BOOK VIII
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Xenophon and Dakyns, Henry Graham
C4.4 The "mark" system again which Xenophon believes in, but hgd. not. Shows how he tried to foster competitiveness. It's after all a belief in the central sun, a species of monarch-worship, logical and consistent enough.
C4.8. Xenophon reveals himself and the Hellenic feeling with regard to war and its use. The pax Romana is anticipated in their minds.
C4.9. Hystaspas is rather like the sons of Zebedee or the elder brother of the Prodigal.
C4.12, fin. Looks rather like a Greek joke. But what is the joke?
C4.13-23. Broad type of joke, but not unhealthy or prurient. Prototype probably Agesilaus and the younger Cyrus at the supper-table, with just this touch of coarseness.
C4.32-36. This is = to the Comtist theory of the duties of capitalists, and is one of the noblest disquisitions in all Xenophon, {os g' emoi dokei}. Cyrus' theory is based on fraternal feeling among the elite of the world, and that is the sole difference, a large one doubtless, and measures the gap between Xenophon and A. C. and our advance in Democracy.
C5.17. How far is this historical, i.e. semi-historical? I can't help supposing that the commoner notion of a conquest of Media by Persia was current and familiar to Xenophon apart from any other account, which for his present purpose he chose to go upon and possibly believed in.
C5.18-20. Will Cyrus take her to wife, his old playmate? All this shows once more Xenophon's love of children.
C5.23-25. The Persian Magna Charta, parallel to that between the Spartan king and the ephorate.
C6.1-3. (a) Satraps; to be counterpoised by (b) military governors in the citadels, and (c) visitors living at court, but possessed of lands in the provinces. The object is, no doubt, to create a common interest between the nobles and the king which will keep the satrap in counterpoise.
C6.11. The Oriental feeling again.
C6.12, fin. One of the nicest (monarchical) remarks ever uttered.
C6.13. Marked Greek Testament parallel S. Joan. 13, 13. Surely the evangelist had read this at school: I mean, the Greek scribe who Hellenised the evangel.
C6.23. Free trade or favoured-nation principle and commercial treaty.
C7.10. Prototype: Socrates and his sons. Perhaps also Xenophon and his. One seems to hear his own voice addressing Gryllus.
C7.14. A very noble passage.
C7.27. That's also nice: "Summon the Persians to rejoice with me at my joyous release;" a refined form of funeral festival—"nothing is here for tears"—nor have we, perhaps, arrived beyond it.
C7.28. His last remark is Xenophon-Hellenic, but less edifying; fortunately it is only the penultimate, for there is the final {khairete} (good-bye) and message to his wife. Why was she not present? I suppose she was at home in Babylon.
(C8. It has been doubted whether C8 is by Xenophon at all. C8.3, with its reference to the Anabasis, certainly looks as though it might have been written after his death. Some scholars have also thought the style unlike Xenophon's, but it is clear from his marginal notes that Mr. Dakyns did not lean towards this view. To stress the degeneracy of the Persians is, no doubt, to make a curious comment on the institutions of "the born ruler," but on the other hand the preceding chapter (C7) is full of grave warnings, and, throughout, Xenophon has been at pains to insist that everything depends on the continuous and united effort of the ruling classes towards virtue and self-control. Again, as Mr. Dakyns pointed out (in his Sketch of Xenophon's Life, Works, Vol. I. p. cxxxvii.), the epilogue bears a marked analogy to the account of Spartan degeneracy in c. xiv. of the Laconian Polity (see Vol. II. p. 322), a chapter he took to be genuine. On the whole, therefore, we may conclude that he would have considered this epilogue to be genuine also.—F.M.S.)