from treatises attributed to
Xenophon
(early 420s – late 350s BCE)

This page:
Hiero the Tyrant
Agesilaus
How to Be a Good Cavalry Commander
On Horsemanship
On Hunting
Ways and Means

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classical Greek writers

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Hiero the Tyrant

translated by Robin Waterfield

Copyright © 1997 by Robin Waterfield

4

‘The criterion of wealth and poverty is not quantity but a person’s perceived needs, which is why “plenty” means “more than enough” and “little” means “less than enough”. A tyrant is less capable of meeting his essential expenses with all his vast wealth than an ordinary citizen is with his money, because an ordinary citizen can cut down what he spends on his daily needs in any way he chooses, whereas this is out of the question for a tyrant. After all, the most expensive and essential item for a tyrant is protecting his life, and cutting down what he spends on this would seem to be lethal.

‘Then again, why should we pity people as poor when they can honestly come by everything they need? Wouldn’t it be fairer to count people wretched and poor when they are so badly off that they have no choice but to find criminal and degrading means of staying alive? Well, no one turns to crime more than a tyrant: he frequently steals from temples as well as from people, because he is in constant need of money to cover his necessary expenditure. You see, he has two options: either maintain an army all the time, as if there were a war on, or be killed.’

Topics:

Wealth

Rationalizing

5

‘He puts his trust in immoral people because they share his fear about the state some day winning its freedom and getting them in its power, in weak-willed people because of their laissez-faire attitude towards whatever is going on, and in servile people because they don’t even value freedom. So to my mind this is another hardship, to have to be intimately involved with people other than those one thinks good.

‘Moreover, although even a tyrant is bound to be patriotic (because he relies on the state for his life and happiness), nevertheless his situation as tyrant forces him to have a deleterious effect on the state. The point is that he doesn’t like to develop combativeness and military skills in the citizens of his state; it gives him greater pleasure to make his foreign militia a more formidable fighting force than his fellow countrymen and to use them as his personal guards. Also, even in years of plenty, when the state is overflowing with good things, a tyrant does not share in the celebrations, because he thinks he will find his subjects more submissive the needier they are.’

Topic:

Tyrants

9

‘In my opinion, then, a ruler should delegate to others the task of punishing anyone who needs disciplinary action, but should retain for himself the job of awarding prizes. The soundness of this idea is confirmed by experience. For instance, when we want to hold a choral competition, it is the ruler who puts up the prizes, while the job of assembling the choirs is given to impresarios, and it is left to others to train them and to discipline those who fail to come up to scratch in some way. The immediate result in this case is that the agreeable aspect of the competition is due to the ruler, while the disagreeable aspects are left to others.

‘Why shouldn’t all other public business be carried out on the same principle?’

10 ‘I am well aware that human beings are no different from horses in the sense that some of them become more ungovernable the more their needs are satisfied.’
11

‘In my opinion, you see, it’s actually misguided for a tyrant to compete against ordinary people. Rather than admiration, a victory would stir up malicious talk about all the estates which contributed towards his expenses, while a defeat would make him completely ridiculous. No, I tell you, Hiero, your competition is against other heads of state, and if you make the state you rule flourish more than any others, then you will be the victor in the noblest and grandest contest in the world.

‘The first and immediate result will be the attainment of your goal: you will be liked by your subjects. Secondly, your victory will not be proclaimed just by a single crier: the whole world will resound with praise of your excellence.’

‘Try to outdo all these people in benevolence, because if you beat your friends in benevolence, your enemies will never be able to stand up to you. If you do all this, there is no doubt that you will be endowed with the most wonderful and blessed possession in the world – you will be prosperous and happy and yet not be envied for it.’

text checked (see note) Mar 2007

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Agesilaus

translated by Robin Waterfield

Copyright © 1997 by Robin Waterfield

4 When it affords a person pleasure to give his own money away to help others, how could he think of stealing someone else’s money and so tarnishing his honour? After all, if he wanted money, it would be far simpler for him to keep his own instead of taking what does not belong to him.
8 For all that it is held to be a fine thing to acquire strongholds which are invulnerable to enemy attacks, it is in my opinion far better to equip oneself with a mind that is invulnerable to money, pleasure and fear.
9 People travelled the world hunting down drinks the Persian king would enjoy, while countless cooks contrived delicacies for him to eat, and the business of getting him to sleep was indescribably complicated. Agesilaus, however, was so hard-working that he was content to eat and drink whatever was accessible and available, and anywhere was good enough for him to take his rest. Apart from the enjoyment he derived from these actual practices, it also made him happy to reflect that while he found his treats all around him, the Persian king patently had to draw his pleasures from the ends of the earth, just to live without distress. It also gave him pleasure to observe that while he knew he could cope without suffering with the structure of things as devised by the gods, the Persian king had too feeble a temperament to endure heat and cold, and had to live like the most helpless of wild creatures, not like a true man.
10 The value of the invention of the chalk line and ruler is that without them people could not give their productions straight edges; by analogy, Agesilaus’ virtue seems to me to set an excellent example for anyone who intends to try to acquire manly virtue. I mean, how could anyone become irreligious if he modelled himself on a god-fearing person? How could he become dishonest, violently lawless or weak-willed if he modelled himself on someone who was honest, restrained and his own master? For what was a source of pride for Agesilaus was the fact that he ruled himself rather than the fact that he ruled others; it was not guiding his subjects towards the enemy that made him feel proud, but guiding them towards virtue in all its forms.

