Part 26 (2/2)

C2.3. How far was this a custom among h.e.l.lenes? It reveals a curious state of society, real or imaginary; but I suppose that at Rome in imperial days (cf. _panem et circenses_) the theory of meat and drink largesses being the best would hold.

C2.4, fin. The last remark is so silly (?) I am almost disposed to follow Lincke and admit interpolation. Yet on the whole I think it is the voice of the old man explaining in his Vicar-of-Wakefield style, to his admiring auditors, wife, children, and grandsons, I fancy, and slaves, the _raison d'etre_ of Persian dinner-largesse customs.

C2.6. Qy.: What was Xenophon's manner of composing? The style here is loose, like that of a man talking. Perhaps he lectured and the amanuensis took down what he said.

C2.8. Inept.i.tudes. One does somewhat sniff an editor here, I think, but I am not sure. There's a similar touch of inept.i.tude (senility, perhaps) in the _Memorabilia_, _ad fin_. On the other hand I can imagine Xenophon purring over this side of Orientalism quite naturally.

C2.12. This slipshod style, how accounted for? The most puzzling thing of all is the sort of mental confusion between Cyrus and the king in general.

C2.15-16. Thoroughly Xenophontine and Ruskinian and eternal.

C2.24. Here is the germ of benefit societies and clubs and insurances and hospitals. Xenophon probably learns it all from Ctesias, and others of the sort. Cyrus provides doctors and instruments and medicines and diet, in fact, all the requisites of a hospital, in his palace. Nor does he forget to be grateful to the doctors who cured the sick. [Ctesias, the Greek physician to the Persian king. See _Anabasis_, I. viii. Works, Vol. I. p. 108.]

C2.26 ff. Xenophon's Machiavellianism. Does it work?

C2.17-28. It seems to me that all this is too elaborate for an interpolator: it smacks of Xenophon in his arm-chair, theorising and half-dreaming over his political philosophy.

C3.2. Prototype, a procession to Eleusis or elsewhere: the Panathenaic, possibly. Xenophon's sumptuous taste and love of bright colours.

C3.3, fin., C3.4. What a curious prototypic sound! Truly this is the very _modus_ of the evangelist's type of sentence. His narrative must run in this mould.

C3.4, fin. This is the old Cyrus. It comes in touchingly here, this refrain of the old song, now an echo of the old life.

C3.14. Xenophon delights somewhat in this sort of scene. It is a turning-point, a veritable moral peripety, though the decisive step was taken long ago. What is Xenophon's intention with regard to it? Has he any _parti pris_, for or against? Does he wish us to draw conclusions?

Or does it correspond to a moral meeting of the waters in his own mind?

Here love of Spartan simplicity, and there of splendour and regality and monarchism? He does not give a hint that the sapping of the system begins here, when the archic man ceases to depend on his own spiritual archic qualities and begins to eke out his dignity by artificial means and external shows of reverence.

C3.20. Is this worthy of the archic man? It is a method, no doubt, of {arkhe}, but has it any spiritual ”last” in it? The incident of Dapharnes somewhat diverts our attention from the justice of the system in reference to the suitors. On the whole, I think Xenophon can't get further. He is blinded and befogged by two things: (1) his (i.e. their) aristocratism, and again (2) his satisfaction in splendour and get-up, provided it is attached to moral greatness. We are in the same maze, I fancy. Jesus was not, nor is Walt Whitman.

C3.23. Cyrus is made to behave rather like the autocratic father of a goody story-book.

C3.25. Realistic and vivid detailing: our curiosity is satisfied. ”Who has won?” we ask. ”Oh, so-and-so, Smith.” Well, it's something to know that Smith has won. Xenophon, the artist, 'cutely introduces the Sakian to us. One scene takes up another, just as in real life. Quite soon we know a great deal more about this young man, a mere Sakian private soldier, who wins the race so easily on his splendid horse. Cyrus and good fortune introduce him to the very man he is suited to: viz.

Pheraulas.

C3.37. Pheraulas' boyhood has already been sketched by himself (II.

C3.7), the active st.u.r.dy little youngster, s.n.a.t.c.hing at a knife, and hacking away _con amore_. We know him well: Xenophon's modernism comes out in these things. Here we have the old father, a heart of oak, like the old Acharnian in Aristophanes. One of the prettiest morsels in all Xenophon. Xenophon's own father, is he there?

C3.47. The desire for ”leisure” is as strong in Xenophon as in hgd. or S. T. I., I think. [S. T. Irwin, also a master at Clifton.]

C4.1. Why is the Hyrcanian never named? Is it conceivable that Xenophon shrinks from using a proper name except when he has some feeling for the sound of the language? (Sic. Sakians, Cadousians, Indians, etc.)

C4.4 The ”mark” system again which Xenophon believes in, but hgd. not.

Shows how he tried to foster compet.i.tiveness. It's after all a belief in the central sun, a species of monarch-wors.h.i.+p, logical and consistent enough.

C4.8. Xenophon reveals himself and the h.e.l.lenic feeling with regard to war and its use. The _pax Romana_ is antic.i.p.ated in their minds.

C4.9. Hystaspas is rather like the sons of Zebedee or the elder brother of the Prodigal.

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