Date and Intention of Xenophon's "Hiero"

Author(s): G. J. D. Aalders
Source: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 6, Fasc. 3 (1953), pp. 208-215
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4427502
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 DATE AND INTENTIONOF XENOPHON'SHIERO*)
BY

G. J. D. AALDERS H.WZN.

The chronology of the works of Xenophon is quite uncertain and

can only be established from scanty and often doubtful evidence,
for the greater part extracted from these works themselves 1).
Nowadays, the Hiero is, as a rule, dated about 360 B.C. 2). The most
elaborate work in this connection has been done by Hatzfeld 3).
His arguments are the following:
1. Hiero III, 8 Xenophon speaks of scenes of bloodshed in the
houses of tyrants, wherein he seems to allude to the bloodshedin the
house of the Thessalian dynasty of the Aloeades in the years 370-
358/7 B.C.; the policy of these rulers of Pherae was detested by the
Athenians, with whom Xenophon lived in peace again after 360 B.C.
2. The Hiero speaks of problemsthat were topical in Athens about
360 B.C., viz. the choregia(IX, 4), the necessity of a higher revenue
of the eaopopx (IX, 7), of espritde corpsin the army (IX, 6), of justice
in the observing of contracts (IX, 6), of encouraging agriculture
(IX, 7) and trade (IX, 9), subjects treated also in the Vestigaliaand
the Hipparchus, which booklets must have been written after
360 B.C. 4) and in which are proposedmeasuressimilarto those in the
Hiero, viz. rewardsfor the judges who are quickest to decide in pro-
cesses between merchants(Vect. 1II,3), emulation between the demes

*) Prof. E. G. Turner of University College, London, obliged me very much

by correcting my lapses in English idiom.
1) See Th. Marsthall, Untersuchungenzur Chronologieder Werke Xenophons,
Munchen 1928.
2) See J. Hatzfeld, Note sur la date et l'objetdu Hieron de Xenophon, Rev. et.
gr. 59-60 (1946-1947), 54 ff.; J. Luccioni, XMnophon,Hieron. Texte et Traduction
avec une Introduction et un Commentaire(Paris 1948), 30 ff.
3) Op. cit., 56-59.
4) There exists a close resemblance between the ideas of the Vectigalia and
those of Isocrates' de pace, written 357/355 B.C. See Christ-Schmid, Geschichte
der griechischen Literatur 16, Munchen 1912, 515; Hatzfeld, op. cit.; 58 n. 1;
K. Mulnscher,Xenophon in der griechisch-rdmischenLiteratur, Philologus Suppl.
Bd. XIII, 2, Leipzig 1920, 20.

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 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON S HIERO 209

about the best cavalry (Hipparch. I, 28), encouragingof trade (Vect.

III, 4) and especially honours for one who shows to the state a new
source of revenues(the main theme of the Vectigalia;cf. Hiero IX, 9).
3. There exists a close resemblancebetween Hiero XI, 6 and Ages.
IX, 7; the latter booklet was written after the death of Agesilaus in
361/360 B.C.
Hatzfeld concludesthat the Hiero must have been written between
360 and 355 B.C., probably not long after the series of murders in
the ruling dynasty of Pherae.
To support this thesis of Hatzfeld, whose arguments seem con-
vincing, we may add the following:
A. Hatzfeld has already observed that there exists a close connec-
tion between the Vectigaliaand the Hiero 1). In the Anabasis, the
Agesilaus and especially in the CyropaediaXenophon had drawn his
attention to the great realm of Asia; in the RespublicaLacedaemonio-
rum, the Agesilaus and the Hellenicahe had preachedthe idea of a
Panhellenic Union under Spartan leadership; but in the Vectigalia
and the Hiero he comes back to the small boundaries of the city-
state, in particular to Athens, his native city, as is clear from the
Vectigalia2). This is a very remarkablefact. Moreover,both works
show a strong interest in industry, trade and shipping, which in
works like Oeconomicus,RespublicaLacedaemoniorum and Cyropaedia
were rejected or neglected as not fitting for a gentleman, who should
chiefly be concerned with war, horses, hunting, agriculture and
politics 3). The Vectigaliaand the Hiero, however, are more adapted
to the interests and needs of Athens in the time after the end of the
exile of Xenophon 4). Because the first booklet shows, as is generally
accepted 5), a very close connection with the political aims and pro-
gram of Eubulus about the end of the War with the Confederatesin

