Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought (Liverpool Studies in Ancient History) 9781789621235, 9781789624267, 1789621232

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Intercultural Interaction in Herodotus and the Fifth Century
2 Re-educating the Tyrant in Xenophon’s Hiero
3 Intercultural Communication in Xenophon’s Anabasis
4 Isokrates: Making Laws for Monarchs
5 A Platonic Rejoinder
6 From Theory to Practice: Talking to Tyrants in Demosthenes and his Contemporaries
Epilogue: A Lasting Legacy
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought

Liverpool Studies in Ancient History

LIVERPOOL STUDIES IN ANCIENT HISTORY

Series editors Colin Adams, University of Liverpool Fiona Hobden, The Open University Cristina Rosillo-López, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla Susan Mattern, University of Georgia Editorial board Hans Beck, Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster Henriette van der Blom, University of Birmingham Esther Eidinow, University of Bristol Richard Flower, University of Exeter Lisa Hau, University of Glasgow Sabine Heubner, Universität Basel Frédéric Hurlet, Université Paris-Nanterre Polly Low, Durham University Fernando Lozano, Universidad de Sevilla Marco Maiuro, Sapienza Università di Roma Joseph Manning, Yale University Michael Peachin, NYU Francisco Pina Polo, Universidad Zaragoza Laurens Tacoma, Universiteit Leiden

Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought

DANIEL UNRUH Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought

First published 2023 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2023 Daniel Unruh Daniel Unruh has asserted the right to be identified as the author of this book in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-78962-123-5 cased eISBN 978-1-78962-426-7 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster

Contents Contents

Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 1. Intercultural Interaction in Herodotus and the Fifth Century

17

2. Re-educating the Tyrant in Xenophon’s Hiero 55 3. Intercultural Communication in Xenophon’s Anabasis 95 4. Isokrates: Making Laws for Monarchs

117

5 A Platonic Rejoinder

149

6 From Theory to Practice: Talking to Tyrants in Demosthenes and his Contemporaries

183

Epilogue: A Lasting Legacy

219

Bibliography 239 Index

261

Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

This book evolved from my doctoral dissertation, completed at the University of Cambridge between 2010 and 2015, funded by the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In this connection, I must recognise the encouragement and keen critical eye of my doctoral supervisor, Robin Osborne. Likewise, I am grateful to my examiners, Paul Millett and Lynette Mitchell, for helpful critiques and stimulating discussion, which greatly aided in the transition from thesis to book. I also want to thank all those who helped me on my earlier journey through Classics, in which I have been enmeshed since at least the age of 11 – in particular, Catherine Mori, Lyn Rae, C. W. Marshall, David Creese, and Bonnie MacLachlan. I am very grateful for the unfailing support of Liverpool University Press in bringing this book to fruition. Special thanks go to my editor, Clare Litt, and to the Studies in Ancient History series editors for all their support and thoughtful suggestions. I also want to thank the anonymous readers, for the care and enthusiasm they showed in reviewing my manuscript. This book would not have been possible without the help and support of family, friends, and colleagues. To everyone who read my work, talked through ideas, or simply provided encouragement and reassurance, thank you! Space unfortunately forbids listing everyone who has contributed, but I will single out Amber Ace, Anna Bachmann, Annie Burman, Anna Judson, Niamh Mulcahy, Philippa Steele, Sarah Stein Lubrano, Shane Wallace, and Elizabeth Walsh. Finally, I could not have finished the book without the support, both practical and emotional, of my parents, William and Patricia Unruh. To them this book is dedicated.

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Introduction Introduction

1. “Worthily of our City” – the Perennial Challenge of Autocracy In May of 2012, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came under strong media criticism for his activities as a political and economic consultant. Blair had recently accepted a position as special advisor to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursaltan Nazarbayev, a role for which he was to be paid £13 million. Becoming the close advisor of a leader whose record on human and civil rights had been widely condemned was seen by some as a betrayal of the ideals of democracy, human rights, and civil society that Blair had claimed to espouse during his time as Prime Minister.1 Blair’s press office hit back that, arguing that far from providing legitimacy to Nazarbayev’s regime as his critics alleged, Blair was in fact seeking to moderate and improve the Kazakh government’s policies: The work we are doing is precisely to boost the reform programme which is already underway and is consistent with the demands made of President Nazarbayev by the international community.2

Nearly two-and-a-half millennia earlier, another public figure found himself condemned for his closeness to an autocrat, and responded in a strikingly similar manner. In the middle of the fourth century bce , the philosopher and rhetorician Isokrates defended himself against the resentment that, he says, had accrued to him for having written to advise Nikokles, the young monarch of Cypriot Salamis. Like Blair, Isokrates explains that his goal had been to make his client a more benevolent ruler (Isoc. 15.70):

1 See Nick Cohen, “Tony Blair’s moral decline and fall is now complete” (The Observer, 27 May 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/27/nick-cohen-tonyblair-kazakhstan). Blair has, in fact, been criticised for accepting advisory positions for many autocratic rulers and regimes; see Cook 2013. 2 “Statement from The Office of Tony Blair on Nick Cohen’s column on Kazakhstan in this week’s Observer” (27 May 2012, http: //www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/ statement-from-the-office-of-tony-blair-on-nick-cohens-column-on-kazakhstan).

1

2

Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought It will be clear that I spoke to him as a free man, and worthily of our city, not fawning on his wealth or his power, but defending his subjects’ interests and seeking to provide them, as far as I was able, as mild a form of government as possible.3

The similarity between these two defences, more than two thousand years apart, points to the recurring dilemma of how states and citizens that believe in responsible government, individual liberties, and public involvement in decision-making should deal with autocratic rulers who neither respect nor even understand any of these principles. This question is one of the most long-standing and vexing foreign policy challenges facing modern liberal democracies. Taking just one country, the United States of America – a nation that regards opposition to autocracy as a foundational principle – one finds scholars and politicians continuously debating how citizens and officials ought to interact with absolute monarchies and authoritarian regimes. From mid-nineteenth-century debates over how far American citizens should (literally) bend to accommodate the protocol of the Chinese Emperor,4 through discussions of trade with European dictators in the 1930s,5 anxieties over friendship with autocratic allies in the Cold War,6 and renewed debates over negotiation with dictators in the twenty-first century,7 the question of how Americans might communicate with autocrats and still remain true to their stated democratic values has been a major theme in American diplomatic debate. In addition to concerns over the ethics of communicating with authoritarian rulers, the last few decades have seen increased discussion of the practicalities of doing so. Increasingly, both practising diplomats and scholars of international communication have begun to suggest that individuals from liberal democracies and those from authoritarian states approach the world with very different assumptions and prejudices, and as a result neither side may fully understand what the other is communicating. This view was dramatically articulated by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2013. Reflecting on her negotiations with China, Clinton explained that China’s authoritarian leadership seemed to assume that American politics were as centralised and coherent as their own: I came to believe that the Chinese, for their own reasons and because of their own way of governing, believed that somewhere in Washington

3 4 5 6 7

Unless otherwise specified, all translations are my own. Rockhill 1897. Bidwell 1939. Bundy 1975, Kirkpatrick 1979. For example, Carothers 2003, Boyd-Judson 2011.

Introduction

3

there is a master plan about what we intend to do to try to control their rise […] They really do, because they have plans and they have all kinds of processes. They have never understood the jazz-like quality of American government and democracy.8

Ancient Anxieties As Isokrates’ defence shows, similar anxieties prevailed in the Greek world of the fifth and fourth centuries bce . Like citizens of modern liberal democracies, the inhabitants of the polis – the ancient Greek city-state – prided themselves on their commitment to collective government, accountability of leaders, and the rule of law. The number of citizens considered full members of the body politic might vary greatly from state to state, but most states agreed that all members of the governing class should have an equal opportunity to be involved in government. Policy was not the whim of a single leader, but emerged from, to borrow Clinton’s phrasing, a “jazz-like” process of debate, negotiation, and compromise. In contrast to this civil government, in the Greek mind, stood monarchy. Monarchia, “sole rule”, did not have any of the modern connotations of heredity, tradition, or constitutionalism that the term can now bear; rather, it indicated rule by a single unaccountable leader. This was seen by many as the natural form of government of non-Greek peoples, or “barbarians”, but unfit for Greeks, who had the intelligence and cultural level to govern themselves.9 Granted, from time to time some Greek states did fall under the power of sole rulers – “tyrants” (tyrannoi) – but Greek thinkers preferred to see this as an aberration, a perversion of the proper order.10 Like modern elective democracies, however, Greek poleis were obliged by economic and strategic necessities to deal with regimes they found “Chatham House Prize 2013: In Conversation with Hillary Rodham Clinton”, http://www.chathamhouse.org/chatham-house-prize/2013. 9 The scholarship on Greek conceptions of “barbarians” and their societies is vast. See, inter alia, Hall 1989, Georges 1994, Harrison 2000, Mitchell 2007. This distinction between Greek self-government and barbarian monarchy is, of course, ideological, and not an accurate reflection of historical realities: as Vlassopoulos (2007 ch. 4) shows, many of the practices and institutions that have been cited as defining features of the Greek polis can be found in many non-Greek societies as well. 10 Much has been written about the history, nature, and development of tyranny in Greek society and thought. As an account of the various tyrannical regimes in Greek history, Andrewes 1956 remains an excellent overview. On the evolution of the term “tyrant” (tyrannos) in classical discourse, see Parker 1998, and on ancient perceptions of tyranny, see McGlew 1993. For a discussion of the role of tyranny in Athenian democratic discourse, see Rosivach 1988, Raaflaub 2003. Modern scholarship has debated how much tyranny was in fact seen as atypical or illegitimate in pre-Classical Greece; for arguments that sole rule was in fact unremarkable, see Anderson 2005, Mitchell 2013. 8

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deeply distasteful. Both non-Greek kings and Greek tyrants could possess great wealth and military might, making them very useful friends and potentially dangerous enemies. And, as in many modern states, how these contacts should be managed was a source of great anxiety and debate. In the accounts of historians, in the theories of philosophers and in the speeches of politicians we can see ancient thinkers wrestling with the questions that their dealings with monarchs raised. We see these anxieties in Isokrates’ need to defend his friendship with the Cypriot king. We can also see them in the horror displayed by the hero of Aristophanes’ Acharnians at the prospect of Athens allying with Persian and Thracian kings; in the depiction in Herodotus’ Histories of Spartan envoys preferring death to bowing to the Persian monarch; in the warning of the Athenian orator Demosthenes that if his city becomes too friendly with autocratic rulers, it will go from “championing the liberty of the Greeks” to “serving as the bodyguard men who hold down their people with private armies”. As they wrestle with these anxieties, Greek authors can be found asking themselves questions that sound strikingly familiar. Should citizens of Greek states try to communicate to monarchs their own communitarian ideals? How far can one accommodate a monarch before compromising one’s own civic values? Is communication between citizen and monarch even possible? What, in short, does it really mean to speak to monarchs worthily of one’s city? Though it would obviously be desirable to study writers from a wide range of Greek cities, the nature of the evidence requires that this study will concentrate primarily on democratic Athens. As the only place in fifth and fourth century Greece from which literature has survived en masse, Athens is the only city for which we have sustained evidence of political and social beliefs. Nearly all the writers discussed, with the sole exception of Herodotus, were born and raised in Athens, and even he spent a substantial amount of time living and working there. Other cities will certainly be discussed – Herodotus particularly pays a great deal of attention to Spartan relations with monarchies – but of necessity Athens will have pride of place in my analysis.

2. Different Worlds For thinkers of the Classical period, citizens of the collectively governed polis and absolute monarchs and their subjects lived in very different physical and mental worlds. Monarchic and polis-society were seen as operating by very different rules, governed by very different assumptions. Throughout Classical literature there runs a fascination with this difference, as authors explore the many points of dissonance between the world of the polis and the world of monarchy.

Introduction

5

The World of the Polis Perhaps nowhere are the contrasts between the worlds of polis and monarchy more starkly presented than in a scene near the beginning of Euripides’ tragedy, The Suppliants. In the play, a herald from the autocratic Theban king arrives in Athens to demand that the Athenians refrain from aiding Thebes’ enemies. The herald opens his speech with a request to speak to “the tyrant of Athens”, a request that the Athenian hero Theseus finds deeply objectionable (448–453): Right away you’ve begun your speech falsely, stranger, seeking a tyrant here. This is not the domain of one man, but a free city. The people rule by turns, year after year, and the greatest amount is not given to the rich, but the poor man has an equal share.

In this speech, and the debate that follows it, Theseus articulates principles that could be applied not only to the Athenian democracy, here anachronistically projected into the mythic past, but to collectively ruled poleis generally. First, his statement that political power was apportioned equally points to the fact that most Greek poleis promoted an ideology of equality among the governing class. A century later, Isokrates, arguably no strong friend to democracy, could write that “both oligarchies and democracies seek equality for those who have a share in their governments, and it is thought good that one should never be able to have more than another” (Isoc. 2.15). Aristotle echoes this principle: “It is desirable” he says, “that a polis consist of those who are most equal and similar” (Pol. 4.1295b). How much of the total male population was entitled to “a share in government” might vary widely from polis to polis, but the principle of shared authority seems to have been widespread.11 In no polis, it should always be emphasised, did the sharing of power extend beyond the free and male. Even in democratic Athens, political power was still in the hands of a minority of the total population – women, enslaved people, and those not born to two Athenian parents were excluded not only from full citizenship, but in many cases from full personhood. The ideal of (free, male) equality implied and required collective decision-making. If all citizens are equal, then all should have a voice in government, whether through voting in an assembly or being selected to serve as a magistrate or councillor. This is not to deny that in Greek cities “there was room for strong-minded men to exert influence”;12 but to do so these men would have had to persuade at least a bare majority 11 12

For an introduction to the common features of Greek poleis, see Hansen 2006. Rhodes 1995: 167.

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of those empowered to decide.13 The notion that important decisions require deliberation by many minds is reflected in Athenian literature. Both Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ Suppliants show heroic kings who will not act until their peoples have debated the right course of action.14 Even the goddess Athena, in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, considers a jury of citizens to be better than her own wisdom at establishing the right course in a difficult case (480–484). Theseus’ statement that the people “rule by turns” reflects the common feature of iteration of offices. Terms of magistrates and councillors in Greek poleis were frequently limited, most often to a single year, and the same individual was often excluded from reappointment. One of the earliest recorded Greek laws, for example, from the city of Dreros on Crete, lays down that no individual could serve as the city’s chief magistrate more than once every ten years.15 Even stricter term limits were imposed on officers in Athens: no Athenian could serve on the governing council, the Boulē, more than twice in his entire lifetime, and other offices were limited to only a single term.16 Iteration of offices had two important effects on how political power was viewed. First, no one was seen as entitled to hold it permanently. The short terms and the ban on reiteration seem designed both to prevent any one individual from monopolising office, and to ensure that as many citizens as possible can fulfil the function. Alternation between office and private station, between “ruling and being ruled”, is, for Aristotle, the essence of being a good citizen.17 Second, by being held by a new man every year, the power of office was depersonalised, lying with the office, and the community that created it, and not its holder. Demosthenes makes this point explicit in one trial speech: to harm a magistrate he says, is a more heinous crime than harming a private person because it is a crime not merely against an individual but against the community at large, as the office “does not belong to any one person, but to the polis” (Dem. 21.32). On the importance of the Greek adoption of majoritarianism rather than absolute consensus for decision-making, see Flaig 2013: 72–73. 14 Aesch. Supp. 365–368, Eur. Supp. 348–353. 15 ML 2. As Osborne 1996: 186–188 notes, this law reflects a deep anxiety that no member of the governing elite can gain authority at the expense of other members; it might well be possible to link it to a fear that an ambitious individual might use his office as a springboard to tyranny. 16 Ath. Pol. 62.3. 17 Pol. 3.1275a. See Hignett 1952: 237: The application of the principles of sortition and rotation to the selection of the bouleutai made them a representative cross-section of the whole community and prevented them from acquiring the permanence and authority of an oligarchic life-council. 13

Introduction

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The World of the Monarch These distinctive features of the polis are all depicted in Greek literature as alien to the world of the absolute monarch. Where poleis strive for some form of equality, the moment one has a monarch, in the words of Euripides’ Theseus, “there is no more equality” (Eur. Supp. 432). The monarch’s superiority to his subjects precludes any real deliberation in his decision-making.18 A ruler might solicit advice from trusted counsellors, as, for example, Herodotus’ monarchs frequently do (e.g. Hdt. 1.71, 7.10), but ultimately the decision is his alone – and Herodotus also shows that monarchs rarely listen to the advice they are offered. Where a council or assembly must reach some degree of consensus, and therefore must incorporate diverse views, a monarch need only listen to those whose advice he finds pleasant. In reality, of course, no ruler can make decisions based purely on their own interests. There are always other powerful interests that they must take account of if they wish their rule to remain stable: the military, the nobility, and even, ultimately, the population at large must all be kept reasonably happy for a monarch to retain the throne.19 But Greek literature rarely seem to recognise this fact. Instead, monarchs are depicted as enjoying absolute freedom of action, the perfect capacity to transform their wills into reality.20 “Tyranny is fortunate in many things”, Sophocles’ Antigone bitterly remarks, “but especially in that it can do and say whatever it wants” (Antigone 506–507). Perhaps one of the most striking contrasts with the polis is that for a monarch all power is personal. Since the ruler’s own “office” is normally lifelong, there is less likely to be the clear separation between officer and office that occurs in the polis with its brief magistracies. Monarchs therefore tend to think about both their own power and their relations with others in purely personal terms. Relations with other communities, for example, are effected primarily through personal relationships.21 Monarchs are often depicted as forming political alliances by means of personal connections, whether through friendship and ritualised guest relationships,22 or through 18 See, for example, Pope 1988: 281 on the non-deliberative nature of monarchs’ decisions in Thucydides. Aristotle, not normally thought of as a friend to democracy, offers an eloquent defence of broadly based decision-making at Pol. 1281a–b: while individuals may be only moderately wise, in coming together voters can pool their wisdom and arrive at better decisions than if each man deliberated alone. On Aristotle’s view of democracy, and its historical basis, see Lintott 1992. 19 So Mitchell 2013: 129–131. 20 See McGlew 1993: 29–30. 21 See Mitchell 1997: 131. 22 For example, Thrasyboulos and Periandros (Hdt. 1.20), Amasis and Polykrates (Hdt. 3.40.2).

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arranged marriages between royal families.23 Domestically, monarchs govern through hand-picked officials with whom they are personally acquainted. In advising Nikokles of Salamis, for example, Isokrates takes it as a given that the king will appoint his friends and family to positions of office, and urges him only to ensure that they are up to the task (Nic. 3.20, 27–28).

Communication Problems Between the worlds of polis and monarchy, Greek thinkers saw difficulties in communication as inevitable. The institutions and thought patterns of the polis could not help but be deeply alien to a monarch who had spent his life ruling or preparing to rule. Interaction between rulers and citizens ran the constant risk of misunderstanding, hostility and, at worst, the complete collapse of the relationship. These difficulties are a repeated theme in Athenian popular culture. Once again, Euripides’ Suppliants provides a good example. In their debate over the merits of monarchy and collective government, it has been observed that Theseus and the Argive tyrant’s herald are talking past one another.24 Theseus condemns monarchy on the basis that it is not “equal” (ison, Eur. Supp. 342). The herald, however, does not see equality as worth aiming for – for him, society is fundamentally divided between the base commoners and the “better sort” who rule them (417–426). His only response to Theseus’ impassioned defence of democracy is cool refusal to engage: “on these disputed points, you think one thing, I another” (Eur. Supp. 465–466). The Egyptian chorus in Aeschylus’ Suppliants show a similar incapacity to understand collective government. They respond to the Argive King Pelasgos’ decision to refer the question to his people with baffled indignation. “You are the state”, they tell him (Aesch. Supp. 370–375): You are the public. Being an unaccountable magistrate, you control the altar, and the hearth of the land with the sole vote of your nod, and order every affair from your single throne and sceptre.

Raised in an autocratic, barbarian climate, the Danaids are not capable of grasping anything but the most absolute of kingships. That a ruler might share power with his people is beyond their understanding. The royal family in Aeschylus’ Persians show a similar difficulty in grasping non-monarchic government. When asking the royal counsellors about Athens, it seems obvious to her to ask first who their ruler is. When informed that the Athenians “are called slaves and subjects of no man”, the Persian queen 23 24

Hdt. 1.205, 2.181; Thuc. 2.101.5, 6.59.3; Xen. Hell. 4.1.4–15. Storey 2008: 49, Fitton 1961: 433.

Introduction

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is incredulous: how can a people without a single “shepherd” expect to withstand the might of the Persian monarchy (Pers. 241–244)? It should be noted that the examples given here encompass both Greek and non-Greek rulers. The Persian queen and the Danaids are not Greek (though the latter have some Greek ancestry), and are used to no other system than hereditary monarchy. Kreon, ruler of Thebes in Euripides’ Suppliants, however, is a Greek, part of the same broad cultural and ethical world as Theseus and the Athenians. His representative, however, is just as incapable of understanding collective government as Aeschylus’ barbarians. This reflects a broader theme of depictions of monarchy in the sources I will be discussing: in general, there is not a great deal of difference between the thought processes and communication culture of Greek and “barbarian” rulers. Of course, non-Greek rulers are depicted as having greater cultural distance from the world of the polis, being separated not merely by political system but also by customs, language, and social mores. Nevertheless, in terms of worldview and psychological makeup, Greek tyrants and barbarian kings show surprisingly few differences. The effects of absolute power are presented by most of my authors as transforming the mind of the possessor, meaning that even someone who was once a Greek citizen is, upon becoming a tyrant, nearly as alien to civic life as the Great King of Persia.

4. Previous Approaches This book is situated at the confluence of two major streams of recent scholarship on Classical Greece. The first concerns approaches to ancient tyranny. Over the past 20-odd years, focus has shifted from the economic and social foundations of historical tyranny, and toward an exploration of the tyrant as an intellectual and philosophical idea. Authors have explored both how Classical Greek literature and culture created the figure of the tyrant, and how this figure was then used and discussed in the political and intellectual life of the Greek city.25 The second stream consists of an ongoing re-evaluation of the nature of ancient diplomacy. Where previous generations viewed ancient interstate contacts as working through formal institutions and as governed by blunt Realpolitik, more recently scholars have offered more nuanced and complex views.26 Polly Low, for example, has argued that, far from a Hobbesian free-for-all, ancient diplomacy was governed by broadly agreed-on norms and principles that states at least The older approach is represented in Ure 1922, Andrewes 1956. McGlew 1993 is a key text for the more recent ideological approach, as are the essays collected in Morgan 2003a. See also Harrell 2002, Lewis 2009, Mitchell 2013. 26 For an example of the older scholarship, see Adcock and Mosley 1975. 25

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made some effort to respect, while Christopher Jones and Lee Patterson have shown the power of ideas of mythical kinship in ancient diplomacy.27 Both these trends represent stimulating attempts to rethink aspects of the ancient world. So far, however, little has been done to synthesise the two, or to ask how ancient Greek images of tyranny may have affected how Greeks thought about how they related to kings, tyrants, and other sole rulers. At least one influential work in fact flatly denies that political or social structure had any effect on Greek interactions with monarchs. In his pioneering study of xenia – ritualised, hereditary friendship – Gabriel Herman devotes a brief section to relationships with monarchs. Herman does not, however, acknowledge that relationships between citizens and monarchs are problematised in Classical Greek thought, either practically or ideologically. Seeing xenia as a universal concept in the Eastern Mediterranean, Herman denies that differences of culture or political system had any effect on the relationship: It is thus idle to classify, as modern writers sometimes do, some of the elements of this etiquette as “Greek”, “Persian”, “Oriental”, or even “Roman”. Allowing for slight variations in detail, they formed part of a set of conventions stretching beyond ethnic boundaries.28

Xenia is depicted by Herman as a common language, understood in the same way by all participants, and therefore no difficulties in communication should be expected. The gifts and services a monarch could perform for his hereditary friends – xenoi – might differ quantitatively from those a citizen could offer, but in all other respects the relationship between citizen and monarch is no different from that of citizen and citizen.29 In fact, Herman sees all xeniai as in conflict with the ideology of the polis, arguing that the ties between aristocrats in different communities were uniformly held suspect by less elite citizens, regardless of the object of those ties.30 As a result, Herman does not see it making any difference to the level of ethical tension whether a citizen forms ties with a non-Greek monarch or another Greek aristocrat: both are as good, or as bad, as each other. A decade after Herman’s work, Lynette Mitchell in 1997 provided a more nuanced re-examination of xenia. Rather than seeing xenia and the polis as mutually opposed, Mitchell shows that both Athens and Sparta Jones 1997, Patterson 2010, Low 2007. Herman 1987: 44: See also 153: “factions of ritualized friendship thus cut across the ideological division between oligarchy and democracy”. 29 Herman 1987: 82–115. 30 Herman 1987: 156–161. 27 28

Introduction

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were willing to use their citizens’ personal ties to further their own state interests.31 Mitchell also rejects Herman’s view of xenia as transcending culture and politics. On the contrary, Mitchell sees xenia as a specifically Greek institution, one that other cultures might not fully understand or embrace.32 As a result, Mitchell devotes four chapters to interactions between Greeks and ethnically and/or politically different communities: Persia, Thrace, and Macedon. Unlike Herman, Mitchell sees the monarchic nature of these societies as a major stumbling block in the relationships. Used to a hierarchical system of government, “barbarian” kings and their subjects have difficulty grasping the essentially egalitarian principles of xenia.33 In the evidence for these interactions, Mitchell finds numerous instances of miscommunication, in which the two sides approached their relationship with very different assumptions and expectations. Mitchell’s work is an extremely important one, and has had a major influence on my own thought. Nevertheless, her emphasis is very different from mine. Mitchell’s interest is largely historical: she wishes to understand how personal relationships were used in diplomacy, and the ways in which cultural or political differences could lead to problems with such relationships. She does not, however, devote much time to discussing how the Greeks themselves thought about the role of social differences. Her approach is, as it were, “outside-in”, and leaves room for an “inside-out” look at how relationships with monarchs were depicted and debated in ancient political discourse. Turning from private to public relationships, Katarzyna Hagemajer Allen, in her lengthy 2003 article, attempts to extract from fourth-century Athenian honorific inscriptions popular views of the barbarian monarchs they frequently celebrate. Having established through quantitative analysis that it rarely affects either the language of the decrees or the specific honours whether the honouree is a Greek citizen or barbarian king,34 Allen goes on to argue that this shows that neither ethnicity nor political systems were of serious concern in Athenian diplomacy.35 Indeed, she concludes, It is plausible to read extant Athenian decrees for the non-Greeks as records containing vestiges of pro-barbarian rhetoric which, though rarely seen in surviving literature, must have balanced the abusive language and hostility of the proponents of alternative courses in foreign policy.36

31 32 33 34 35 36

See especially Mitchell 1997: 55–72. Mitchell 1997: 21. See, for example, Mitchell 1997: 132–133 on Persia; 147 on Thrace. Allen 2003: 218. Allen 2003: 228–229. Allen 2003: 242.

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Allen’s choice of evidence, however, does not allow for so strong a conclusion. As Allen in fact recognises, the language of honorific decrees deliberately obscures the process of debate and division that led up to the decision.37 The opinion of most of the six thousand-odd people who voted on that particular day is presented as the unanimous will of the dēmos, the sovereign citizen-body. We are not told how close the vote was, or how long it took to convince the majority and, most crucially, what arguments were used to do so. Allen’s “pro-barbarian rhetoric” is only one possible hypothesis; equally possible, for example, is some variation on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s alleged comment on the Dominican dictator, Somoza: “he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”38 More recent works have touched upon Greek citizens’ relations with monarchies as part of broader examinations of history and/or ideology. Alfonso Moreno’s study of the Athenian grain supply includes two chapters on Athenian relations with the Bosporan Kingdom, which discuss to some extent the strategies used to establish good relations between the two societies.39 Michael Landauer’s recent book on accountability in the Greek world includes discussions of the accountability of advisors in both the polis and monarchic societies, and includes some discussion of crossover between the two.40 Most recently, Alex Gottesman’s paper on isēgoria – “equal speech” – has made some very important observations on speech in and between monarchies and Greek civic states that in many cases parallel my own observations.41 All these studies are significant, and I have made use of all of them in my own work. They are, however, focussed on specific issues and/or areas, and do not seek to take a broad look at the issues raised by interactions with monarchs tout court.

5. This Book’s Approach There is, then, no comprehensive treatment of how Greek writers themselves depicted relationships between citizens and monarchs, an absence this book seeks to redress. It will focus primarily on five Classical prose writers: Herodotus, Xenophon, Isokrates, Demosthenes, and Plato. For each of these writers, it examines the answers they offer to the basic question “how should a citizen interact with a monarch?” Allen 2003: 228. So Brock 2009: 158. 39 Moreno 2007 chs 4 and 5. 40 Landauer 2019 chs 3 and 5. Like Herman, Landauer generally argues for a flattening-out of constitutional differences, seeing issues of accountability as largely similar whether in democracy or monarchy. 41 Gottesman 2021. 37 38

Introduction

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Taken together, the writers discussed span a period roughly from the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431 bce to the defeat of a Greek coalition in 338 by King Philip II of Macedon – also, incidentally, the year that Isokrates, the longest-lived of my authors, died. This period of roughly one hundred years saw major political and diplomatic upheavals throughout the Greek world. This was a period that saw the increasing power and influence of a wide range of monarchies on the world of the Greek city-states. After roughly 50 years of quietude, from the last years of the Peloponnesian War onward the Persian empire increasingly began to exert influence on Greek affairs. In addition, the rulers of previously marginal areas like Thessaly, Cyprus, Syracuse, and Macedon increasingly became forces to be reckoned with, exerting military and economic pressure on the Greek world to an unprecedented degree. This trend of resurgent monarchies culminated in the triumph of Philip II and the subordination of the city-states of mainland Greece to the Macedonian monarchy. The changes and trends that marked this period could not but leave their mark on the ways in which Greeks thought about political and diplomatic issues, and in this book I will trace the ways that political thought evolved and adapted in response to a dynamic and at times alarming international situation. In this connection, it seems wise to include a brief note on terminology. Throughout this book, I refer to events or ideas as belonging to the “fifth century” or “fourth century” bce . Relying too firmly on these divisions would be a mistake, given that they are derived from a system of dating created centuries after the period in question. Fortunately for historians, however, the change in century corresponds closely to the end of the Peloponnesian War, in what we term 403 bce . As this war was a major turning point in Greek history, and, I will argue, had a major influence on the ways Greeks interacted with monarchs, I feel comfortable using “fifth century” and “fourth century” as shorthand for “before and during the Peloponnesian War” and “after the Peloponnesian War” respectively.

Methodology This book’s primary approach to the material will be a close reading of the various sources, seeking to isolate patterns in the way they depict or discuss interaction between citizens and monarchs, and ultimately to derive from these patterns the principles that each writer sees as governing such interactions. Careful attention will also be paid to the context of the ancient works, political, social, and literary, in order to understand the events and trends that influenced the various writers as they developed their theories. In exploring ancient communication with monarchs, I have drawn inspiration from modern discussions of negotiation between cultures and social systems. Particularly significant is the field of Intercultural

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Communication Theory.42 Interculturalists argue that different cultures approach communication and negotiation in very different ways and with very divergent assumptions.43 Attitudes to power, differing emphases on relationship building vs problem solving, and even conflicting ideas about what negotiation itself entails can all lead to confusion, hostility and, in the worst cases, complete failure to communicate. Intercultural negotiation theory attempts to isolate and define these different factors, and, hopefully, to allow the different parties to better understand the assumptions and approaches of the other. The idea that different cultures and societies approach communication in different ways is one that most ancient writers heartily embrace. As a result, it is not unreasonable to think that there will be useful points of connection between intercultural communication theory and the ways in which ancient writers conceive of citizens and monarchs communicating. One must, however, be cautious in how one uses these theories. To begin with, if naively applied, intercultural theory runs the risk of devolving into reductionism and ethnic stereotyping, causing one to interpret one’s interlocutors’ actions as solely and entirely determined by cultural programming.44 In applying intercultural negotiation theory to the ancient world, then, one must not only guard against falling into this trap oneself, but also be alert to when the ancient actors and/or authors do. The second area of caution lies in unreflectively imposing modern theory on ancient society and thought. While the basic dilemmas faced by ancient and modern societies and the various approaches to them may at times be similar, it is important to keep in mind that ancient societies differed from modern ones greatly in terms of culture, social organisation, economics, technology, and a host of other areas. As a result, one must not assume that principles designed for modern industrialised nations will necessarily apply to societies two-and-a-half millennia earlier. Despite these caveats, however, when sensibly applied and adapted, modern intercultural negotiation theory can shed light on both ancient negotiations between societies and the ways in which ancient authors thought about them.

