Part 5 (1/2)

C1.13. Any touch of the sycophancy of the future in it? As in modern Germany, a touch of that involved in the system of royalty.

C1.15. The raw material is good, but not worked up. Important for the conception of h.e.l.lenic democracy (cf. -- 17). Daring, courage, virtue--there is no monopoly of these things.

C1.21. (Cf. below VIII. C2.5) Worthy of Adam Smith. Xenophon has b.u.mp of economy strongly developed; he resembles J. P.[*] in that respect. The economic methodism, the mosaic interbedding, the architectonic structure of it all, a part and parcel of Xenophon's genius. Was Alexander's army a highly-organised, spiritually and materially built-up, vitalised machine of this sort? What light does Arrian, that younger Xenophon, throw upon it?

[* ”J. P.” = John Percival, Bishop of Hereford (the writer of the Introduction to this volume), at the time the notes were written Headmaster of Clifton College.--F.M.S.]

C1.25. Camaraderie encouraged and developed through a sense of equality and fraternity, the life _au grand jour_ in common, producing a common consciousness (cf. Comte and J. P.; Epaminondas and the Sacred Band at Thebes).

C2. Contrast of subject enlivening the style--light concrete as a foil to the last drier abstract detail. Humorous also, with a dramatising and development of the characters, Shakespeare-wise--Hystaspas, and the rest. Aglatadas, a type of educator we know well (cf. Eccles. ”c.o.c.ker not a child”), grim, dry person with no sense of humour. Xenophon's own humour s.h.i.+nes out.

C2.12. The term given to the two stories {eis tagathon}. T. E. B.[*]

could do it, or Socrates, without dullness or seeming to preach. There is a crispness in the voice which is anti-pedantic.

[* ”T. E. B.” = T. E. Brown, the Manx poet, at that time a colleague of Mr. Dakyns at Clifton.--F.M.S.]

C2.19. Cyrus recognises the ideal principle of co-operation and collective owners.h.i.+p. Xenophon, Economist, ahead of the moderns.

C2.26. Xenophon's breadth of view: virtue is not confined to citizens, but we have the pick of the whole world. Cosmopolitan h.e.l.lenism.

C3.4. Xenophon's theory of rule (cf. Ruskin): a right, inalienable, G.o.d-bestowed, of the virtuous; subjection an inevitable consequence on lack of self-discipline.

C3.5, init. Is this a carelessness, or what? Chrysantas has been introduced before, but here he is described as if stepping on the stage for the first time. The sentence itself suggests the mould for the New Testament narrative.

C3.7. Pheraulas, and of him we shall hear much. A sharp contrast to Chrysantas, the Peer, with his pointed plebeian similes. His speech important again for Xenophon's sympathetic knowledge of children and also of the hard-working poor.

C3.10. How true to nature this. Cannot one see the little boy doubling his little fists, a knife in his pocket, possibly a ball of string?

C3.11. Is there a touch of flunkeyism in this? Not so; it is the clear-sighted scientific Greek, that is all.

C3.14. Very Scotch all this.

C3.21-22. _Locus cla.s.sicus_ for regimental marching tactics. Qy.: Are any of these tactical improvements by Xenophon himself?

C3.21. The ”regiment” of a hundred men was divided into four ”companies” of twenty-five, to each of these one company-captain and twenty-four men, viz.: twenty privates, two captains-of-ten, and two captains-of-five, the two captains of ten having also especial charge over the two remaining squads of five. A condensed diagram may make the little manoeuvre clear. An X represents one group of five plus its captain, either a captain-of-five or a captain-of-ten. A C represents a company-captain.

First position--One long column. All in single file.

Second position--Four columns. Single file for each company.

Third position--Eight columns. Double files.

Fourth position--Sixteen columns. Quadruple files.

C C C C C C C X X X -> X X X X -> X X X X X X X X X -> X X X X X X X X X X X X C X X X X]

C4.15. Cyaxares means to kidnap them, doesn't he? That is not quite Cyrus' method. If so, it contrasts Cyaxares and Cyrus again.

C4.17. Cyaxares the old fox improves upon the plan.