Topic:

Virtue

11

He could constantly be heard to voice his opinion that the gods gain just as much pleasure from pious actions as they do from sanctified shrines.

Topic:

Gods

text checked (see note) Mar 2007

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How to Be a Good Cavalry Commander

( Hipparchicus )
translated by Robin Waterfield

Copyright © 1997 by Robin Waterfield

4 Another sound principle is to wait after fording a river, because otherwise the men bringing up the rear will have to wear out their horses trying to catch up with the front man.
5 The basic point is that deceit is your most valuable asset in war. Even children playing ‘How Many?’ prove themselves capable of trickery: they hold out their hands in a way that makes it seem as though they have quite a few pebbles when they have hardly any, and make it look as though they have few when they are actually holding out a lot. So surely grown men can devise equivalent tricks when they put their minds to it. If you think about it, you will find that the majority of important military successes have come about as a result of trickery. It follows, then, that if you are to take on the office of commander, you should ask the gods to allow you to count the ability to deceive among your qualifications, and should also work on it yourself.
8 After all, most athletic training involves working up a sweat by hard work, whereas pleasure is what nearly all cavalry training involves. It is the closest a man can get, as far as I know, to flying, and that is something people long to be able to do.
If your men are short of food, it is all right for them to turn land-pirates, even though the crops they gather belong to others. After all, there are two sorts of people: those who work the land and those who live on the products of others’ work. And without recourse to one or the other of these practices, it is hard to find the means to stay alive, and the goal of peace becomes more remote.

Topic:

Two kinds

It is true that some people use a totally inadequate force to charge an enemy who is perceived to be superior (and the upshot often is that the attackers have done to them what they were expecting to do to the other side), but others throw all the resources they can muster against an enemy who is known to be superior. In my opinion, this is quite the wrong way to go about it: it is when you are proceeding against an enemy you expect to defeat that you should draw on all available resources. After all, an easy victory never gave anyone cause for regret. However, when you are attacking a considerably superior force and you know in advance that you are going to have to pull back after doing your best, this is the situation, in my opinion, when it is much better to use only a fraction of your total manpower, rather than the whole lot, for the assault. You should pick your best horses and men, however, because then they will be able to have some effect and withdraw in relative safety. [...] I do not mean that a small band of men will be able to exert themselves more and will be quicker just because there are, merely in terms of number, a few of them, but that it is easier to find a few rather than a lot of men who will not only look after their horses properly, but also practice their own horsemanship with intelligence.

Topic:

Tactics

text checked (see note) Mar 2007

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On Horsemanship

( De Re Equestri )
translated by Robin Waterfield

Copyright © 1997 by Robin Waterfield

3 Although a slave or an armed force which is incapable of taking orders is useless, a disobedient horse is worse than useless: it often even has the same effect as a traitor.
6

The single most important precept and lesson is never, in any of one’s dealings with the horse, to get angry with it. The point is that anger and foresight do not go together, and so we often do something that we are bound to regret later. [...] Compulsion and blows only make the horse more afraid, because any harsh measures that are inflicted on a horse in such a situation are thought by the horse to be caused by whatever it is that it is wary of.

Topic:

Horses

text checked (see note) Mar 2007

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On Hunting

( Cynegeticus )
translated by Robin Waterfield

Copyright © 1997 by Robin Waterfield

12 It is perfectly obvious that all men passionately desire virtue, but because it takes hard work to achieve it, the majority give up. The point is that the attainment of virtue is never certain, whereas the hard work involved is all too obvious. Perhaps, if virtue had a visible body and people understood that they were just as visible to her as she was to them, they would neglect her less. For under the watchful eyes of his beloved every man does better than his best and allowes nothing disgraceful or bad to enter his words or deeds, in case he is seen by him. But people openly commit many shocking crimes on the assumption that, just because they cannot see her, virtue is not looking. [...] If people knew that she was watching, they would commit themselves without hesitation to the arduous work and training needed for the hard task of catching her, and their reward would be virtue.

Topic:

Virtue

text checked (see note) Mar 2007

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Ways and Means

( Poroi )
translated by Robin Waterfield

Copyright © 1997 by Robin Waterfield

5 ‘What about an unprovoked assault on our state?’ I might be asked. ‘Are you saying we should remain at peace even in the face of aggression?’ ‘No,’ I would reply, ‘but I am saying that a policy of not initiating unjust wars against others would enable us to punish our enemies far more quickly, because they would not find anyone to come and support their cause.’

Topic:

War

text checked (see note) Mar 2007

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