The literature on intercultural communications is vast. Cohen 1997 remains an essential summary, while Jönsson 1990 gives a theoretically inflected account of the discipline and sounds important caveats. The volumes edited by Faure and Rubin (1993), Slavik (2004), and Gelfland and Cai (2004) contain important chapters on a range of topics in the field. Intercultural theory has been used to explain the “negotiating behaviour” of various contemporary states – see Schechter 1998 on Russia, Solomon 1999 on China, Snyder 1999 on North Korea. 43 Cohen 1997: 9–23, Jönsson 2002: 219–220. 44 Jönsson 1990: 63–78. 42

Introduction

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The Structure of the Book Each chapter of this book deals with a different author and/or work. Chapter 1 discusses the depiction of communications between citizens and monarchs in fifth-century thought, taking as its focus Herodotus’ Histories. In his work, Herodotus depicts interactions between Greek citizens and absolute monarchs, and presents a range of approaches, all with their own advantages and drawbacks. Many of these approaches, I will argue, resonate with what is depicted elsewhere in fifth-century literature, making Herodotus not only interesting in himself, but also a useful window into the popular attitudes of his time. Chapter 2 is an in-depth analysis of Xenophon’s philosophical dialogue Hiero, which serves as a model for the education of an autocrat. In this dialogue, the poet Simonides, by subtly blending civic and monarchic discourse, gradually transforms the titular tyrant from a brutal and paranoid ruler into a benevolent and civic-minded head of state. Chapter 3 continues to explore Xenophon’s ideas, turning to how he depicts himself and his comrades interacting with Persian and Thracian rulers in his history/memoir Anabasis. By dissecting both the failures and successes of Greek mercenaries in dealing with various non-Greek rulers, Xenophon demonstrates that his ideas work in practice as well as theory, and presents his readers with striking do’s and don’ts for interaction with autocratic leaders. Chapter 4 turns to the philosopher and rhetorician Isokrates, a self-proclaimed “lawgiver for monarchs”. Looking at the many letters and pamphlets Isokrates addressed to rulers, it explores his vision of how an educated citizen can go about transferring civic wisdom to a ruler. Chapter 5 takes us to Plato, the most influential of the fourth-century philosophers. In it, I argue that Plato’s dialogues emphasise a more sceptical view of interaction with monarchs than his contemporaries, suggesting that all such contact is unwise and corrupting. The chapter then moves on to confront the paradox of Plato’s own historical engagement with monarchs, using the (pseudo?)-Platonic letters as evidence of ancient writers wrestling with the contradictions between Plato’s life and teachings. Chapter 6 moves from theory to practical politics. Focussing particularly on the orator Demosthenes, it explores the ways in which communication with monarchs was presented in fourth-century political oratory. The increasing prominence of monarchs in the Greek world caused new challenges and anxieties for democratic Athens, which can be seen reflected in the oratory and legislation of the period. The chapter concludes with discussion of the influence of philosophers and theorists on real-world negotiations with monarchs. The Epilogue takes a brief look at communication with monarchs beyond the fourth century, and the ways in which the theories of our

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various thinkers continued to influence how citizens of Greek states dealt with newly ascendant monarchies. It concludes with a short discussion of what lessons, if any, the modern world might draw from the struggles of ancient Greeks to figure out how most effectively to talk to tyrants.

A Note on Transliterations In general, this work will avoid Latinisations in transliterating Greek words and proper names – e.g. Sokrates, rather than Socrates, Peisistratos rather than Pisistratus. In transliterated terms (but not generally in proper names), long and short letters are distinguished, with ō and ē representing Greek ω and η respectively. This principle admits some exceptions, however. Where a Latinisation or Anglicisation is so well established as to be practically an English word, I have retained it: so, for example, the historian known to English readers as Thucydides has not been transliterated as Thoukydides, and Athens remains Athens and not Athēnai. In addition, proper names in the titles of works remain in Latinised forms.

Chapter 1

Intercultural Interaction in Herodotus and the Fifth Century Intercultural Interaction in Herodotus and the Fifth Century

1. The First Interculturalist Herodotus is the natural author with which to begin our exploration of communication between citizens and monarchs. Not only does Herodotus record the doings of many kings and tyrants, including their dealings with Greek cities and citizens, but it is increasingly recognised, he brings to these accounts an incisive and complex understanding of cultural and social dynamics. Though Herodotus was at one point thought of as a naive storyteller with little understanding of politics,1 over the last thirty years or so scholars have come increasingly to recognise that Herodotus had a keen interest in how the political order of a community could shape its actions and those of its members. We have now reached a point where, in addition to his traditional title as “Father of History”, at least one critic has also termed him “the first political theorist”.2 In telling his stories of kings, tyrants, and cities, scholars increasingly see Herodotus as subtly articulating novel and important points about the nature of political authority and the impact of different forms of social organisation on the minds and actions of individuals and communities. Herodotus’ background made him well-suited to exploring different cultures, societies, and systems. Herodotus was born and spent his early life in the city of Halikarnassos on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, probably sometime in the first half of the fifth century bce .3 Halikarnassos 1 See, for example, Ehrenberg 1950: 535–536, who states that Herodotus “had no discriminating knowledge of political and constitutional issues”. 2 Saxonhouse 2006: 36. 3 Dating the major events in Herodotus’ life – birth, death, and publication of the Histories – is extremely difficult. Ancient traditions put his birth around 484–485 bce (Gell. NA 15.23), but this has been called into question by modern scholars (see Gould 2000: 17). Based on references to current events in the Histories, and a possible parody of Herodotus in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, produced in 425, most scholars date the final publication of the Histories to the mid-420s bce . His death is generally thought to have occurred to not long thereafter, in the Italian Greek city of Thurii, in whose foundation

17

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was a mixed city, inhabited by both Greeks and native Karians – the name that the tradition gives to Herodotus’ own father, Lyxes, is in fact of Karian origin.4 Moreover, the city straddled what many Greeks would have regarded as the divide between the Greek and barbarian worlds. While the city itself was, in Herodotus’ lifetime, under Athenian hegemony, it sat on the border with the Persian empire and had been under Persian rule until the 470s. Our knowledge of Herodotus’ early life and upbringing is almost non-existent, but it would not be surprising that growing up in a cosmopolitan city like Halikarnassos contributed in part to his sensitivity to cultural and social difference.5 Growing up in Halikarnassos would also have exposed Herodotus to a vibrant intellectual world. By Herodotus’ time, Halikarnassos was a partaker in the explosion of philosophical and scientific inquiry that has been termed the “Ionian Enlightenment”. From the late sixth century, intellectuals in the Greek cities of Asia Minor both engaged in bold speculation about the nature of the world and conducted careful investigation – historiē – into areas such as the basic makeup of the cosmos, the functioning of the human body, and the nature of the gods.6 Herodotus was clearly inspired by these activities, and developed a new form of historiē: an investigation not of the natural world but of the events of the relatively recent past. Taking as his overall theme “the great deeds and wonders displayed by Greeks and barbarians, and in particular how they came to fight one another” (Hdt. 1.0), Herodotus collected different accounts of the past, likely drawing extensively on the oral traditions of various regions.7 Having assembled these narratives, Herodotus says, he weighed them in terms of coherence, Herodotus is said to have taken part. A minority opinion does exist, however, that sees the Histories as published at least a decade later, around 414 bce (Fornara 1971). See Asheri et al. 2007: 2–7 for an overview of the ancient traditions about Herodotus’ life, and a discussion of their reliability. 4 On the ethnic makeup of Halikarnassos, see Hornblower 1982: 3–41. It should be emphasised that we cannot know simply by his name whether Herodotus’ father was considered Greek or Karian, and Herodotus never implies he sees himself as anything but Greek. 5 So Gould 2000: 5–8, Georges 1994: 138–139. 6 See Thomas 2002: 4–21 for an overview of Herodotus’ intellectual milieu. 7 The question of Herodotus’ sources has been a highly vexed one. While Herodotus occasionally cites named individuals as his informants (for example, 4.76.6, 8.65.6), he will usually simply refer to a large group of people: “the Spartans say” or “the Egyptians say”. The vagueness of these statements has led in one instance to the extreme view that Herodotus’ sources are in fact fabricated, and his Histories largely a work of fiction (Fehling 1989). The view I have expressed, that Herodotus was drawing on oral traditions of the various communities he visited or heard from, is by far the prevailing view; see Gould 2000: 19–41 for a good reconstruction of Herodotus’ research methods.

Intercultural Interaction in Herodotus and the Fifth Century

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evidence, and probability.8 In applying the methods of Ionian “scientific” inquiry to the past, Herodotus, apparently single-handedly, produced a new genre of inquiry, so successfully that “history” came to mean historiē as he practised it, the investigation of the events of the past. It is worth remembering, however, that while Herodotus’ historiē certainly addressed the actions of individuals and communities, i.e. “history” in our sense, it also touched on a wide variety of other subjects: in the course of his work, Herodotus can be found investigating subjects as diverse geography, ethnography, theology, and human and animal biology.9 One of the most significant areas of study for Herodotus was culture, and especially cultural difference and interaction. In addition to his other titles, one might also hail Herodotus as “the father of intercultural communication theory”, as his view of the influence of culture on communication and thought is highly prescient of contemporary interculturalist thought.

Herodotus and Intercultural Communication While recognising the breadth and complexity that the single word “culture” covers, intercultural theorists have provided a working definition of culture as a set of shared and enduring meanings, values, and beliefs, that characterize national, ethnic, or other groups and orient their behaviour.10

The final reference to the orientation of behaviour is, of course, key – for intercultural theorists, cultural factors are significant influencers of an individual’s worldview and thus the actions they take. More precisely, one might say that a person’s culture helps define the range of options they see as available to them when making decisions. Herodotus takes a similar view of the primacy of cultural background in shaping individual perceptions and behaviour. For Herodotus, the key term is nomos – a not entirely translatable word that encompasses culture, custom, and law.11 Herodotus approvingly quotes the poet Pindar’s statement that “nomos is king of all” (3.38), and throughout his narrative he makes clear that he believes that See Luraghi 2006 for an overview of Herodotus’ methodology. Herodotus’ interest in geography is revealed in his speculation about the source of the Nile (2.32–34) and his arguments about the shape of the known world (4.36); for ethnography, see, for example, his discussion of Scythian customs (1.131–140). Herodotus engages in discussion of the origin and names of the Greek gods at 2.43–53, and has excursuses on human and animal anatomy at 3.12 and 4.28–29. 10 Faure and Sjöstedt 1993: 3. For further discussion of the problems of defining “culture”, see Jönsson 1990: 26–31, Cohen 1997: 10–14. 11 For an illuminating discussion of nomos in Herodotus, see Humphreys 1987. Ostwald 1969 remains a key text in discussing the connotations and evolution of the term. 8 9

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nomoi – cultural codes, as it were – exert a powerful control over the choices made by both individuals and communities.12 Herodotus not only shares intercultural communication theory’s insistence on the centrality of culture, but also its fascination with the ways in which disparate cultures can succeed or fail in communicating with each other. In his stories of the Greek Hekataios’ encounter with more knowledgeable Egyptians (2.143), Dareios’ interrogation of Greeks and Indians about their burial customs (3.38), the account of the meeting of Scythians and Amazons, (4.111–114), and many more such narratives, Herodotus repeatedly explores the ways in which people raised in different lands, with different ways and customs, seek to cross cultural barriers. One of the major aspects of cultural difference Herodotus explores is difference between political systems. A great deal of Herodotus’ work deals with the ways in which one’s political and social order affects one’s conduct and worldview. In particular, he is fascinated by the differences between monarchic and non-monarchic societies, and how these different social orders interact. Throughout his work, Herodotus stages dramatic encounters between kings and tyrants on one side and inhabitants of free poleis on the other. It must be made clear at this point, however, that Herodotus is not merely a passive recorder of the traditions about kings and tyrants he came across. The author takes great care in reshaping and presenting these stories, not only in order to provide a coherent and entertaining narrative, but also to serve to some degree a didactic function. Herodotus has strong political and ethical views of his own, and the stories he tells can often serve to illustrate these ideas. It may even be fair to say that storytelling is one of the primary ways in which Herodotus makes his ideas known. Though in his approach to the past he draws on the Ionian tradition of careful, “scientific” historiē, in displaying his work he also has a foot in much older traditions of narrative drawn from archaic epic and fable.13 While Herodotus does sometimes explicitly present his political views, on other occasions he makes no overt statement, but rather lets his view of the situation come out through the narrative itself.14 Through carefully allusive

This fascination with the power of culture may be owed to another intellectual trend of Herodotus’ time, the Sophistic movement, which emphasised the role of culture and convention in defining human reality; see Winton 2000 for further discussion. 13 For an introduction to Herodotus’ use of epic as a model, see Marincola 2006; for an interesting look at the influence of the Greek fable tradition on Herodotus, see Kurke 2011: 361–431. 14 One example of direct authorial statement, for example, can be found when he says that Athens’ victories after the fall of her tyrants show the superiority of democratic to monarchic government (5.78). 12

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narrative patterning, both within and between different stories, Herodotus allows the readers to infer both his views of the specific situation and the broader lessons it might give about life and politics in general.15 As one of the primary ethnographic writers of the fifth century bce , Herodotus is not only an incisive thinker in his own right, but his work provides a useful jumping-off point to explore the attitudes and perspectives of his era. Thus while this chapter will focus primarily on Herodotus’ own work, it will also bring in other fifth-century writers who deal with similar themes. What emerges is a picture of Herodotus as a complex thinker who engages closely with the attitudes of his time, sometimes endorsing, sometimes contradicting, and sometimes shaping contemporary discourse around interactions between citizens and monarchs.

2. Polis and Monarchy: Two Worlds In the third book of Herodotus’ Histories, the historian tells a remarkable story.16 Having overthrown a usurper to their empire’s throne, a group of Persian aristocrats meet to discuss how their nation will be organised going forward. Should they maintain the monarchy that has governed them so far, or should they explore other forms of social organisation. The first to speak is the thoughtful Otanes, who delivers a spirited condemnation of monarchic government (3.80.2–6): How can monarchy ever be a beneficial thing, when it is able to do anything it wishes, without accountability? Even the best of men, placed in such a position, would depart from his proper mind. Arrogance (hubris) arises out of all the good things at hand, and from this beginning resentment naturally arises in a person. Possessing these two qualities, he has the worst of all evils: out of hubris and resentment, he does many reckless things. Though a tyrant ought to be without resentment, having all good things, toward his citizens he is the very opposite. He resents the best men who live around him, and rejoices in the worst of the citizens, and he is second to none in crediting slander (diabolē). He is the most difficult 15 See de Jong 2002 for an analysis of Herodotean storytelling by the foremost scholar on ancient narratology; for Herodotus’ use of language leading his readers to make implicit connections, see Raaflaub 1987. Kindt 2006: 43–44 makes the intriguing suggestion that Herodotus sees himself as operating on the model of the Oracle of Delphi, whose pronouncements required careful interpretation to be understood. 16 One, indeed, that he expects his contemporaries to have trouble believing (3.80.1). Modern scholars unanimously share this scepticism that the Constitutional Debate occurred as Herodotus tells it (for example, Brannan 1963, Evans 1981: 82), though it has been suggested that the Persians may have discussed some form of change to their system of government (Brannan 1963: 429–433, Munson 2009).

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Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought person to deal with: if you defer to him moderately, he is upset that you did not fawn on him more, but if one fawns on him more, he is upset at them as a flatterer. I move now to the greatest of his faults: he overturns ancestral laws (nomoi), rapes women, and kills without trial. But when the masses are in power (archon to plēthos), first, it has the greatest of names: isonomia, and second, they do nothing the monarch does. They fill offices by lot, authority is accountable, and all deliberation is performed collectively. So I put forward the motion that we abandon monarchy and empower the people: for all things lie in the many.

This speech is one of the clearest and most concise articulations in Herodotus’ text of the differences between one-man rule and the “republican” system of most Greek poleis. Otanes’ basic argument is that absolute power has predictable psychological effects on almost any individual who obtains it. “Even the best person” would eventually be transformed by possessing despotic authority. If Otanes is to be believed, then all tyrants will eventually develop oppressive hubris, and will begin to perform the abusive acts he describes: rape, murder, the destruction of time-honoured tradition, and the suppression of all who even slightly question their rule.17 When we look at the accounts of individual tyrants in Herodotus, Otanes’ description seems largely to be borne out. To take just a few examples, the Egyptian king Apries shows the monarch’s arrogance in his belief that not even the gods can oppose him (2.169.2); Kambyses’ marriage to his sister unites both sexual depravity and disrespect for custom (3.31); the tyrant Periandros not only displays similar sexual impropriety, but also shows both the tyrant’s resentment of good men and his extra-judicial violence (5.92ζ–η). Thus while each monarch’s story certainly has idiosyncrasies and unique features, and not every monarch is an unmitigated monster, when taken together they have many features in common both with each other and with Otanes’ speech. It seems reasonable, then, to see Herodotus as indeed shaping his accounts of monarchs to fit a “despotic template” that aligns at least to some degree with the vision articulated by Otanes.18 Hubris in Greek thought goes beyond its modern meaning of arrogance or pride – it represents a kind of aggressive self-centredness, an assault on the dignity and status of others. For a study on the term in the ancient world, see Fisher 1992. 18 This phrase was coined by Dewald 2003: 47. For a full catalogue correlating Otanes’ speech with the acts of Herodotean monarchs, see Lateiner 1989: 172–179. I thus do not accept the verdict of Waters 1971, partially endorsed by Gray 1996, that Herodotus’ accounts of tyrants are all individual narratives and do not fit into any larger narrative or ideological pattern. I am also sceptical of the views of Davie 1971 and Flory (1987: 121–131) that Herodotus portrays some monarchs, such as 17

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Speech in Monarchy: Diabolē In his catalogue of the monarch’s failings, Otanes includes a distorted relationship to speech. A monarch, he says, rejoices in diabolē, and resents moderate speech as insufficiently flattering but also despises flattery as insincere. Diabolē has recently been discussed in the context of court speech by Alex Gottesman, who has persuasively argued that it represents a manipulative and often backbiting style of speech – an attempt to get what the speaker wants through deception, usually at the expense of someone else.19 The second aspect, the monarch’s ambivalent attitude to flattery, touches on a point that Xenophon will explore in much greater detail: an autocrat is aware that his courtiers are seeking to flatter him for their own advantage and may well wish that he could hear the truth; but his own ego and thin skin mean that he cannot actually tolerate unvarnished speech when it comes to him. All these aspects of monarchy are visible in the discussion that comes in Herodotus’ seventh book. King Xerxes summons his chief councillors together and announces that he plans to invade Greece. After a deeply vainglorious speech in which he declares the war a divinely ordained necessity, he ends, somewhat incongruously, with an invitation to disagree (7.8δ.2): So that I do not seem to be taking counsel all by myself, I place the matter “in the middle” (es meson) and call on whomever of you wishes to reveal his opinion.

The language here is strikingly evocative of the language of Greek civic deliberation. Placing an issue “in the middle” is, since Homeric epic, a way of signalling that it is up for public discussion, that every member of

Peisistratos, Cyrus, and the Median Deiokes, as “philosopher kings” who use their vast powers solely for good. While it is true that during the “constitutional debate” Dareios outlines an ideal of such a benevolent despot (3.82), it seems difficult to find such a figure in Herodotus’ actual narrative. Even the “good” rulers mentioned above become harsher as their reigns go on. Peisistratos, despite Herodotus’ praise for him as “governing nobly” (1.59.6), kills and exiles many of his opponents (1.64.3), and engages in “unorthodox” intercourse with his wife (1.61.1). Deiokes, after initially bringing order and justice to the Medes, becomes increasingly paranoid and isolated from his people, concealing himself within a fortress-like palace and handing down harsh punishments to subjects he never meets (1.99.2, 1.100.2). Cyrus, for his part, becomes increasingly arrogant, thinking himself invincible because he is “something more than human” (1.204.2) and accusing a courtier’s son of plotting against him because of an ambiguous dream (1.209–210). Moreover, each of these rulers’ successors are crueller still, suggesting a general tendency of monarchy to become more oppressive over the passage of time. 19 Gottesman 2021: 185–190. See also Hohti 1974.

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the community has a right to contribute an opinion.20 Xerxes’ invitation to “whomever wants to speak” (ton boulomenon) specifically evokes the language of Athenian democracy, where it was a boast that the right to speak belonged to “whoever wished it” (ho boulomenos).21 Xerxes’ opening thus creates the implication that he is opening a Greek-style civic debate, where multiple views will be heard and deliberated. And yet there are also elements that reveal that this debate will not be nearly as open as this language implies. First, there is the fact that Xerxes is the one who is placing the issue “in the middle”. The debate is only happening because he wills it – open discussion can only occur when and if the monarch chooses.22 Secondly, Xerxes opens this dialogue after making very clear what his own views are, and explicitly says that he is soliciting views so that he will seem to be taking his decision with their input. This “debate” is ultimately window dressing, designed to give Xerxes’ sole decision the appearance of a considered plan. This is made clear by what follows’ Xerxes’ invitation. The courtier Mardonios gives a highly obsequious speech, praising Xerxes as “the best not only of all Persians who have been, but of those who ever will be” (7.9.2), and goes on to declare that the Greeks could never stand against the might of Persia. After this speech, Herodotus tells us, no one else dared say anything in contradiction except the king’s uncle Artabanos, who denounces Mardonios as a flatterer and says that Greece will be a tougher nut than he or Xerxes have believed. Xerxes’ response to this unexpected frankness makes clear how little he truly wished to hear contrasting views (7.11.1): Artabanos said this, and Xerxes, in a passion, responded like this: “Artabanos, you are the brother of my father, and for that reason you will not receive the payment due to such idle words. But I lay this dishonour on you, base and cowardly as you are. You shall not fight with me against Greece, but remain here with the women. I shall bring what I said to pass without you.”

Even when he says or thinks he wants honest speech, the king, by his actions, shows that all he can truly tolerate is diabolē.

The foundational discussion of to meson in Greek political thought is Detienne 1965, elaborated in Detienne 1996: 90–106; for more recent treatments, see Loraux 1986, Croally 1994: 165, Kurke 1999: 234–235. 21 See, for example, Aeschin. 3.220, Eur. Supp. 438–441. 22 So Lombardini 2013: 412. 20

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Greeks and Barbarians The effects of monarchy on character seem to be the same regardless of whether the individual concerned is barbarian or Greek. Barbarian kings and Greek tyrants alike develop taboo-violating hubris, oppress their subjects, and persecute their rivals. But Herodotus seems to see monarchy as more strongly associated with non-Greek barbarians. Herodotus’ comment that the Egyptians “could not go without a king” (2.47.1) seems to hold good for most barbarian peoples. Having overthrown the Assyrian monarchy, the Medes enjoy only a brief period of self-government before voluntarily erecting their own absolute monarchy (1.96–100); the Egyptians, having been “set free” by the extinction of their ruling dynasty, simply erect 12 smaller kingdoms on its ruins (2.147); finally, at the Persian debate at which Otanes speaks, the Persian nobles ignore his warnings and accept Dareios’ arguments for maintaining the hereditary Persian monarchy. Even when given the chance to chart a new course, barbarians cling to the familiar burden of monarchy.23 It should be stressed that Herodotus almost certainly does not see the barbarian preference for autocracy as lying in any congenital mental or spiritual weakness. Unlike Aristotle in the next century, Herodotus does not suggest that it is in barbarians’ basic nature to be “slaves” to a despotic ruler.24 The speeches of Otanes in favour of democracy and Megabyxos in favour of oligarchy, for example, show that barbarians are perfectly capable of conceiving of non-monarchic systems. For Herodotus, barbarians’ affinity for monarchy lies in their customs and traditions, their nomoi. For most barbarian peoples, rule by kings is a long-established custom, and, as Herodotus adamantly asserts, only a lunatic lightly disregards custom (3.38.2). Dareios’ final argument in the constitutional is that monarchy is the Persians’ ancestral custom (3.82.5), and it is this argument that convinces the Persians (3.83.1). Custom is king, and, among the barbarians, kings are customary. In Greece, by contrast, the fall of tyranny is usually final: when the Kypselids and Peisistratids are overthrown, no new dynasties replace them, and the states they ruled are adamant that tyranny will never return (5.9α–η). The Masses in Power Otanes’ picture of archon to plēthos – “the masses in power” – is likewise reflected in Herodotus’ depictions of collective government. Herodotus has Otanes name three primary features of archon to plēthos: choosing leaders by sortition, accountability of those leaders to the populace, and decision making by collective deliberation. In naming these features, it seems 23 24

Lateiner 1989: 154, Romm 1998: 182, Pelling 2002: 148–149. Pol. 3.1285a.

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clear that Herodotus is thinking primarily of Athenian-style democracy. Sortition, for example, was one of the main features of Athenian democratic practice, ensuring that all willing citizens had an equal chance of holding office, and preventing the kind of vote buying and intimidation that could come with elections.25 Herodotus explicitly notes the Athenian practice of sortition in the lead-up to the battle of Marathon, mentioning that the Polemarch, Athens’ military leader, is as chosen annually by lot (6.109.2). The other features are equally easy to associate with Athens. Accountability of leaders was another major Athenian feature: prior to their term of office magistrates had to submit to a dokimasia, an examination of their fitness to hold office, while at the end of their term they were liable to euthynai, reviews of their conduct while in power. Magistrates who were found wanting could be denied honours and even prosecuted.26 In Herodotus, this principle of accountability is seen in, for example, the statesman Miltiades’ arraignment for “deceiving the people” following a failed military expedition (6.136.1). Finally, the practice of debating political problems in common is vividly demonstrated in the Athenian debates over the oracles preceding the battle of Salamis (7.142.1). Given a set of ambiguous and ominous messages from the Oracle of Delphi, the Athenians open the floor to allow all citizens to offer their proposed interpretations, and ultimately vote for the one that seems most persuasive. This debate is especially striking when contrasted to the reaction of King Kroisos of Lydia to a similarly ambiguous message. The Athenians allow multiple voices to present multiple interpretations and whittle them down through debate to the one they find most plausible; Kroisos simply chooses the meaning that aligns best with his own desires – with disastrous results.27 Accountability and deliberation are, to some degree, institutional characteristics. While Otanes does not refer to specific procedures or institutions, the principles of accountability and deliberation, in order to be effective, imply the need for institutions like dokimasia and some sort of regular assembly of the populace to enable them to deliberate. In his final argument in favour of archon to plēthos, Otanes moves into more abstract territory. Popular rule, he tells the other nobles, has “the fairest of all names – isonomia” The term isonomia is a significant one in Classical political discourse.28 The etymology of isonomia is somewhat ambiguous – scholars have derived it both from the phrase isos nomos – “equal law”, and isa nemein – “equal distribution”. With the former etymology, the term would refer to On sortition at Athens, see Aleshire 1994, Taylor 2007. For an overview of these procedures, see von Dornum 1997. 27 The contrast between these consultations has been much discussed; see, inter alia, Vernant 1991: 311–314, Maurizio 1997: 316–317, Barker 2006: 20, Kurke 2009. 28 The fundamental texts on isonomia are Vlastos 1964, Lombardini 2013. 25 26

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the idea that the laws apply to all citizens equally, without distinction of rank or status. With the latter, it would refer to the equal distribution of political power: all citizens enjoying an equal say in the governance of their community. Either way, what is certain is that the first element refers to equality: everyone has an equal share of law and/or political power. Some scholars have argued that isonomia was originally coined as a democratic counter to the aristocratic/oligarchic slogan of eunomia “good law” or “good distribution”. Where isonomia distributes law and power equally among the citizens, this argument runs, eunomia gives them to the right people, the “good” – that is, wealthy, well-born, and properly educated – citizens.29 All the attributes that Otanes describes, then, can easily be connected to Herodotus’ contemporary Athens. It is worth noting, however, that while Athens may be the place where these ideals are best realised, it is not the only polis to display them. Many of the features that Otanes endorses are also depicted by Herodotus as appearing in non-Athenian, and indeed non-democratic contexts. Accountability of leaders, for example, can be seen clearly in Herodotus’ accounts of Spartan politics. Sparta was one of the few Greek states to retain hereditary leaders. Moreover, Herodotus depicts the Spartan kings as sharing in many of the characteristics of “barbarian” monarchs.30 At the same time, Herodotus is also keen to show that the Spartans do not let their kings act as they wish, but keep them under scrutiny and control. We repeatedly hear of the Spartan people putting their kings on trial (6.72, 6.82, 6.85), pressuring them to act in the state’s interest (5.40.1) and, in extremis, deposing them from office (6.61–71).31 Nor is collective deliberation confined to democratic Athens in Herodotus. Whenever Greeks come together, there is a good chance of seeing the same public weighing of alternatives and reasoned decision making as in the account of the Athenian oracles. Faced with imminent subjugation to Persia, the Ionians meet and hear the opinion of their wisest citizens (1.170). Sparta’s allies, when called on to restore the Peisistratids to Athens, listen to arguments both for and against, and then collectively decide against the Spartans’ plan (5.91–3). The same collective weighing of objections can be seen in the debates between the Greek allies just before the battle of Salamis (8.74), and in the debate following the battle over whether to cut off the Persian retreat (8.108).32 Though isonomia does seem to have strongly democratic associations, it also may be applicable beyond a democratic context. The phrase occurs See Vlastos 1964: 10–13, Lombardini 2013: 396–408. See Millender 2002. 31 For further discussion of the limitations placed on Spartan kingship, see Millender 2009: 11–12. 32 On the “democratic texture” of this last debate, see Baragwanath 2008: 310–314. 29

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in two other contexts in Herodotus’ work, where, as in Otanes’ speech, it represents a situation following the overthrow or abdication of a sole ruler. At 3.142.3, the tyrant Maiandrios of Samos proposes stepping down and creating archēn isonomiēn – “isonomic power”. Similarly, at 5.37.2 Herodotus tells how, in preparation for his revolt against Persia, the tyrant Aristagoras of Miletos at least pretends to abdicate his position and institute isonomia in his city. Isonomia thus seems to be used first and foremost to designate the absence of monarchic rule. The distinction Otanes draws is thus not so much between two specific forms of government, kingship, and democracy, as between two broad principles of social organisation – the monarchic, encompassing both barbarian kings and Greek tyrants, and the isonomic. The latter may well be realised best in Athenian-style democracy, but, as we have seen, other Greek states also partake of at least some elements of this kind of collective and egalitarian rule.

Speech in the Polis: Isēgoria To Otanes’ list of features we may add one more aspect of civic government mentioned elsewhere in Herodotus: isēgoria. Sharing the same prefix as isonomia, isēgoria translates uncontroversially as “equal speech”. The term occurs only once in Herodotus, but as (1) Herodotus is the first extant writer to employ the word, and (2) the context in which he employs it speaks directly to it as a form of civic, as opposed to monarchic, identity, it seems worth dwelling on his use of the term. The word comes in Herodotus’ description of the military successes of the Athenians after the overthrown of the Peisistratids (5.78): The Athenians thus grew stronger. This shows that, not only in one respect but in all, isēgoria is an important thing […] while they were kept down, they dragged their feet since they were working for a master, but once they were free, each of them gave his all, since he was working for himself.

Isēgoria has long been viewed as a narrow democratic practice, indicating the ability of citizens to speak in deliberative assemblies. Recent re-examination of the term, however, has revealed a much broader sense. Herodotus’ statement that the Athenians were not willing to work hard to benefit only their tyrants connects the term to ideas of equality and personal dignity.33 When combined with its use in other sources, a picture emerges of isēgoria as describing a state of affairs where all citizens communicate with each other as equals, without either deference or condescension.34 By contrast monarchies, as we have seen, require guarded and flattering speech to the 33 34

Gottesman 2021: 178. Gottesman 2021: 190–207.

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monarch and encourage backbiting and mutual slander by courtiers. As Otanes says, the monarch is particularly inclined to promote this kind of language rather than listening to the sober counsel of the best minds. In states that practice isēgoria, by contrast, citizens speak frankly and honestly to each other. Isēgoria was particularly associated with Athenian democracy – opponents of democracy painted the Athenians as so committed to equality of speech that even slaves and resident aliens are afforded the ability to converse with citizens on equal terms.35 Once again, however, oligarchic/ aristocratic states also required isēgoria among members of the ruling elite, ensuring that all members of the governing class addressed each other as equals and co-rulers.36 Herodotus’ fellow historian, Thucydides, illuminates this in his account of the debate in Sparta at the outset of the Peloponnesian War. Members of the Spartan elite, both kings and elected magistrates, speak forthrightly and with opposing views, with the Spartan citizens as a body voting as to whose policy they approve (Thuc. 1.79–87). Sparta was by no means a democracy, and it seems unlikely that the right to speak was distributed as broadly as in Athens, but at least some members of the ruling bodies had to have been able to speak freely in order to make the collective nature of its government a reality.37 The concept of isēgoria links fruitfully with the Intercultural Communications concept of “power distance”.38 This concept refers to the extent that individuals in authority are expected to distance themselves from those beneath them. In a culture marked by “high power distance”, the powerful are expected to show off their power and to demand respectful and deferential treatment from their subordinates. By contrast, a “low power distance” society expects all individuals to relate to each other as equals, and frowns on both the flaunting of power by authorities and excessive displays of submission by subordinates. Isēgoria can thus be seen as a commitment to low power distance – all citizens are fundamentally equal, and should address each other as such. Civic identity in Herodotus is thus presented as communitarian, egalitarian, and anti-hierarchical. Political power is, as far as possible, shared equally among the citizens. For the most part, decisions are to be made collectively after debate and discussion. Leaders are to be chosen in ways that offer opportunities to all, and should be held accountable for their actions. Members in such a community should address each other Ps.-Xen. 1.11–12. See Raaflaub 2002, Simonton 2017: 84. 37 So Raaflaub 2002: 53. 38 For a brief introduction to the concept of power distance, see Macfarlane and Robinson 2004: 48–50. 35 36

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as equals, acknowledging the dignity of other citizens and refraining from either deferring to others as superiors or talking down to them as subordinates. These characteristics are not exhaustive. As we shall see, various speakers will bring to light other aspects of civic identity over the course of Herodotus’ work, depending on their societies and circumstances. What is significant about the characteristics mentioned, however, is that they are all based heavily on a citizen’s relationships with others. They are all active practices, requiring a citizen to participate in the values and procedures of the community.

Two Worlds The self-governing polis and the monarch’s court are thus presented in Herodotus as two separate worlds, with very different rules for speech and behaviour. Life in the polis is typified, for at least some portion of the population, by isonomia and isēgoria. Those entrusted with political power, be it the entire free male population as in Athens or a small subset as in oligarchic states, are expected to relate to each other as equals, speaking without either deference or condescension, and taking part equally in the governance of the community. By contrast, monarchies are marked by inequality of power and unequal ability to speak. Only the monarch enjoys a guaranteed share in governance, and only they have an unrestrained power of self-expression. Subordinates may be invited by the monarch to share in both these capacities, either being granted offices under the sovereign or invited to speak their minds freely, but in all cases this grant is at the monarch’s pleasure and can be revoked whenever the monarch wishes. Speech in the monarch’s court is thus generally guarded and obsequious, with courtiers seeking to figure out what the monarch’s inclination is before they speak, to avoid inadvertently angering their master. Mutual slander and rumour-mongering are common, as each individual courtier strives to advance their own standing at the expense of their fellows. These are of course very broad-brush distinctions, and Herodotus is too thoughtful a writer to fall prey to a simplistic binary. We find evidence of kings who do listen to difficult advice – Xerxes is, after reflection persuaded by Artabanos’ speech, and divine intervention is required to get the fated invasion of Greece on track (7.12); during that campaign, Xerxes once again takes to heart the critical statements of Queen Artemisia of Halikarnassos (8.68γ–8.69.2).39 On the other side, we see instances of collectively governed states failing to uphold principles of isēgoria. Herodotus acidly remarks, for example, that the success of Histiaios of Miletos in persuading the Athenians to support his revolt when he had failed to persuade King Kleomenes of Sparta shows that “it is easier to 39

On the dynamics of this scene, see Gottesman 2021: 187–188.

