Talk:Xenophon

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[edit] Origin of Xenophobic

Is Xenophon in any way related to the origin of the word "xenophobe/xenophobic, etc"? ~~pkmilitia

Yes, but only the first part Xeno- is the same in both. The name Xenophon, of course, does not mean xenophobe/xenophobic. --D. Webb 20:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Xeno + phon = different sound or strange voice. Maybe, as a newborn child, there was something strikingly different about the sounds he made. Just a guess. P0M 05:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
That or he (or perhaps his family) had a gift for learning foreign ("xeno-") languages... In xenophobe the -phob part refers to fear... someone afraid of the strange, or, perhaps better put, of strangers, of foreigners... Seems somehow much the opposite of someone who might be known for talking like a foreigner, i.e., knowing foreign languages. If it had somethign to do with foregin languages, then I think this would have stood Xenophon in good stead in his Anatolian travels... Of course phon=/=glot... anyone an authority on Greek who could address whether a xenophon might have been a speaker of a foreign language? Xenophon777 14:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Not likely; the root is phont-, not phon-. "Strange appearance" is possible. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greek alphabet

Is it better to spell Xenophon with the circumflex, which often will not display, or unaccented, which will show up? Septentrionalis 03:36, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It displays just fine with Firefox.--Jpbrenna 04:08, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Xenophon's 'ring of falsehood'

His famous Education Of Cyrus (Cyropaedia) is agreed to be historic nonsense, completely different from the interesting real story we know from other sources.

The Persian Expedition is full of unlikely explanations - Cyrus the Younger apparantly becomes a real rebel after being falsely accused of rebellion and then pardoned. Xenophon is supposed to have been there in some haze capacity before emerging as a leader. His own account is full of examples of mistrust from those he led, all of it apparantly undeserved.

What's really remarkable is that he and Plato both give a view of Socrates and don't agree at all. He mentions Plato once in passing and Plato never mentions him at all.

--GwydionM 22:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BC/BCE

I'd like to urge that it stay on BC, since its associated category is "431 BC Births".--SarekOfVulcan 07:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Also the article was begun with BC. Dwain

[edit] POV-Pushers

Hmmm, actually, it appears that this is another article hit by User:Chooserr and User:Pitchka (aka Dwain) who apparently keep coming up at AN/I over date era style campaigning issues: [1] [2] --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 06:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted your edit to my comment [3][4]. Please do not change other editor's comments. Either date era is acceptable according to policy, there's no need to defend either one. What is not acceptable is wide-scale style change campaigns, which Chooserr initiated and you are supporting. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
You changed my comment to make it appear I linked your username to Crusades. I see you've been warned before[5] not to change other editors' comments. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 22:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

MPerel, It's not another article hit by me. Before Dec 16 it was unified under BC/AD and Jagjig just changed the dates to BCE/CE a few weeks ago. Look at the history for once in your life. Chooserr 18:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes Chooserr, upon carefully examining the history I found that you first changed the era style on Dec 3 after it was stable for nearly a year. You subsequently were reverted by four other editors. On that day, you also changed at least 14 other articles from BCE to BC [6],[7], [8],[9], [10],[11], [12],[13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18],[19], most of which was reverted by many different editors. I understand that according to your user page you "hate" BCE (and you express having other style issues as well). I sympathize with you that you have strong personal feelings about the matter, however, please note that at Wikipedia editors cannot make grand-scale style changes to personal preferences when policy accepts either. I'm sure you're already aware, this particular style issue is controversial and has already been argued ad nauseum. There have been endless polls and even arbcom cases, with the only real conclusion resulting is that it is unacceptable for any editor to globally change styles for which there is no consensus. Please do not continue this. It isn’t an issue over which style is better. It’s a matter of whether one editor should be able to massively change styles to one he/she personally prefers. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 21:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] This Article is Currently on a good Version

Let's keep it that way--Xenaphon 05:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think so--Xenophon of Ephesus 05:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • oh that's funny, real ha ha funny--Xenaphon 05:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Rubbish--Xenophon of Ephesus 05:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • you're not going to get away with this--Xenaphon 05:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
keep talking--Xenophon of Ephesus 05:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • This version is the origional, leave it like it is now, do not change it from the good version, or you will be blocked!--Xenaphon 05:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


What the hell was that all about?--63.22.2.224 17:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The Date Wars <sigh> [20] Septentrionalis 19:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

"This, by the way, is the only personal interaction with Socrates that Xenophon relates to us in all his writings."

