeping with existing democratic institutions and rules, he also works to modify these when this will benefit the city. The chapter then turns to the Poroi, written soon after Athens’ disastrous Social War (357–355 BC) in which Xenophon outlines an ambitious program of financial reform for the city and in so doing models for his elite reader how a public speaker could go about persuading the Athenian Assembly to embrace changes to improve the situation of Athenians at home and abroad.

This chapter examines Xenophon’s portrayal of the Athenian elite in the opening books of the Hellenica. His presentation of the Arginusae episode (406 BC), in which the Athenian dēmos executed six of its generals without trial, focuses not so much on the behavior of the dēmos as on the essential role of elite Athenians in advising the dēmos. Despite his attraction to oligarchy as an alternative to democracy, Xenophon presents a dark picture of the regime of the Thirty and its rapid descent into violence and lawlessness and hails the restoration of the democracy as a return to normalcy and harmony. This episode is key to understanding Xenophon’s political perspective: the manifest failure of the city’s elite to offer a reasonable alternative to democracy means that for Xenophon the central political question for elite Athenians of his time is not how to overthrow the city’s democratic constitution but how to provide the democracy with the leadership it needs to succeed. Xenophon’s portrayal of several elite Athenian leaders in the opening books of the Hellenica provides some important indications of what Xenophon regards as capable and responsible elite leadership.

This book seeks to understand Xenophon as an elite Athenian writing largely for an elite Athenian audience in the first half of the fourth century BC. Xenophon was an exceptional member of the Athenian elite in many respects: as a Socratic, mercenary general, and longtime exile from his city. Nonetheless, his diverse and extensive corpus deeply reflects his elite Athenian identity and addresses matters of great importance to his Athenian readers. Central among these is the question of the proper political role of members of the elite within the Athenian democracy especially in the aftermath of the brutal oligarchy of 404/3 that many members of the city’s elite had supported. Close consideration of Xenophon’s treatment of this can help us to understand better not only his personal perspective but also the challenges, both practical and ideological, faced by his contemporary elite Athenian audience.

Xenophon’s Oeconomicus examines how elite Athenians should manage their individual households and estates (oikoi) and makes the case that they should set aside aristocratic disdain for work and money-making and seek to become successful estate managers and entrepreneurs. This will benefit them personally in many ways and make them better citizens of the democracy, who will more effectively serve the city as hoplites and cavalrymen and perform other civic roles: the wealth they accrue will allow them to carry out liturgies for the city, and the managerial skills they develop will make them better leaders. Indeed, Xenophon portrays the oikos as a microcosm of the city in which members of the elite can hone the skills that they will need to lead the city effectively. Socrates figures prominently in the Oeconomicus, as in the Memorabilia, as a critic of destructive elite values and behaviors and a proponent of reconceptualizing what it means to be a “gentleman” in light of the good citizenship needed from the elite; his account of his conversation with Ischomachus offers elite Athenians a model for transforming themselves into “gentlemen” in the true sense of the word.

This study has argued that Xenophon seeks to educate his elite Athenian readers concerning their critical political role within democratic Athens and that he pursues this project in diverse ways in his writings. Xenophon’s profound interest in this topic may have its origins in the turmoil that he witnessed in Athens in the final decade of the fifth century and that he recounts in the opening books of the Hellenica. Xenophon’s presentation of the Arginusae affair (405) makes it clear that in his view the success of the Athenian democracy depends largely on the quality of its elite leaders, on whose advice and guidance the dēmos relies. Although Xenophon’s narrative of the events of 404/3 suggests that he is sympathetic with those who sought to replace democracy with a moderate oligarchy, his negative depiction of the reign of the Thirty, which turned out to be far from moderate, and his favorable portrayal of the restored democracy indicate that he does not regard constitutional change as realistic or even desirable for Athens. In light of this, the question of the political role of the city’s elite takes on a special urgency for Xenophon: If the democratic city cannot prosper without good elite leadership, how can the Athenian elite lead responsibly and effectively?