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deceive by slander (diaballein) many people than one” (5.97.2). Later, the Athenians strikingly fail to respect the isēgoria of Lykidas, a member of their council. When, after the destruction of the city by Xerxes, he suggests putting the king’s peace terms to debate, the proposal is not only rejected by his fellow councillors but Lykidas and his family are stoned to death by the enraged citizens (9.5.2). These incidents show that the approaches to speech of monarchies and isonomic states are tendencies rather than absolute laws. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that these occurrences are treated in the text as surprising exceptions. Xerxes’ courtiers, for example, all expect that Artemisia has sealed her own doom by openly criticising the king, making clear that it is not his habit to tolerate such dissent (8.69.1). In the same vein, Herodotus’ comment on the Athenian acceptance of Histiaios’ deception is effective precisely because it is unexpected – normally, one expects a single ruler to be easier to diaballein, and the fact that the Athenians were so deceived is an inversion of the typical pattern. Lykidas’ stoning likewise represents the only time that an Athenian is subjected to this kind of summary punishment by the people, and surely signals springs from the unusually dire situation in which the Athenians find themselves, watching their city burn from across the straits of Salamis.40 With room for exceptions and contradictions, then, it seems fair to say that Herodotus sees the worlds of monarchy and city-state strongly separated in terms of their approach to speech and communication. What happens, then, when these two worlds come into contact? To begin exploring this question, I will first turn to the experience of the various Greeks who visited the court of Kroisos, king of Lydia.

3. Kroisos’ Guests No monarch in Herodotus enjoys more sustained interaction with the world of the Greek polis than Kroisos. Throughout the Histories, the Lydian king is shown engaging repeatedly with Greek citizens, states, and institutions. Such interactions are sometimes adversarial, as when Kroisos forcibly incorporates the Greek cities of Asia Minor into his empire (1.126.2), but often also positive and even friendly. We see Kroisos lavishing gifts on the oracular shrine at Delphi (1.50–51), enjoying friendly relations with the Spartans (3.47.1), and, most germane for our purposes, repeatedly hosting Greek citizens at his court. Three times over the course of the Histories we are given narratives of citizens of poleis conversing with Kroisos, and each 40 I thus cannot accept Landauer’s contention that this single account completely “undercuts” the idea that Herodotus’ Athenians are willing to listen to contradictory views on various subjects (Landauer 2019: 104).

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interaction can be seen as a model for thematically similar encounters in Herodotus and beyond.

Solon and Kroisos The interaction between the Athenian statesman and philosopher Solon and King Kroisos of Lydia serves as the most extensive example of one of the ways that Herodotean citizens approach monarchic figures. Famous as a poet, sage, and politician, Solon approaches Kroisos as a teacher, seeking to make him see that monarchy is not only oppressive to the subject but also harmful to the monarch himself. Over the course of their conversation, Solon repeatedly attempts to convey to Kroisos some of the values of the communitarian polis, and to draw the king to reflect on the limitations of autocratic monarchy. Solon is described at arriving at the Lydian capital of Sardis when it was “at its acme in terms of wealth” (1.29). Kroisos has subdued all his neighbours, including the Ionian Greeks, and now sits at the head of a prosperous empire. Solon, by contrast, is an exile from a troubled polis. Having given laws to the Athenians, Solon then felt compelled to leave the city to avoid constant calls to revise those laws to suit one group or another (1.29.1). Now, this refugee from civic turbulence arrives in Sardis and is shown the fruits of apparent monarchic stability. After he is taken on a tour of all of Kroisos’ treasures, Solon receives an audience with the king and is asked what appears to be a philosophical question (1.30.1): My Athenian guest, many reports have come to us of you, on account of your wisdom and your wanderings; how, as one who loves learning, you have travelled much of the world for the sake of seeing it. So now a desire has seized me to ask you who is the most fortunate man you have seen so far.

In the subsequent dialogue, it becomes clear that the two men have very different understandings of the nature of this question. They are, in fact, speaking different symbolic languages. Herodotus says that Kroisos was expecting Solon to name him as the happiest of mortals (1.30.3). Such an expectation would be entirely natural in Kroisos’ context. As an autocratic monarch, Kroisos is at the head of a culture that, in intercultural theory terms, displays high power distance. He is king, and as king, he expects deference from those around him. Kroisos therefore takes it for granted that Solon will understand his obligation to acknowledge his happiness. Kroisos has been a gracious host to Solon and shares his bounty, and in response the Greek is expected to sing for his supper and flatter him.41 The Athenian Solon, however, is depicted as coming from a society typified by low power distance. His response is not in the deferential mode of the royal 41

So Kurke 1999: 146.

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court, but rather displays the isēgoria of a civic community. Solon ignores the difference in status between himself and Kroisos and speaks as if the king were a fellow-citizen asking for Solon’s considered opinion. “In no way fawning on him” (ouden hypothōpeusas, 1.30.2), Solon answers with what he considers the truth: that the happiest man who ever lived was an Athenian named Tellos (1.30.4–5): First of all, Tellos lived when his city was doing well and had fine and noble children. He saw offspring born to all of them, all of which survived. Next, after living what we consider a comfortable life, he received the most distinguished end to that life. A war arose in Eleusis against his city’s neighbours. Tellos answered the call and, while putting the enemy to flight, died most gloriously. The Athenians buried him at public expense on the spot where he fell, and did him great honour.

When asked who is the second happiest, Solon awards the title to Kleobis and Biton, a pair of Argive twins who died of exhaustion after pulling their priestess mother in her carriage so that she could preside at a public festival (1.31). These stories, and Solon’s subsequent explanations to Kroisos, touch on a wide range of themes that will recur in Herodotus’ Histories: the instability of fortune, the jealousy of the gods, the inability of mortals to avoid their fates.42 For our purposes, what is most salient is the degree to which Solon’s language presupposes living in a collectively governed polis to be necessary for achieving true happiness. The best life, Solon implies, is that of a Greek citizen, who lives and participates in the polis community. The men Herodotus cites as the most fortunate all acted in ways that aided their fellow citizens. Tellos died defending Athens from hostile neighbours (1.30.5). The two brothers’ immediate service was to their mother, but because she was a priestess of Hera their action benefited the Argives generally by allowing a civic festival to proceed properly. In both examples the “most beautiful end” (1.30.4, 1.31.3) consists of dying with the acclaim of one’s fellow citizens. The Athenians gave Tellos a public funeral and “honoured him greatly” (1.30.5), while Kleobis and Biton receive both praise from the Argives in life (1.31.3) and honorific statues after their deaths (1.31.5).43 See Shapiro 1996, Pelling 2002, Chiasson 1984. So Ward 2008: 115: The understanding of happiness that Solon expresses in his story of Tellus is clearly from the point of view of the city and its laws, as it suggests that the good life can only be found in the enjoyments of the family, which depends on the good condition of the city, as well as activity within, and sacrifice for, the public sphere. For similar arguments, see Benardete 1969: 134; Kurke 1999: 147. 42 43

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Both stories thus have a strong theme of interdependence. Happiness is not achievable alone – it requires membership in a community and the goodwill of one’s fellow inhabitants. Coming to the aid of others and being honoured for it in turn are the way to be truly happy, Solon implies. Even in death, one requires the recognition of others in order to be said to have died well. It is hard to avoid seeing this theme as a critique of Kroisos. As a monarch, Kroisos serves only himself. He does not aid fellow citizens in war, but brings war to his neighbours and compels his own subjects to fight. Where Tellos and the twins received praise and honour as the spontaneous gifts of grateful citizens, Kroisos, as we have seen, demanded praise as his due. The underlying message thus seems clear: the life of a polis citizen will always be happier than that of a monarch, whatever the monarch’s wealth or power. It is not clear how far Kroisos picks up on this message, but he clearly feels slighted. Having already been humiliated by having to hope for second prize, he is now even denied that in favour of a pair of dead teenagers. In his irritation, he is gauche enough to say the quiet part out loud and admit that his purpose in asking the question was to receive Solon’s praise for his own prosperity (1.32.1): “Athenian guest, are you thus throwing away our happiness as nothing, that you consider us not even the equal of ordinary people (idiōtai)?” Solon responds to this direct question by attempting to overwhelm Kroisos with science. Calculating the vast number of days in an average life, Solon points out to Kroisos that not one of those days is guaranteed (1.32.2–4). Any one of them could bring change or disaster, and there is no way to predict what it will be. The uncertainty of life, Solon explains, negates the benefits of wealth and power, which can be taken away in an instant. Solon argues that a wealthy and powerful king is in fact more likely to experience such catastrophic reversals than a comparatively poor citizen, as the monarch’s fortune attracts the resentment of an “entirely envious and turbulent” divinity (1.32.1). This emphasis on the uncertainty of life and the envy of the gods points to another aspect of civic life that Solon wishes to emphasise: the importance of moderation and self-imposed limits. Solon explained that Tellos was doing well “as we see it” – surely a dig at Kroisos’ own excessive wealth. To do well in a Greek civic context, it seems, means not to do too well. Climbing as high as Kroisos has invites a dizzying fall, while rising only moderately avoids such a risk. Such a life, Solon implies, pleases the divine in the same way that a life of excess irks it. The man of moderate life is identified by Kroisos as “lucky” (eutuchēs), and enjoys a range of blessings – he lives “without injury, without sickness, unschooled in suffering, with good children and a good body” (1.32.6). The life of a citizen, then, is not only practically but metaphysically superior, attracting good fortune just as the life of a king repels it.

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One might even suggest that Solon’s emphasis on the cyclic nature of fortune has its roots in polis-thought. The life of a polis is fundamentally cyclical: as an agricultural community, it is dependent on the cycle of the seasons, while the monarch’s wealth insulates him from changes in climate; its political life follows a continual cycle of offices, as magistrates annually replace each other in accordance with law. Monarchy, by contrast, is fundamentally linear: king follows king in (theoretically) unbroken succession, stretching from the mythic past down into the future.44 Solon concludes his speech with an explicit statement of his themes (1.32.8): It is not possible for any person to acquire everything, just as no territory is self-sufficient, providing itself with everything. One land has what another land lacks. Whichever land has the most, would be the best. In the same way, a single human body is not at all self-sufficient: it has one thing, but it lacks another.

The emphasis on interdependence that Solon hinted at in his stories is now stated plainly. We all need other people. If he thinks that he can “have it all”, and be happy in himself alone, Kroisos is deluded. Once again, Solon points toward the polis as necessary for happiness. If no individual can, by himself, have all he needs, then the only way to satisfy all human needs must be by living in community with other individuals who can mutually support one another.45 Solon is often classed among Herodotus’ “wise advisors”, individuals who offer sage counsel to rulers or communities, and are usually ignored.46 But there is a crucial difference between Solon and most of the other men in this category. Of those wise advisors (by far the majority) who direct their advice to rulers, most are either the monarch’s own subjects or fellow monarchs.47 Solon, however, is the citizen of an independent polis. The nature of the advice is thus also crucially different. Where most other advisors focus on maintaining or expanding their advisee’s power,48 Solon offers no such advice, and indeed suggests that Kroisos’ power is not worth that much. Cf. Ward 2008: 166 on Xerxes’ desire to “become divine and therefore transcend time and the changes it brings”. 45 Kurke 1999: 148. 46 Lattimore 1939: 25. 47 For a list of Herodotean advisers, see Lattimore 1939: 25–28. 48 Maintaining: see, for example, Thrasyboulos to Periandros (5.92ζ ); Kroisos to Cyrus on effeminising the Lydians (1.155); expanding: see, for example, Harpagos’ advice to Cyrus on defeating Lydia (1.80); Kroisos’ advice on how best to fight the Massagetai (1.207); Artemisia’s advice on strategy against the Greeks (8.68). 44

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Solon’s difference from other advisors becomes particularly vivid when his interaction with Kroisos is contrasted a scene that closely echoes that conversation, but contains some key differences. In Book 3, Herodotus relates how Amasis, the last independent king of Egypt, wrote to advise his friend and ally Polykrates, tyrant of Samos. The king’s advice to the tyrant initially comes across as very similar to some of Solon’s language to Kroisos (3.40.2–3): Your great good fortune does not gladden me, for I know that the divine is envious. In a way, I want that both I myself and those I care about should succeed in some matters but fail in others, and thus spend life in alternation, rather than to be successful in everything. For I have never heard tell of anyone who did not ultimately end up utterly overthrown after succeeding in everything.

Like Solon, Amasis invokes the jealousy of the divine, and declares that good fortune will be paid for by ultimate misery.49 He follows this up, however, with something not found in Solon: a suggestion of how to avoid misfortune (3.40.4): Consider what you find the most valuable, and what would grieve your soul most to lose, and then cast it away so that it may never more be found among mortals.

By engineering a misfortune that is unpleasant but not overwhelming, Amasis hopes that Polykrates can avoid a worse fate and thus continue to enjoy his wealth and power. Solon, however, offered no such escape, no clever trick by which divine jealousy could be appeased. Solon presents the fall from the heights of prosperity as inevitable, and Herodotus’ narrative bears this out. Polykrates follows Amasis’ advice, throwing his valuable signet ring into the sea (3.41). Not six days later, however, when a fisherman presents Polykrates with his finest catch, the tyrant is dismayed to find the ring nestled in its stomach (3.42.3). Ruin, it seems, is not that easily circumvented. And indeed, Polykrates does indeed suffer a great reversal: tricked by the Persian governor Oroites, he is captured and crucified, and his island falls into Persian hands (3.125, 147). The cycle of fate, it seems, cannot be short-circuited, nor the envy of the gods avoided by clever tricks. Amasis’ advice to Polykrates misses a crucial element of Solon’s discourse to Kroisos. There is no discussion of the polis, no invocation 49 Herodotus says that Amasis was one of the monarchs with whom Solon sojourned (1.30.1) – are we perhaps to think that he is in fact repeating what he learned from the Athenian?

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of interdependence and human community. Polykrates is urged to take an entirely self-sufficient course, one that depends only on himself and his wealth. Himself a monarch, Amasis remains wedded to the solipsistic vision of happiness as depending solely on the wealth and power that one individual can accumulate. His “solution” fails because it does not get to the heart of the problem: monarchy itself. Solon’s words to Kroisos are more incisive, and, as a result, less practical. He gives no way out of the trap he identifies. Solon is not actually seeking to advise Kroisos, but to educate him. The goal is less to achieve a concrete outcome than to bring Kroisos to a new awareness of his own situation. In pursuit of that goal, Solon employs a wide range of tactics. He begins by telling stories, in which the praise of civic life and critique of monarchy is implicitly conveyed. When that seems not to work, he moves on to a more rationalist approach, inviting Kroisos to contemplate the dizzying scope of a human life. To this he adds a theological perspective, suggesting that Kroisos’ current mode of living will not attract the admiration of the gods. Finally, he concludes with a blunt statement of his thesis: no one can be happy by themselves. Solon’s speech is a masterpiece of educational strategy, drawing on a range of illustrations and styles of discourse. And all of it fails. At no point does Kroisos appear to grasp the message. Once Solon has finished speaking, the king responds by dismissing him, both literally and figuratively (1.33.1): Saying this, [Solon] did not in any way please Kroisos. Taking no account of him, he sent him away, thinking him to be a very ignorant man, who ignored present goods and told him to look to the end of each thing.

As soon as Solon proves that he will not flatter him, Kroisos ceases to believe that he has anything intelligent to say, and considers the philosopher, whom he had welcomed with fulsome praise for his wisdom, entirely “ignorant” for failing to recognise the king’s manifest happiness.

Demaratos and Xerxes Solon’s interaction with Kroisos can serve as the paradigm for several similar encounters between citizen and monarch throughout the Histories. In each case, someone from a Greek polis attempts to communicate to a ruler something of the values and concepts of their society. In each case, the monarch is incapable of grasping the message. Among the most dramatic of these is the exchange between Xerxes, Great King of Persia, and Demaratos, exiled king of Sparta, in the lead-up to the battle of Thermopylai. In most of what comes before and after, Demaratos acts as a loyal courtier and serves the same functions as other “wise advisors”, giving

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Persian kings practical advice on the management and expansion of their empire (7.3, 7.234). At this point, however, Demaratos moves away from this courtier’s role and, like Solon, seeks to educate the Persian as to his own society’s values. As he prepares to engage them for the first time, Xerxes expresses doubt that the Spartans, lacking a monarch to compel them, will ever stand fast against his vastly superior forces (7.103.4): If they were ruled by one man as is our way it might happen: fearing him, they might become better than their natures and go on compelled by whips against many, despite being far fewer. But devoted as they are to liberty, they could not do any of those things.

For Xerxes, freedom is equivalent to anarchy, and discipline is achievable only through fear. Just as Kroisos believed that monarchy was the only way to achieve happiness, Xerxes believes that it is the only way to achieve order. Like Solon, Demaratos, by “interposing the city”,50 shows that a collective community has another, perhaps better way of accomplishing the same goal. Demaratos begins his response by asking whether he should tell Xerxes the truth, or something that will please him (7.101.3). This question highlights the power differential between himself and Demaratos, and illustrates the difficulties in speaking honestly before a monarch. This is not an environment of isēgoria. For everyone but the monarch, speech involves a degree of risk, and frank and honest speech is not the norm. Only when he has received Xerxes’ explicit permission to tell the truth does Demaratos explain that Spartans do have a master they fear (7.104.5): They are free, but they are not wholly free. For there is a master over them: Law (nomos). They fear it far more than your men fear you. They do whatever it orders and it always orders the same thing: it does not allow them to flee from battle, even against a mass of people, but to remain at their post and either win or die.

This is a somewhat different image of civic identity than Solon’s paean to interdependence and moderation. Here, the polis is being defined by the rule of law, by citizens subjecting themselves to an impersonal and unchanging principle, rather than to a fallible human. This represents a striking contrast to the norm in monarchic Persia, where (as Otanes noted) even ancient laws are capable of being overturned by the monarch. When, for example, the mad King Kambyses desires to marry his sister, he 50

Kurke 1999: 147.

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consults the Persian royal judges to find a loophole in Persian anti-incest laws. The judges explain that he has in fact no need to seek to manipulate the laws, because he is fundamentally above them (3.31.4): [They said] that they found no law that permitted a man to marry his sister; but they had found another law, that the ruler of the Persians was permitted to do whatever he liked.

In this contrast between Persian and Spartan practice, then, it is eunomia rather than isonomia that is being emphasised – the excellence of the law is the point, rather than the collective power of the citizens.51 It is the same principle celebrated in the poet Simonides’ elegy for the fallen at Thermopylai, quoted by Herodotus in his account of the battle (7.228.2): “Stranger, tell the Lakedaimonians that here we lie, obedient to their laws.” And yet isonomia is not fully absent from Demaratos’ speech either. This overarching law only works because it is collectively enforced. For the Spartans, discipline is not something that is imposed from above, but generated spontaneously by and from the whole community. Because every Spartan citizen has internalised Spartan nomos, all can know and perform their duty, and can collectively chastise those who do not. The rejection by the Spartan citizenry of the two survivors of Thermopylai (7.231–232) provides a striking example of the community’s capacity to generate discipline from within itself, without the need of an external master to compel its obedience. Once again, the monarch shows himself as completely incapable of grasping the point of this speech (7.105): [Demaratos] replied thus and Xerxes was moved to laughter and felt no anger, but sent him away with his good wishes.

Unlike Kroisos, Xerxes responds not with anger but with amusement. This amusement, however, is in a way more ominous than Kroisos’ irritation. The Lydian king’s anger showed that he had, at least, understood that Solon was slighting him, even if he could not fully grasp the extent of the message. Xerxes, however, treats the entire idea of Spartan obedience to law as a joke.52 His laughter reveals his fundamental inability to understand 51 On this speech as indicating a contrast between Athenian and Spartan visions of civic life, see Forsdyke 2001: 347–349, Ward 2008: 153. 52 This response by a monarch to an explanation of non-monarchic government is strikingly echoed in more recent history. In the 1580s, a Venetian merchant trading in Southeast Asia was asked by a Burmese monarch who the king of Venice was. Upon being told that the Venetian Republic had no king, the ruler “began to laugh so hard

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an unfamiliar culture and society – it is a sign of ignorance, not of good temper.53 After telling the Spartan to speak uncomfortable truth instead of pleasing lies, Xerxes reveals that he cannot, in fact, tell the difference.

A Futile Endeavour? Both Kroisos and Xerxes do, eventually, realise that the Greeks who spoke to them were right. Crucially, however, this realisation only comes after they have suffered first-hand the consequences of their lessons. Kroisos acknowledges that Solon’s statements about the mutability of fortune were correct when his kingdom has been overthrown and he himself is about to be burned alive by the conquering Persians (1.86): Solon’s words came to Kroisos as he stood upon the pyre, even in such dire straits, and he realised that he had spoken divinely, saying that no living person is fortunate.

In the same vein, after the Persians have prevailed at Thermopylai, seeing that all but two of the Spartans stood firm and met their deaths in battle, Xerxes acknowledges that the words he laughed at were, in fact, true (7.234.1): “Demaratos, you are a good man. I say this because of this truth: everything has turned out exactly as you told me.” It is significant, however, that neither monarch could absorb these truths prior to having personally experienced them. The ideas introduced by both Solon and Demaratos were so alien to Kroisos and Xerxes that neither could take them in. Only experience could convince them. As the closed and solipsistic worldview of the monarch precludes any absorption of unfamiliar ideas, the only avenue for wisdom for rulers is, in Aeschylus’ famous phrase, pathei mathos – “learning through suffering”.54 These two episodes point to a broad theme in Herodotus: the inability of monarchs to understand the values, practices, and institutions of the Greek polis, and the apparent futility of attempting to teach them about it. In addition to these extended episodes, we can point to briefer anecdotes that further illustrate this principle. When told by the Spartans that they will seek to prevent him from conquering Ionia, King Cyrus of Persia responds by mocking a people who “have a place in the middle of their city designed for them to come together to cheat each other with false that he started gagging and could hardly breathe” (Borschberg 2017: 290; I am grateful to Peter Borschberg for showing me an advance copy of this article). 53 Lateiner 1977: 179. 54 Aesch. Ag. 177. Shapiro 1994 notes the prevalence of wisdom through suffering in Herodotus, but does not explicitly observe that all the examples she cites are of monarchs.

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oaths” (1.153.1). This derisive reference to the Greek agora, which served not only as the central marketplace of the city but also as one of its chief gathering-places and the site of its civic institutions, shows a fundamental disdain for civic government. The agora was “in the middle” – es meson – not only geographically, but also conceptually. As mentioned earlier, placing an issue es meson represents putting it up for public debate, open to all to contribute opinions. For Cyrus, however, such collective activity is nothing more than mutual deception, and serves as a sign of a weak and contemptible society. Similarly, in a scene that echoes Demaratos’ exchange with Xerxes, a group of Spartan ambassadors challenge the hierarchical mindset of Persia and are met with incomprehension. Sent to die at Persian hands to atone for Sparta’s murder of a Persian herald (7.134), these men take every opportunity to proclaim the superiority of Greek and Spartan liberty. Asked by the Persian governor, Hydarnes, why Sparta chooses to fight the King rather than to surrender and receive a privileged position within the empire, the ambassadors respond that, as a “slave” of the Great King, Hydarnes is incapable of knowing how sweet freedom is. Had he ever tasted it, they tell him, “you would counsel us to fight for it not only with spears, but even with axes” (7.135.3). Confronting Xerxes himself, the Spartans refuse to prostrate themselves before him, saying that “it was not their custom to abase themselves before a mortal, nor was that what they had come to do” (7.136.2). By their resistance to both persuasion and compulsion, these Spartans transform what was ostensibly a mission to show Sparta’s contrition into one that displays her independence and defiance.55 Even when monarchs genuinely wish to understand civic life, they fail. The Scythian ruler Skyles finds himself incapable of fulfilling his cherished desire to integrate into his mother’s Greek culture. Although he sneaks into the Greek city of Borysthenes and lives as Greek citizen, this project, as Rosaria Munson has pointed out, is tainted by tyrannical epithumia, the desire for ever more wealth, power, and magnificence. His ambition remains utterly self-centred – he has no interest in joining in the political life of the city, and constructs himself a house that resembles more a royal palace than a Greek residence (4.79.2).56 Time and again, monarchs are shown failing to grasp the nature of non-monarchic states and understand the values and principles that underlie their operation. Such failure is not surprising. A monarch has little impetus to understand others. Their power and position mean that they have no need to adapt their thoughts or actions – it is for others 55 56

So Benardete 1969: 197. Munson 2001: 122.

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to adapt to them. Without the need to persuade anyone or account for their behaviour, monarchs have no need to develop any capacity to understand others’ ways of thinking.57 This being the case, seeking to educate monarchs about the ideals or practices of non-monarchic societies comes across in Herodotus as a largely futile endeavour. Monarchs are neither willing nor able to understand the lessons, no matter what language they are couched in. From this we may take away two conclusions. First, if communication between citizens and monarchs is to be attempted, it is up to the citizen to adapt to the monarch, not vice versa. Second, in content such communication will need to be more modest than the sweeping educational project attempted by Solon. In the following section, we will look at examples of this kind of more flexible and limited communication, which falls remarkably in line with modern ideas of successful intercultural communication.

Bias/Pittakos and Kroisos Just before Solon’s visit, Herodotus reports another conversation between Kroisos and a learned Greek. Hearing that the Lydian king is building a fleet to invade the Greek islands, an Ionian sage – Herodotus confesses himself unsure whether it was Bias of Priene or Pittakos of Mytilene – comes to Kroisos to dissuade him (1.27.2). Bias/Pittakos tells Kroisos that the islanders are planning to invade Lydia by cavalry; when Kroisos expresses delight that they are challenging the master horsemen of Lydia on their own ground with their own tactics (1.27.3), the sage points out that, hearing of Kroisos’ shipbuilding, the nautical islanders will surely have a similar reaction (1.27.4). In a striking contrast with his conversation with Solon, Kroisos perfectly understands Bias/Pittakos’ discourse, and puts a stop to his naval programme.58 In close succession, two Greek citizens speak to Kroisos. The first is heard and understood, the second dismissed with anger and incomprehension. The divergent responses are the product of two very different approaches taken by the two different sages. Solon speaks from the polis, attempting to transmit its concepts and values to the Lydian king. His speech presents a fundamental challenge to Herodotus’ picture of powerful rulers being unable to imagine other modes of life chimes strikingly with modern studies in psychology and neurology. These suggest that individuals who perceive themselves as more powerful display greater difficulty in appraising the emotions and perspectives of others than their lower-power counterparts. See, for example, Fiske and Dépret 1996, Keltner et al. 2003, Hogeveen et al. 2014; for a popular overview of this research, see Useem 2017. 58 Indeed, Kroisos is “gratified” by the advice (echarizeto, 1.27.5); Sharp (2006: 91–92) points out that Kroisos’ reaction to Solon is precisely the opposite: “in saying these things, Solon did not at all gratify Kroisos” (1.33). 57

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what Kroisos views as good, and suggests that the wealth and kingship on which the Lydian prides himself are unreliable paths to happiness. Bias/ Pittakos’ approach is very different, in both form and content. He does not approach Kroisos seeking to highlight his own values and worldview. Instead, he adapts his discourse to Kroisos’ own beliefs and prejudices. Knowing that Kroisos is a warrior-king, fond of battle and imperial expansion, he presents him with a false scenario that will arouse his enthusiasm and interest. Once Kroisos is “hooked”, as it were, the sage can then turn the tables and encourage the king to think about the situation from the other side. In doing so, he achieves what Solon and Demaratos could not: he gets a monarch to see someone else’s point of view. This achievement is helped by the fact that Bias/Pittakos has a far narrower aim than Solon did. The Athenian seems to have had little goal other than to remove Kroisos’ false ideas and force him to greater self-knowledge – a sort of proto-Sokratic challenge.59 The Ionian, however, has less grand ambitions: he wants to convince Kroisos to abandon one specific policy, with the goal of benefiting himself and his fellow countrymen. Rather than getting Kroisos to grasp an entire alien way of life, he simply needs him to appreciate the Ionians’ military outlook. This approach has much in common with modern intercultural practice. Authors repeatedly urge negotiators to become familiar with the communicative styles of the cultures with whom they are dealing, and, as far as possible, to adapt their own discourse to match it. Raymond Cohen, for example, succinctly advises negotiators: “adapt your strategy to your opponents’ cultural needs”,60 and cites approvingly the example of an American ambassador to Japan who, following the collision of an American submarine with a Japanese freighter, bowed to the Japanese Foreign Minister while delivering heartfelt regret on behalf of his country. This “Japanese manner” of apology, Cohen says, avoided prolonged bad feeling between the nations.61 Lyn Boyd-Judson similarly advises negotiators to try to put themselves in the place of their interlocutors, seeking to understand and to some degree empathise with the moral framework within which they operate.62 In the same vein, Zwier advises those engaging with North Korea’s autocratic dynasty to enter the mindset of the ruling family and even use the words and actions of previous rulers as models for the current leader to follow.63 So Sharp 2006: 95–101. Cohen 1987: 226. 61 Cohen 1987: 222. 62 Boyd-Judson 2011: 2–4. This approach will be discussed in further depth in the next chapter. 63 Zwier 2013: 213–214. 59 60

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Demokedes This “intercultural” approach can be found elsewhere in Herodotus, and it is generally portrayed as highly successful. A striking example can be found in the account of the Koan physician, Demokedes. Captured by King Dareios and forced to serve as the king’s personal physician, Demokedes longs to return to his own people. As a result, he sets about manipulating the Persian king to allow him to return. Having placed Dareios’ Queen Atossa in his debt by healing a growth on her breast (3.133), Demokedes coaches her to manipulate her husband into planning an invasion of Greece. By getting himself assigned to lead a scouting mission in preparation for the campaign, Demokedes can return to the Greek world, and once there, slip away from his Persian minders (3.134–135). Demokedes’ success springs from a thorough understanding of the mindset of the Persian king. Dareios is at this point a new king, a man who gained the throne by violence and deceit, and who still needs to consolidate his hold on power. Atossa’s language, as dictated by Demokedes, plays directly to these concerns. A war against Greece, she is coached to tell him, would be doubly beneficial because “the Persians will know that their leader is a man, and they will be kept too busy by war to plot against you” (3.134.2).64 Demokedes has judged his target well – the speech he has given Atossa stokes Dareios’ anxieties, and galvanises him into putting the plan into motion. Themistokles In the eighth book of the Histories, the Athenian statesman Themistokles turns his intercultural abilities to the good of Greece. Concerned that, if the Greeks withdraw from their current position at the island of Salamis their united front will collapse, he writes to Xerxes to lure the king into fighting there (8.75.1). Posing as a traitor, he tells the king that the Greeks are terrified and divided, and will be incapable of putting up a concerted defence if attacked (8.76.2–3). Like Demokedes, Themistokles has carefully tailored his language to suit the king’s way of thinking.65 His report of Greek disunity and fear chimes with Xerxes’ prejudice, expressed to Demaratos, There may perhaps be an added bite to the statement that the king will show that he is a real man, given that this conversation happens while the couple are in bed together. Is Atossa meant to imply that it is not only to his people but to his wife that he needs to prove his masculine vigour? 65 As Gera (2007: 446–447) notes, Themistokles has already displayed a remarkable ability to manipulate thought and language. He can rework an initially hopelessseeming oracle into one promising victory (7.143.1); his carving messages in Greek to Xerxes’ Ionian forces has the double achievement of detaching some of the king’s forces and making him mistrust the rest (8.22). 64

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that the kingless Greeks are incapable of sustained and coordinated action against him (7.104, 7.09). The suggestion that a substantial fifth column of pro-Persian Greeks (8.75.3) exists likewise plays to the difficulty powerful Persians like Hydarnes have in understanding why the Greeks would fight so hard to stay out of the empire (7.135.2). This image of Themistokles as an expert interculturalist is continued and amplified in the portrait by Herodotus’ fellow historian Thucydides. Continuing Themistokles’ story after the war, Thucydides reports that, following his exile from Athens, he was obliged to seek safe haven in several monarchic courts. After successfully talking himself into the favour of the Molossian and Macedonian kings, he finally seeks to inveigle himself into the court of his former enemy, the Great King of Persia. In his initial letter seeking the king’s grace, he is modest in his ambitions. Acknowledging his former enmity, he falsely claims that he helped the Persians make a clean escape after their failed invasion, and asks the king only for a year’s space to prove himself worthy (Thuc. 1.137.4). This apparent modesty seems to impress the king, who allows him to remain in Persian territory for the year requested. Themistokles makes use of that year to immerse himself in the culture of his host: “in the time he had, he learned the Persian tongue as much as he was able, as well as the customs (epitēdeumata) of the country” (1.138.1). It has been pointed out that, while many Greeks sought refuge or employment at the Persian court, Themistokles is the only one we know of to have thoroughly learned the language.66 Moreover, Themistokles did not just learn the language. While language learning is recognised in modern diplomatic circles as an important aspect of intercultural competence, it is not in itself sufficient.67 Mere technical competence that is not matched with a broader understanding of the host culture can lead merely to being able to offend one’s hosts more effectively.68 Themistokles is explicitly said to have obtained this understanding, supplementing his education in the Persian language with one in Persian customs (epitēdeumata). Themistokles’ intercultural efforts pay off. Having learned to communicate with him effectively, Themistokles spends the rest of his life as the king’s favoured courtier (1.138.2–4). Indeed, Thucydides seems to highlight Themistokles’ ability to communicate with the king when he explicitly rejects an account that would imply that Themistokles made an error in communication, promising vainly to deliver the conquest of Greece (1.138.4). Themistokles’ success in adapting to the Persian monarchy is rendered even more striking when compared to the experiences of his contemporary, 66 67 68

Gera 2007: 445. See, for example, Mustafayeva 2016: 13–15, Kealey et al. 2004: 434. So Fisher 1997: 185–187d

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the Spartan general Pausanias.69 Like Themistokles, Pausanias, after falling from favour in his own polis, decides to seek refuge at the Persian court. Releasing some Persian prisoners of war, Pausanias sends them back to King Xerxes with a message promising friendship and service, offering to make all Greece subject to the king, and requesting his daughter’s hand in marriage (1.128.7). This is a rather bold opening salvo, particularly from a man who had until now been Xerxes’ enemy. Themistokles promised nothing in his initial letter to the king, and asked only for a year’s grace to acquaint himself with Persian language and culture. Pausanias, by contrast, makes extravagant promises and demands to marry into the royal family. Finally, it might also be considered a faux pas that Pausanias makes no move to present himself to the king in person, but instead demands that Xerxes send a liaison through whom they might communicate. Where Themistokles travelled to Persia and, after his year’s cultural immersion, presented himself to the king, Pausanias feels confident that he can cultivate a close working relationship entirely at a distance. Xerxes’ response to this bold overture is ambivalent. He expresses gratitude for the freed prisoners and promises money and soldiers to aid Pausanias’ efforts. He however makes no mention of the marriage proposal, and it is hard not to see this as a tactful way of insinuating that the Spartan asks too much.70 Moreover, while encouraging, Xerxes’ language also makes clear that Pausanias is now under obligation to make good on his extravagant promises (1.129.3): “let neither night nor day constrain you to leave off doing any of what you promised me.” The flowery language does not conceal the basic message: you have made promises, and now you must work hard to fulfil them. Pausanias, however, does not appear to detect this note of caution. Instead, he assumes that he is fully in Xerxes’ favour, and begins acting out how he believes a high Persian official would behave (1.130.1): At that point he carried himself much more loftily and was no longer able to live in his accustomed style. Rather he went out from Byzantium dressed in Median garments, and while travelling through Thrace he surrounded himself with Median and Egyptian bodyguards. He dined in Persian style, and he was not able to restrain his ambition, but he made it clear in small matters what he intended to do on a larger scale later on.

