✓ HARVARD COLLEGE LD: ARY BEQUEST OF ARTHUR STUART WALCOTT JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY. 49 PREFACE. Of the two works of Xenophon, contained in the present volume, English translations have already appeared. The only version of the Anabasis, on which the public could look with any favour, was Spelman's, which certainly has spirit, and is in general not unfaithful, but is not sufficiently close for the scholar or student. Spelman had some knowledge of Greek, but was deficient, as is proved by his notes, in that intimate acquaintance with the language which is necessary to the production of an exact version. The best previous translation of the Memorabilia was that by Sarah Fielding, the sister of the novelist; a performance, however, extremely verbose and licentious. Its authoress had not sufficient knowledge of Greek to justify her in undertaking it. Harris of Salisbury gave her some help, as she says in a note near the commencement, but assuredly not much. She had been preceded by Bysshe, the author of the Art of Poetry, a free translator, many of whose phrases she adopted. The present translator has endeavoured to preserve the sense and spirit of the original, in language which may satisfy both the English reader and the scholar. In the Anabasis the text of Dindorf has been followed; in the Memorabilia, that of Kühner. The Geographical Commentary, by Mr. Ainsworth, author of "Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks," has been added at the wish of the publisher, and will, without doubt, be regarded as an acceptable illustration of the Anabasis. J. S. W. REMARKS ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE ANABASIS. A BIOGRAPHICAL Notice of Xenophon will be prefixed to another volume. Some remarks are here offered on the authorship of the "Anabasis." A passage of the "Hellenica," in which it is said that a narrative of the Expedition of Cyrus was written by Themistogenes of Syracuse, has given rise to the question whether the account of that expedition which we now have is that of Xenophon or that of Themistogenes. When Xenophon, in the course of his narrative of events relating to Greece, comes to the time at which the expedition of Cyrus took place, he says,2 "How Cyrus, collected an army, how he marched up the country with it against his brother, how the battle was fought, how Cyrus was killed, and how the Greeks afterwards effected a safe retreat to the sea, has been written by Themistogenes the Syracusan." Suidas also says that "Themistogenes, a Syracusan historian, wrote the Anabasis of Cyrus, ἧτις ἐν τοῖς Ξενοφῶντος Ελληνικοῖς φέρεται, and some other things concerning his own country." What sense is to be given to the word pépɛtaι in this passage, has been a subject of much doubt. If the phrase containing it be translated, with Morus, quæ nominatur aut laudatur in Historia Græcâ, a sense is given to the verb for which there is no authority; and if it be rendered, with most interpreters, quæ inserta legitur historiis Græcis, that is said which is not true. Kuster1 and Dindorf,5 therefore, suggest that the word 'EXλnvious, which is not found in 1 Morus in Dissert. Hellenicis præmiss. c. 6. Kühner Prolegom. in Anab. p. xviii. 2 Hellen. iii. 1, 2. 3 4 Ad Suidam, v. Θεμιστογένης. ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE ANABASIS. V the Paris manuscripts, should be struck out. The sense will then be, "which is inserted among the writings of Xenophon." Suidas being thus interpreted, the two passages will concur in showing that a narrative of the "Anabasis" was written by Themistogenes. The next point to be considered is, whether that narrative which we now have is, or is not, the work of Themistogenes. Plutarch, in his Considerations whether the Athenians were more renowned in Arms or in Letters,1 observes, in alluding to the historians, that "Xenophon was a subject of history for himself, for he wrote an account of the military matters which he successfully conducted, but represents that the account was written by Themistogenes the Syracusan, in order that he might have more credit if he spoke of himself as another person, giving to another the reputation of the work." The passage is somewhat obscure, for there is a word, such as λéyɛɩ, wanting; I translate it in the sense in which it is taken by Leunclavius and Wyttenbach. In agreement with this passage of Plutarch, Tzetzes, in his Chiliads,2 after observing that Phidias made two statues for a young man of whom he was fond, and for whose workmanship, it appears, they were to pass, says that "Xenophon did the same with regard to the Anabasis of Cyrus; for he set a certain name to the work to please one whom he loved; * ** it is the book of Themistogenes the Syracusan, and afterwards came to be commonly called the work of Xenophon; so Plato the philosopher wrote his Dialogues under the names of his friends; and other writers have composed innumerable things in a similar way." When he says that "it is the book of Themistogenes,” τὸ βιβλίον Θεμιστογένους ἐστι, he can have no other meaning but that it was given to the world by Xenophon under the name of Themistogenes. A Scholium, which is appended to the passage by an unknown author, states the matter more briefly and clearly: Xenophon inscribed the Anabasis of Cyrus with the name of Themistogenes, yet it came to be commonly called afterwards the work of Xenophon." 66 From these writers, then, Plutarch, Tzetzes, and his Scholiast, it would appear that the "Anabasis," or account of the expedition of Cyrus, was written by Xenophon, and published 2 vii. 930. 1 c. i. as the work of Themistogenes. But from the passage of Xenophon, to which we ought to attribute more authority than to any other, as also from that of Suidas, we may rather conceive, as Dindorf suggests, that there were two Anabases, the one written by Themistogenes, before Xenophon wrote the third book of the Hellenica, and to which Xenophon was then content to refer, and the other written by Xenophon himself subsequently to that time. Under this supposition, indeed, we must believe that Xenophon published the Anabasis at a very advanced period of life, while the composition seems to be that of a man in the full vigour of his faculties; but Sophocles, as Kühner1 observes, wrote with great spirit after he was eighty years of age; and the Anabasis might have been written some years before Xenophon sent it out of his hands. If there were two, that of Themistogenes, from what Xenophon says of it, may have brought the Greeks only to the sea, or to Trebisond; that of Xenophon is continued to their junction with Thibron. If there were but one, Xenophon may have published the first four books, at an earlier period, under the name of Themistogenes, and have afterwards added the three other books, and signified that the whole was his own. One object of the author of the work which we have, observes Mitford,2 was to apologize for the conduct of Xenophon; in the latter part the narrative is constantly accompanied with a studied defence of his proceedings; the circumstances that produced his banishment from Athens, and whatever might excite jealousy against him at Lacedæmon, have been carefully considered; if, therefore, Themistogenes wrote it, he may have written under the direction of Xenophon; if Xenophon wrote it, there may have been good reasons why, at the time of its publication, he should have wished it to pass under another person's name. If there were two Anabases, we may suppose that Xenophon's superseded that of Themistogenes, and caused it to be lost. The name of Themistogenes, as an author, is mentioned by no writer besides those whom we have noticed; while that of Xenophon, as the author of the Anabasis, is specified, as Mitford and Krüger 3 observe, by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, Cicero, Diogenes Laertius, Lucian, Ælian, and Athe1 Prolegom. in Anab. p. xix. 2 Hist. of Greece, vol. v. p. 333. 3 De Authent. Anab. p. 18. |