1) See Luccioni, op. cit., 32 f.; Les Ideiespolitiques et sociales de Xienophon

(Paris 1947), 266.
2) As is shown by Hatzfeld, op. cit., 57, Hiero IX, 4: -roV opoug pv f3ouXco-
p.eo oky&cVOOaL, &OBa[1 oc O 6 pZv 7tpouctLovv xtk. clearly refers to Athenian
institutions.
3) See Luccioni, Les Idees etc., 96 ff.
4) See Luccioni, Hieron, 32 f.
5) See W. Jaeger, Paideia. The Ideals of GreekCulture III (Oxford 1945), 159;
270; Luccioni, Les Ickes etc., 280 ff.; cp. above p. 208 n. 4.
Mnemosyne V I4

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210 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON 'S HIERO

355 B.C., we have to date the Hiero in 355 B.C. or at all events not
very much earlier.
B. Another argument may be derived from the Cyropaedia.The
epilogue to this work, showing the decline of Persia in later times,
has as terminuspost quem 361/360 B.C., and though many scholars
think that this epilogue was publishedlater than the work itself, in
my opinion Marschall 1), Muinscher2), Jaeger 3) and Luccioni 4) are
quite right in asserting the unity of the whole work. We may add to
their argumentsthe following: If Xenophonthought he had to defend
himself against the charge of making propagandafor tyranny or of
preaching submission to Persia, he should have added the epilogue
at once, for even a child might expect such a charge after the publi-
cation of the Cyropaedia. Moreover, when Xenophon wrote his
Cyropaedia,he certainly was already convinced of the decline of the
Persian empire in his own day, as is shown by his Anabasis, written
before 380 B.C. 5); after the expedition of the ten thousand and the
campaign of Agesilaus in Asia the situation in Asia had not altered
to such an extent that it would have justified a later addition of
an epilogue. Another reason not to assume an early date for the
Cyropaediais the fact that Plato in his Laws, published probably
after his death, attacks Xenophon's description of Cyrus, the ideal
ruler,as a shepherd6). WhenPlato, whovery seldom attacks so clearly
a contemporaryauthor,wrote the third book of his Laws,Xenophon's
conception of Cyrus as the ideal shepherd-king must have been
topical and popular; therefore the Cyropaediamight have appeared
not so very long ago and could be supposedto be knownto the general
readerwhen Plato wrote his Laws.
If 361/360 B.C. is acceptedas terminuspostquemfor the Cyropaedia,
it will still be necessary to make out a case for believing that the
Hiero was written after the Cyropaedia,to get the same years as

1) Op. cit., 55f.

2) Op. cit., 16 n. 1.
3) Op. cit., 326 n. 56.
4) Les Idees etc., 246 ff.
5) See P. Masqueray, Xenophon, Anabase (Collection des Universites de France,
Paris 1930), 7-9.
6) III, 694c sqq.; see Jaeger, op. cit., 237; 1 have given more references in
Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 64 (1951), 371 n. 17.

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 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON S HIERO 211