Pausanias’ behaviour can be seen as a kind of burlesque counterpart to Themistokles’ cultural immersion. Where the Athenian travelled to Persia and took care to learn genuine Persian language and culture, Pausanias, 69 70

See Konishi 1970 for a detailed comparison of the two men’s experiences. So Konishi 1970: 64.

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never having been to Persia, transforms himself into a caricature. Where Themistokles engages in genuine intercultural education, Pausanias indulges in cosplay. Unsurprisingly, the two men come to very different ends. Themistokles dies of natural causes in Magnesia, a favoured courtier to the end. By contrast, Pausanias’ conduct alienates the Spartans, his intrigues are exposed, and he dies of starvation while walled up in a temple where he sought sanctuary from prosecution (1.131–134). The accounts of Pittakos/Bias, Demokedes, and Themistokles all point to the success that an “intercultural” approach is depicted as having in Herodotus’ work. Where attempts like those of Solon and Demaratos to bring monarchs into the world of the polis bog down in royal incomprehension, those citizens who seek to cross over into the monarchic world fare much better. By understanding and to some degree assuming the outlooks of the monarchs and courts with which they are dealing, these individuals are able achieve at least some degree of rapport with their autocratic interlocutors. Such an approach does not lead to any great meeting of the minds between citizen and monarch, but it enables the citizens to advance more modest goals. By entering the thought-world of the monarch, they are able to persuade the kings with whom they speak to act in their favour and accomplish what the citizens might require.

Alkmaion and Kroisos The final story of a Greek citizen visiting Kroisos comes later in Herodotus’ Histories. Shortly after recounting the Athenian victory at Marathon against the first Persian invasion, Herodotus goes into a digression about the history of the wealthy Alkmaionid clan, whose members played a key role throughout Athenian history. The founder of the line owed his fortune partly to his close relationship to the Lydian king. When Kroisos sends messengers to Greece to consult the Delphic oracle, Alkmaion gives assistance to the Lydian delegation. (6.125.2). Grateful for the Athenian’s assistance, Kroisos invites him to Sardis and offers him his reward: “all that he can carry” from Kroisos’ treasury. Alkmaion decides to push the offer as far as it can go (6.125.2–4): After putting on a huge tunic and leaving a deep fold in that tunic, he found the widest boots he could and tied them on; he then entered the treasury to which he had been led. Falling upon a heap of gold dust he first poured the dust into the fold of his tunic and all the hair of his head, and took still more into his mouth, and then went out of the treasury scarcely able to drag his boots, resembling almost anything other than a human being: his mouth was stuffed and he was entirely swollen up.

Such a cheeky interpretation of Kroisos’ suggestion might run the risk angering the king, but Kroisos is, in fact, delighted. Herodotus reports he

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“broke into laughter” and not only allowed Alkmaion to keep what he had collected but made him a gift of the same amount again (6.125.5). Kroisos’ pleasure can be partly explained by the fact that Alkmaion is, in a sense, speaking Kroisos’ language. His enthusiasm for gold endorses Kroisos’ own high valuation of wealth. Where the Athenian Solon declared Kroisos’ treasure insufficient for happiness, Alkmaion affirms that material wealth is supremely desirable. Kroisos is delighted to have his own values confirmed so graphically by a polis citizen.71 By literally throwing himself into the values of the Lydian court, Alkmaion can stand as a symbol of what happens when one identifies too closely with a monarch. While his meeting of minds with Kroisos cannot be described as a conscious act of interculturalism, it does represent an integration into the values of the monarch’s court. The result of this integration is not pretty. In sharing in Kroisos’ love of wealth, Alkmaion loses hold of his identity as a Greek citizen. Leslie Kurke has noted that both the baggy tunic (chiton) and the kothournoi boots Alkmaion dons to absorb the gold dust are associated, in Herodotus, with Eastern luxury and effeminacy.72 They are, in fact, precisely the clothes that Kroisos later advises Cyrus to dress the Lydians in to transform them from a warlike, rebellious people into a nation of comfortable and docile “women” (1.155.4). Not only does Alkmaion’s dress depart from that of a Greek citizen, but so does his body itself. After ingesting the gold, Alkmaion becomes “bloated”, and “resembles anything rather than a human being”. In Solon’s speech to Kroisos, possession of a well-formed, capable body was one of the blessings of living the moderate life of a citizen (1.31.2, 1.32.6). By absorbing Kroisos’ values, Alkmaion loses that ideal. No longer a fit, autonomous male citizen, he has become distorted and effeminised by his participation in the values of the Lydian court. For all the success that the intercultural approach is shown to have in Herodotus, then, it is apparently possible to go too far. At a certain point, understanding a monarch’s point of view slides into endorsing it, and aligning one’s language with the values of monarchy can be transformed into aligning one’s own values with them as well. While Alkmaion’s story is the only one of this sort in Herodotus, the image of Greeks being corrupted by monarchic luxury seems to have been popular in fifth-century thought more generally. We can, for example, see a similar narrative in Aristophanes’ first extant play, The Acharnians. The play opens with a session of the Athenian assembly at which ambassadors, So Balot 2001: 125: “Croesus’ laughter is the laughter of recognition, which acknowledges shared sentiment and mutual understanding; Croesus sees himself in Alcmaeon.” 72 Kurke 1999: 146. 71

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despatched to foreign courts, have returned to report to the people.73 The first to be presented are a pair of Athenian envoys, recently returned from a mission to Persia, to ask the Great King for his aid. These men appear before the assembly in extravagant, non-Greek dress – the play’s hero, Dikaiopolis, refers to them as “peacocks” (63) – and explain that during the 11 years they were in Persia, they were “forced” to drink neat wine from crystal and gold goblets and eat vast quantities of exotic meats (73–89). This self-indulgence, they go on, was necessary in order to establish a rapport with the Great King and his court: “the barbarians only consider as men those who can gobble up and drink the most” (77–78).74 In modern terms, these ambassadors are announcing that they have been good interculturalists. They have learned about the values of their hosts, and have done their best to align themselves with those values in order to promote a good working relationship. Adapting to their hosts’ dining protocols could be seen as a particularly intimate and effective way of building rapport – scholars have argued that “culinary diplomacy” is an underappreciated facet of modern interstate relations, as the symbolism of particular foods and the relationship-building activity of eating together can both serve to break down barriers between representatives of different cultures.75 The play, however, does not present this assimilation to Persian practice as a positive. Rather, these ambassadors are shown as having been corrupted by their engagement with the Persian court. Dikaiopolis responds to their culinary adventures with scorn and disgust, suggesting that they have simply been living high off the hog on Athenian public expenses (Ar. Ach. 88–90): Ambassador: Then, by Zeus, they served us a bird three times as big        as Kleonymos. Its name was the Quacker.76 Dikaiopolis: You’re the quacks, you with your two-drachma-a-day salary!

Indeed, it becomes clear that the ambassadors’ “intercultural” efforts have not yielded any tangible results for their city. After spending 11 years’ worth 73 It may not be coincidental that this play contains what several scholars have seen as allusions to Herodotus’ work – see Nesselrath 2013 and Mash 2017 for further discussion. 74 The ambassador to King Sitalkes of Thrace, introduced slightly later in the play, claims a similar practice of adapting to the customs of his host. Kept in Thrace by heavy snow, he “drank away the time” with Sitalkes and as a result, he says, he has won the king’s friendship (138–141). 75 Chapple-Sokol 2013: 182. 76 This is my attempt to render an untranslatable pun. In Greek, the bird is referred to as a phēnax, a word that means “fraud”, and is probably a play on the mythical phoenix.

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of state pay wallowing in Persian luxury (65–67), it becomes clear that they have achieved nothing and are attempting deceive the Athenians to hide this fact. Presenting with great fanfare one Pseudartabas, apparently a high Persian official sent to negotiate with them, they are shocked (and Dikaiopolis is grimly satisfied) when this man announces, in broken Greek, “not get gold gape-arse Ionians” (Ach. 103).77 Like Alkmaion, the ambassadors have fallen prey to the luxuries of an eastern court. Unlike Alkmaion, they do not even have the compensation of a heap of gold. Far from charming the Persians into helping the Athenians, the ambassadors’ fall into Persian depravity has earned them nothing but the scorn of the Persians and the hatred of right-thinking Athenians. The same anxiety about the barbarisation of those who interact closely with the world of non-Greek monarchy can be found in fifth-century tragedy. Euripides’ Orestes, a play noted for its deeply derogatory depictions of non-Greeks, contains good examples of this idea. When debating with his son-in-law Menelaos, for example, the former king Tyndareos criticises him for endorsing Orestes’ extra-judicial killing of his mother (485): “You have become barbarized, living so long among barbarians.” Orestes, he goes on, should have brought charges against his mother like a civilised Greek, not taken matters into his own hands (491–506). In endorsing Orestes’ summary justice, Menelaos, Tyndareos implies, has absorbed habits of cruelty and arbitrariness that apparently typify the autocratic monarchies of the east. Helen, in the same play, is similarly depicted as a victim of barbarisation. She is surrounded by non-Greek servants who fawn over her like an eastern potentate with fans and perfume (1425–1430). A conversation between Orestes and Pylades makes clear how far her behaviour has fallen from what is expected of a Greek woman (1113–1115): Pylades: Has she brought Trojan luxury with her here? Orestes: So much so, that Hellas is too small for her to live in. Pylades: The race of slaves is nothing to those who are free.

Pylades’ scornful rejoinder makes clear that adopting eastern luxury has political dimensions. Barbarians are a “race of slaves” – anticipating Aristotle’s later dicta, Pylades seems to suggest that barbarians are naturally formed for subjection, either to their own despotic kings or to a Greek Much ink has been spilled as to whether Pseudartabas is to be seen as a genuine Persian or as an Athenian in disguise – Aristophanes’ text seems ambiguous on this point. See Chiasson 1984 for a good discussion of the issue. For our purposes, the question is scarcely relevant – either way, the Great King has clearly not been swayed by the ambassadors. 77

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master. To absorb barbarian luxury, then, seems to involve also absorbing that inclination toward despotism, either practising it oneself or submitting to it from others. The title character of Euripides’ Helen makes this clear (Eur. Hel. 273–276): The gods have transported me into barbarian customs, and, bereft of friends, I have become a slave where once I was free. For among barbarians, all things are enslaved except one man.

A fragment from a lost tragedy of Sophocles makes the same point: “Whoever journeys to a tyrant is his slave, even if he set out a free man.”78 This view of the corrupting effects of engagement with monarchs is, as I have said, not a major theme in Herodotus. Far more common are stories from the first two categories: stories of monarchs failing to comprehend the values, practices, and attitudes of civic societies, and of clever citizens adapting themselves to the thought patterns of monarchy in order to coax or manipulate monarchs to serve their own ends. The evidence of comedy and tragedy, however, suggests that the narrative of corruption may have been a popularly held one, at least in fifth-century Athens. Aristophanes apparently expects his portrayal of ambassadors “going native” to resonate with his audience – were this not something that fifth-century Athenians believed possible, the joke would fall flat. Herodotus’ exploration of such interactions as examples of intercultural negotiation would then be a deliberate challenge to popular belief, an encouragement to look at interactions with monarchy more critically and open-mindedly than a simple paradigm of moral corruption.

4. Conclusion In accordance with his conviction that nomos is king, Herodotus sees serious difficulties in communicating between cultures with different nomoi. This is particularly apposite when the nomoi in question concern the basic organisation of society. Isonomic poleis and autocratic monarchies are shown as enjoying wildly differing attitudes to areas as diverse as wealth, time, fate, the human body, and one’s relationship to the gods. Indeed, citizens and monarchs have very different approaches to the act of communication itself. When unmodified civic and monarchic communication styles come into contact, the result is almost invariably confusion and incomprehension. It is thus necessary for one party or the other to adapt their discourse to fit the other party’s expectations. Monarchs, however, seem neither willing nor able to make this adjustment. Used to others shaping their language to 78

Radt 837.

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suit the ruler’s desires, monarchs have no experience adapting to someone else’s way of thinking. It is therefore up to the citizens involved to make this switch.79 Such an adaptation is presented in Herodotus as both possible and effective, at least temporarily. While there seems to be no prospect of communicating grand ideas or changing a monarch’s fundamental outlook, it is entirely feasible to guide, persuade, or manipulate them into a course of action to the citizen’s advantage. The case of Alkmaion, however, sounds a warning note. There is, apparently, a point at which adaptation goes too far and turns into assimilation. If one is too successful in adopting a monarch’s worldview, one runs the risk of having it become one’s own – in essence, one becomes what one had been pretending to be. In Herodotus, this concern is muted – only the one comic story provides an example of this process. The evidence of other fifth-century literature, however, suggests that becoming corrupted by engagement with monarchs was a very real concern in Herodotus’ time. Herodotus was probably writing during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War. This was a time that saw the two main antagonists, Athens and Sparta, both seeking support from a range of monarchs. Sparta made early approaches to the Persian king, while the Athenians sought help from their ally, Sitalkes, king of Thrace. King Perdikkas of Macedon, Tharyps of Molossia, and a host of other local rulers were also drawn into the fray. The question of how to communicate effectively with monarchs was thus far from an abstract one in Herodotus’ time. Successful communication meant winning a powerful ally for one’s city, and for oneself the reputation of an effective negotiator and a benefactor of one’s community. Failure could result in the monarch siding with the enemy, and potentially dire consequences for the negotiator – as with, for example, the Spartan envoys executed by Sitalkes of Thrace in one of Herodotus’ few references to events in his own day (7.137.3). Whether Herodotus intended his stories of citizens and monarchs as a direct comment on contemporary negotiations cannot be known. It is, however, plausible that readers of his works might well have seen the relevance of such narratives to their own situation. As Aristophanes’ Acharnians shows, the ethics and practicalities of relationships with monarchs were very much in the public consciousness in the early stages of the war. 79 This observation throws light on a similar trend in contemporary intercultural scholarship. Throughout the literature, the onus of adapting to others’ cultures is placed on representatives of Western liberal democracies. There is of course, a practical aspect to this: representatives of Western liberal democracies are the intended audience of these works. At the same time, this emphasis cannot help but generate the impression that Western negotiators enjoy a unique ability to transcend their cultural backgrounds, while those from other cultures are unable to see beyond their own social context.

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That war would have profound effects on both the theory and practice of interactions with monarchs. Reduced in power and prestige, democratic Athens would find itself increasingly dependent upon the goodwill of monarchs to ensure its economic and strategic position. Such dependence necessitated ever closer contacts, and these contacts could create profound anxieties for the Athenian citizenry. It also led to a surge in interest among both politicians and intellectuals in confronting the question of how to engage with kings and tyrants. The remainder of this book will explore the various ways that those writers depict, advocate, or themselves practise communicating with monarchs. Many of the themes we have seen in Herodotus – the capacity of monarchs to understand civic life, the need to adapt to monarchic discourse styles, the possibility of corruption – will recur in later writers, who will bring their own perspectives and approaches to bear on what clearly remained a concerning problem.

Chapter 2

Re-educating the Tyrant in Xenophon’s Hiero Re-educating the Tyrant in Xenophon’s

1. Xenophon and His World The end of the Peloponnesian War found the mainland and Aegean states in a much-changed world. If much of the fifth century had been defined by rivalry between the two major power blocs led by Athens and Sparta, the decades following the war’s end saw an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world. Various states sought to achieve dominance over the Aegean region, all to find their ambitions rudely dashed. Sparta, Athens, and Thebes all enjoyed brief moments in the sun, and all found themselves stymied by coalitions of other states jealous of their new-found success. As the states of Aegean Greece and the Peloponnese exhausted themselves battling for hegemony, other, formerly marginal areas saw opportunities to assert their influence. In many cases, these newly significant powers were monarchies, led by energetic, autocratic rulers who ambitiously exploited the military and economic resources of their regions. In Cyprus, long viewed as something of a backwater in Greek affairs, King Euagoras of Salamis briefly made the island a significant player in the Eastern Mediterranean. Rising from obscure origins, Euagoras not only seized power in Cypriot Salamis, but, conquering most of the island’s other kingdoms, became strong enough to take on his nominal overlord, King Artaxerxes II of Persia.1 Across the sea in Asia Minor, another dynasty of Persian vassal-rulers, the Hekatomnids of Karia, amassed great influence over the Greek states of the Eastern Aegean.2 The Western Mediterranean saw a resurgent monarchy in Syracuse under the Dionysiad dynasty. Taking advantage of his city’s ill-fated war against Carthage, Dionysios I established a military dictatorship over Syracuse, which he then transformed into the hub of an empire encompassing Euagoras claimed descent from Salamis’ ancient rulers (Isoc. 9.18–19), but there is no way of substantiating this claim. For an overview of Euagoras’ career, see Raptou 1999: 250–262. 2 The Karian dynasty has been covered in detail in Hornblower 1982. 1

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Eastern Sicily and parts of southern Italy.3 Closer to the Greek heartland, the warlord Jason of Pherai performed a similar feat in Thessaly, welding together the region’s fractious nobility under his personal rule. Though Jason’s ambitions were cut short by assassination, his later successor Alexander took up the baton and caused great anxiety to southern Greece with his aggressive military policy.4 Finally, in the far-off Crimea, a Greco-Scythian aristocrat named Spartokos seized power in 438 in the city of Pantikapaion, using it as a springboard to take over roughly half the peninsula, founding what we refer to as the Bosporan Kingdom. The Spartokid dynasty he founded would reign over both Greek poleis and Scythian tribes for another three centuries, growing rich by exporting grain from the fertile plains to their north.5 Not only did new monarchies arise across the Mediterranean, but existing kingdoms saw their influence in the Greek world greatly increased. Two monarchies in particular stand out for the roles they played in fourthcentury interstate relations. The first of these was the Persian Empire, particularly under the energetic rule of Kings Artaxerxes II and III. The period following the Persian invasion of 480/79, and the Greek counterattacks of the 470s saw something of a withdrawal of Persia from involvement in the Aegean.6 From the last decade of the Peloponnesian War, however, the Great King began to take a renewed interest in Greek affairs. Siding with the Spartans in the war, the Persians were able not only to reclaim the Greek cities of the Anatolian coast, but also established themselves as a major player in Greek diplomacy. Persian influence perhaps reached its apex under the “King’s Peace”. At Spartan prompting, Artaxerxes II dictated a common peace settlement to the Greek states, backed by the threat of Persian military intervention.7 This peace was, at least ostensibly, to govern Greek affairs for the next two decades or so. In reality, the peace was often violated without repercussion – only once, during the “Social War” between Athens and her rebellious allies, did a Persian king threaten direct intervention to force an end to conflict (Diod. Sic. 16.22). Nevertheless, even without direct military 3 The standard work on Dionysios is Stroheker 1958; Caven 1990 represents a comparatively recent English discussion. 4 On Jason’s career, see Sprawski 1999. On Alexander, see Sprawski 2006. 5 The standard history of the Bosporan kingdom is Gajdukevič 1971; Moreno 2007 ch. 4. represents a good English summary. 6 Whether this withdrawal was in fact confirmed by a treaty between Persia and the Athenian-led Delian league, as fourth-century authors claim, is much debated. For a comprehensive, though partisan, summary of the arguments surrounding the existence of this “Peace of Kallias”, see Badian 1993: 1–72, with further bibliography. 7 For an overview of the origin and effects of the King’s Peace, see Buckler 2003: 129–183.

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involvement, the Great King did manage to make himself something of a referee in Greek affairs. His judgement on matters of territory, for example, was held up as incontrovertible evidence of possession rights (e.g. Dem. 7.29), and he could be called in to arbitrate a range of disputes between poleis.8 The second monarchy to rise to prominence in the fourth century was, of course, the kingdom of Macedon. The Macedonian kings had always enjoyed a certain degree of influence in Greece due to their strategic location. The wooded mountains they ruled were an ideal source of ship-timber and contained rich veins of gold, both of which could generate significant revenue for the royal house.9 Macedonian significance was limited, however, by the frequent succession-battles between the many sons of the polygamous kings.10 In the fifth century, Perdikkas II and Archelaos I were able to make Macedon into a major player in Greek affairs, only to see their achievements lost as the kingdom descended into civil war after Archelaos’ death. It was only in 359, with the accession of Philip II as king, that Macedonian fortunes began radically to turn. After sweeping away all his rivals for the throne, Philip undertook an energetic campaign against his hostile neighbours, which soon transformed into a general campaign of conquest. With a mixture of innovative equipment, new tactics, cunning diplomacy, and ruthless opportunism, Philip was, by the mid-340s, master of most of northern Greece and poised to make inroads further south. The increasing influence of monarchies, both new and old, had a major impact on both political and intellectual discourse in Athens. Politicians, philosophers, and the Athenian public at large were all forced to acknowledge that communicating with monarchs was increasingly a necessity for the city’s welfare. This realisation deeply affected how Athenians thought about monarchy as an institution, and particularly about how they could and should communicate with the rulers on whom they were increasingly dependent.

Xenophon This was the world in which Xenophon, son of Gryllos, spent his life.11 Born in Athens around the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Xenophon came of age just as the war was turning against Athens. Likely embroiled So Isoc. 4.120; on the way in which the King’s Peace could be read as placing the Greeks under Persian supervision, see Hyland 2018: 164–168. 9 The standard work on Classical Macedonian history is Hammond and Griffiths 1979. 10 So Greenwalt 1989. 11 We owe much of our knowledge of Xenophon’s life to his own statements about it, particularly in the Anabasis. In addition, the Roman-era writer Diogenes Laertius provides other details drawn from now-lost writers (Diog. Laert. 2.6). 8

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in the civil strife that arose in Athens at the end of the war, Xenophon left his home city and spent much of his subsequent life as a mercenary, often taking service with kings and rulers. He began his overseas career serving under the rebel Persian prince Cyrus, and not long after that ended up fighting for the Thracian dynast Seuthes in the northern Balkans. In addition, he spent time in forces of King Agesilaos II of Sparta, one of the most powerful and monarchically minded of Sparta’s hereditary leaders. We do not know exactly when Xenophon began writing, but he was clearly heavily engaged with the intellectual currents of his day. As a young man in Athens, he was part of the coterie of the iconoclastic philosopher Sokrates, whom Xenophon seems to have held as an ideal of ethical and intellectual achievement. In his Sokratic dialogues – the only such works besides those of Plato that have come down to us intact – Xenophon engages with questions of ethics, leadership, and good civic conduct, revealing a keen interest in what it meant to be a good person and citizen in fourth-century Athens. As an historian, Xenophon engaged strongly with contemporary historiography: his Hellenica, a history of post-Peloponnesian-War Greece, begins as an explicit continuation of Thucydides’ history, and some traditions even make Xenophon the man responsible for editing and publishing the earlier historian’s work.12 Scholars have also seen in Xenophon’s works awareness of and sustained engagement with Herodotean material.13 Xenophon’s personal experiences and his philosophical interests combined to give him a strong interest in questions of monarchy, leadership, and their relationship to the life of the polis. This interest was explored in several works.14 His Memorabilia, a collection of anecdotes about Sokrates, contains numerous discussions of public and private leadership; the Oeconomicus takes as its subject how the head of a household can provide enlightened leadership for his dependants; Hipparchicus represents a manual on how to act as the leader of a cavalry regiment, discussing how to relate both to one’s own subordinates and the polis one serves. In a broader vein, the Poroi, a pamphlet on Athenian economic policy, can be read as advising the Athenians how to exercise a benevolent and non-exploitative form of leadership in the Greek world.15 Xenophon shows a particular interest in the leadership shown by kings and other sole leaders. Agesilaus, an encomium to the Spartan king, celebrates Agesilaus for devoting himself to the welfare of his people, and embodied all the best qualities of political and military leadership. The Cyropaedia does the same thing on a larger Diog. Laert. 2.6.57. On Xenophon’s engagement with Thucydides, see Rood 2004. See for example Keller 1911, Gray 1989: 3–7. 14 The most detailed examination of Xenophon’s leadership paradigm is Gray 2011a; for a good summary, see pp. 11–18; see also Schorn 2012: 699–700. 15 So Farrell 2016. 12

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scale, presenting a fictionalised biography of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire. In it, Cyrus is shown as both a brilliant military leader, swiftly subduing all the peoples of the Near East, but also as a consummate ruler, creating an effective system of monarchic government that governed the vast empire down to Xenophon’s own day.16

2. Hiero: A Conversation with a Tyrant Xenophon’s most interesting work on monarchy for our purposes is his Hiero. More than any other of his works, it focusses particularly on the relationship between absolute monarchy, personified by the tyrant Hieron, and the civic values of the polis, represented by the poet Simonides. In this dialogue, the world of the monarch is brought into direct confrontation with that of the private citizen (idiōtēs), sparking a discussion that points the way to a new, more optimistic view of the possibilities of citizen–monarch interaction. This dialogue represents a unique combination of two genres: a traditional narrative of a meeting between a wise man and a monarch, along the lines of Herodotus’ narrative of Solon and Kroisos, and the newer genre of the Sokratic Dialogue, in which a wise figure, usually Sokrates himself, asks apparently naive questions to expose the ignorance of their interlocutor.17 The Hiero can be divided neatly into two unequal acts. The first (sections 1–7) consists of a discussion about “how tyrannical and the private life differ in regard to human pleasures and pains” (Xen. Hier. 1.2). As in Herodotus’ depictions of wise men and tyrants, Xenophon’s wise man, Simonides, seeks to establish that tyranny does not bring true or lasting happiness. Unlike Solon or Demaratos, however, he does so not by engaging in strident denunciation of the tyrannical life, but through a Sokratic question-and-answer process designed to make the tyrant himself come to these conclusions. Throughout this section, Simonides continually suggests ways in which tyrants must be happier than private citizens, and Hieron responds by saying that these pleasures are in fact exaggerated, fleeting, or entirely illusory. The second act of the dialogue (sections 8–11) The Cyropaedia, probably the most studied of Xenophon’s works, has sparked a variety of responses. Tatum approaches it as a literary text, presenting it as a novelistic fiction that both idealises and shows a bitter awareness of its own romanticism (Tatum 1989: 215–249); Gera sees it as trying to depict a “benevolent despotism” while not shying away from the contradictions involved in such a concept (Gera 1993: 285–300); both Due (1989, see especially 235–237) and Gray (2011a ch. 5, see especially 289–290) see Xenophon’s Cyrus as a straightforward portrait of an ideal leader. For a bibliography of important discussions of the Cyropaedia, see Gray 2011a: 247 n. 2. 17 St Thomas 2016: 19–22. On the wise man/monarch meeting, see Gray 1986, Sevieri 2004; on the speech as Sokratic Dialogue, see Strauss 1948: 26. For the development of the Sokratic Dialogue as a genre in the fourth century, see Ford 2008. 16

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moves away from Sokratic questioning and into open didacticism. Taking up many of the tyrant’s points, the poet suggests a series of reforms to his government that will both improve the lives of his subjects and increase the ruler’s own happiness.

Dramatis Personae Both participants in this dialogue are historical figures, who lived roughly a century prior to Xenophon’s time. Hieron ruled Syracuse from 478 to 467 bce . Succeeding his brother Gelon as tyrant, Hieron became a powerful military leader, defeating the Carthaginians and Etruscans and establishing himself as overlord of several Sicilian cities. Hieron’s reputation by Xenophon’s time seems to have been decidedly mixed. On the one hand, he left a legacy of magnificence. Hieron was a keen patron of poets and artists, and Aeschylus, Pindar, Bacchylides, and the historical Simonides all attended his court and wrote works in praise of his achievements. Their poems of praise, and the monuments he dedicated at Delphi and Olympia, commemorated his victories both in battle and in Panhellenic games, and celebrated his wealth, justice, and generosity. At the same time, however, there is evidence of more negative traditions about Hieron. Aristotle presents him as a paranoid and oppressive ruler, employing “listeners” to spy on all public gatherings.18 His expulsion of the population of Katanē so that he could refound it, and thus achieve the heroic honours due to a city founder (oikistēs), suggests both a hint of megalomania and a disdain for the rights of citizens.19 Hieron’s dual legacy makes him a good subject for a dialogue on the supposed pleasures of tyranny. The celebration of wealth, glory, and power found in praisepoetry written for Hieron points to the ways in which tyranny could be seen as admirable and desirable; the darker traditions of oppression and paranoia point to the negative aspects of tyranny, both for the tyrant and his subjects, that the dialogue uncovers.20 The choice of interlocutor for Hieron is also significant. As mentioned above, the Syracusan tyrant invited many poets to his court, any of whom might potentially have served Xenophon’s needs in the dialogue. His choice of Simonides particularly therefore bears closer examination.21 Like Pol. 5.1313b. Strabo 6.2.3. 20 Gray 1986: 118 points out that Hieron seems to have been a common exemplar of tyranny in fourth-century philosophical discourse. 21 Much has been written on the question of why, in a work with many affinities to Sokratic dialogue, Sokrates himself is not made one of the participants. Interpretations include the simple fact that Sokrates did not travel outside Athens (Gray 2007: 35), a desire on Xenophon’s part to shield Sokrates from the accusation of having tutored tyrants (Tymura 2017: 99–100), and the inappropriateness of putting advice 18

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Hieron, Simonides had a mixed reputation in Classical Greece. It seems that he was seen as a wise and thoughtful man: in Plato’s works, Simonides is frequently cited as a popular authority, whose poems are taken seriously by many as sources of wisdom and admonition.22 At the same time, he was also thought of as a greedy and ambitious man, eager for wealth, renown, and association with the powerful. Simonides was believed to have been the first poet to charge fees for composing, and to have put aside moral or aesthetic scruples for sufficiently high payments.23 Simonides composed for a wide range of patrons, among whom kings and tyrants featured prominently; in addition to Hieron, he was closely associated with the Peisistratids in Athens and the ruling clans of Thessaly. Simonides’ perceived mercenary nature is embodied in an anecdote related by both Plato and Aristotle: when asked by Hieron’s wife whether it is better to be wise or rich, the poet is said to have answered: “rich, for I see the wise waiting at the doors of the rich”.24 This double nature makes Simonides the ideal figure to be an interlocutor for a tyrant. As a wise man, he can to offer Hieron sound and thoughtful advice, and to command the respect of the reader. His mercenary qualities, however, also serve the dialogue’s purposes, allowing him to at least appear to create a bridge between himself and Hieron. Simonides’ reputation for greed and admiration of wealth and power represents an apparent sharing of values between himself and the tyrant. As in Herodotus’ narrative of Alkmaion and Kroisos, Hieron could be expected to see something of himself in his interlocutor, and thus be disposed to entertain what he has to say. A different wise man such as Solon, known as an inveterate enemy of tyranny, could not credibly enter discussions about the relative happiness of tyrant and citizen, because (as seen in Herodotus) his mind is already clearly made up. A man who values wealth, however, could much more easily be seen as genuinely attracted to tyranny, making Simonides’ initial positive evaluations of tyranny in the dialogue plausible.25 to preserve tyranny in the mouth of a man who would have had no truck with it (Strauss 1948: 33). 22 For example, Prot. 339a–347c, Rep. 331e–336a. On Simonides as a wise man in Classical tradition, see Gray 1986: 118. 23 Rawles (2018: 155–171) collects the ancient testimonia on Simonides’ reputation for greed; for an incisive discussion of Simonides’ life and legacy, see Carson 1999. 24 Arist. Rh. 2.16.2. 25 I am very sceptical of Gray’s claim (2007: 34) that both characters are de-historicised and represent simply a generic wise man and tyrant. As Gray herself earlier noted (1986: 120–121), there were many narratives of meetings between wise men and monarchs, and Xenophon was free to choose from any of them. Indeed, had he wished to make his dialogue generic, he could simply have described his speakers as “a sage” and “a tyrant”.