Not true: See Memorabilia I iii 9-13. Also, most of the Memorabilia is Xenophon's personal reminiscence of Socrates.

--McTeague 02:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Right. And that passage was written by the same writer who is supposed to have been "present" at the conversation depicted in the Symposium (see the 2nd sentence of that work), which may be dated to 421 BCE (when the writer must have been no more than a child), and the same writer who is supposed to have "heard" the conversation with Critobulus in the Oeconomicus, which must have taken place after the writer had seen Socrates for the last time (since the Battle of Cunaxa is mentioned at 4.18). What is it besides such passages that give us confidence in accepting the writer's depiction as fact when he depicts himself in conversation with the character Socrates?


If you are suggesting, Unsigned, that ancient Greek Socratic dialogues, by Plato, Xenophon and others, are literary works, and unreliable as journalism, then your opinion is in agreement with all professional Classical scholarship, as far as I am aware. My understanding is that Socratic dialogues have always been understood, even in antiquity, to be philosophical works and not word for word reporting of anything one of their characters said. Why else would Aristotle have written Socratic dialogues, when everyone knew he had never met Socrates? In fact, just about every work of antiquity claims to be quoting someone who could not possibly have said what was attributed to them. This type of attribution was practised widely in the ancient world. My own opinion is that Xenophon's works, like Plato's were intended by their authors to be sincere works of moral philosophy, economics or history, as the case may be, and should be evaluated on their own terms as such. Check out the wikipedia article on "Socratic Dialogue, " which has some information on the subject. McTeague 00:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Aristotle seems to have written "Socratic" dialogues, but none of them (I think) has a Socrates character in them. Still, it is true that following the period of the great writers of Socratic dialogues (Antisthenes, Plato, Aeschines Socraticus), there were many inferior writers of Socratic dialogues who imitated the originators of this genre. Among them are the authors of the spurious dialogues included (for reasons we cannot now fully understand) in the Platonic corpus. I believe a reasonable case can be made for including even Xenophon among these inferior imitators. It's true that he does seem to have personally known Socrates. At the same time, his interactions with him, even by his own account, were limited. Furthermore, he was not among the Socratics who personally witnessed Socrates' trial and execution, and clearly did not belong to what might be termed the inner circle of Socrates' followers. Xenophon's early interests were in the military, which undoubtedly is how he befriended Socrates. Xenophon does not seem to have cultivated a real interest in philosophy until he retired from the military. Xenophon seems to have been writing quite a bit later than many (or even most) of Plato's dialogues were. Unlike Plato's writings, ignorance of historical fact or just blatant inattention to historical fact is in abducance in Xenophon, and not just in the places cited by Anon above. These are some of the reasons for concluding that Xenophon's works are philosophical 'literature'. There is not nearly as much reason for concluding that the dialogues of earlier writers are mere literature as well. It's true that none of them perhaps was intended to be a word-for-word account. But clearly many of them were intended to be historically factual in more than just philosophical "spirit". Anyone who carefully reads Plato's Phaedo, for example, cannot deny this. Also, it's patently not true that "all professional Classical scholarship" agrees that Socratic dialogues in general are purely literary works. Just to name a few: Gregory Vlastos and many of his followers do not accept this, nor does Terry Penner. Many other prominent scholars could be named as well. Isokrates 20:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Xenophon's Father and Son

Is it true that both Xenophon's father and one of his sons were named Gryllus?--RandomWalker 17:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It was common practice for ancient Greeks to name a first son after the more illustrious of the two grandfathers.