terminuspost quemfor the Hiero. I think, this may be deduced from

the fact that the Hiero is going a step further in the acceptance of
monarchic rule. Both books are dealing with monarchic rule and
when we considerthat the Cyropaediatakes this constitution simply
as a datum, while the Hiero only after an enumeration of the evil
sides of tyranny shows how a tyrant can become a good ruler, we
might consider the Hiero as 'eine Vorarbeit zur Kyrupadie'1).
However, the monarchy of the Cyropaediais a legal kingship, a
basileia, that of the Hiero is dictatorship, the fruit of usurpation of
power by the tyrant. Between those two forms of monarchy,basileia
and tyrannis, the Greeks, especially the Socratics, made a sharp
distinction 2). Abhorringtyranny strongly, they were not unfavour-
ably disposed to basileia. Plato e.g. in his Republicdoes not always
draw a sharp distinction between aristocracy and basileia3), and
in his Laws he reduces the essential types of constitutions to two,
monarchy and democracy, represented by Persia and Athens 4).
The example of Sparta, with its two kings and its aristocraticconsti-
tution, Sparta, accordingto the tradition the bitter foe of all tyranny,
may have influencedthis attitude in the case of Plato, an aristocrat
by birth and breeding, and in that of Xenophon, an enthusiastic
admirer of Sparta.
We may. suppose that Xenophon, when he wrote his Cyropaedia,
had accepted monarchyin the form of basileia as a soldierwho accepts
military leadership(viz. of the younger Cyrusand of Agesilaus), as a
fervent admirerof Sparta (Agesilaus), and as one who had seen the
possibility of the rule of an enlightened prince over the Persian
empire (the younger Cyrus).So he could write his romantic eulogy of
the elder Cyrus. However, we must not forget that this Cyrus may
1) Christ-Schmid, op. cit., 513. See also K. Kuiper, De Ontwikkelingsgangder
GriekscheLetterkunde(Haarlem 1914), 194.
2) Cp. Xen. Mem. IV, 6, 12; Cyr. I, 3, 18; P1. Politic. 276e; 291e; 301b-c;
Aristot. Polit. V, 10, 1313 a 5-10; see H. Bengl, StaatstheoretischeProbleme im
Rahmen der Attischen, vornehmlichEuripideischen Tragodie (Coburg 1929), 59ff.;
M. Pohlenz, Staatsgedanke und Staatslehre der Griechen (Leipzig 1923), 140 f.;
E. Zeller, Kleine Schriften I (Berlin 1910), 399 ff.; B. A. v. Groningen, BAUI-
AETE, Meded. Ned. Akad. van Wetensch., afd. Letterkunde, N.R. 4, 12, Am-
sterdam 1941, 24 ff.; Luccioni, Hieron, 15 ff.
3) For references see Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 64 (1951), 372 n. 32.
4) 1 II, 693d.

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212 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON S HIERO

be the ideal monarch,but that he also is the ruler of a world-empire,

in which kingship is normal and generally accepted, and that he is
not the ruler of a Greek city-state, which has known much internal
strife and is confined to a small territory.
To take the step to the recognitionof monarchyas a theoretically
acceptable form of government for a small Greek polis may be the
consequenceof the ideas expressedin the first chapter of the Cyropae-
dia, viz. the descriptionof a very great ruler1),it was none the less a
step to be taken. In the Mlemorablesand even in the Cyropaedia,
tyrannis is still attacked 2), and when Xenophon towards the end of
the expedition of the ten thousand tried to found a city in Pontus 3)
or to get a territory in Thracia4), he may have thought in his
vanity that he could get the honoursof an oikistes or in that region
ascendto a position such as Miltiadesonce held in Thracia,or perhaps
even such as Pericles held in Athens, but he certainly did not aspire
to become a Pisistratus or even a Dionysius.Tyrannyand Laconism
do not go together 5). Therefore,the Hiero, the treatise about tyran-
ny, can hardly have been published before the definite breakdown
of Sparta, i.e. after the battle of Mantineain 362 B.C.
After that event and the death of Agesilaus Xenophon wrote his
booklet in honour of this great king of Sparta, and about the
same time, we may suppose, he had accepted the legal, heriditary
Persian form of monarchy 6), as Plato did some years later in his

1) 1, 1, 1, where the many revolutions are mentioned, points in that direction.

2) Cf. Mem. I, 2, 44; IV, 6, 12; Oec. 21, 12; Symp. 4, 36; Hell. III, 1, 14; VII
3, 7; Cyr. I, 3, 18; see Luccioni, Hieron, 16 ff.
3) Cf. An. V, 6, 15 sqq.; VI, 4, 7 sqq.; see E. Scharr, Xenophons Staats- und
Gesellscha/tsideal (Halle 1919), 92; 136 f.
4) Cf. An. VII, 2, 38; 5, 8; see Masqueray, op. cit., 12 f.
5) Luccioni, Hieron, 20 f. denies this, referring to the cooperation of Sparta
with Dionysius I and some Thessalian tyrants, I think, wrongly, for in the first
place Xenophon admires an earlier and idealized Sparta and has reserves as to
later Spartan politics (cf. especially Resp. Laced. XIV; see also the later books
of the Hellenica; cp. P. Cloch6, Les Hellniques de Xenophon (Livres III-VII)
et Lacedemone, Rev. et. anc. 46 (1944), 12-46). Moreover, neither Sicily nor-
Thessaly belonged to the inner circle of Spartan influence. The few exceptions
mentioned by Luccioni had no influence on the general opinion that Sparta was
the foe of tyrannis, as is shown by Aristot. Polit. V, 10, 1312 b 7-8.
6) The event which furnishes the terminus post quemfor the Cyropaediais the
betrayal of the rebellious satrap Ariobarzanes by his own son Mithradates (Cyr.