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A Dialogue of Insincerity? At this point, it is necessary to address one of the major lines of interpretation of Hiero, which sees both partners in the dialogue as fundamentally duplicitous. This view of Hiero can be traced to the mid-twentieth-century political philosopher Leo Strauss, whose interpretations have had a strong influence on certain strands of twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholarship. Strauss, an incisive but idiosyncratic reader of ancient authors, believed that most great political thinkers (among whom he decisively ranked Xenophon) wrote in an oblique and almost occult fashion. Their texts, he believed, contained both an exoteric meaning, obvious to the casual reader, and an esoteric one, which could be different from, and even contradictory to, the surface argument. This hidden message was signposted by deliberate inconsistencies and omissions, which, when read sensitively, could be synthesised to reveal the previously unseen inner teachings.26 In his treatment of Hiero, Strauss states that what is hidden is that neither of the two participants in the dialogue is being honest about his true feelings or intentions. Simonides’ apparent admiration for tyranny is feigned, and the poet is deceptively presenting himself as “an utterly unscrupulous man”.27 His goal in doing so is to appear like Hieron and thus win the tyrant’s trust, in order to make him receptive to the teachings that he plans to convey. Moreover, Strauss continues, the solutions he offers Hieron represent merely “tyranny at its best”, and fall far short of truly just or lawful kingship.28 In Strauss’ view, the purpose of the dialogue is to highlight the impossibility, or at least extreme improbability, of uniting tyranny with justice.29 Strauss sees the tyrant as just as duplicitous as the poet. In his view, Hieron’s condemnations of tyranny are exaggerated and insincere, prompted by fear that Simonides may be seeking his throne.30 Strauss interprets Hieron’s statement that tyrants fear the wise because “they might contrive something” (mē ti mēkhanēsōntai, 5.1) as indicating a specific fear of Simonides himself, whom Hieron described at the beginning of the dialogue as a wise man (sophos, 1.1).31 Fearing, then, that Simonides is seeking to supplant him, Hieron presents an exaggerated picture of the miseries of tyranny, in order to dissuade Simonides from seeking to assume Strauss to some degree imitated this riddling approach in his own work, often making it difficult to extract his full arguments; on the issues of reading Strauss, see Johnson 2012: 314–315. 27 Strauss 1948: 56. 28 Strauss 1948: 68. 29 Strauss 1948: 76. 30 Strauss 1948: 44. 31 Strauss 1948: 41. 26

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his position. Simonides, Strauss argues, is aware of Hieron’s tactics, and chooses to exploit them.32 Subtly pushing Hieron to greater and greater exaggeration, he forces the tyrant into the position of stating that a tyrant’s only real option to escape his miseries is suicide (7.13). At this point, Strauss argues, Hieron has yielded power to Simonides. If Hieron were sincere in his despair, then Simonides would be in a position to take his life, simply by confirming Hieron’s suicidal inclinations and agreeing that yes, he should kill himself.33 The fact that he does not do this reassures Hieron that Simonides is not, in fact, seeking to overthrow him, and puts Hieron in the position of being willing to listen to Simonides’ advice on mitigating his autocracy.34 In this view, the dialogue becomes a kind of shadow play, an invisible chess game between two master strategists who deploy veiled language to manoeuvre each other into a less advantageous position. There is, undeniably, something thrilling about such a picture, transforming as it does the dialogue into a battle of wits between two shrewd and subtly opponents. But is this in fact an accurate picture? Strauss’ approach, both to Hiero and to ancient philosophy in general, has proven extremely divisive. Some scholars have seen it as the key to understanding the dialogue, and have followed Strauss’ reading largely unquestioningly;35 others have vehemently opposed it as “perverse” and wrongheaded.36 My own response is perhaps more nuanced. Strauss is a careful and thoughtful reader, and his analysis of the dialogue contains numerous incisive observations that ought not to be dismissed. At the same time, Strauss’ conviction that every statement must hide a hidden meaning leads him to commit what I can only consider errors of overinterpretation, freighting straightforward statements with layers of irony that the text gives no warrant for assuming.

A Dialogue of Sincerity There are three aspects of Strauss’ reading of the dialogue that need to be addressed. First, there is the general proposition that one should approach the dialogue looking for an esoteric meaning, revealed through omissions, evasions, and ironic double meanings. I am, in general, sceptical of this as a blanket approach to ancient texts, and particularly to Hiero. There is nothing in the dialogue, or in Xenophon’s broader life and work, that suggests that he intended his work to be read esoterically, or that he sought to encode messages that were to be hidden from the common eye. Strauss’ 32 33 34 35 36

Strauss 1948: 45. Strauss 1948: 58–59. Strauss 1948: 59. For example, Higgins 1977: 60–65, Glenn 1989, Gelenczey-Mihálcz 2000. Gray 2007: 211–213; Dorion 2010.

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only evidence for this reading is his general belief that all “wise men” fear that the majority will react with hostility to their ideas, and therefore seek to veil them behind more palatable superficial lessons.37 The idea that Xenophon feared persecution rests on little other than the belief that all philosophers fear it. While it is true that Xenophon was, at some point, exiled from Athens, the evidence seems to point to this being based upon his membership in Agesilaos’ army rather than on any of his writings.38 For much of his life, Xenophon lived comfortably in Skillous, near Olympia, under Spartan protection. There is no evidence that he feared either Spartan or Athenian hostility due to his publications.39 Nor is there any suggestion in any of Xenophon’s works that he intended it to be read wholesale in an esoteric fashion. While Xenophon provides no explicit hermeneutic for reading his works, his approving presentation of Sokrates’ methods of argumentation give a sense of what he considers an appropriate teaching method (Mem. 4.6.15): Whenever he himself went through a topic, he went through it gaining the broadest possible assent, believing that this to be an inerrant form of discourse. On this account, when he spoke he achieved the greatest agreement among his speakers of anyone I have ever seen.

Sokrates’ approach, ensuring that his audience fully agree with him before moving on to the next point, seems the opposite of an esoteric teaching – he lays his argument out fully, “showing his work”, and far from concealing the truth for a select few, he seeks to have universal agreement from his hearers. Given Xenophon’s praise for the effectiveness of Sokrates’ methods, it seems that he considered this kind of openness an appropriate method of teaching. It thus seems improbable that Xenophon, as a devotee of Sokrates, would adopt an obscure and elitist form of discourse in his own educational works.40 The second issue to confront in Strauss’ reading of Hiero is the assertion that Simonides’ admiration for tyranny is feigned. Here, scholars are generally in agreement with Strauss, even those who are sceptical of his overall approach.41 Simonides’ switch from asking naive questions to In this brief critique, I am drawing on Andrew St Thomas’ excellent MA thesis on Hiero (St Thomas 2016). 38 On Xenophon’s biography, see Anderson 1974, Higgins 1977. 39 So St Thomas 2016: 21. 40 For a more in-depth discussion of the issues with the Straussian readings of Xenophon’s works in general, see Johnson 2012, St Thomas 2016: 20–28. For a discussion of his treatment of Hiero, see Gray 2007: 211–213, and St Thomas 2016: 28–33. 41 Gray 1986: 116, St Thomas 2016: 8. 37

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expounding complex reforms is so sudden that it is difficult to believe that he did not have some sense of what Hieron’s answers might be when he entered the dialogue. Scholars have, therefore, generally seen Simonides as engaging in a Sokratic approach, assuming the role of a naive and ignorant questioner in order to draw his interlocutor on to explaining his own position. Once Hieron has been prompted to declare his misery, Simonides drops the pretence and assumes a didactic role, showing the tyrant a path out of the aporia into which his questioning has led him. I am also broadly sympathetic to this view, but I believe it is somewhat lacking in nuance. The admiration for the luxuries of tyranny that Simonides expresses are in fact in line with the historical poet’s reputation for avarice and ambition. Rather than simply putting on an act, Simonides can be seen as giving rein to a certain aspect of his personality. In Herodotus’ narrative, Alkmaion and Kroisos could bond over a shared love of wealth; in this dialogue Simonides may hope to achieve a similar result. He comes not as a stern moralist, aiming to lecture Hieron on the evils of tyranny, but as a fellow hedonist who will demonstrate that a milder form of rule is not only morally better, but also more effective for achieving the pleasures that both see as desirable. This interpretation, incidentally, may also serve to answer the question of why Simonides is used here and not Sokrates. As will be discussed shortly, the Athenian philosopher was famously austere and uninterested in personal pleasure, qualities that would preclude him from appearing sympathetic with a tyrant’s desires. If I have some sympathy with Strauss’ view of Simonides, I am entirely unconvinced by the suggestion that Hieron is being similarly duplicitous. Strauss’ interpretation rests largely on Hieron’s claim that tyrants inevitably fear the wise (5.1). This, Strauss argues, means that “Hiero will be disturbed by the suspicion that the wise man may be a potential tyrant, or a potential advisor of the possible rivals of Hiero”.42 The context of Hieron’s statement, however, does not suggest that the tyrant’s fear of the wise is based on seeing them as potential rivals: I will tell you another hardship that tyrants suffer, Simonides. They are no less aware than private men which men are brave, which are wise, and which are just. But instead of admiring such men, they fear them: they fear the brave, lest they make some bold attempt for the sake of liberty, the wise, lest they contrive something, and the just, lest the masses want them as their champions.

While it is true that Xenophon is not as explicit about what the wise will contrive as he is about what the brave and the just will do, their position 42

Strauss 1948: 44.

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in the middle of this list makes it natural to read them as sharing in the same agenda as the other groups. Both the brave and the just are conceived of as acting not just against the individual tyrant, but against tyranny itself. The brave are acting “for the sake of freedom” (eleutherias heneken), while the just are presented as acting in the interests of the people. With this context, it seems perverse to see Hieron as suggesting that he fears that the wise alone will seek to supplant him; rather, they are one of several groups of outstanding citizens who may use their gifts to abolish tyranny entirely. If the wise, like the brave and just, are seeking only to overthrow the tyrant and not to replace him, then there would be no point in exaggerating the miseries of tyranny – indeed, this could be seen as only cementing the wise man’s resolve that tyranny is a bad system for everyone involved and should be overthrown.43 There no other reason to think that Hieron fears Simonides. Throughout the dialogue, Hieron seems intrigued by the poet’s interest in his lifestyle, and treats him with civility and even affection. Simonides is a guest at Hieron’s court and, as Strauss recognises, fully in Hieron’s power.44 If the tyrant truly feared him, he is fully capable of having him killed or banished; engaging in a subtle denigration of his own happiness seems a most inefficient means of dealing with a potential rival.45 Rather than a representation of insincerity, then, Hiero presents a remarkably sincere scenario: the private citizen, Simonides, reveals his own potential admiration for the pleasures of tyranny, while the tyrant responds by explaining that, once tasted, those pleasures are not what they are cracked up to be. While I grant that Simonides may be coming into the discussion with a suspicion that Hieron is not entirely happy, the poet retains enough of the fantasy of tyrannical pleasure himself to present to Hieron a credible picture of tyrannical happiness to which the tyrant can respond.

3. Xenophon’s Ideal Citizen Near the beginning of the dialogue, Hieron makes a statement that highlights one of the major issues that Simonides will be obliged to address (1.3): “why don’t you, as you are currently a private man (idiōtēs), remind me what a private life consists of?” Hieron, it seems, has forgotten what it meant to be a citizen. Though he was born a citizen of a polis, his time as a tyrant seems to have occluded his memory of that time. Presently, he stands in the same position as a Kroisos or a Dareios, to whom the world 43 44 45

So Gray 2007: 128. Strauss 1948: 38–39. So St Thomas 2016: 29–30.

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of the polis citizen is an alien and baffling thing. If Simonides wishes to make any headway in changing Hieron’s mind, he must first re-educate the tyrant in what it means to be a polis citizen.46 But what does it mean to be a citizen? What is the identity that Xenophon wishes to show Hieron re-acquiring? Before diving fully into the dialogue, it seems worthwhile to take some time to explore what it is that Xenophon sees as constituting citizenship. The most extensive discussions of what makes a good citizen can be found in the Memorabilia, Xenophon’s collection of anecdotes about Sokrates. Xenophon begins this work by expressing shock at the charges of which Sokrates was convicted: not recognising the traditional gods and corrupting the youth of Athens (1.1). The second charge particularly exercises Xenophon, and the greater part of the Memorabilia consists of anecdotes that show how, far from corrupting those he spoke to, Sokrates strove to make them better men and better citizens. Rather than teaching his disciples to disdain their city, Xenophon says, Sokrates viewed the ability to participate in civic life as the most important markers of an individual’s moral value, and that those who were not prepared to assist the community needed stern correction (1.2.59). Xenophon recalls Sokrates stating that creating men who were best able to contribute to civic life was his special purpose and contribution to the city (1.6.15). Xenophon refers to the kind of good citizen Sokrates sought to construct under the label kalos kagathos. Literally meaning “beautiful and good”, this phrase has a long pedigree in Greek literature as denoting the kind of cultivation and discernment that elite citizens saw as defining them as a class.47 Xenophon elevates the phrase to a technical term of political thought, using it as shorthand for one who possesses the moral and civic virtue necessary for effectively living in community.48 Those who truly The use of the term idiōtēs – “private man” – instead of politēs – “citizen” – might be read as suggesting that Xenophon and/or Simonides intends to downplay the political aspects of the situation. This conclusion does not, however, seem warranted. Herodotus describes Tellos, Kleobis, and Biton, all of whom are strongly civically engaged, as idiōtai (1.32.1). Isokrates likewise uses the term to describe men who are defined by their participation in polis life (2.2–3). It is worth noting that in Athenian discourse, while idiōtēs could denote an individual who was not a committed politician, it nonetheless implied normal participation in the democracy (Hansen 1983: 44–45). 47 The classic investigation of the concept of the kalos kagathos is Bourriot 1995; part IVB (pp. 287–352) is a detailed investigation of Xenophon’s use of the term. 48 As with Hiero, Leo Strauss and his followers see Xenophon’s treatment of Sokrates’ teachings as imbued with a special brand of irony. According to Strauss, Xenophon’s Sokrates see the life of a “good citizen” as in fact radically at odds with that of the philosopher. Strauss argues that, while Sokrates’ safety and the welfare of Athens requires him to seem to teach the former, to those who can read carefully he denigrates 46

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learned from Sokrates, Xenophon explains, became kaloi kagathoi because they were “able nobly to be of use to their households and servants, family and friends, city and citizens” (Mem. 1.2.48). What, then, did being a kalos kagathos signify? What were the qualities that enabled them to be of “use” to their community? Reading through the Memorabilia, in conjunction with others of Xenophon’s Sokratic works, it is possible to put together a decent picture of what Xenophon says Sokrates emphasised in his lessons in civic virtue. Three key points stand out, and are repeated again and again over the course of Xenophon’s Sokratic corpus: self-control (enkrateia), the ability to restrain one’s basic desires and passions; friendship ( philia), the capacity to form close and genuine relationships with other people; and finally leadership, the ability to provide guidance and inspiration to other citizens in both war and peace.

Enkrateia Xenophon’s opens his defence against the charge that Sokrates corrupted the youth of Athens by praising his mentor’s preternatural capacity for self-restraint in enduring physical discomfort and going without the pleasures of food and sex (1.2.1–2). This encomium to Sokrates’ capacity for self-control points to the central role that enkrateia plays in Xenophon’s depiction of personal and public virtue.49 Throughout the Memorabilia, Xenophon returns to the subject repeatedly, presenting conversations in which Sokrates underlines that enkrateia is an essential condition for being of any use to oneself or others. To begin with, enkrateia is presented as a necessary precondition for sensual pleasure itself. The person who strives to satisfy all their desires as soon as they arise is, paradoxically, incapable of ever being truly satisfied.50 Desire, whether for food, drink, or sex, is what makes those pleasures truly pleasant. If one does not take the time to allow desire to build, then even the costliest food and drink ends up cloying and unsatisfying; on the other hand, if one has the self-discipline to wait until one is truly hungry, thirsty, or sexually aroused, then even simple and familiar fare can give a full measure of satisfaction. More significantly for our purposes, enkrateia is also presented as a necessary precondition for beneficial participation in civic life. Twice in the Memorabilia, he asks rhetorically whether anyone who is “overcome by a merely civic life and promotes a depoliticised philosophic vocation (Strauss 1972: 76–80; Strauss’ argument is usefully summarised by Rosen 1973). While space does not permit a deep engagement with this position, I am generally sceptical, and point the reader to the critiques of this view in Dorion 2010, Gray 2011b, Johnson 2012. 49 The most significant discussion of enkrateia to Xenophon’s political thought is Dorion 2006; see also Anderson 1974: 29–30, Higgins 1977: 25. 50 Mem. 1.6.5, 2.1.30–33, 4.5.9.

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food or wine or sex or pain or sleep” could be entrusted with any political, military, or economic responsibility.51 Only the self-controlled person can be of use to other people, whether as a friend, a citizen, or a political leader.52 Self-control, Sokrates says, is the “foundation of excellence” (aretēs krēpida, 1.5.9), including civic excellence. Without it, all other virtues, whether individual or communal, are impossible.

Philia The second element that Xenophon emphasises in his depiction of Sokrates’ teachings is philia. Though often translated as “friendship”, the word has a much broader field of meaning in Classical Greek than the English word suggests. Philia describes a close personal bond between individuals, whether of friendship, family affection, or even what we would term romantic love. Friends, spouses, brothers, and parents and children can all be described as having philia toward each other.53 In Xenophon’s works, philia has a significance at least equal to that given to enkrateia. To be able to have and keep good friends is seen as an important aspect of being a kalos kagathos: the Memorabilia in fact says that it was Sokrates’ emphasis on friendship that convinced Xenophon that this was a man who could lead others into being kaloi kagathoi.54 Friendship is presented as one of the primary sources of human happiness in Xenophon’s philosophical works. Sokrates repeatedly declares that a good friend is the greatest of possessions one can acquire (1.2.7, 1.2.9, 2.4.1). In response to the sophist Antiphon’s claim that his austere lifestyle must be a miserable one, Sokrates responds that, on the contrary, his life is joyous because he spends it with good friends (1.6.14). Humans, Xenophon’s Sokrates concludes, are naturally social beings, and friendship satisfies fundamental emotional needs (2.6.21). As with enkrateia, friendship is presented in Xenophon’s works not only as conducive to individual happiness, but also to the good functioning of society more broadly. Throughout Xenophon’s Sokratic works, service to one’s friends and to one’s city are frequently yoked together as features of the kalos kagathos.55 The lengthiest statement about the political significance of friendship in Xenophon’s works comes in the sixth chapter of Book 2 of the Memorabilia. Sokrates has been conversing with his young friend Kritoboulos about the nature of friendship. After a discussion of the kind of man one should make a friend, Kritoboulos expresses despair at the fact that even good men find themselves unable to be friends due to clashing 51 52 53 54 55

Mem.1.5.1–5, 2.1.1–7. Mem. 1.5.1, 4; 2.1.28; 4.5.10. Millett 1991: 113–115. Mem. 1.6.14; see also 2.3.16, 2.6.22. Mem. 1.2.48, 1.6.9, 2.1.19, 2.1.28, 4.5.10; Oec. 4.3, 6.9, 11.9; Symp. 8.38.

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political opinions and aspirations (2.6.20). In reply, Sokrates acknowledges the problem, but then explains that, among kaloi kagathoi, friendship can survive even these issues (2.6.22): Even so, friendship slips between all these obstacles and binds kaloi kagathoi together. Because of their excellence, they prefer to obtain moderate means without pain than to gain everything through war; they are able, even when hungry and thirsty, to share their food and drink without distress. When it comes to enjoyment of sex with beautiful bodies, they are able to control themselves so as not to harm anyone who should not be harmed.

The kalos kagathos’ ability to maintain friendships are in fact based on his capacity for enkrateia. His self-control enables him to put aside the selfishness that, Sokrates implies, fuels most political fighting. This aptitude for sharing and community not only allows him to enjoy the friendship of other kaloi kagathoi, but also forms a basis for good government in his city. In contrast to the depressing image of zero-sum competition that Kritoboulos sketches, Sokrates goes on to paint a utopian picture of a city where all the leading citizens are friends, where kaloi kagathoi unite to provide good government for their community (2.6.24–26): Even in athletic competitions it’s clear that if it were possible for the strongest to join together against the weakest, they would win all the contests and take all the prizes. Of course they’re not allowed to do that; but in politics, where kaloi kagathoi are the strongest, no-one is stopping anyone from joining with anyone to benefit the city. How then could it not be profitable for someone to engage in politics by acquiring the best men as friends, and to manage affairs with them as allies and comrades rather than competitors?

Sokrates’ idealised picture of a state where politics functions through friendship rather than competition serves to illuminate the close interconnection between friendship and civic virtue in Xenophon’s writings. In this speech, Sokrates both suggests that one might go into politics in order to (justly) assist friends (2.6.24), and at the same time one might obtain friends in order to “engage in politics” ( politeuesthai, 2.6.26). Friendship makes effective civic action possible, and civic action in turn allows friends to be of further benefit to one another. The result is a kind of positive feedback loop in which a close-knit group of kaloi kagathoi join to govern their city, an activity that in turn strengthens the bonds between them, making them yet more united in their ability to benefit the city. The kalos kagathos’ ability to make friends not only provides him with “the best of all possessions”, but also puts him in a position to effect positive change in his society.

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Leadership Sokrates’ paean to a city led by kaloi kagathoi points to the final aspect of the kalos kagathos found in the Xenophon’s Sokratic works: an obligation to engage in political life, and indeed to provide political leadership if one is able. In providing an example of Sokrates’ careful form of argumentation, for example, Xenophon presents a snippet of a dialogue on what makes a good citizen. Good citizenship, Sokrates proposes (and his interlocutor agrees) consists of: making the city wealthier and stronger in war, turning enemies into friends through diplomacy, and putting down strife and promoting civic harmony (4.6.14). Being a good citizen, then, is not a passive activity, not simply a matter of obeying the laws and causing no trouble. On the contrary, true citizenship consists of taking a leading role and actively working to provide guidance to the city. This interpretation is backed up by several conversations in which Sokrates tells his young interlocutors that they have an obligation to use their talents to benefit the polis. Early in the Memorabilia, Sokrates vehemently challenges Aristippos’ desire to live an apolitical life as “a foreigner everywhere” (xenos pantachou 2.1.13), a desire that is presented as both unrealistic (2.1.12) and ignoble (2.1.16). In a similar vein, in a later conversation Sokrates urges Charmides (the cousin of Xenophon’s fellow Sokratic Plato), to put his talents in speech and reasoning to service in politics. In not using his abilities to better the polis, Sokrates says, Charmides stands in the same position as a skilled athlete who refuses to bring himself and his country glory in Panhellenic games – a man Charmides agrees to be “soft and cowardly” (malakon kai deilon, 3.7.1). In his discussion with Euthydemos, Sokrates declares political leadership to be “the fairest virtue and the greatest art, the art of kings that is called ‘royal’”.56 Elsewhere in the Memorabilia and Oeconomicus, Xenophon gives more details as to what the “royal art” of leadership consists of.57 Most basically, the leader’s job is to care for the physical well-being of followers, and ensure their health and happiness.58 The leader must know which people to appoint to which tasks (Mem. 3.4.5–8), and he or she59 must persuade them that obeying their orders is the best policy (Mem. 3.3.8–11). This is to be achieved by a mixture of rational persuasion, punishment of bad behaviour and, most crucially for Xenophon, rewarding good behaviour (Mem. 3.4.8, Oec. 14). Finally, the Mem. 4.2.11; see also Oec. 21.10. The most detailed examination of Xenophon’s leadership paradigm is Gray 2011a; for a good summary, see pp. 11–18; see also Schorn 2012: 699–700. 58 Mem. 3.2.4, Oec. 7.37. 59 It is worth noting that Xenophon sees women as equally capable of exercising leadership, within in their own, domestic sphere: Mem. 3.9.11, Oec. 7. See Gray 2004: 157. 56

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leader must create a sense of unity and esprit de corps among his or her followers, encouraging them to work together to achieve their ultimate goal (Oec. 21.2–8). Through such discourses, Xenophon says, Sokrates “stripped away everything else, leaving only establishing happiness for those they led” (Mem. 3.2.4). This, according to Sokrates, is the difference between a legitimate king and a tyrant: the king rules with the consent and in the interest of his subjects, while the tyrant rules arbitrarily and in his own sole interest (Mem. 4.6.12). Nor is it only the followers who are made happy – their happiness also enriches their leader’s life. In response to Aristippos’ cynical claim that those who seek to serve the people as leaders are little better than slaves, Sokrates responds with an impassioned defence of the joys of those who practise “the kingly art” (2.1.19): As for those who labour to acquire good friends or to lay hands on their enemies, or to become capable in body and mind, to govern their own households nobly, do well by their friends and benefit their fatherland – how can such men not labour gladly for such objects and live cheerfully, honouring themselves and praised and admired by others?

A New Vision of Citizenship These three aspects – self-control, disposition to friendship, and capacity for leadership – are depicted in Xenophon’s Sokratic works as uniting to create an individual who is both happy in himself and beneficial to his society. The self-controlled man can restrain his natural impulses in order both to pursue higher-order pleasures and to avoid harming those around him. This self-control permits the individual to share his resources with other people, and to look to their concerns in addition to his own, and this in turn makes him capable of making and keeping friends. Multiple individuals who possess self-mastery and are united by bonds of friendship can be of service to one another, creating a network of benefit that not only brings happiness to those in it, but is also capable of serving as the nucleus of a happy and well-ordered community. The principles of reciprocity and goodwill that underlie successful friendships, when extended to the community at large, allow these individuals to provide political and moral leadership to their fellow citizens. Undertaking a position of leadership brings happiness both to the individual, as they receive merited praise and honour from both peers and followers, and to their followers, who live better lives as a result of their leaders’ wise guidance. Throughout Xenophon’s Sokratic works, then, personal happiness is thus closely tied to being of service to the community. The kalos kagathos is depicted as both the happiest possible individual, and as the one who is most able to “deal with his house, servants, household, friends, city

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and citizens most nobly”.60 This link between civic virtue and individual happiness strongly echoes the lessons found in the narratives of Herodotus’ Solon. Part of what made Tellos the happiest of men was his participation in the life of his city, up to and including laying down his life on its behalf. In the Memorabilia, Xenophon appears to uphold this same principle, presenting utility to society as a fundamental aspect of a happy life. There is, however, an important distinction between the Herodotean picture and the one found in Xenophon. In Solon’s description of Tellos, there is nothing to suggest that he engaged in any special kind of self-cultivation or effort. It could even be argued that it is his very ordinariness that guarantees his happiness. Simply by living in his polis and performing the normal services that would be expected of a citizen, Tellos achieves the height of happiness. In Herodotus, the civic virtue and happiness that tyrants find so hard to understand is obtained simply by participation in the normal life of the polis. While in some cases the spokespeople for civic virtue in Herodotus are statesmen like Solon and Demaratos, ordinary citizens such as the Spartan envoys to Hydarnes are perfectly capable of representing polis ideals. It is not so in Xenophon. In his works, true civic virtue is not found in the citizenry at large, but is reserved for the kalos kagathos. Simple participation in the institutions of the polis is no longer enough to make one a useful citizen; instead, it requires a process of self-cultivation and the development of specific practices and attitudes. This movement from institutions to practices represents not merely an innovation of Xenophon’s, but a broad shift in the thought of fourth-century thinkers.61 The locus of civic identity is no longer to be found in the specific laws and constitutions of each polis, but rather in the cultivation of personal qualities, outlooks, and habits. This conception of civic virtue as limited to a subset of the population cannot help but be seen as elitist at best, and possibly flatly undemocratic. The process of self-improvement required to become a kalos kagathos requires a degree of independence and leisure that was normally only accessible to those with a decent level of wealth. Most of the people with whom Sokrates converses in his quest to create kaloi kagathoi are young men of independent means, or owners of country estates or their heirs. In the Oeconomicus, Ischomachos, a wealthy farmer and the owner of a large estate, is held up as the archetypal kalos kagathos (Oec. 6.17, 12.2).62 Given this trend, it is not Mem. 1.2.48. See Azoulay 2006, who sees this shift from the institutional to the personal as foreshadowing the politics of Hellenistic euergetism, which focuses on the capacity of powerful individuals to act as benefactors to the community. 62 Bourriot 1995: 327–330. 60

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hard to conclude that for Xenophon, true civic virtue is available only to the comfortably off, and not to the small farmers, urban labourers, and sailors who made up most of Athens’ population. In Oeconomicus, Sokrates vehemently condemns all who follow trades referred to as “banausic” – in essence, those that depend primarily on the body – and incapable of developing any kind of civic virtue (4.2). Tradespeople, he says, lack “leisure to benefit their friends and countries”, effectively signalling that they are excluded from the possibility of becoming kaloi kagathoi. Service to friends and city is, after all, repeatedly cited as the primary function of a kalos kagathos. Indeed, Sokrates declares that in warlike nations, banausoi are excluded from citizenship entirely, likely a reference to Sparta’s rigid caste system, which excluded full citizens from practising any manual trade.63 If banausoi cannot be good citizens, the logic seems to run, perhaps they would be better off not being citizens at all.64 For democratic Athens, where the exclusion of manual workers from citizenship would be impossible, the ideal presented in Xenophon seems to be essentially two-tiered citizenship. The mass of the people remain legally citizens, but ideally, they should be content to leave the work of government to the kaloi kagathoi, who truly possess the arts of citizenship. As Sokrates describes to Kritoboulos, these possessors of civic virtue could then unite in friendship to direct the city’s affairs, bringing happiness both to themselves and to the populace at large. In this vision, while the dēmos of Athens remains notionally sovereign, its function is largely limited to deciding which kaloi kagathoi should be given authority – a task which, it must be said, Sokrates sees it as performing with good judgement (Mem. 4). The separation of civic virtue from simply being a citizen has important implications for the communication of polis values outside of the polis. In Xenophon, civic virtue is rooted more in a set of attitudes and habits than participation in the institutions of the state. This not only implies that not every citizen is capable of civic virtue, but it also might suggest that civic virtue might just be performable by someone who is not a citizen at all. The Hiero can be seen as a test of this idea. Can the tyrant, who has in essence abandoned his civic identity, be taught (or retaught) the values and qualities that make a good citizen? How could such (re)education be successfully carried out? And if it is successful, is a tyrant who learns civic values still in fact a tyrant? In Hiero, Xenophon explores and answers these questions, and in the process presents a very new paradigm of how one might talk to a tyrant. So Balme 1984: 141. On Spartan disdain for manual labour, see Hdt. 2.167.2. A similar contempt for the political capacity of tradespeople can be found in Sokrates’ advice to Charmides at Mem. 3.7.7, where he describes the tradesman who make up most of the demos as having “never yet given any thought to politics” (3.7.7). 63 64

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4. Reconstructing the Tyrant The Hiero can be read as a narrative of the civic reconstruction of a tyrant. The beginning of the dialogue finds Hieron forgetful of what it means to be a citizen, alienated from the virtues and benefits of the civic life. Over the course of the dialogue, Simonides, by highlighting various supposed goods of tyranny in turn, obliges the tyrant to reflect on how little pleasure those goods bring him, and how they in fact deny him the truer pleasures he once enjoyed as a citizen. Simonides can be seen as engaging in what the philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as “overidentification” – confronting his subject with an exaggerated version of his own qualities, and thus forcing him to acknowledge their contradictions.65 In essence, Simonides presents himself to Hieron as precisely the kind of citizen Hieron himself once was – one who believed that tyranny was a path to happiness. By showing Hieron his own past self, Simonides allows the tyrant to reflect on what he has been and what he has become, and to express how his previous false beliefs have led him to this pass. Simultaneously, by presenting Hieron with specious images of tyrannical happiness, he pushes the tyrant to remind himself what it was like not to be a tyrant, and to realise the full degree to which his acquisition of tyrannical power has deprived him of genuine happiness. The tyrant’s miseries are revealed to stem largely from his lack of the virtues of citizenship as outlined in the Memorabilia. His jaded appetites and boredom with sensual pleasure are the result of his lack of enkrateia; his isolation and paranoia stem from the absence of philia in his life; his inability to obtain his citizens’ true esteem reflects his failure to provide them with effective and benevolent leadership.

The Pleasure Trap Simonides begins his investigation of tyrannical happiness with the body. In a careful, almost pedantic speech, he lays out for Hieron the various forms of physical pleasure and their associated organs (1.4–5): Well, Hieron, I for one believe that I have learned that it is with our eyes that we see pleasures and pains, and through our ears that we hear them; through the nose come smells, through the mouth food and drink, and we all know where sexual pleasures come in. We perceive cold and heat, 65 Žižek uses the term in his discussion of the Slovenian musical group Laibach, whose assumption and exaggeration of fascist and Stalinist aesthetics, he argues, compels their audiences to interrogate their own attitudes to authoritarianism, the state, and their supposed liberal societies (Žižek 2006). I am grateful to Dr Matthew Scarborough for bringing this rich vein of artistic and political criticism to my attention.

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After Simonides has gone through this list, Hieron agrees that tyrants use the same faculties to experience the same sensations as everyone else (1.7). The first question that the reader needs to answer is as to why this was necessary? Why has Simonides begun the discussion with a biology lesson? I suggest that this “scientific” introduction serves an important role in laying the groundwork from which the conversation can proceed. First, this discussion of basic human biology serves to establish that there is no innate difference between a private citizen and a tyrant. However much their social roles differ, they are the same species and share the same fundamental drives and aversions. From the very beginning of the dialogue, Xenophon shows Simonides encouraging Hieron to question whether the distinction between citizen and tyrant is essential, even as he ostensibly seeks to explore that distinction. The focus on the body also allows Simonides to begin his discussion with the topic of physical pleasure. This focus on bodily pleasure is a particularly appropriate way to begin a discussion with a monarch. Tyrants were notorious in Classical thought for their commitment to satisfying their physical appetites.66 As one of the most universal of pleasant experiences, and one that tyrants are thought to eagerly pursue, physical pleasure makes a good starting point for Simonides’ project of re-educating Hieron. The poet accordingly begins the discussion proper by suggesting that, if they do not differ in kind, a tyrant’s pleasures must differ in degree: the tyrant surely experiences more physical pleasures and fewer pains than other humans. At this point, Hieron first begins to contradict Simonides. Having been given the chance to think about his pleasures, he announces that in fact he, and all tyrants, enjoy less sensual pleasure than “private men who live moderately” (1.3). Though a tyrant has access to a wide range of gastronomic and erotic delights, he says, he is no longer able to appreciate them. Because he has the power to gratify all his desires instantly, he is incapable of feeling the longing that makes pleasures truly satisfying. Able to enjoy food, drink, sex, and entertainment whenever he wishes in any form he wishes, the tyrant’s palate soon becomes jaded and he enjoys sensual pleasure far less than the common citizen, for whom the wait and struggle for pleasure makes it all the more satisfying (1.1.18–19). “Desire”, Hieron explains, “is pleased not by pursuing what is at hand, but what See, for example, Ar. Ach.. 65–90, Dem. 2.18–19; see also Arist. Pol. 5.1311a–b, Eur. Supp. 452–455. Xenophon himself participates in this stereotype with a mocking description of the Persian king’s gluttony, in contrast with the frugality of the Spartan king, Agesilaos (Xen. Ages. 9.3). 66

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is hoped for” (1.30). As a result, the tyrant is forced to seek ever greater novelty, only to tire of those newer experiences just as swiftly (1.20–26). Satisfaction eternally recedes before the tyrant, leaving him perpetually unsatisfied, stretching out his arms for a pleasure that he will never reach. As Victoria Wohl, in her excellent discussion of tyranny and desire in Hiero, puts it: The tyrant’s excessive pleasure spurs a tragic economy in which having everything means having nothing: the more he has, the more he needs; the more he needs, the more he gets; the more he gets, the more he lacks. Plenitude then becomes a morbid surfeit that chokes off desire and leaves the tyrant finally with nothing to hope for but death (7.13).67

Hieron’s description of his predicament presents it as a condition of existential deprivation. Tyranny, in this view, has imprisoned him in an endless cycle of dissatisfaction, a pleasure trap from which there is no clear escape. Simonides’ response to him, however, greatly undercuts the tone of tragic despair that Hieron has been building up (2.1): “Why, the things you’re describing seem to me to be very small matters indeed!” he said. “I see many men of repute who willingly deprive themselves of food and drink and delicacies, and who abstain from sex.”

