Hellenica
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~130,000 words · 620 passages
Cite this work
- APAXenophon. (n.d.). Hellenica. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/xenophon/hellenica
- MLAXenophon. Hellenica. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/xenophon/hellenica.
- ChicagoXenophon. Hellenica. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/xenophon/hellenica.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The continuation of Thucydides' history: Xenophon takes up the account of the Peloponnesian War exactly where the other left it and carries it down to 362 BC.
Context and history
It begins with an 'and after this' that joins literally onto Thucydides' broken-off sentence. That is at once its merit and its trap: it invites one to read it as the same book, and it is not. Xenophon writes more plainly and less analytically, and above all he writes as what he was — an Athenian admirer of Sparta, a pupil of Socrates, a mercenary, an exile from his own city — so that he is silent about or brief on things that do not suit him: the founding of the Theban league and the part played by Epaminondas come off short. It is the main source we have for these years, and must be used in that knowledge. The 'Anabasis', where Xenophon is the better writer, is also in the corpus.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
sea to attack them, and captured four ships with their crews, and chased the remainder back to Ephesus. The prisoners were sent by Thrasylus to Athens, with one exception. This was an Athenian, Alcibiades, who was a cousin and fellow-exile of Alcibiades. Him Thrasylus released. (3) From Methymna Thrasylus set sail to Sestos to join the main body of the army, after which the united forces crossed to Lampsacus. And now winter was approaching. It was the winter in which the Syracusan prisoners who had been immured in the stone quarries of Piraeus dug through the rock and escaped one night, some to Decelia and others to Megara. At Lampsacus Alcibiades was anxious to marshal the whole military force there collected in one body, but the old troops refused to be incorporated with those of Thrasylus. "They, who had never yet been beaten, with these newcomers who had just suffered a defeat." So they devoted the winter to fortifying Lampsacus. They also made an expedition against Abydos, where Pharnabazus, coming to the rescue of the place, encountered them with numerous cavalry, but was defeated and forced to flee, Alcibiades pursuing hard with his cavalry and one hundred and twenty infantry under the command of Menander, till darkness intervened. After this battle the soldiers came together of their own accord, and freely fraternised with the troops of Thrasylus. This expedition was followed by other incursions during the winter into the interior, where they found plenty to do ravaging the king's territory. (3) Reading {apelusen}. Wolf's conjecture for the MSS. {katelousen} = stoned. See Thirlwall, "Hist. Gr." IV. xxix. 93 note. It was at this period also that the Lacedaemonians allowed their revolted helots from Malea, who had found an asylum at Coryphasium, to depart under a flag of truce.…