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 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON S HIERO 213

Laws 1), but he put the whole in an idealized past-a reason, in my

opinion, for Xenophon to publish the book together with the part
that we call the epilogue, so that no reader could think that the
author did more than depict an idealized past and an (abstract)
ideal ruler.
The last step, the acknowledgementof the possibility of a good
tyrant, must have been taken after the breakdownof Sparta. It will
have taken some time to realize the new situation and the impasse
into which Greece had come, to realize the fact that tyranny was
increasingagain in the fourth century 2), and especially to acknowl-
edge the possibility of the conversionof a tyrant into a good monarch,
a basileus. Thereforethe Hiero must be placed some time after the
Cyropaedia,i.e. after 361/360 B.C. 3).
C. Another argument in favour of dating the Hiero towards the
end of Xenophon's life may be derivedfrom the form of the Hiero 4).
It is the only dialogue he wrote without introducing the person of
Socrates. The reason seems obvious. Object and aim of the dialogue
will have been felt by the author as un-Socratic5): the conversion
of a tyrant into a king would have been for Socrates a moral conver-
sion, even if the result were loss of power or, eventually, of life-
and the latter possibility is exactly what will not be taken into
considerationin the Hiero; the conversion there is not so much an
inner, moral conversion as a conversion in manners and behaviour,
in tactics, in order to preserve the absolute power of the ruler. The
conversion of the tyrant into a king does not aim at the moral
growth of the ruler, nor even in the first place the well-being of the
VIII, 8, 4; see Jaeger, op. cit., 336 n. 56; Marschall, op. cit., 56; G. Glotz, Histoire
GrecqueIV, I (Paris 1938), 10). This event is mentioned very briefly by Xenophon,
from which we may infer that it was generally known when he finished his
Cyropaedia. Therefore the work may not be dated long after 361/360 B.C.
1) III, 693 d sqq.; cf. Ep. IV, 320d; VII, 332a.b; Phaedr. 258c.
2) See Luccioni, Hieron, 21 f.
3) See also Luccioni, op. cit., 33 f. The fact that there occurs in the Hiero no
criticism of Athens, which is, however, found more than once in the Cyropaedia
(see Scharr, op. cit., 157 ff.), as well as the fact that the influence of Laconism
in the Hiero is much srialler than in Laced. Resp., Mem. and Cyropaedia (see
Luccioni, Les Idees, 144) are other arguments to date the Hiero some time after
the Cyropaedia.
4) See too R. Hirzel, Der Dilaog I (Leipzig 1895), 171,
5) See Hirzel, op. cit., 170,

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 214 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON 'S HIERO

citizens, but the preservation of tyrannic power and the personal

well-being (more material than moral) of the ruler. After having
admitted that the author had reached a standpoint that could not
have been that of Socrates, it would have been somewhat strange to
introduce Socrates again in a later work.
There is a striking resemblanceto Plato's last work, the Laws,
the only Platonic dialogue in which Socrates does not occur. It is
very probable that Plato, too, wrote a dialogue without Socrates,
when he felt that the ideas expressedin it couldno longerbe considered
as Socratic1). The absence of nearly all the elements of dialogue in
both works is also conspicuous:just as the Laws is little more than
a very long monologue, so the Hiero contains in reality two rather
long monologues, one of Hiero about the evil sides of tyranny for
the tyrant, and one of Simonides, a poet of legendary wisdom 2),
about the ways and means to alter his reign into a good one and to
profit thereby personally.