With this sentence, Simonides dismisses most of Hieron’s preceding complaints. The tyrant’s problem is less a product of his situation than of his character: other “men of repute” manage to rein in their appetites perfectly well. Far from being a tragic cycle of eternal dissatisfaction, Hieron’s problems with pleasure are in fact minor inconveniences brought on by a lack of self-restraint. Just because Hieron can satisfy his desires at any point does not mean that he must. Self-control is as much an option for him as it is for any private citizen; while more temptation is put in his way, nothing removes his capacity to resist it.68 In this terse response, Simonides briefly slips in his first lesson on civic virtue: the importance of enkrateia. Hieron has diagnosed his own problem, a problem that, according to Xenophon’s Sokrates, he shares with everyone who fails to rein in excessive desire. Now, Simonides intimates that the solution lies within his grasp. In doing so, he complicates his persona as a naive admirer of tyranny, appearing at the same time as a purveyor of civic virtue. Wohl 2002: 245. As St Thomas notes, the form of Simonides’ response reinforces the dismissive tone of its content: the problem that Hieron took 24 paragraphs to articulate is waved away in a single sentence (St Thomas 2016: 50). 67

68

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The Friendless Tyrant Having delivered his brief nod towards enkrateia, Simonides goes on to nudge Hieron gently toward recognising how far tyranny has robbed him of the joys of philia. The poet had in fact already begun to bring up the issue of interpersonal relationships in the discussion of sex. After hearing Hieron’s discussion of how tyrants could not experience the absence and longing that make sex truly desirable, Simonides interjects with a direct reference to Hieron’s own love life, asking the tyrant about his feelings for his own beloved, Daïlochos. This reference to the boy that Hieron loves flags up the fact that sexual intercourse differs from other delights by involving a relationship with another human being. Hieron takes Simonides’ point. His love for Daïlochos can never be satisfactorily consummated because, he says, “I most intensely desire to obtain it with philia and from someone who is willing” (1.33). Because of the vast power difference between them, the tyrant can never be sure if the boy’s apparent affection is genuine, or simply springs from fear of his lover’s anger (1.37–38). The tyrant has begun to recognise that philia is missing even from his most intimate relationships, and that this absence is a major factor in making tyranny a misery for him. This emphasis on philia continues over the course of his responses to Simonides’ next question. After his dismissal of the tyrant’s difficulties with sensual pleasure as trivial, the poet returns to his apparent admiration for tyranny, this time focussing on the wealth, power, and freedom of action that tyranny seems to furnish (2.2): In this you tyrants differ greatly from private men: you can conceive of great things and swiftly put them into practice; you have the most and best possessions; you acquire horses distinguished for their excellence, weapons distinguished for their beauty, the finest ornaments for women, the most magnificent houses which are adorned with the most expensive furnishings. What is more, you obtain the greatest number of the most talented servants. Finally, you are in the best position possible to do harm to your enemies and to benefit your friends.

This list of the tyrant’s pleasures seems to open the floodgates of Hieron’s discontent. The next four chapters consist of a long, uninterrupted, and rather rambling speech in which Hieron enumerates the ways in which his life is unsatisfactory. A major theme in this catalogue is the tyrant’s alienation from other humans. Tyrants are incapable of forming mutually beneficial relationships with citizens generally, and particularly with the most outstanding citizens. Simonides’ comment on the tyrant’s capacity to help friends seems to cause Hieron to focus particularly on the tyrant’s lack of philia, which Hieron presents as one of the tyrant’s most grievous losses (3.1–6). Hieron notes especially how friends “rejoice in each other’s good

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fortune, and come to each other’s aid if they see their friend slipping in any way” (3.2–3). This emphasis on mutual service and enjoyment of each other’s presence strongly evokes Sokrates’ descriptions of friendship between kaloi kagathoi. The reader may at this point begin to suspect that Hieron, who at the beginning implied that he could not remember what being a private citizen was like, is starting to rediscover the joys of the common life. This suspicion is confirmed later in the tyrant’s speech, where he suddenly launches into impassioned reminiscence about his life as a young man, pre-tyranny (6.1–3): “I want”, he said “to make clear to you, Simonides, the joys of which I partook when I was a private man, and of which, now that I am a tyrant, I feel deprived. I would get together with my peers, enjoying them as they enjoyed me; when I wanted quiet, I could enjoy my own company. I often went to drinking-parties, where I soon forgot everything harsh in human life; often I dissolved my mind into songs and festivals and dances, often until both I and my companions longed for sleep.”

The reason that Hieron cannot enjoy the affection of his friends as a tyrant is soon revealed to be fear. The private individuals’ fear of the tyrant’s power, and the tyrant’s own fear of assassination or deposition combine to prevent any kind of relationship between them. Even when it comes to family members, where philia ought to be a given, tyrants’ natural affection is overcome by fear (3.8–9). Conversely, fear of the tyrant prevents anyone from truly regarding him as a friend. Responding directly to Simonides’ claim that tyrants are in a good position to benefit their friends, Hieron retorts that no one trusts that a tyrant’s benefactions are genuine: “no-one considers what he gets from a tyrant to be truly his until he is out of the tyrant’s dominion” (6.13). On both sides, apprehension about the other’s motives makes true friendship impossible, as perfect fear drives out love. What is particularly striking about Hieron’s realisation of his unhappiness in being deprived of friendship is that he got there largely on his own. In the discussion of tyrannical pleasure, Simonides frequently intervened to prompt further reflections from the tyrant. Here, after the poet’s initial question, Hieron worked his own way to both a recollection of his former life and his unhappiness in being robbed of its joys. Simonides mention of “helping friends” seems to have been enough to jog loose Hieron’s previously clouded memories and bring the weight of his unhappiness upon him. That a single mention can have such a profound effect points to two conclusions: first, that the tyrant’s lack of friends causes such intense unhappiness that it takes only a small prompt to bring it to the surface; second, that Hieron is becoming increasingly sensitive to Simonides’ discourse, to the point that far less work is needed to steer him to the conclusions that he needs to reach.

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Leadership and Honour After listening to Hieron lament his inability to experience true friendship, Simonides responds with one final perspective from which a tyrant might be considered happier than a private man: namely, that a tyrant enjoys a greater share than any other of timē. Variously translatable as “honour” or “esteem”, timē represents the quality of respect and admiration that one human can provide to another. It is, from the earliest Greek literature, seen as one of the primary motivators of human action.69 In Hiero, it is presented as not only the highest of human goals, but as the thing that underpins one’s identity. A desire for timē, Simonides says, is what separates humans from animals, and what separates those regarded as “men” (andres) from mere “male humans” (anthrōpoi, 7.3). Tyrants, Simonides suggests, receive a greater degree of timē from greater numbers of people than anyone else (7.2). Given that honour is the highest of human objects, Simonides concludes, “it seems reasonable to me that you can endure everything tyranny brings with it, since you are indeed honoured more than other people” (7.4). As he did after the discussion of physical pleasure, Simonides here again provocatively suggests that the miseries that the tyrant has described are not actually of great significance – or at least, are counterbalanced to such a degree that they are easily endurable. In the previous instance, however, Simonides quickly moved on to a new subject; here he gives Hieron a chance to respond. The tyrant does not disappoint. None of the praise and deference the tyrant receives, he says, springs from genuine affection. Just as the favours from a tyrant’s lover might as easily spring from fear as from desire, the obeisance of his subjects says less about their love for their ruler than his power over their lives (7.5–8). Hieron caps this observation with a description of what real honour looks like (7.9): When people believe that some man is capable of being their benefactor (euergetein hikanon), and that they may profit from his good qualities, then his praises are always in their mouths, and they regard him as intimate with every virtue. They willingly step aside for him and rise from their seats, out of affection ( philountes) not fear; they seek to crown him for his public excellence and benefits, and to bestow gifts on him. These people seem to me to truly honour such a man when they do such services, and that man seems truly worthy to be honoured by them.

This image of a community of people freely giving honour and acclaim to someone who truly benefits them brings us squarely into the world of the collective polis. The statement that the people wish to crown their hero “for 69 On the concept of timē, see Redfield 1975: 33–34, Finkelberg 1998; on timē in Classical Athens, see Keim 2019.

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the sake of his public excellence and benefits” in fact closely echoes the language of actual Athenian honorific decrees.70 True honour thus comes from providing benefits to a free community that is capable of spontaneously showing its gratitude.71 This emphasis on the praise of the community may remind us of Solon’s stories of Tellos and the twins – a major aspect of their supreme happiness was that they enjoyed the praise and esteem of their community. It also aligns closely with Sokrates’ teachings in the Memorabilia about the kind of generous leadership that the kalos kagathos was expected to provide his polis. The term used for conferring benefactions, euergetein, is one that crops up frequently in Memorabilia to describe the kalos kagathos’ services to his community A major component of their happiness was being honoured by their fellow citizens. Hieron’s description thus suggests that he has concluded that true honour only comes to a leading citizen in a free community. As a tyrant, Hieron cannot enjoy such honour, and is thus forever disbarred from receiving timē, which Simonides described as the closest state to godhead that a mortal could achieve (7.7). Once Hieron has acknowledged that he cannot possess the supreme happiness that is freely given honour, Simonides gives a final twist of the knife to confirm the tyrant’s misery. If tyranny is so unpleasant, he asks Hieron, why does the tyrant not simply quit (7.11)? By now, Hieron has argued vehemently that the life of a private citizen is superior to a tyrant’s in almost every respect; why, then, does the tyrant not simply abandon his throne and return to private life? Hieron’s reply is that to abdicate his tyranny would be just as painful as to keep it (7.12): “How could a tyrant ever have the wherewithal to pay back all the wealth he has taken, or suffer imprisonment in recompense for all those he has imprisoned? How could he pay back multiple lives, dying for everyone he has put to death?”

What is striking is that Hieron does not say that he fears retribution from his victims or their families. Rather, the tyrant’s inability to abdicate seems to spring from a sense of justice, or at least of balance. Letting go of tyranny, Hieron suggests, would require not just forfeiting his power, but also cancelling out all the ways he has benefited from it. The fact that Hieron shows a concern to redress his wrongs without articulating any external threat or compulsion suggests that he has begun to acquire, or perhaps re-acquire, a more ethical and less self-centred outlook. In his See, for example, the inscription in honour of Euagoras of Korkyra (IG II2 277) in which the recipient is to be awarded a gold crown “for the sake of his excellence (aretēs) and ambition ( philotimias) for the good of the community of the Athenians”. 71 For example Mem. 2.1.19, 2.6.25–26. 70

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earliest discussions of tyrannical suffering, Hieron had focussed on the ways in which the tyrant himself was miserable, with little reference to his effect on others. Now, however, Hieron presents a less self-centred view, recognising that, in at least some circumstances, he would have obligations toward other people.72 The expression of his inability to let go of power seems to drive Hieron into despair. “Oh Simonides,” he laments, “if it ever profited anyone to hang himself, understand that I have found that it would profit a tyrant to do it” (7.13). In philosophical terms, Hieron has reached the point of aporia – he now knows that his situation is not tenable, but is unable to discover a means to escape it. In Xenophon’s presentation of Sokratic dialogue, this is a dangerous but fertile condition, which can lead either to despondency or to new wisdom. In the Memorabilia, it is most clearly illustrated by the account of Euthydemos. Following Sokrates’ demolition of Euthydemos’ naive ideas of political virtue, the young man is left “disgusted with himself and believing himself to be truly slavish” (Mem. 4.2.39). Unlike those who simply abandoned discussion at this point, whom Xenophon says Sokrates regarded as “rather dense” (blakōterous, 4.2.30), Euthydemos returned to Sokrates, determined to remedy his former ignorance. Hieron’s aporia represents a similar opportunity. Now fully aware that tyranny cannot bring happiness, and tormented by the knowledge that there appears no way out, Hieron is ready to listen to Simonides as the poet shifts from questioner to teacher.

5. The Remedy The final three sections of the dialogue represent Simonides’ efforts to remedy Hieron’s unhappiness. As such, they mark a distinct transformation in the poet’s persona. Simonides the ambitious, the lover of wealth and the admirer of the pleasures of tyranny, is gone; in his place is Simonides the wise man and teacher of civic virtue. The sage begins his lesson by summarising the tyrant’s problem as a concise diagnosis: “I am not surprised you are despondent about tyranny, seeing as you long to be well-liked73 by people, but perceive it [i.e tyranny] as an obstacle to 72 Hieron’s concerns echo Herodotus’ story of the attempted abdication of Maiandrios, tyrant of Samos, who, upon offering to abdicate, is similarly called on to make good his depredations to his subjects (3.142). For a similar narrative of an overthrown tyrant being forced to “render accounts”, see Xenophon’s narrative of the deposition of Meidias, tyrant of Gergis (Hell. 3.1.22–25). 73 With a tip of the hat to Arthur Miller, I have borrowed Willy Loman’s talismanic term “well-liked” from Death of a Salesman to translate the verb philein. Encompassing as it does in Miller’s play qualities of respect, admiration, and true affection, the travelling salesman’s phrase seems to me to come closest to approximating the broad qualities of the Greek word.

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this.”74 But, Simonides goes on, Hieron’s perception is not entirely correct: “I, however, think that I can teach you how governing will not only not prevent you from being well-liked, but will even allow you to be more liked than a private station.” For the rest of the dialogue, Simonides proceeds to do just this. His solution, broadly summarised, consists of having Hieron cease to ask what his polis can do for him, and to ask instead what he can do for his polis. If he strives for his people’s happiness, they in turn will wish to make him happy too.

A New Relationship Simonides’ advice to Hieron can be summarised as urging the tyrant to forge a new relationship with his people, to the point of no longer necessarily being a tyrant at all. The reforms Simonides proposes can be divided into two broad groups. First, Hieron is urged to give up most, if not all, of his coercive powers. After Hieron complains that even legitimate and necessary aspects of government, such as the punishment of criminals, lead to unpopularity (8.8–10), Simonides suggests the radical step of simply giving up those duties entirely. Hieron, he suggests, should assign all his punitive duties to other men, and dedicate himself to providing prizes and honours for good civic behaviour (9.1–3). This action will not only increase Hieron’s popularity, but will also improve the general life of Syracuse by encouraging healthy competition and ambition (9.5–10). This advice has, it must be said, been read in a deeply cynical light, as an attempt to shield Hieron from responsibility for unpopular measures while still maintaining him in ultimate control. Strauss, for example, states that in this advice “the hateful aspects of tyranny are not indeed annihilated, but banished from sight”.75 Strauss does not expand upon this statement, but one reading would be that Simonides is urging Hieron to delegate the punishment of offenders to subordinates, so that while he does not personally give sentence, it is ultimately being done under his authority. In this case, Hieron would be able both to be confident that overweening citizens are being punished, and to escape any resentment for the act. This interpretation rests on the idea that Hieron’s punitive powers are merely deputed, and that he retains ultimate responsibility for justice in Syracuse. I can find nothing in the text, however, to support this reading. Simonides tells Hieron that the power of punishment should not be delegated to subordinates, but “assigned to others” (allois protakteon, 9.3). While there is no hint of who these “others” might be, there is nothing suggesting that they will be answerable to or directed by Hieron. The whole 74 75

8.1. Strauss 1948: 62.

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tenor of the discussion suggests that Hieron would be well rid of his duties of punishment and freed to devote himself entirely to the more pleasant task of honouring worthy citizens. The idea that Hieron’s relinquishing of coercive power is to be real and complete is supported by Simonides’ next advice, concerning the tyrant’s mercenary bodyguard. What, Hieron asks, is to be the role of his private troops in the new order? Perhaps, he suggests, they can be entirely dispensed with, since his new popularity will free him from fear of assassination (10.1). Simonides contradicts this, saying that there will still be a need for the mercenaries (10.2); their role, however, is to be very different in the reformed Syracuse. Rather than Simonides advising Hieron to employ them solely to protect his own person – they do not even carry out this role very effectively, since Hieron is still vulnerable to those in his own household – he advises the ruler to reassign his troops as “bodyguards to assist all the citizens” (10.4). They will defend the citizens of Syracuse, and particularly the kaloi kagathoi among them, from both domestic criminals and from sudden attacks by external enemies (10.4–7). From being instruments of the tyrant’s will, the mercenaries will be transformed into a public force that serves the whole polis. Again, this advice has been read in a cynical light, as a way for Hieron to make the people of Syracuse dependent on his power. As Strauss puts it: [I]n time of peace at least they do not protect themselves against the slaves and evildoers as the citizens of free commonwealths do; they are protected by the tyrant’s bodyguard. They are literally at the mercy of the tyrant and his mercenaries, and they can only wish or pray that the tyrant will become, or remain, beneficent.76

As a general objection to entrusting policing to a body of armed mercenaries, this may be a cogent statement; our own recent history has highlighted the dangers a heavily armed police force can pose to citizens’ lives and freedoms. This is different, however, from saying that it is an objection that Xenophon himself means to imply. To extrapolate “real-world” consequences from the text and then assume the author must intend all readers to accept these implications seems a questionable interpretative practice. Not only does it rest on argumentum e silentio, it assumes that the author will have all the same biases and thought processes as the reader. This is a questionable approach even for our own contemporaries, and seems deeply unwise for an author more than two millennia distant.77 Strauss 1948: 70; see also 117. Indeed, Xenophon was himself a mercenary, and clearly did not see the profession as preventing one from being a virtuous or honest individual. 76 77

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I submit that the text itself in fact precludes this interpretation. Rather than seeing Hieron as imposing on his people a police force that is ultimately loyal to him, Simonides’ advice may in fact envision transferring the mercenaries to public ownership. At the close of his discussion of the mercenaries’ new role, Simonides turns to discussing the financial aspects of the plan: When the citizens realise that these men do no harm to anyone who has not done wrong, hinder those who plan to commit crimes, help the wronged, and take care of and undertake dangers for the citizens, how could they not happily contribute for them? After all, they employ private guards for much smaller services!

The mercenaries’ pay, then, is to come from the voluntary contributions of the Syracusans. By definition, a mercenary fights for whomever pays him, a fact emphasised by the term for mercenary which Xenophon uses – misthophoros, literally “pay-taker”. If the population contribute to their upkeep, then in a very real sense the mercenaries are employed by the people as a whole. Far from being at the mercy of the mercenaries, the Syracusans will be their masters. It was a widespread belief in Classical thought that a mercenary bodyguard was one of the main pillars of a tyrant’s power, able to enforce his will on a citizenry to which they owed no loyalty or affection.78 By making the mercenaries bodyguards of the entire polis, Hieron loses most, if not all, of his coercive power. Having disclaimed the right to punish, and surrendered his bodyguard to the people, Hieron will now have no means of compelling anyone to do anything. Whatever influence remains to him will come only from the Syracusans “obeying willingly” (11.12). How then is Hieron to secure the affection that will lead to willing obedience? Hieron’s conferral of public honours may go some ways toward making the Syracusans well disposed to him, but Simonides has a further suggestion. Rather than using his vast wealth solely on his own comfort and pleasure, Hieron should instead devote it to improving and beautifying the city at large (11.1). To a modern reader, Hieron’s new role seems rather to echo that of the ceremonial monarchs of contemporary states such as Sweden, Japan, or the United Kingdom: his function is to distribute honours, engage in charitable activities, and studiously avoid any of the ugly realities of exercising power. In making this change, Simonides says, Hieron will obtain the true respect and glory that were denied him as a tyrant (11.2–4). This advice to Hieron to pursue the welfare of his citizens 78 See, for example, Arist. Pol. 5.1311a, Dem. 23.124, Hdt. 1.61.4, Isoc. 10.37, Pl. Rep. 8.567d–567e.

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rather than his own can be seen as hearkening back to the first section of the dialogue. There, Hieron lamented the fact that pleasure and contentment forever eluded him. Here, Simonides presents a solution to that dilemma. When the tyrant pursued his own happiness, it escaped him. When he pursues the happiness of others, he will find his own happiness coming to him unsought (11.10–11).79 This generosity can also serve as a means of redressing the imbalance that made Hieron despair of any escape from his tyranny. How, he had asked, could a tyrant pay back the money he had extorted, or die for every citizen he had unjustly killed? Simonides’ advice may serve as the answer to this question. While Hieron may not be able to pay each of his victims back individually, by spending his ill-gotten wealth on the city he can at least pay back the whole community. Though he cannot give up a life for every life he has taken, he can dedicate the remainder of the life he does have to the service of his people.

Changing the Language Considering all of this, does it make sense to describe the reformed Hieron as a tyrant at all? Throughout Greek thought, not least in Xenophon’s own work, tyranny is defined as rule over unwilling subjects for the ruler’s sole interest.80 It is explicitly said that Hieron will gain willing obedience, and his actions will be performed in the interests of his subjects; it therefore seems reasonable to suggest that, in following Simonides’ advice, Hieron will cease to be a tyrant and become something else entirely. The language Simonides uses suggests that this is in fact the case. In his advice to Hieron, the use of the word turannos falls off dramatically, occurring only twice after section 8. Rather, Simonides increasingly uses two other terms to describe the reformed Hieron: archōn and prostatēs.81 Both terms are heavily redolent of civic, and particularly Athenian, democratic discourse. Archōn was a common Greek term for leader or ruler, and was used as the title of the chief magistrates of a number of Greek states. In particular, the (largely ceremonial) Athenian head of state, whose name was used in the city’s dating formulae, bore the title of Archōn. Simonides’ use of this term to describe Hieron thus signals a change in how his authority is conceived. No longer is he portrayed as enjoying the unrestrained personal power of a tyrant, but instead he is being thought of as playing the constitutional and clearly defined role of a chief magistrate. Compare Virtue’s advice to Herakles at Mem. 2.1.28. Mem. 4.6.12, see also Pl. Laws 8.832c, Arist. Pol. 3.1285a. 81 St Thomas (2016: 48–49) points out that tyrannos is only used at this point to describe those aspects of sole rule that are negative for the ruler and/or his citizens, while archōn is always used when Simonides is describing a ruler’s positive actions. 79 80

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This change of wording does not necessarily herald a change in Hieron’s “constitutional” status – the dialogue is silent on the precise nature of Hieron’s authority either before or after his reformation. The adoption of a civic title does, however, suggest a change in Hieron’s relationship with his city. As tyrant, he was set over his city and alienated from it; calling him archōn implies participation in civic life, and responsibility for, and perhaps even to, the citizenry. In applying the term to Hieron, Simonides seems to be echoing the practice of real-world monarchs of the fourth century. In domestic inscriptions rulers of the Crimean Bosporos are referred to as king (basileus) of their non-Greek subjects, but archōn of the Greek cities under their authority.82 The message here seems clear: the Bosporan rulers exercise different types of authority over different categories of subjects. Over the local non-Greek populations, they hold traditional hereditary power; over the Greek cities, they exercise constitutional and civic offices.83 In a similar vein, Dionysios I, tyrant of Syracuse, is referred to as “Archōn of Sicily” in Athenian honorific inscriptions. As well as presenting Dionysios as master of the whole island (something he never in fact achieved), this language serves to present him in a vaguely civic light. By using a familiar and democratic-sounding title, Dionysios and/or his Athenian supporters can give the appearance that the tyrant exercises a legal and perhaps even popularly granted form of authority.84 The second term used to describe Hieron, prostatēs, along with its cognate verb prostateuō, is even more democratically inflected. Literally “one who stands in front”, prostatēs denotes in equal parts a leader and a defender. The term was often applied to the leading politicians of Athens’ democracy, who derived their authority not from any institutional office, but from their ability to persuade and motivate the Athenian people.85 The title could be accorded to the foremost statesmen and military leaders 82 For example, CIRB 6, CIRB 10. On the evolution of Bosporan titulature, see Moreno 2007: 170–174. 83 Moreno 2007: 172–174. 84 The evidence of ancient historians suggests that Dionysios did in fact hold a nominally elective office, that of stratēgos autokratōr or “plenipotentiary general” (Diod. Sic. 13.95.1). The military connotations of this title may, however, have still seemed too overtly dictatorial for the Athenians, prompting the use of the vaguer and friendlier archōn. There is no evidence to support Caven’s suggestion (1990: 156) that Dionysios at some point abdicated his position as stratēgos autokratōr in favour of a more nebulous personal authority. 85 On the history and status in Athens of the prostatēs tou dēmou, “leader/defender of the people”, see Connor 1992: 111–116, Rosenbloom 2004: 90–93. Xenophon is among the authors who use the term prostatēs in this sense – see, for example, Mem. 1.1.8, 2.8.4, 3.4.6, 3.6.1; Hell. 3.2.27, 5.2.3.

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of Athenian history, among them Themistokles the hero of Salamis, the imperial champion Perikles, and Theramenes, restorer of democracy after the dictatorship of the Thirty.86 When Simonides urges Hieron to “compete with other prostatai of cities” so that “you present the city of which you are prostatēs as the happiest of all cities” (11.7), he may thus be presenting a picture of Hieron not as a tyrant who dominates his city by force, but as a leader whose power depends upon the people’s confidence in his capacity to protect and benefit them. In Memorabilia, those who exercise leadership over the dēmos do so thanks to their superior knowledge and self-control, gaining the willing obedience of the masses through persuasion and display of virtue.87 As prostatēs of Syracuse, Hieron would exercise a similar kind of authority. The reformed Hieron perhaps most closely resembles the great citizen-leaders of Athens’ past, Themistokles and Perikles, who used “charms” of persuasion and charisma to gain the trust and obedience of the Athenian people (2.6.13, 4.2.2). While on the topic of the language used to describe Hieron, it is worth mentioning a point that has proved puzzling to some commentators: why does Xenophon never refer to Hieron as king (basileus)? In Memorabilia, Sokrates defines the difference between a tyrant and a king as being that a tyrant rules arbitrarily and selfishly, while a king rules with popular consent and in accordance with law (Mem. 4.6.12). Since Hieron is now ruling in his people’s interest and with their goodwill, the question runs, why is he not to be considered a king? Strauss saw this apparent contradiction as pointing to the fact that Hieron’s rule was still fundamentally tyrannical. Kingship, he argues, requires both consent and law, and law is nowhere mentioned in the dialogue.88 Hieron thus remains a tyrant, even if he is a more benevolent one, because his power has no legal basis or controls.89 In an attempt to challenge this view, St Thomas suggests that for Xenophon, rule in accordance with law and rule by consent are more or less synonymous, and thus whatever title he is given, Hieron should still be thought of as exercising a more kinglike authority.90 While I too am sceptical of Strauss’ grim interpretation, I do not find St Thomas’ argument convincing. To begin with, if Xenophon sees law and consent as synonymous, why does he explicitly mention both as qualifications for kingship? These two concepts are, after all, opposed in the definition of tyranny by their two opposites: rule over the unwilling and rule that is unsupported by the law, reinforcing the sense that these are not simply restatements of the same principle. Most crucially, if Xenophon does intend 86 87 88 89 90

Arist. Ath. Pol. 28.2–5. Mem. 3.6.17–18, 3.7.6–9, 4.4.17. Strauss 1948: 64. Strauss 1948: 64, 68–70. St Thomas 2016: 40–42.

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us to think of Hieron as in essence becoming a king, why are basileus and its associated terms so assiduously avoided? I would tend to agree with Strauss that the avoidance of basileus is probably deliberate, but I suggest an entirely different interpretation. Rather than signalling that Hieron remains essentially tyrannical, Xenophon’s language may intend to signal just how far he has moved away from tyranny. While kingship (basileia) may be a more lawful and popular form of monarchy, it remains a form of personal rule. After all, the monarch of Persia, while referred to as basileus, nonetheless possessed vast and largely limitless powers. Referring to Hieron as a basileus might imply that his power had become milder and more limited, but it would still potentially leave him as master of Syracuse. By eschewing the term basileus in favour of archōn and prostatēs, Xenophon suggests that a far more radical transformation has taken place. Hieron has not simply transformed from an unconstitutional monarch to a constitutional one; he is changed from a sole ruler into a civic leader whose authority rests on his generosity to the people and their love for him.

Friendship Regained Quite suddenly, in the final section of the dialogue, Simonides begins making frequent reference to Hieron’s philoi – his friends/dear ones. He assures his interlocutor that, if he behaves with benevolence, he “will have the riches of all your philoi as your treasures” (11.12), urges him to “enrich your philoi and you will enrich yourself ” (11.13), and advises him to consider “your philoi as your children” (11.4). This sudden appearance of philoi in Simonides’ discourse serves to signal the degree to which, if Hieron follows the poet’s advice, he will have transformed his position. Earlier in the dialogue, it had been established that a tyrant could have no true philoi – mutual fear prevented the trust and mutual utility that characterise true philia. Now, however, it seems that Hieron will be able to enjoy the company of philoi, whose absence he considered one of the worst miseries of tyranny. The conclusion, surely, is that Hieron is no longer precisely a tyrant: having divested himself of his arbitrary power, he no longer generates the aura of fear that made friendship impossible. In obtaining philoi, Hieron has achieved another of the main characteristics of the kalos kagathos, who by definition is both a good citizen and a happy man. Early in the dialogue, Simonides signalled the importance of enkrateia, dismissing Hieron’s unsatisfied desires as the product of insufficient self-control; in his previous advice, he provided practical strategies for becoming a good civic leader; now, he implies that having accomplished these two pillars of kalokagathia, the third close and mutually beneficial friendship will also fall to Hieron’s lot. It is not explicitly stated who Hieron’s philoi will be; but based on what has gone before, it seems not unreasonable

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to imagine that they will be drawn from the kaloi kagathoi whom Simonides urged him to particularly defend and cultivate. Perhaps there is now hope for Hieron to re-experience the kind of joyful conviviality that Sokrates celebrated and that the tyrant himself mourned as lost forever.91

6. Conclusion Xenophon’s Hiero presents almost the same scenario as Herodotus’ narrative of Kroisos and Solon. In both cases, a wise man and citizen of a polis stands before a tyrant and seeks to introduce him to a new way of life. In both cases, the question at hand is whether the life of monarch or idiōtēs is more conducive to lasting happiness. If the basic situations are similar, the courses of the two conversations are very different indeed. In Herodotus’ account, Solon is unable to get his message through to the king. His language and approach are steeped in the values and concepts of the polis. Solon speaks to Kroisos frankly and bluntly, and initially takes it for granted that Kroisos will see that his stories of happy citizens imply that a moderate civic life is preferable to the dangerous heights and grim depths brought by monarchy. Kroisos’ obstinate insistence on his own happiness, combined with the different cultural languages the two men are speaking, prevents effective communication occurring between them. In Hiero, we have a very different approach leading to a very different outcome. Simonides and Hieron achieve a meeting of minds that no citizen and monarch in Herodotus are depicted as enjoying. What is more, unlike Solon, Simonides provides a means for the tyrant to secure happiness and still maintain his position of pre-eminence in Syracuse. This divergence in outcomes can be attributed to three main differences between Herodotus’ narratives and Xenophon’s dialogue: the communicative approach of the citizen, the character of the monarch, and the conception of citizenship being imparted. Simonides’ approach differs markedly from Solon’s – and indeed from all other figures in Herodotus who seek to educate monarchs on civic life. Where the Athenian launched immediately into stories that presuppose the superiority of polis life, Simonides begins by at least appearing to endorse the pleasures of tyranny. This approach has more in common with what we see in Herodotus’ account of Bias/Pittakos and Kroisos – beginning with an attempt to understand and imitate the tyrant’s viewpoint, and then Hunter (1996: 99) suggests that in advising Hieron to enrich his friends, Simonides is hoping that, as he is himself one of Hieron’s philoi, some of the ruler’s wealth will come his own way. This seems a stretch: after all Simonides already seems to enjoy the tyrant’s favour, and indeed might find himself with a smaller slice of the pie if Hieron truly begins spending on the city and friends more broadly. 91

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presenting new ideas only once the ruler’s attention and goodwill have been secured. Simonides’ objectives, however, go far beyond any of Herodotus’ “intercultural” citizens. Bias/Pittakos, Demokedes, and Themistokles all aimed to lead monarchs to a specific decision or course of action. Simonides seeks to make a dramatic change in Hieron’s entire outlook. His approach can thus be viewed as a kind of synthesis of two of the approaches depicted in Herodotus: he has the lofty educational aims of a Solon or Demaratos, but the pragmatic intercultural approach of a Pittakos or Themistokles. Such a synthesis of approaches is not to be found in Herodotus. Precisely why cannot be known, but it may have something to do with Herodotus’ general scepticism about the ability of monarchs to understand the civic values of the polis. This highlights the second difference between Hiero and Herodotus’ stories: the character of the monarch. In Herodotus, inability to comprehend non-monarchic life was a defining feature of kings and tyrants. Herodotus’ monarchs are also generally incapable of sustained self-reflection. Kroisos, for example, refuses to countenance the possibility that he might not be the happiest man on earth, while Xerxes fails to ask himself if fear is truly the only way to motivate a people. Hieron, by contrast, comes across as a curious, reflective, and receptive figure. From the beginning of the dialogue, he shows a keen awareness of his own situation, and a serious willingness to consider Simonides’ words. It might be tempting to attribute Hieron’s greater receptiveness to the fact that, unlike most of Herodotus’ monarchs, he began his life as a polis citizen. Civic life is thus less alien to him than it was to Kroisos or Xerxes – rather than introducing Hieron to an entirely new way of thinking, Simonides need only remind him of things that he himself has experienced. It should be noted, though, that it is not only Greek rulers who show this kind of receptiveness in Xenophon’s works: in the next chapter, we will see that “barbarian” kings are equally capable of absorbing civic ideas. The final salient difference between Herodotus and Xenophon concerns the nature of civic virtue itself. As I have argued, Xenoophon’s concept of citizenship is more expansive and abstract than Herodotus’. The earlier historian presents civic identity as rooted in the communal practices of the polis. Otanes’ speech references specific practices – collective decision-making, accountability of officers, appointment by sortition. Solon emphasised mutual interdependence and the need for community service. Demaratos focussed on the rule of law and communal self-regulation. Xenophon’s conception of citizenship is more individualistic. His focus is on cultivating certain virtues in oneself. To be sure, some of these virtues do require others to be practised – philia and leadership cannot exist without other people! These are, however, not rooted in any specific context or constitution. Self-control, philia, and good leadership would apply equally in a democracy, an oligarchy, an army on the march, a private drinking

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party, or, as Hiero demonstrates, a tyranny. Though these virtues are depicted as more easily acquired in a collectively governed polis – Hiero makes clear that a tyrant’s power tends to work against his developing self-control, making true friends, or giving reliable leadership – they are nonetheless exportable into other contexts. Though there are thus clear points of contact between his work and Herodotus’, Xenophon ultimately presents a more optimistic vision. In Herodotus, it seemed impossible for monarchs to truly achieve an understanding of a citizen’s life. The best that could be hoped for would be that, by assuming some of a monarch’s viewpoint, a citizen could manipulate him into a specific course of action. In Hiero, the citizen can bring the monarch to a new awareness, and transform him from an arbitrary and miserable tyrant into a happy and benevolent “first citizen”.

