Copyright by Colin Warner Yarbrough 2018 The Dissertation Committee for Colin Warner Yarbrough Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Xenophon on Athens: Between Democracy and Oligarchy Committee: Paula Perlman, Supervisor Cristina Carusi Thomas Palaima Stephen White Paul Woodruff Xenophon on Athens: Between Democracy and Oligarchy by Colin Warner Yarbrough Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2018 Dedication For Bailee Acknowledgements It seems that this dissertation has presented me with one last difficulty, but at least I can say that this difficulty is a joyful one: trying to remember all those who deserve my thanks and gratitude for helping me bring it to completion. No project of this magnitude or emotional energy can be completed alone, and I have many, many people to thank. I want to start by offering thanks to my dissertation committee: Paula Perlman, Cristina Carusi, Thomas Palaima, Stephen White, and Paul Woodruff. Thank you for all your support along the way and for the time and careful attention that you dedicated to the final product. I want to offer a special thank you to my supervisor, Paula Perlman, for all that she has done to see this project through, sticking with me through what at times seemed a lost project, especially in these last few months as everything has come rather rapidly together. Your wisdom and instruction have shaped me into the scholar that I am today. Thank you also to all the members of the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. A big thank you to all my professors; your guidance and instruction has brought me to this point. Special thanks to Deborah Beck; my teaching has benefited immensely from your open-door policy. Thank you to our amazing staff: Beth Chichester, Vanessa Noya, and Khoa Tran. Thank you to the many graduate students who have helped me on this journey, especially the members of my cohort: Paul Hay, Amy Lather, and Evan Rap. We made it! Thank you especially to Evan, who has been not only a great colleague, but a very dear friend. Graduate school is a difficult time for many reasons and it has been my honor and privilege to work and grow through it with you. Thank you to the family and many friends who have supported me through this journey. To my parents, Larry Yarbrough and Amy Hastings; to my brother and sister-in- v law, Andrew Yarbrough and Rebecca West; to my Georgia parents, Thomas and Dawn Roach; thank you for all the love and support that you have shown me over the past several, difficult years. Dad, the time that you spent with me in March 2018 was indispensable to the completion of this project and, though a difficult time, one that I will always cherish. Thank you also to all my Alabama family, especially my grandparents, Joseph and Betty Hastings; I look forward to many Lake Place celebrations. The friends who have supported me are too numerous to list here, but I want to extend special thanks to Bruce Eldrige, my Chemical Engineering Advisor, and Kathleen Dyre for the love and support you have given to Bailee and me through the past few years that have been full of both joy and pain. I also want to give thanks to all those who instilled me with the love of Classics: Magistra (Marge Drexler) and Frankie Dunleavy for introducing me to the love of Latin, and to Pavlos Sfyroeras, whose Introduction to Classical Literature class in the fall of 2002 set me on the path to a graduate degree in Classics. Thank you also to my undergraduate teachers, Deborah Roberts and Radcliffe Edmonds, who nourished that love at Haverford College. Thank you to Gabie and Shep for the unconditional love and slobbery kisses that only you two can provide! I promise to take you for more W-A-L-K’s now that this is done. Lastly and most importantly, thank you to my wife, Dr. Bailee Yarbrough. Without you this day would not be possible. You continue to motivate and inspire me with your strength, wisdom, passion, and love. Here’s to life beyond graduate school and dissertations! Let the adventure begin! Austin, Texas August 24, 2018 vi Xenophon on Athens: Between Democracy and Oligarchy Colin Warner Yarbrough, Ph. D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2018 Supervisor: Paula J. Perlman This dissertation explores Xenophon’s view of Athenian political society and governance during the 5th-4th centuries BCE. Xenophon has often been portrayed in scholarship as an uncritical conduit of traditional conservative, aristocratic thought: hostile to democracy and the Athenian demos and in favor of oligarchy. It is the argument of this dissertation that this interpretation of Xenophon’s view of Athens is overly simplistic and often inaccurate. Xenophon is not limited to a single ideological perspective in his treatment of Athens; instead, he takes a broad approach to looking at the strengths and weaknesses of his home city. By analyzing Xenophon’s life and times, I challenge the reductive view of Xenophon as a creature of his class, drawing particular attention to the variety of influences—individuals, places, and events—that likely shaped his thought. To show the complexity of Xenophon’s thought regarding democracy and Athens, I explore some of the reasons that Xenophon has been considered a proponent of oligarchy, including his writings on political constitutions, Sparta, and the Socratic theory of rulers and ruled. Additionally, I show that his narrative of Athenian history at the end of the 5th century BCE, recorded in the Hellenika, presents a consistent set of problems in Athenian governance, related to the behavior and intentions of the political class, that exists both under the Athenian democracy and the oligarchic regime of the Thirty. Finally, I examine Xenophon’s use of the terms kalokagathia and kaloi kagathoi. Rather than justifying the vii status of aristocrats or the partisans of oligarchy, as has sometimes been argued, his conception of kalokagathia seeks to make the kaloi kagathoi compatible with Athenian democracy and encourages them to contribute to the community. For Xenophon, kalokagathia is a virtue that combines Socratic morality with the knowledge of statecraft; he wants his kaloi kagathoi to be both good citizens and good leaders for democratic Athens. viii Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................... ix Notes ...................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 i. Xenophon as Writer .....................................................................................5 Genres and Works .........................................................................7 Purpose and Audience.................................................................10 The Order and Dating of Xenophon’s Oeuvre ............................12 Narrator and Character ................................................................15 Conclusions .................................................................................17 ii. Xenophon and Modern Scholarship .........................................................18 iii. Terminology ............................................................................................24 Chapter 1: Xenophon’s Life: Influencers and Influences ......................................32 1.1 Reconstructing Xenophon’s Life: Sources .............................................34 1.2 Birth and Death .......................................................................................36 1.3 Xenophon’s Early Life and the Peloponnesian War: ~430-404 BCE ....40 1.4 A Decade of Transformation: From the Reign of the Thirty to the Battle of Coroneia ...............................................................................................49 1.5 Skillus, Return to Athens, and Later Life ...............................................62 1.6 Conclusion ..............................................................................................70 Chapter 2: Xenophon on Government and Governance: Democracy, Sparta, and Rulers and Ruled ...........................................................................................72 2.1 Xenophon on Democracy .......................................................................73 2.2 Sparta as Model in Xenophon’s Works ..................................................97 2.3 The Theory of Rulers and Ruled: A Socratic Case for Oligarchy? ......105 2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................119 Chapter 3: Narratives of Failed Athenian Leadership in the Hellenika ...............121 3.1 The Return of Alcibiades ......................................................................123 3.2 The Trial of the Arginusae Generals .....................................................136 ix 3.3 The Thirty At Athens ............................................................................148 3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................160 Chapter 4: Reforming Athens: Xenophon on the Kalokagathia and the Kaloi Kagathoi ......................................................................................................162