As has been observed among others by Hatzfeld 3), the Hiero does
not treat in the first place of the tyrannis, but of the happinessof the
tyrant. Thereforeone might see in it a 'Furstenspiegel',destined for
some specialruler.This can, however,not be proved.As we saw above,
the Hiero must be consideredas the end of Xenophon's development
to the acceptance of monarchy;the interest he takes in the personal
happiness of the monarch can be easily explained by his tendenicy
to moralize,derived from Socrates, and his tendency to heroworship
(Cyrus, Agesilaus).
Some scholars4) have consideredDionysius II of Syracusae as the
ruler for whom the booklet was destined. It is, however, far from
1) See G. J. de Vries, Spel bij Plato (Amsterdam 1949), 113.
2) Cf. PI. Prot. 316 d; 339 a sqq.; Resp. 1, 331 e (aocp6oxxociOeZo0&p); 335e;
Ep. II, 31 la; Cic., de nat. deorum I, 60; Phaedr. IV, 22 and 25; Min. Felix 13, 4.
See Maas, art. Simonides 2, RE III A, col. 188; 191 f.; W. Nestle, Plato, Protagoras7
(Leipzig 1931), 53 f.; E. Bethe, Die griechische Poesie in Gercke-Norden, Ein-
leitung in die AltertumswissenschaltI3 (Leipzig 1927), 3, p. 20.
3) Op. cit., 62.
4) Th. Gomperz, Griechische Denker III (Berlin-Leipzig 1925), 104; U. v.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,Platon I (Berlin 1919), 432; 543 n.; Wendland-Pohlenz,
Die griechischeProsa in Gercke-Norden, Einleitung etc. I3, 3, p. 104; Pohlenz,
op. cit., 142; 149; Marschall, op. cit., 96 f.; Mdnscher, op. cit., 18 n. 3.

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 DATE AND INTENTION OF XENOPHON S HIERO 215

certain that Xenophon visited Sicily and knew the young tyrant 1).
Moreover,it is very doubtful whether the elaborate description of
the unhappiness of a tyrant would have been very pleasant to the
young tyrant, who might have seen in it a severe criticism of his
deceased father and (or) his own way of life 2).
Hatzfeld 3) has thought of Dion. But when Dion prepared his
expedition to Sicily, he was going to overthrow the tyrannis of
Dionysius II and liberatethe Sicilians,and thereforehe did not in the
least profess to aspire to tyranny or kingship, nor even could he do
so. If Xenophon, then, sent to him his Hiero, as Hatzfeld thinks, the
booklet would not have been very welcome, written as it was for an
(aspiring) tyrant. It would not have been very tactful of Xenophon
to write to a liberator about the conversion of a tyrant into a good
ruler.
Hatzfeld 4) says that the Hiero is a work for a certain occasion,
as the RespublicaLacedaemoniorum, the Agesilausand the Vectigalia.
But this cannot be proved, for the Cyropaedia,which is, as far as time
is concerned,not far from the Hiero and in subject nearest to it, can
certainly not be consideredas such. Thereforethe Hiero can, in my
opinion, only be considered as a general treatise 5), drawing the
conclusionsfrom the ideas of the Cyropaedia,viz. the application of
monarchicrule as Xenophon saw it, of the kind of monarchy which
was his ideal, to circumstancessuch as were usual in many Greek
cities, the whole being written in the form of a dialogue.
DORDRECHT, Bleekersdijk25 rood.

1) Athen. X, 427 f. is of doubtful worth. See Hirzel, op. cit., 170; Luccioni,
Hieron, 11 f.
2) When Marschall, op. cit., 97 argues, that the description of the evil sides of
tyranny may be explained by the fact that Xenophon addressed his dialogue
also to the Athenian public, he in fact admits that first of all the Hiero is a general
treatise. But even then it would be very awkward to send this treatise to the
Sicilian tyrant.
3) Op. cit., 67.
4) Op. cit., 68 f.
5) As is done by Hirzel, op. cit. I, 169 ff.; Christ-Schmid, op. cit., 513; E. C.
Marchant, Xenophon, Scripta minora (The Loeb Classical Library 183, London-
New York 1925), XV; Luccioni, Hieron, 32; Idees, 259.

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