Simonides the Interculturalist In his conversation with Hieron, Simonides displays many of the practices that modern theorists hold up as marking a successful intercultural negotiator. Skills such as the ability to build warm relationships, imagine how one’s interlocutor will receive a communication, and adapt to their cultural needs are all recommended as essential to successful negotiation across cultural divides.92 Simonides displays all these skills and more – he presents himself as sharing values with Hieron to build a rapport, he carefully tailors his language to trigger the tyrant’s reflection, and he ensures that he keeps his didactic agenda minimal until the tyrant is in a position to receive it. Simonides’ communication with Hieron is strikingly in line with one of the most radical of intercultural approaches – “strategic moral diplomacy”. As defined by Lyn Boyd-Judson, strategic moral diplomacy represents an attempt to enter not only into the cultural world of an interlocutor, but also into their “moral universe”.93 In brief, Boyd-Judson argues that even individuals whose actions we might consider deplorable may be, in their own light, acting in line with particular moral principles. Negotiating with them successfully, she continues, requires us to empathise with them, to recognise that their actions do not spring simply from malice or perversity, and, as far as is possible, to grant the validity of at least some of their claims. As one successful instance of strategic moral diplomacy, Boyd-Judson cites South African president Nelson Mandela’s interactions with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. In 1997, Mandela travelled to Libya to bestow upon Qaddafi the Good Hope Medal, South Africa’s highest award, in gratitude for Qaddafi’s assistance in the fight against the Apartheid system. At the same time, however, Mandela also sternly lectured Qaddafi on the 92 93

See Cohen 1997: 225–226, Vulpe et al. 2001: 23–60. Boyd-Judson 2011: 88.

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importance of showing respect to the international community and the United Nations, a criticism that the Libyan leader apparently took to heart.94 Boyd-Judson argued that Mandela was in a unique position to have these criticisms heard. Qaddafi felt a respect for and kinship with Mandela as a fellow leader of a liberation movement and a fighter against colonialism. Mandela’s honouring of Qaddafi showed that he reciprocated this esteem, and cemented the sense of mutual respect between the two leaders. Because Qaddafi saw Mandela as a kindred spirit, however, he was also willing and able to receive criticism from him that he would have balked at from other sources. This situation bears striking similarities to the one depicted in Hiero. Hieron, at least initially, perceives Simonides as someone who shares in tyrannical values, who, as he once did, longs for the wealth, power, and luxury that tyranny can be supposed to bring. As a result, Hieron may feel a kind of kindred with Simonides, and perhaps even a desire to correct what he sees as the poet’s naivety. For his part, Simonides does not simply dismiss Hieron as an evil tyrant, but imaginatively enters his world. Considering the things that might induce one to become a tyrant, Simonides admits their attraction and sees Hieron as a man who has been led astray by desires that he himself may share. Once this rapport has been established, and both men see something of themselves in the other, Simonides, like Mandela, is able to begin saying things that his interlocutor might find challenging. Because he has acknowledged and entered Hieron’s conceptual sphere, these ideas do not meet the kind of resistance that Kroisos showed to Solon, but are instead eagerly embraced as a way out of the trap in which he finds himself.95

The Challenge of Education Xenophon’s optimism about the capacity of tyrants to learn and his embrace of intercultural dialogue mark his approach to communication with tyrants as a radical departure from previous models. The Hiero can be seen as the model of a new kind of tyrant–citizen dialogue, which results not in confusion or corruption but in a genuine meeting of minds. This kind of breakthrough is not presented as easy – it is a lengthy, complex, and carefully structured process that leads Hieron to being able to receive Simonides’ civic wisdom. Nor is every citizen necessarily able to engage in Boyd-Judson 2011: 84–88. Simonides’ approach is also strikingly echoed in Zwier’s advice (2013: 214) for negotiating with North Korea’s leader. Having won his goodwill by praising his family and empathising with the challenges he faces, the negotiator is then advised to begin explaining American conceptions of democracy and free-market capitalism more or less ab origine. 94

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this process of gradual education. If Simonides is to be taken as the ideal person for this sort of task, then successfully communicating with a tyrant requires a series of special characteristics. First, paradoxically, the citizen must have something of the tyrant in their own character. Earlier in this chapter, I suggested that Simonides’ reputation for love of money and fame gave him an advantage in being able to empathise with the passions that drove Hieron to achieve his tyranny. By drawing on his own latent tyrannical qualities, Simonides was able to confront Hieron with his own exaggerated reflection, and prompt the tyrant to consider the hollowness of his own desires. The second requirement, however, is that the citizen must be able to suppress these desires whenever necessary – otherwise, he would risk becoming an Alkmaion, fully assimilated into the monarchic world. Switching between these states clearly requires a great deal of self-knowledge and self-control, and this brings us to the final, implicit, qualification. The citizen who wishes to educate tyrants must himself possess a high degree of civic wisdom – must, in essence, be a kalos kagathos. He must have sufficient self-control to avoid either speaking too bluntly and alienating the tyrant, or completely succumbing to his tyrannical persona. His capacity for friendship must be sufficiently developed that, like Simonides, he can create a rapport with the tyrant and empathise with his concerns. And finally, he must have a sufficient awareness of the “royal art” of civic leadership that he can communicate to the tyrant how best to reform his government and rule with equity. Considering this, the successful educator of tyrants seems to be a rare bird indeed. He must have both the passions of a tyrant and the civic virtue of a kalos kagathos. He must be eloquent, patient, and empathetic, capable of both sympathising with a tyrant and correcting him. He must have the ability to balance carefully the conflicting aspects of his personality, potentially over the course of a lengthy conversation, never losing sight of his goal of reformation. In his fictionalised Simonides, Xenophon can create such a figure. But is such a paragon of communication believable in the real world, or has Xenophon presented an impossible ideal, perhaps, in the Straussian vein, with an eye to showing the reader that communication of the type he depicts is ultimately impossible? In the following chapter, I will argue that Xenophon not only does see it as possible to communicate with real-world tyrants in this fashion, but believes that it has in fact been accomplished. It should perhaps not surprise us to learn that the real-world citizen depicted as most effectively communicating with monarchs is a young mercenary commander from the city of Athens named Xenophon, son of Gryllos.

Chapter 3

Intercultural Communication in Xenophon’s Anabasis Intercultural Communication in Xenophon’s

1. Introduction In 401 bce , as the Aegean world was recovering from the Peloponnesian War, 10,000 Greek mercenaries gathered near the city of Sardis, capital of the Persian province of Lydia. Coming from a wide range of poleis, these men had been hired by the Persian prince Cyrus to support his coup against his brother, King Artaxerxes II. The expedition ended in disaster. Though the Greek mercenaries enjoyed considerable success against the Persians, Cyrus himself was killed in battle and the Greek commanders were shortly afterwards tricked and executed by the king and his lieutenant, Tissaphernes. Leaderless and purposeless, the mercenaries elected new commanders and began an arduous march through Persian territory; several months later, much of the army finally made it to the city of Byzantium and crossed back into Europe, out of Persian control.1 Some years after this expedition returned home, an account of the journey was published. Entitled the Anabasis – “The Journey Inland” – it was released under the name of Themistogenes of Syracuse. This name was, however, a pseudonym: the author of this work was in fact Xenophon of Athens, who also appears as one of the central figures in the narrative.2 Xenophon’s Anabasis is a strange work. In contrast to the sweeping histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, and indeed to Xenophon’s own broader history, the Hellenica, it focusses on the affairs of a relatively small number of men for a limited period of time. Scholars have long puzzled over the nature and function of this unusual historical work. It was once widely held that the Anabasis was written to show Greeks the weakness of the Persian empire and urge a panhellenic campaign against the barbarian.3 While The exact chronology of these events is much-debated – see Cawkwell 2004, Paradeisopoulos 2013 for an in-depth discussion of the various proposals. 2 Plut. De glo. Ath. 1, Xen. Hell. 3.1.2. For modern discussions of Xenophon’s pseudonym, see MacLaren 1934, Tsagalis 2009, Flower 2012: 53–54. 3 See, for example, Robert 1950: 55–56, Delebecque 1957: 204–206. 1

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there remain some holdouts,4 this view has increasingly fallen out of favour, as authors cites the complexity and ambivalence with which both Greek and Persian figures are painted.5 Others have seen the Anabasis as an apologia, Xenophon’s defence against criticisms of his conduct or response to others’ accounts of the expedition.6 Finally, still others have read the Anabasis as a political and philosophical text, an investigation into the functioning of political community and the nature of Greekness.7 This last approach seems the most productive for our purposes. The Anabasis records how citizens of various Greek poleis, placed in a situation of great danger and uncertainty, organise themselves into an ad-hoc political community. Following the deaths of their original commanders, the 10,000 reconstitute themselves as a rudimentary democracy, electing new leaders (3.1.47), and making major decisions by majority vote (e.g. 3.2.33). As this community of Greek citizens moves through the Persian empire, its interactions with non-Greek “others” form a major motif in the Anabasis.8 Xenophon shows a keen interest both in the nature and customs of the different barbarian groups the Greeks encounter, and in the different ways that the Greeks can interact with them.9 Particularly noteworthy for us are the accounts that bracket the Anabasis, of the army serving under two different non-Greek rulers. Here, the soldiers must grapple with differences of culture and political system as they seek to survive and profit under autocratic leaders. Both these barbarian princes seek to win themselves a kingdom.10 Cyrus desires to replace his brother, Artaxerxes II, as Great King of Persia; Seuthes of Thrace seeks to win back his father’s kingdom on the Thracian coast, from which, in somewhat unclear circumstances, his family had been expelled (7.2.32–35). The parallelism of these episodes encourages the reader to seek thematic as well as situational parallels between the For example, Dillery 1995: 59–63. See Higgins 1977: 97–98; Flower 2012: 179–188. Rood 2004 provides a careful analysis of “panhellenic” language in the Anabasis, showing that it is generally motivated by its context and cannot be taken as programmatic for the whole work. 6 So Cawkwell 2004: 59–63; Azoulay 2004. Anderson 1974: 93–94 justly criticises this approach as reductive and failing to consider the complexity of Xenophon’s narrative. 7 Howland 2000 and Dillery 1995: 63–98 are the most comprehensive examples of this approach; see also Higgins 1977: 94–95, Flower 2012: 196–201. 8 See Lane Fox 2004: 203–214 for a discussion of ethnicity and identity in the Anabasis. 9 See, for example, the encounter with the outlandish Mossynoikoi (5.4), the stay in an Armenian village (4.5.24–36), or the multi-ethnic festival put on during negotiations with the Paphlagonians (6.1.1–13). 10 Howland 2000: 882–883; Ma 2004: 340. 4 5

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two episodes.11 In general, comparisons between the Greeks’ experiences under Cyrus and Seuthes have focussed on the leadership abilities of their respective Greek commanders. Xenophon’s style of command is contrasted (usually favourably) with those of the generals under Cyrus Proxenos, Klearchos, and Menon.12 The two sequences also, however, allow us to compare how the different Greek leaders handled relations with powerful barbarian rulers.13 As in Hiero, successful communication with such monarchs requires flexibility, patience, and self-awareness. The generals at the beginning of the Anabasis can be taken to represent models of precisely how not to engage with monarchs. They are unable to shed their own cultural lenses, rely on caricatures of their interlocutors’ society, and allow their own preoccupations and desires to be exploited. By contrast, Xenophon’s interactions with Seuthes at the end of the work represents a triumph of intercultural dialogue between citizen and monarch. Not only does Xenophon build a rapport with Seuthes without compromising his citizen identity, but like Simonides he even manages to teach a despot some measure of civic values.

2. Negative Paradigms The first two books of the Anabasis, leading up to Cyrus’ death and its aftermath, focus largely on three of the Greek mercenary generals: Menon of Thessaly, Klearchos the Spartan, and Proxenos of Boiotia. In their relations with Cyrus, these men form a decidedly negative model of how Greek citizens relating to a barbarian monarch, against which Xenophon’s own later successes with Seuthes can be measured. These men’s failings can be broadly summarised as falling into two categories: first, an inability to restrain their own ambition and desire for power when necessary, and second, a failure to recognise the importance of cultural differences between Greek citizens and the Persian king and his ministers.

Ambition and Power In Hiero, Xenophon suggested that communicating successfully with a monarch requires one to have something of the monarch in one’s own thought process. His description of the three Greek generals, all of whom formed good working relationships with Cyrus, bears out his continued belief in this principle. All three men are portrayed as possessing a strong desire for power, wealth, and self-satisfaction. While their motives for 11 12 13

Roy 1967: 315–316. For example, Grethlein 2012: 33; Gray 2011a: 38–43. So far, this area has only been briefly noted by Millender 2012: 406.

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wanting power are very different, all of them could have seen in Cyrus something of the fulfilment of their own ambitions. In his obituary of Proxenos, Xenophon writes that the Theban “desired to be a man equal to doing great things” (2.6.16). Those great things, Xenophon explains, consisted of “ruling, and associating with the foremost men” (2.6.17). Proxenos sought power. True, at least according to Xenophon, he sought it so that he could “deliver benefactions” (euergetein). But in his desire for personal authority, his longing to be numbered among the “foremost men” clearly marked him as someone who for whom the power wielded by a potentate like Cyrus would exercise a strong fascination.14 It was only logical, then, that he join the Persian prince who was living out his own dreams, and through whose friendship he hoped to win “a great name, great power and much wealth” (2.6.18). Menon the Thessalian, like Proxenos, desired great power and wealth (2.6.21); unlike Proxenos, he had no interest in using that wealth for benefactions. Vicious, unprincipled, and self-centred, Menon in many ways fits the traditional caricature of the tyrannical man. This impression is only reinforced by his unorthodox sexual behaviour: though a Greek citizen, he became the eromenos of a barbarian noble, and himself took an older, bearded man as his own eromenos (3.6.28). Given the strong traditional associations between sexual deviance and tyranny, Menon’s perversion can only strengthen the image of him as a potential tyrant.15 Unlike Menon and Proxenos, Klearchos is not explicitly described in his obituary as desiring power or wealth. Rather, he is a man “exceedingly fond of war” ( philopolemos eschatōs, 2.6.1), who joins Cyrus because it gives him the opportunity to indulge his passion.16 Nevertheless, both from his obituary and from other sections of the Anabasis, it seems clear that Klearchos also saw the benefits of sole power and desired to increase his own authority at the expense of others. His style of leadership is described as deeply autocratic: he gained obedience solely through anger, threats, The fact that Proxenos studied under the sophist and rhetorical teacher Gorgias of Leontini may also be significant. In Plato, Gorgias is depicted as teaching his students that power is the ultimate good and the tyrant the happiest of all men (for example, Gorg. 473c); whether Xenophon shared his Sokratic’s opinion of the sophist is, however, unknowable. 15 Lane Fox 2004: 198–199, Gray 2011a: 76–78. 16 Unlike Proxenos, of whom he seems fond, and Menon, whom he clearly detests, Xenophon’s attitude to Klearchos is harder to establish and has been the subject of much debate. Gray 2011a: 74–75, 182–183 and Anderson 1974: 88 both see the portrayal as largely positive, while Braun 2004 argues for an extremely dark reading of Klearchos as brutal, dishonest, and opportunistic. Hirsch 1985: 24 and Tamiolaki 2012: 568 both argue for a nuanced, ambivalent Klearchos in whom good and bad are mingled inextricably. 14

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and punishment, believing that “a soldier must fear his leader more than the enemy” (2.6.10). There is no suggestion that he had any interest in consulting his troops, or sought to win their affection as well as their fear. As a result, Klearchos’ soldiers served under him out of necessity alone; though they appreciated his decisive leadership in battle, they sought alternative arrangements as soon as danger was past (2.6.11–13). We may be reminded of Xerxes in Herodotus, unable to conceive of any way to achieve discipline other than terror. Rule over unwilling followers, it may be pointed out, is the definition of tyranny put forward by Xenophon’s Sokrates. There is, then, something of the tyrant in Klearchos after all.17 In the lead-up to his death it becomes yet more clear that Klearchos is as desirous as either of his colleagues of sole power. He is said to have intensely disliked serving under anyone else (2.6.15), and is depicted as deeply troubled at the thought that Menon might be seeking to take command, as “he wished the whole army to look to him” (2.5.29).

The Generals and Cyrus All three generals, in Xenophon’s portraits, are drawn to the idea of sole power and the wealth, honour, or freedom of action it permits. In Cyrus, they see not only a means to achieving that power, but the embodiment of it once achieved.18 Proxenos could not help but be impressed by the honour Cyrus was able to accrue through the benefactions that his power allowed him to perform. Gift giving was an important activity for a Persian king, and the would-be king Cyrus showed his ambition by giving or promising “gifts that [we]re considered royal honours” (dōra ha nomizetai para basilei timiai, 1.2.28). Such an enthusiasm for rewarding friends chimed well with Proxenos’ own ambition to “be second to none in conferring benefits” (2.6.17), and made the Persian an ideal role model for the young Boiotian. Menon, for his part, could look with envy at Cyrus’ ability both to obtain wealth and indulge his sexual appetites. His meeting with Epyaxa, wife of the king of Cilicia, shows his ability to achieve both goals: Cyrus both receives “a great deal of money” from the queen, but also is said to have had sexual relations with her (1.2.12). Cyrus caps this adventure by also extorting money from her husband, the king; for an ambitious hedonist like Menon, the ability to cuckold a man and take his money must have been something to admire indeed. Roisman (1985: 51–52) argues that the narrative shows Klearchos as a less autocratic commander than the obituary suggests, and suggests that Xenophon’s personal reaction to Klearchos and his desire to create a contrast with his own leadership took precedence over the evidence of events. 18 So Higgins 1977: 88: “Cyrus is just the sort to appeal to such men.” 17

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Finally, Klearchos could appreciate Cyrus’ scope to indulge his capacity for violence. As a Persian ruler, Cyrus was able to dispense death whenever he chose, without the need for due process or the claims of the victim (e.g. 1.2.20). Klearchos himself seems to have been drawn to this type of summary justice, but the self-confidence of the Greek soldiers made it difficult for him to indulge it. When, for example, he ordered one of Menon’s soldiers flogged, the victim’s indignation led to a conflict among the troops that required Cyrus’ personal intervention to calm.19 For Klearchos, Cyrus’ freedom to punish was surely a source of envy, and he was eager in advising the prince to indulge this ability (1.7.9). With such sympathy existing between employer and mercenaries, it is no surprise that the three generals all enjoy excellent relationships with Cyrus. Proxenos was a long-time xenos of Cyrus’, and considered him “dearer than his fatherland” (3.1.5). Menon can penetrate Cyrus’ mindset enough to devise a plan to make himself and his troops appear the most loyal (1.4.15–16), and thereafter received rich favours from the prince (1.4.17). Klearchos seems to have the closest relationship of all the generals. On meeting the Spartan, Cyrus “admired him and gave him 10,000 darics” (1.1.9); during the march, Klearchos is “most honoured of the Greeks”, the only Greek to be invited into the prince’s inner circle (1.6.5). It has been noted that, of all the Greeks, Klearchos alone is described as not only Cyrus’ xenos, his ritual guest-friend, but also his philos, his personal friend (1.3.5).20

Growing Tensions The statement that Proxenos valued Cyrus’ friendship more than his own country highlights the fact that their sympathy with and closeness to Cyrus could potentially complicate their other role as leaders of an army of Greek citizens. The mercenaries came from a wide range of Greek poleis, with a variety of political structures and traditions. What they seem to share, however, is a conviction that issues that affect all should, to some degree, be discussed by all. Cyrus’ mercenaries do not meekly obey the prince or their own generals, but are quick to protest when they feel that they are not being treated fairly. They mob Cyrus’ tent to demand unpaid wages (1.2.11), and riot against their Greek commanders when they suspect them of leading them under false pretences (1.3.2). When faced with difficult decisions, Howland 2000: 879. Millender (2012: 394) argues that Klearchos’ closeness to Cyrus, along with the friendships of the Spartan harmosts with Pharnabazos in Book 6, is meant to highlight the uncomfortable closeness of fourth century Sparta to the Persians. This is certainly in line with Sparta’s conduct in the Hellenica; yet the fact that Menon and Proxenos also befriend Cyrus makes it difficult to be certain how much Spartans are being singled out. 19 20

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they hold debates, listen to various speakers, and then take formal votes to decide what to do (1.3.13–20, 1.3.11–13). As Xenophon depicts it, a group of Greeks, when thrown together, seem almost by instinct to constitute themselves as a rudimentary polis, where decision making is collective and orders are only obeyed if they “seem good” to the majority.21 The generals’ closeness to and sympathy with the Persian dynast Cyrus does not sit entirely comfortably with their role as leaders of this ad-hoc political community. The clearest example of conflict is the episode in which the Greeks come to realise that Cyrus has not gathered them to put down rebels, as he initially said, but to launch a war against the king. Angry at being deceived and concerned about the risks of this new mission, the army demand that Klearchos explain himself. Klearchos, Xenophon says, “wept for a long time” over the bind in which he found himself (1.3.2). His dilemma, as he explains it, is that he must either seem ungrateful to Cyrus for his friendship by abandoning him, or unpatriotic for choosing to follow a barbarian despot against the wishes of his fellow Greeks (1.3.4). Klearchos claims that he considers the second option the lesser of the evils, and offers to resign his command and accompany the troops back to Greece (1.3.5–6). In truth, Klearchos has no intention of giving up either his command over Greeks or his friendship with Cyrus: while continuing to declare his fealty to his fellow Greeks, he secretly writes to Cyrus reassuring him that he will eventually bring the troops around and that his standoffishness is purely a pose (1.3.8). Klearchos and his fellow generals are thus presented as caught between the worlds of the quasi-democratic Greek army and the autocratic Persian prince. In navigating this divide, they show none of the flexibility displayed by Simonides in Hiero, who was able to move between monarchic and civic discourse as the situation demanded. In this instance, the generals are saved from their bind by Cyrus, who applies the simple expedient of promising large quantities of cash to mollify the troops (1.4.13). The underlying disjunct is thus never removed, merely papered over, and Klearchos and his colleagues remain in an uneasy position compared to the more civic attitudes of their followers.

Intercultural Failure: Tissaphernes and the Generals Following Cyrus’ death, the Greek army finds itself in a precarious position. Though their employer is no more, they still hold a strategically advantageous position and retain large numbers. They are, however, deep Many scholars have noted the army’s resemblance to a Greek polis. The standard work is Nusbaum 1967; Hornblower 2004 provides a broader context of citizen armies constituting themselves as political communities; Anderson 1974: 120–124 usefully points out the limits of the analogy. 21

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in enemy territory, and have no clear purpose now that Cyrus is dead. In what follows, a series of negotiations take place between the Greek forces, primarily represented by Klearchos and King Artaxerxes’ intermediaries. Given the Greek generals’ success in ingratiating themselves with Cyrus, one might expect that they would be able to establish a similar rapport with the king or Tissaphernes. This is the outcome that Simonides’ experience in Hiero might lead us to expect: having monarchic mindsets, the generals might be assumed to be able to find common ground with the Persian monarch and his deputies. This is not, however, the outcome we find. The generals are instead thoroughly manipulated by Tissaphernes and are led, entirely unsuspecting, to their deaths. Unlike Cyrus, Tissaphernes and the king are not charmed or impressed by any confluence between the generals’ values and their own. In Hiero, the difference between Hieron and Simonides was political: they occupied different cultures by virtue of being respectively a monarch and a private citizen. Here, however, there is a further cultural difference as well: Greeks and Persians are shown as possessing different values, outlooks, and approaches. Of these cultural differences the generals show little awareness or appreciation, and it is this ignorance that leads to their destruction. Klearchos and his fellow generals were likely able to get on so well with Cyrus because the prince himself had some skill in intercultural interaction. The Persian had long experience dealing with Greeks, and indeed with Spartans. Cyrus’ friendship with the Spartan admiral Lysander allowed him to learn, to some degree, how Greeks think and speak, and how best to speak to them – as shown in his pre-battle speech to the Greek troops, which drips with panhellenic, Greek triumphalist rhetoric (1.7.3–4). The Greek generals were thus dealing with a man who was both able and willing to meet them halfway in bridging cultural difference. In dealing with Tissaphernes and the Great King, who remain aloof and hostile and have little interest in relating to the Greeks, Klearchos and his colleagues would prove much less adept. Their ignorance of the Persian milieu is revealed in their first act following Cyrus’ death. Led by Klearchos, they offer to overthrow Artaxerxes II and make Ariaios, one of Cyrus’ allies, Great King (2.1.4). “To those who win in battle”, Klearchos declares “also belongs the right to rule” (1.2.4). The rationale is flatly meritocratic, based on the idea that all men start from an equal place and earn their place by their own excellence. This is not, however, how it works in monarchic Persia, where one’s social standing is determined by birth and can only be altered so far by achievement. Ariaios is simply not high-born enough to be king, he explains as he declines their offer, and the Persian nobility would never tolerate him (2.2.1). The Greek inability to grasp Persian customs and attitudes proves literally lethal. The narrative of Klearchos’ negotiations with the Persian

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leadership reads like a catalogue of failures of intercultural diplomacy. First, the Greeks can be charged with a failure of imagination, an inability to realise that the negotiations they are undertaking may not be viewed the same way by both parties. This is noted by interculturalists as a common failing when dealing with interlocutors from different cultures. North American negotiators, for example, tend to view negotiation as either a competition, of two teams struggling for mastery, or as a puzzle, in which the negotiators are engaged in an intellectual endeavour to sort out a logical puzzle. By contrast, negotiators from other cultures may instead see negotiations as primarily about forming relationships and creating inter- and intra-group harmony.22 In the case of the negotiations in the Anabasis, a similar mismatch of attitudes seems to occurring between the Persians and Greeks. Here, it is the Greeks who see the negotiations as a chance to forge new relationships, while the Persians continue to view them in agonistic terms. The Greeks enter negotiations with Tissaphernes and Artaxerxes under the assumption that this will be a good-faith dialogue between two equal powers; as victors of the battle, they in fact see themselves as in an at least morally superior position (2.1.9). They thus feel entitled to propose a mutually beneficial arrangement in which the king and/or Tissaphernes will take over from Cyrus as the Greeks’ paymaster, directing the Greek soldiers against the enemies of the Persian throne (2.3.23, 2.5.13). Klearchos waxes lyrical about the degree to which Tissaphernes and the Greeks will become united by mutual service and esteem (2.5.14–15): We would serve you not merely for pay, but out of the gratitude (charitos) which we would justly have toward you as the man who saved us. It seems truly amazing to me when I think about all this that you would distrust us, and I would be glad to heard the name of whoever is so cunning of speech to persuade you that we are plotting against you.

Klearchos thus seems to be applying Greek ideas of civic, reciprocal friendship to the army’s relationship with Tissaphernes and the king. Even though Tissaphernes would formally be the Greek army’s employer, Klearchos’ formulation downplays the hierarchical relationship that implies, and his focus instead on the bonds of gratitude serves to paint the Greeks and the Persian as in some way equal partners. This rosy picture in no way represents the Great King’s or Tissaphernes’ view of the relationship. The Greeks are in fact given a clear explanation of the king’s view by Phalinos, a Greek in the Great King’s employ, shortly after the battle (2.1.11): 22

See Cohen 1997: 37–38, Morris and Gelfland 2004.

104 Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought The King believes he has won, because he has killed Cyrus. Who is there now who can challenge him for the Empire? He judges that you belong to him too, since he has you in the middle of his territory, enclosed by uncrossable rivers. Moreover he is able to lead a mass of people against you, so many that you could not kill them even if he were to put them in your power.

As with many of the monarchs seen so far, Artaxerxes sees the matter primarily in terms of individuals. His conflict was not with an army, but with his brother, and now that Cyrus is dead, he is unambiguously the victor. In addition, royal Persian ideology, as Xenophon depicts it, sees Cyrus as Artaxerxes’ (rebellious) slave. The Greeks are not seen as an autonomous body, but as property of Cyrus, and now that he is dead, they revert to Cyrus’ master, to do with as the king sees fit (2.5.38).23 Between slaves of a slave and the Great King and his lords, there is no possibility of friendship or sympathy, and Klearchos’ hope for a mutually beneficial relationship must seem absurd to Tissaphernes and his master. Despite this clear warning of the king’s views, the Greeks do not listen. Flushed with self-perceived victory, and attached to Greek ideas of earned position and reciprocal relationships, Klearchos entirely fails to grasp that neither Tissaphernes nor the king looks on their interactions with the Greeks as negotiation. Instead, they see themselves as engaged in a series of tactical engagements designed to manoeuvre the Greeks into the most vulnerable position. Rather than heeding Phalinos, Klearchos instead chooses to believe Tissaphernes’ pious protestations of friendship (2.5.15), and he and his colleagues willingly walk to the slaughter with hope in their hearts. Klearchos’ willingness to credit Tissaphernes may point to another failure of intercultural understanding. Tissaphernes, Xenophon says, “seemed to Klearchos to speak the truth” (2.5.24). Why was Klearchos so quick to believe a man he had never met before, and who had recently been his enemy? It has been suggested that Klearchos’ credulity rested on a Greek stereotype that Persians were unswervingly truthful in speech and action.24 If Klearchos is to be read as relying on this stereotype of Persian Xenophon accepts the general Greek view that all Persians, whatever their rank, were “slaves” of the king. This is unlikely to represent actual Persian belief or practice, and rests partly on a mistranslation of Persian terms – see Missiou 1993. 24 So Hirsch 1985: 28–29. See Hdt. 1.136.2, 1.138.1; [Pl.] Alc. 1.122a; Xen. Cyr. 2.2.11. This idea is likely based on some genuine Persian values – Iranian sources emphasise the King as upholder of truth, and refer to the Zoroastrian principle of evil as “The Lie”, against which the King must wage an unceasing battle. For a detailed discussion of truth (aša or arta) in Old Persian religion and ideology, see Nichols 2016. 23

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truth-telling, this would make sense in light of modern negotiation theory. Recent psychological research has focussed on the negotiating behaviour of individuals with what is termed a high Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC) – that is, a desire to come quickly to judgements and resolutions. In negotiations, such individuals tend to fall back upon pre-established heuristics like cultural stereotypes.25 Klearchos is depicted as a man who neither possesses great patience nor has much interest in reflection or investigation. His impulsiveness, irritability, and inflexibility all mark him as someone who does not enjoy ambiguity or uncertainty – in other words, a very high need for closure. The pressures of Klearchos’ situation would likely exacerbate this predisposition. Experiments suggest that in scenarios involving time pressure, high-NFC individuals find their need for closure increased still further, as reaching conclusions feels more urgent and potentially elusive.26 Relying on broad-brush national stereotypes is, however, a dangerous game.27 While Xenophon certainly endorses the idea that Persians are committed to truthfulness in their relations with each other, he also makes clear that this obligation does not extend to enemies of Persia. In the Cyropedia, Cyrus the Great’s father spends some time teaching his son stratagems of war, emphasising that deceit is perfectly legitimate if it brings victory against the foe.28 This, clearly, is the attitude taken by Tissaphernes – he shows no compunction about falsely declaring his goodwill to the Greeks in order to deliver them into the king’s hands. Klearchos, however, never seems to suspect that he is being lied to. In this connection, it has been found that under pressure, high-NFC individuals showed a greater predisposition to trust anyone they consider friendly, and a greater paranoia toward those who they see as hostile or unfamiliar.29 That Klearchos should view Tissaphernes in the first category is surprising, given that he had shortly earlier been the Greeks’ enemy. The Persian’s overtures, De Dreu at al. 1999. De Dreu 2003. Intriguingly, individuals with low NFC showed greater tolerance for uncertainty and lack of resolution when placed under time pressure, suggesting that constraints have a tendency of exacerbating whatever one’s disposition may be. 27 See Morris and Gelfland (2004: 60–61), who give the example of the concept of “face” in Chinese and Japanese society as one that Western negotiators often approach in a superficial and stereotyped way: The proverbial Chinese concern for “face” is often confusing to Western negotiators who expect such concerns to operate uniformly in all situations. This stereotypical view fails to recognize that concern for face becomes salient only in particular social contexts, such as those involving an audience of subordinates[.] 28 Xen. Cyr. 1.6.33–39. Similar sentiments are expressed by Dareios in Herodotus’ Histories (3.72.4–5). 29 Acar-Burkay et al. 2014. 25 26

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however, seem well designed to disarm Klearchos and convince him that Tissaphernes should be placed in the category of friends (2.3.18): Men of Greece, where I live I am a neighbour to Greece, and when I saw that you had fallen into great desperation, I considered it a great windfall if I could in any way beg the King to grant me a way to deliver you safe to Greece. After all, I judge that I will not be without thanks (acharistos) then either from you or from Greece as a whole.

