Xenophon, c.430 - c.355 B.C.

Ancient Athenian scholar, sometimes called the first economist.  Xenophon is regarded as one of the few primary contemporary sources on Socrates.

Xenophon was an Athenian aristocrat by birth. In his early life, Xenophon was a  pupil of Socrates (whose character he records in the Memorabilia and the Apologia).  Xenophon's Symposium covers roughly the same ground as Plato's dialogue of the same name, albeit focusing more on the wit than the philosophy of love.   It is regarded by some as a parody of Plato's dialogue, or as a source of it inspiration.

Xenophon was part of the famous Greek hoplite mercenary army (the "Ten Thousand"), hired by the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger, then strap of Lydia, that set out in 401 BCE on a campaign to seize the throne of his elder brother, the great king Atarxerxes II of Persia.  The Greek mercenaries defeated the royal Persian army at the Battle of Cunaxa (near Babylon). However Cyrus was killed in action, leaving the Greek mercenaries stranded in the heart of Persian Mesopotamia without an employer. Deep in hostile lands, the Greek mercenary corps (who elected Xenophon as one of their commanders) had to make their way out the Persian empire and back home.   Xenophon gives a detailed account of the celebrated retreat in his Anabasis.

Xenophon, an Athenian, grew familiar with Spartans in the ranks of this mercenary army.  So upon his return in 399, Xenophon set out once again, joining the Spartan campaigns against the Persians in Asia Minor. In the course of these campaigns, Xenophon became an intimate friend of the (Eurypontid) Spartan king Agesilaus II.  In 394, Xenophon returned to Greece and fought alongside the Spartans during the Corinthian War against his Athenian homeland.

Exiled from Athens, Xenophon lived in Sparta for many years.  Xenophon's extensive familiarity of Sparta is captured in his reflections on the Spartan king Agesilaus, and his Polity, discussing the laws, institutions and education of Spartan citizens.  In 386, Xenophon moved to the Spartan town of Scillus (near Ellis, western Peloponnesus).  He was expelled from Scillus by the Eleans in 371, and took up residence in Corinth. Around 369, Athens repealed his exile, but Xenophon elected to remain in Corinth until his death. 

Xenophon's Economics is essentially a manual of household management, presented as a Socratic dialogue.  The principles are articulated by Socrates as what he heard from a landlord-farmer named Ischomachus.  Xenophon's Revenues is not a dialogue, but a tract proposing some solutions to the problem of poverty in Athens without imposing too harshly on its tributary allies . Xenophon authored a couple of other practical instruction manuals, including On Horsemanship (on raising horses) and Cynegeticus (on hunting).

The Memorabilia is frequently cited as his best work (it includes a rare sketch of Aristippus). More reflections on politics can be found in Hiero (a dialogue on tyranny), Cyropaedia (a fictional account of the optimal education of a ideal ruler) and the Cavalry General (on the Athenian hipparch). 

Xenophon also wrote the Hellenica, a narrative history of Greece from the point that Thucydides had left off (411) to the battle of Mantinea (362), where Xenophon's son, Gryllus, was slain.  Xenophon died around 355/54 in Corinth.

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