Tissaphernes’ statement that he is a neighbour of the Greeks is true as far as it goes – he was satrap of Lydia, and had formerly held the position of overall commander of the western provinces of the Persian empire, before being displaced from that function in favour of Cyrus. Tissaphernes’ relations with the Greeks had in fact been rather stormy, but his speech seeks to smooth this over. The repeated references to Greece and the Greeks, and his invocation of Greek values like charis (grace/gratitude/ favour) serve to create an appearance of Tissaphernes as a philhellene, someone who, like Cyrus, is comfortable inserting himself into Greek reciprocal relationships.30 Klearchos may also be encouraged to trust Tissaphernes because his mistrust of another man may be sharpened by his predicament. Bad feelings already existed between Klearchos and Menon, and Xenophon says that the Spartan now became increasingly suspicious of the Theban, believing that he was seeking to displace him as the senior general of the army (2.5.28). Klearchos, bereft of allies and anxiously seeking for someone to trust, thus leaps upon Tissaphernes’ apparent friendship and fails to consider that it might be feigned. Finally, Tissaphernes manages to work on the very thing that facilitated Klearchos’ relationship with Cyrus: the Spartan’s desire for power, control, and status. Tissaphernes concludes his conversation with Klearchos with the enigmatic statement that he may soon have need of the Greek mercenaries, for “while only the King may wear the upright tiara on his head, with you at his side another may just as easily wear it in his heart” (2.5.23). This has generally been interpreted as a hint that Tissaphernes hopes to use the Greek army either to become king himself, or to be the power behind the throne – the upright tiara was one of the Persian king’s main insignia, while officials like Tissaphernes wore the same headgear with a floppy point. As the leader of the mercenaries who helped Tissaphernes to power, Klearchos could surely expect status and favour from the empire’s new ruler. Buoyed by the possibility of such honours, and perhaps fearing losing the opportunity to Menon, Klearchos impulsively accepts Tissaphernes 30

On charis, see MacLachlan 1993, Azoulay 2018.

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apparent friendship, with disastrous results. Lacking both insight into Persian culture and the flexibility to adapt to new situations, Klearchos is an easy target for Tissaphernes’ manipulation. His literally fatal naivety makes him an object-lesson in how not to perform intercultural negotiation, and allows him to serve as a foil for the man who will, in essence, show us how it is truly done.

3. The Great Interculturalist Following the death of the original generals, Xenophon himself emerges as one of the most important of the army’s new leaders. Though Xenophon as narrator has been suspected of exaggerating the role of Xenophon as character, his portrayal of himself is not completely idealised.31 Xenophon, in his own depiction, is not free from the “monarchic” desires for power and status that characterised the murdered generals. Like them, he was drawn to Cyrus’ charismatic leadership – it was Proxenos’ promise that he would make Xenophon the Persian’s friend that drew Xenophon (3.1.4). Xenophon’s eagerness to join the barbarian prince is shown in his careless questioning of the Delphic oracle, since, as Sokrates points out in the narrative, he asked in such a way that whatever answer he received he would have no choice but to go (3.1.5–7). Later episodes serve to reinforce Xenophon’s monarchic inclinations. Shortly after reaching the Black Sea, Xenophon begins to seriously consider the possibility of founding a city (5.6.15ff.). As the sacred founder, the oikistes, of what he dreams will be “a great city” (5.6.16), Xenophon would be a quasi-monarchic figure, honoured like a king in life and as a hero after death.32 While Xenophon as narrator states that he was motivated by a desire to “gain territory and power for Greece” (5.6.15), he also records that the seer Silanos accused him of being motivated by a desire “to win himself a name and power” (5.6.17), an accusation that Xenophon’s fellow soldiers find all too plausible. In Book 6, Xenophon is tempted to canvass to be elected sole leader of the army, a temptation that likewise shows that great power and glory are attractive prospects for him. He sought the office, the narrator says, “judging that he would be held in greater honour with his friends and a have greater name when news of it reached his city, and that it might even chance that he would be responsible for some good to the army” (6.1.20). The language here strongly echoes the description of Proxenos as wishing See Higgins 1977: 93–96, Cawkwell 2004: 63, and especially Flower 2012: 95–99. On the privileges of the oikistes, see Malkin 1987: 189–202. Ferrario 2012: 368 suggests that, thwarted in his ambition, Xenophon compensates himself by recording it in the Anabasis, thus preserving at least the greatness of the idea.

31 32

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to join Cyrus in order “not to be found wanting conferring benefits” (2.6.17). Xenophon’s desires show him to be similarly ambitious, similarly drawn to the opportunities that a ruling position offers for largesse. And yet despite sharing the generals’ monarchic inclinations, Xenophon differs in an important respect. Unlike Klearchos, Menon, and Proxenos, Xenophon can suppress these inclinations when it becomes clear that they are inappropriate. When Xenophon’s project to found a city proves unpalatable to soldiers who simply want to return home, he abandons his ambition rather than risk dividing the community (5.6.28–31). Similarly, after divination suggests that the supreme command would be dangerous, Xenophon declines the office (6.1.21–24), which he explicitly refers to as a “monarchy” (6.1.30).33 A final display of Xenophon’s forbearance comes when the army arrives at Byzantium. After being shut out by its Spartan governor, the troops tell Xenophon they are ready to seize the city and “make you great” (7.1.21–31). In effect invited to become tyrant of Byzantium, Xenophon demurs; he seeks not the greatness of power, but that of moral correctness.34 Telling the troops that such an action would be both morally and pragmatically unacceptable, he urges the army instead to accept the Spartans’ position as “leaders of Greece” (6.6.12) and, as good Greek citizens, rely on persuasion to achieve their ends.35 When things are going well, Xenophon may daydream about achieving monarch-like status, able to gain great glory and enrich himself and his friends. Yet, like Proxenos, he refuses to achieve these goals unjustly. While Xenophon may fancy seeing himself as a monarch, he will not be a tyrant, and he is careful to distinguish when his ambitions veer from the one to the other. Xenophon shows himself as consistently putting his community before his own ambitions, repressing his monarchic instincts when they threaten his fellow Greeks.

Xenophon and Seuthes Both Xenophon’s monarchic instincts, and his ability to check them, serve him well in his dealings with the Thracian prince Seuthes, whom the Greeks end up serving as they cross into Europe. Just as the original generals 33 Xenophon frequently consults Zeus and other gods through sacrifices, and unfailingly follows their advice (for example, 5.1.16, 6.1.22, 7.8.4); his recognition of a higher authority serves as another check on his own monarchic qualities – rather than seek to make himself king, he submits to the will of King Zeus. See Nusbaum 1967: 140–141, Parker 2004: 149–152, Flower 2012: 142–143. 34 Ferrario 2012: 321. 35 Millender 2012: 382 notes that Xenophon’s forbearance contrasts with the conduct of Klearchos prior to the Anabasis – the Spartan did in fact become tyrant of Byzantium, executing its magistrates, and ruling arbitrarily until expelled by an army from his own city (Diod. Sic. 14.12.2–4).

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became intimates with Cyrus, so Xenophon forms a close relationship with the Thracian king. Indeed, the Athenian goes beyond his predecessors – his relationship is based not merely on sympathy of values, but on a genuine attempt on Xenophon’s part to enter the values and customs of the Thracian court. The Thracian world is monarchic, but a far rougher kind of monarchy than that of elaborately stratified Persia. To a fifth-century Greek, it would have been strongly reminiscent of the world of Homeric epic, a “heroic” world where local kings throw elaborate banquets, flaunt their wealth, and fight endless petty wars.36 Xenophon shows consummate skill in integrating himself into this world. He first meets with Seuthes in private, drinking “in the Thracian fashion” (7.2.24), a meeting one scholar has described as occurring “under the sign of aristocratic intrigue”.37 Xenophon positions himself as able to speak for the army as a whole, giving the impression of being another monarch, able to serve as the sole representative of his community.38 Xenophon’s posture appears to work: Seuthes promises both the leaders and the troops of the Greeks rich rewards if they agree to follow him, and is ready both to give Xenophon land and marry him to one of his own daughters (7.2.38). Xenophon’s account of Seuthes’ banquet allows him to display further his own intercultural capacity. The Greeks are confronted here with what are to them strange activities. First, there is the practice of food-throwing (7.3.22–23): Seuthes first carried out a custom they had: taking up the bread that lay in front of him he broke it into little pieces and threw it to whomever he wished, and did likewise with the meat, so that he left only a taste for himself. The others before whom tables were set did likewise.

This activity may represent more than Thracian rowdiness. It can be seen as dramatising the king’s role as provider for his community, and the nobility’s partial sharing in that distributive function.39 While Xenophon does not explicitly say that he himself took part in this, the fact that he was one of those before whom a table was set (7.3.21) suggests that he may well have done. The sense that taking part would be the correct behaviour is borne out by the negative portrait of the one Greek who refuses. When the “terrible eater”, Arystas, refuses to give up any food and concentrates So Lane Fox 2004: 209, Sears 2013: 216–217. Azoulay 2004: 291–292. 38 So Nusbaum 1967: 64–66. 39 As a symbol for a broader distributive role, it would thus not simply be a paltry recompense by greedy rulers, as suggested by Testart and Bruneaux 2004: 169. 36 37

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on devouring every morsel set in front of him, he is mocked by Greeks and Thracians alike (7.2.24–25).40 In fifth-century literature, too deep a participation in monarchic mores could lead Greek citizens to become grotesque and laughable – consider the ambassadors in Acharnians, or Alkmaion in Herodotus. Here, however, it is the Greek who refuses to participate who is made to seem gluttonous and ridiculous. The next phase of the banquet brings a new challenge. As Xenophon had been warned by Seuthes’ Greek counsellor Herakleides (7.3.18), all the distinguished guests, including the Greek commanders, are expected to present the king with a costly gift. Thracian nobles arrive prepared, with horses, slaves, and precious goods (7.3.26–27). For the Greeks, however, who have arrived in Europe with little more than their arms and armour, this custom presents difficulties. One Athenian soldier responds to his predicament by calling the custom itself into question: while granting that it is acceptable for those who have wealth to give the king gifts, “to those who do not have the king should give”; then, he concludes, “I too will have something to give you and honour you with” (7.3.28). Such an approach is gauche, to say the least. For the Athenian to condemn Thracian custom and demand gifts from his host (who has, after all, already provided him a banquet) surely risks insulting the king. Xenophon, emboldened, he admits, by the wine, finds a more successful gambit (7.3.30): “I, Seuthes, give you myself and these my dear and faithful comrades; and I give none of them unwilling, but all are even more desirous than I of being your friends.” Xenophon’s “gift” is in fact illusory: he has already agreed to serve under Seuthes, and far from being freely given, the army’s services expect payment in return. But it is enough to satisfy court etiquette. It might be noted that, despite the coda emphasising their willingness, the fact that Xenophon presents the army as a gift once again positions him as something of a monarch himself, his followers “his” to do with as he wishes. Already, one can see striking differences between Xenophon and the original generals. Where Klearchos and his comrades continually viewed the Persians through Greek eyes, Xenophon makes a genuine effort to engage with the Thracian king on his own terms. He does not look down on Seuthes as simply greedy or uncouth, nor does he make the mistake of trying to force the king to conform with his own ideas of appropriate reciprocity. Instead, he quickly takes stock of his own situation, and figures out how he can align it with the values of the Thracian court. Where the generals’ inflexibility won them death, Xenophon’s adaptability secures Seuthes’ goodwill. The Thracian king initially enjoy a good working Contra Flower 2012: 106, who sees it merely as a humorous anecdote included to lighten the mood.

40

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relationship with the Greek army – Seuthes listens to Xenophon’s tactical advice (7.3.34–44) and the Greeks and Thracians together add a number of villages to Seuthes’ nascent kingdom (7.3.44–7.4.1). When this relationship is disrupted, it is not through the agency of either the Xenophon or the Thracian king, but through the machinations of Seuthes’ Greek advisor Herakleides.41 Herakleides is presented as very much in the mould of Menon: unscrupulous, self-interested, and greedy, attaching himself to a barbarian monarch in order to have more scope to gain wealth and commit injustice. Tasked with selling plunder to pay the troops, Herakleides comes up short, and claims that he could get no more (7.5.5). When Xenophon criticises this, Herakleides immediately sets about trying to undermine the Athenian’s standing with both Seuthes and the Greek army (7.6.5, 9; 7.6.2–7, 42). His tactics are to some degree successful: Xenophon finds himself caught between the soldiers, who accuse him of withholding their pay while receiving lavish treatment from Seuthes, and the king, who is annoyed by Xenophon’s constant requests for money that he believes Herakleides has already paid (7.5.7).

Educating Seuthes If Xenophon’s ability to enter a monarchic world helped him befriend Seuthes, in the crisis that follows it is his ability to suppress his own monarchic instincts that saves him. Xenophon has, in fact, made sure to keep his ambitions in check throughout his dealings with Seuthes. Like both Cyrus and Tissaphernes, Seuthes promises the Greeks who aid him rich rewards and a share in the management of his kingdom if they help him to victory (7.2.36–38). Xenophon, who may well have entertained such hopes when he joined Cyrus, might be expected to be tempted by this offer.42 Unlike Klearchos and the others, however, Xenophon does not let the promise of power, wealth, and association with a monarch overwhelm his judgement. In his first meeting with Seuthes, for all its “aristocratic intrigue”, Xenophon was careful to bring members of the army as witnesses that nothing improper or secret was occurring (7.2.29–30). By the same token, he takes care to put all of Seuthes’ proposals before an assembly of the army, to ensure that no one can claim he imposed the alliance with Seuthes upon them (7.3.14).43 Xenophon’s caution allows him to regain the goodwill of his troops when the dispute erupts. Like Klearchos, Xenophon is accused by his Pace Flower 2012: 104, who ignores Herakleides’ role and describes Seuthes himself as “ruthless, crafty, greedy and dishonest”. 42 See Ma 2004: 340, who credits Xenophon with a “dream of social stratification through interaction with a potentate”. 43 So Azoulay 2004: 292–293. 41

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troops of becoming too close to his monarchic employer, and benefiting himself at their expense. Unlike Klearchos, Xenophon does not meet this challenge with duplicity. Instead, he speaks before both Seuthes and the army, declaring his attempt to be loyal to both but ultimately siding with the Greek community he leads.44 Because Seuthes is present, Xenophon can call upon him to verify his statement that he has received nothing improper from the king (7.6.15–18); moreover, his presence guarantees that Xenophon cannot play the kind of tricks Klearchos did, saying one thing to the troops and another to his barbarian master. Xenophon’s refusal completely to yield his trust to Seuthes stands in contrast to the credulity with which the generals approached both Cyrus and Tissaphernes. Despite the Thracian king’s promises, Xenophon does not assume that perfect philia exists between them, but rather takes sensible precautions to protect his own reputation in case the king proves unfaithful. Nor, however, does Xenophon give up hope that he might be able to re-establish a relationship with Seuthes. Here, his intercultural awareness once again comes to his rescue. In the penultimate chapter of the Anabasis, Xenophon is sent to the Thracian king in a last-ditch effort to extract from him the soldiers’ still-unpaid wages. Upon arrival, Xenophon launches into a long and elaborate speech chiding the king for his ingratitude (7.7.21–47). Emphasising as it does reciprocity, philia, and mutual obligations, this speech has been described as “liberally sprinkled with good Greek morality”.45 This has led some to suggest that Xenophon is falling into the same trap as Klearchos, expecting a barbarian monarch to understand ideas and values that are utterly alien to him.46 I argue, however, that Xenophon presents himself as aware of this potential error. Where Klearchos simply assumed that Tissaphernes understood and respected Greek ideas of reciprocity and charis, Xenophon sets out to explain Greek civic concepts to the Thracian king. He opens the speech explicitly telling Seuthes that he has come to “teach” him (didaxōn, 7.7.21).47 In this speech, then, Xenophon no longer tries simply to adapt his discourse to Thracian values, but seeks to bring Seuthes around to seeing things as he and the other Greeks see them. Such an endeavour was seen as impossible in fifth-century depictions. Here, as in Hiero it is certainly presented as a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Over the course of the speech, Xenophon makes several different efforts to introduce the king to new perspectives and to get him to understand not only the current For detailed discussions of Xenophon’s apologia before the army, see Azoulay 2004 and Flower 2012: 150–167. 45 Mitchell 1997: 141. 46 Mitchell 1997: 140–141. 47 Noted by Rood 2004: 324. 44

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position of the Greeks, but also the ideas and assumptions that underlie their immediate feelings. Early in the speech, Xenophon explains to Seuthes that the army agreed to fight for him without a down-payment because they trusted his word: if he denies them now, that trust will be gone and Seuthes will have a far more difficult time recruiting aid in future (7.7.25–26). This statement encourages Seuthes to exercise his imagination and put himself in the Greeks’ position, perhaps moving him out of his Thracian comfort-zone to consider other values. Having urged Seuthes to consider that trustworthiness is his most important asset, he contrasts it with the 30 talents of silver that he owes the Greeks: So first and foremost, your trustworthiness, the very thing which achieved your kingdom for you, has been sold for this sum.

This unfavourable contrast of tangible with intangible wealth continues later in the speech. While for Herakleides only money has value, Xenophon tells Seuthes that he himself considers that “nothing is more becoming or distinguished in a man who leads than excellence (aretē), justice (dikaiosunē) and nobility (gennaiotēs)” (7.7.41). The man who possesses these is truly rich, Xenophon says, because he has friends and is able to attract still more (7.7.42). The language here is strikingly like that found in Hiero. Like Hieron, Seuthes is encouraged to think beyond the obvious hard power of military strength and wealth, and to consider that the soft power of reputation and friendship may be superior in achieving his goals. This vision of success through philia is familiar from much of Xenophon’s other works. In Hiero and Cyropedia, true friends were presented as essential to ensuring a ruler’s security; now, Xenophon seeks to impress this same principle on Seuthes, urging him not to lose the opportunity of keeping himself and the army as his friends. Xenophon also attempts to introduce Seuthes to Greek constitutional theory. He urges the king to understand that the territories he has conquered do not obey him out of friendship ( philia) but rather out of compulsion (anagkē), and that “they will try to become free again, unless some fear keeps them down” (7.7.29). While this might seem an obvious point, it is not clear that it is apparent to the Thracians. Shortly before this conversation, Seuthes’ deputy, Medosades, criticised the Greeks for plundering Seuthes’ new subjects because they were “friends” of the Thracian court (7.7.16). If Seuthes shared this romanticised view of his freshly conquered subjects, Xenophon has come to disabuse him. Seuthes rules over unwilling subjects and is thus, in Sokrates’ definition, a tyrant. As a tyrant, he requires a mercenary bodyguard to keep control, a bodyguard he is currently in the process of alienating (7.7.30).

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The conclusion of Xenophon’s speech sees him at his most openly didactic, as he lays out to Seuthes the fundamental moral principles that he believes the king has violated: I think that all human beings believe that one should show goodwill toward the person from whom one receives gifts. Before I came to serve you, you received me gladly, as was shown in your face and your speech and your tokens of hospitality, and in how you could not stop promising what you would do for me. But now that I have done what you wished and you have become as great as I could make you, do you dare to overlook my standing without honour among the soldiers? But I have faith that you will decide to hand over the pay, and that time will teach you, and you yourself will not be able to bear seeing those who gave you benefits accusing you. So I beg you, when you pay us, to be zealous to make me such a man before the soldiers as I was when you took me up.

Hearkening back to his promise at Seuthes’ banquet, Xenophon makes clear that the “gifts” in question were the Greek army’s assistance in securing the prince his own kingdom. These services, Xenophon says, create a reciprocal obligation on the king. Where Thracians gave gifts to the king in the hope of unspecified future benefits, Xenophon makes clear that he and his comrades expect specific and immediate recompense. Throughout this speech, Xenophon takes on a role comparable to that of Simonides in Hiero: a foreign wise man come to teach a monarch how to be the most effective ruler possible. Granted, the scope is much narrower. There is no expectation here that Seuthes will turn into a Greek civic prostatēs, ruling through benevolence and persuasion rather than by force – Seuthes remains a Thracian warlord whose power is won by the spear. Xenophon does seek, however, to make Seuthes see that his power depends partly on his ability to get and maintain the trust of others, and that this requires a greater degree of reciprocity than the Thracian perhaps anticipated. Xenophon’s strategy works. Seuthes appears ashamed of his former hostility to Xenophon, and, throwing all the blame on the now-absent Herakleides, he promises to pay the troops as much as he can (7.7.48–49, 53). He also renews his friendship with Xenophon, once more offering him property and land if he stays with him in Thrace (7.7.50). This Xenophon declines, but the two men part as friends.48 At 7.6.34, Xenophon told the troops that he befriended Seuthes because he hoped to find in Thrace “a 48 Xenophon’s stated reason for declining is that in his sacrifice to Zeus the omens were against it (7.6.44). Sears (2013: 115) suggests that Xenophon is in fact afraid that the soldiers would not tolerate the renewed relationship.

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fair refuge” for himself and his family. Having restored his friendship with Seuthes, Xenophon seems to have assured this. Xenophon leaves Thrace having secured the goodwill of both his Greek troops and the Thracian king. He has, then, managed to form a lasting relationship with a monarch without either permanently alienating his fellow Greeks, or giving himself over to the monarchic world. Finding such a balance is not easy: it requires flexibility, intelligence, self-control, and honesty. Menon, Proxenos, Klearchos, and Herakleides all stand as warnings of what happens if one fails. But, with enough skill, it can be done, and Xenophon has done it.

4. Conclusion Xenophon’s “practical” depiction of communication between citizen and monarch accords closely with the theoretical scenario presented in Hiero. In both works, Xenophon suggests that the man who wishes to communicate effectively with a monarch must cultivate his own monarchic qualities – desire for wealth, power, and self-aggrandisement. He must also, however, possess the self-knowledge and self-control necessary to keep these qualities from overwhelming him. The difference between a Simonides or Xenophon and a Menon or Herakleides lies in one of the key civic virtues in Xenophon’s thought: enkrateia. The successful communicator with tyrants must walk a knife-edge, giving his tyrannical urges sufficient rein to win the tyrant’s affection, but not giving in to them to the point that one fully identifies with the tyrant. Identification with the tyrant’s worldview is a necessary aspect of success in Xenophon’s thought, but it is no longer considered sufficient. More than any other ancient writer, Xenophon most closely anticipates modern ideas of intercultural communication. Like Simonides in Hiero, the Xenophon in the Anabasis emerges as the very model of an ancient interculturalist. His adaptability, willingness to respect others’ customs, intuitive understanding of cultural difference, and capacity to forge relationships mark him as what has been termed an “interculturally effective person”.49 Like modern interculturalists, Xenophon implies that individuals from different cultures and political systems will not necessarily view negotiations in the same light. To assume that everyone shares the same basic assumptions and values risks grossly misunderstanding one’s interlocutor, and, as in the case of Klearchos and his fellows, leaves one open to manipulation and betrayal. In his negotiations with Seuthes, Xenophon displays a more nuanced and 49 For a summary/checklist of the qualities embraced by this term, see Vulpe et al. 2001; for further discussion of the ideal intercultural negotiator, see Cohen 1997: 225–226, Kealey et al. 2004.

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flexible approach. He both takes the time to understand and to a certain degree embrace the customs and outlook of the Thracian court; at the same time, when the Thracian crosses what he considers a line within his own value system, he is careful to explain that system and explicitly present Seuthes with the concepts and ideals that shape the Greeks’ outlook.

Chapter 4

Isokrates Making Laws for Monarchs Isokrates: Making Laws for Monarchs

1. Introduction: Worthily of the City? Isokrates is one of the most valuable writers for this study. More than perhaps any other Classical Athenian writer, Isokrates engaged directly with a wide range of monarchic figures. From around 390 to his death in 338, Isokrates ran an exclusive school that, he said, aimed to teach its students critical thinking, moral clarity, and rhetorical skill. Charging high fees for its lessons, this institution attracted students from around the Greek world, among whom a high proportion seem to have been the children of rulers and leading politicians.1 Isokrates himself acknowledges that he is perceived in Athens as disproportionately having “politicians, generals, kings, and tyrants” among his students (Antid. 15.25); three centuries later, the Roman orator Cicero would remark archly that his school in Athens resembled the Trojan Horse: only rulers emerged from it.2 In addition to teaching royals at his school, Isokrates also took pains to reach out to foreign rulers to give them the benefit of his advice. The education of monarchs, he believed, was one of the most effective means of improving the world, as he writes to King Nikokles of Cypriot Salamis (To Nicocles 2.8): Those who educate private men help them only; but if one turns those who rule the masses toward virtue, one may benefit both those who hold power and those who are under them. To the former, one gives a more secure authority, to the latter, a milder constitution.

We have 11 texts in all in which Isokrates addresses monarchs. The longer works consist of three texts written to and for King Nikokles of Cypriot According to the anonymous Life of the Ten Orators, Isokrates charged a tuition of a thousand drachmas, one drachma being the daily wage in the Athenian navy ([Plut.] X orat. 4). 2 Cic. De or. 2.22: ‘tamquam ex equo Troiano meri principes exierunt’. 1

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Salamis (To Nicocles, Nicocles, and Evagoras), and a long speech addressed to Philip II of Macedon. In addition, we have seven letters to various contemporary rulers: in addition to two more messages to Philip, Isokrates wrote letters to Philip’s son Alexander and his viceroy Antipatros, as well as to the rulers of Thessaly, Syracuse, and Heraklea Pontikē.3 What Isokrates’ writings reveal is a subtle and novel approach to the education of monarchs. Like Xenophon, Isokrates sees it as both possible and desirable to communicate civic values to monarchs. Throughout his speeches and letters, he employs a range of tactics and approaches to achieve this, always (he claims) with one goal in mind: to make monarchs more benevolent and their subjects happier. My investigation is aided by a recent revolution in the study of Isokrates. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Isokrates was regarded as little more than a jumped-up speech-writer with pretensions to philosophy, an almost comically weak foil to the true philosopher, Plato.4 It was only as a teacher of rhetoric that Isokrates was allowed any value; and even here, he was apt to be seen as eclipsed by Aristotle’s more systematic analysis.5 Since the mid-1990s, however, there has been a surge of interest in Isokrates as a political thinker, among both classicists and scholars of rhetoric and communication.6 Interest in Isokrates has, in part, been rekindled by the rise of post-structuralism and a growing awareness of the importance of language in constituting and altering social relations.7 Isokrates himself always emphasises the role of rational speech – logos, in his terminology – as the generator of culture and society, so it was natural that those interested in such issues would gravitate toward him.8 The Isokrates that emerges from recent studies is far from a dull speech-writer. He comes across instead as a sophisticated, if not entirely systematic, thinker, with unique and incisive ideas about the role of speech and authority within the political context. In this chapter, I will build on 3 The authenticity of some or indeed all of Isokrates’ letters has at times been questioned; unlike Plato’s letters, the scholarly consensus has generally swung decisively in favour of their genuineness. See Mathieu and Brémond 1928: 163–183, Smith 1940, Garnjobst 2006: 2–5. This said, I acknowledge that controversy does still exist to some degree, and I have made sure that no part of my arguments hangs exclusively on the evidence of these letters. 4 See, for example, de Romilly 1958. For a concise history of the reception of Isokrates, see Poulakos 2004: 1–2. 5 See Haskins 2004: 1–2. 6 Classicists: Usher 1994, Too 1995, Michelini 1998, Morgan 2003b; communications scholars: Poulakos 1997, Haskins 2004, Livingstone 1998, 2007. 7 See Chase 2009: 239–242. 8 On logos in Isokrates, see Nic. 5–9, Poulakos 1997: 17–22; the issue will be discussed further below.

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these insights to examine specifically Isokrates’ views of speech between political contexts – specifically, between that of his own polis, the troubled but still-vibrant Athenian democracy, and the absolute monarchs with whom he so frequently corresponds.

Isokrates’ Polis Toward the end of his life, Isokrates composed a long speech responding to what he perceived as unjustified hostility on the part of his fellow citizens. This speech, the Antidosis, is presented in the form of the defencespeech in a fictional criminal trial, in which Isokrates, like Sokrates before him, answers the charges of corrupting the youth and undermining the democracy. Among the reasons for the hostility he has incurred, Isokrates alleges, were his friendships with monarchs, particularly with the Cypriot king Nikokles. This resentment did not focus solely on the financial rewards Isokrates received from this monarch (15.40); there was a feeling, it seems, that serving as counsellor to an autocrat was inappropriate for an Athenian citizen. To counter this attitude Isokrates quotes, in his Antidosis, a portion of his advice to Nikokles, to show that he spoke to the young king “freely, and worthily of our city, not courting his wealth or power, but defending his subjects, and providing them, as far as I was able, with the mildest constitution possible” (15.70). Isokrates’ statement that he spoke “worthily of our city” implies that he spoke as an Athenian citizen, and communicated civic, perhaps even democratic values to the young king. A first reading of his writings for Nikokles might suggest that his statement is not only inaccurate, but an outright lie. Though Isokrates does at times advise that Nikokles rule benevolently (2.15–16), his rule is to remain a benevolent despotism. Nowhere does Isokrates advise the king to share power with any other person or organ, or to establish laws that would limit his own power. The Nikokles, written in the voice of the king, is apparently even more harmful to Isokrates’ claim. Though he briefly repeats some of its contents (15.253–257), Isokrates does not mention the text itself in his defence. It is easy to see why: its contents, at face value, would not have helped prove Isokrates a champion of democracy.9 In the Nicocles, ostensibly to be delivered by the king to the people of Salamis, his subjects are exhorted to obey their monarch without question (3.48), to accept the present order without complaint (3.53–55), to guard the ruler’s life as their own (3.49) and to believe that the king knows all they do, in public or in private, and will punish any violation of his will (3.51). Such works have led to the general perception of the writer as hostile to democracy, initially promoting oligarchy at home, and ultimately rejecting the polis entirely in favour of 9

So Baynes 1947: 151.

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a panhellenic monarchy under Philip II of Macedon.10 Isokrates has even been regarded as a proto-fascist. One critic, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, saw in his works an uncomfortable echo of the “totalitarian” regimes so recently defeated.11 More recently, Victor Vitanza has accused Isokrates of promoting a racially supremacist vision of Greekness and a view of politics characterised by Führerprinzip.12 It is certainly true that Isokrates is critical of aspects of his contemporary democracy. In several speeches, he argues that fourth-century democracy gave excessive power to ignorant demagogues, while allowing no way for men of true talent to rise to power (7.15–16, 8.14 12.52–53). Isokrates himself realises that such a view could be branded oligarchic, and is keen to disavow the label (7.58–70). What he aims at, he says, is true, pure democracy, as practised in Athens’ glory days under Solon and Kleisthenes (7.16–18). And indeed, in all his works, Isokrates never expressly condemns democracy as an institution, however much he may criticise its contemporary practices. The sincerity of Isokrates’ protestations of loyalty to democracy is certainly up for debate.13 Whether oligarchic or democratic, however, Isokrates clearly does have a coherent view of what the Athenian polis is and should be. Crucial to understanding Isokrates’ political views is his view of civic identity. Like Xenophon, he focusses on individual character and personal conduct as defining aspects of the good civic life, as opposed to institutions or civic practices. This redefinition can most clearly be seen in Isokrates’ idealised visions of Athens’ past. As Azoulay points out, when praising the Athenians’ ancestors in the Panegyricus, Panathenaicus, and Areopagiticus, Isokrates emphasises the “daily habits” (epitēdeumata) of the ancient Athenians over their political structure or legal framework (4.77–78,7.39–40, 12.144).14 Their Athenianness was not a legal status, but was an aspect of their “character” (ēthos). This character, Isokrates suggests, has remained consistent through much of Athenian history. The transition from monarchy to republic after the death of Theseus, for example, was effected seamlessly because the Athenians chose magistrates whose ēthos resembled that of the previous kings.15 The importance of character over law is emphasised in Isokrates’ pamphlet on political reform, the Areopagiticus. While this text does advocate Jaeger 1943: 153–154, Heilbrunn 1975: 157, 161–162, Michelini 1998: 115–116, Morgan 2003b: 188. 11 Baynes 1947: 150–151. 12 Vitanza 1997: 140. 13 Markle 1976: 98 and Michelini 1998: 116 both see Isokrates as a crypto-oligarch. Haskins 2004: 91 and Ober 1998: 298 take Isokrates more at face value. 14 Azoulay 2006: 137–138. 15 Azoulay 2006: 141. 10

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institutional changes, such as the reinstatement of election for office instead of sortition (7.26–28), and a strengthening of the power of the council of ex-magistrates known as the Areopagos (7.37–40), these are not the issues on which it focusses the most attention. Far more important for Isokrates is the need to instil in Athenian youth the right kind of character, the character that their ancestors possessed but of which contemporary Athens has lost sight. In describing an idealised ancestral Athens, Isokrates focusses on the exemplary character of its inhabitants and their honesty in interpersonal dealings much more than their laws and institutions (4.31–36, 40–42). In ancestral Athens, he says, little value was set on formal legislation; instead, he says, they believed (41): Those who are well-governed should not fill their colonnades with statutes, but keep justice in their souls. For cities are not well-governed by decrees, but by characters.

Key here is the term translated as “well-governed”: politeuomenos. This could be translated as a passive form, “being governed”, making the Athenians the objects of government; but it can more fruitfully be read as the middle, reflexive form “they governed themselves”. The ancestral Athenians governed themselves, both collectively, as a polis community, but also individually, restraining themselves through their own virtue and not through the imposition of external laws.16 Given that Isokrates elsewhere uses the verb politeuō to represent the sort of active political role that he himself eschews (5.81, 12.11), there is something paradoxical in Isokrates’ usage. The ancient Athenians, he says, acted politically by not acting politically, but by cultivating their personal virtues. At times Isokrates even seems to suggest that they had so refined their characters and behaved so well to each other that they scarcely needed government: many of the citizens, he says, never even bothered to come into the city-centre of Athens, site of its political institutions, at all (52).

Isokratean Education If civic virtue is rooted in cultivation of personal character, then education becomes of crucial importance.17 But what sort of education? Isokrates is deeply concerned to warn students away from unprofitable models. In two of his speeches, Against the Sophists and the Antidosis, Isokrates damns most of contemporary education as useless, if not actually damaging. He has little time for scientific or technical education, or for hair-splitting “eristics” (13.1, 15.268), seen by many as a jab at the dialectics practised by Plato and his 16 17

So Haskins 2004: 94. Azoulay 2006: 142.

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students in the Academy.18 Such studies might, Isokrates grants, be useful as “mental gymnastics”, making the mind flexible and receptive, but they are not in themselves a true education. Proper education, the sort Isokrates himself provides, he identifies as “philosophy”.19 For Isokrates, this means first and foremost the study of proper speech and thought – in his terms, of logos. The purpose of learning to speak and reason is not to win court cases or persuade the Athenian assembly – Isokrates repeatedly dismisses such ambitions as sordid and petty (12.9–12, 7.2–3).20 Rather, the study of logos is the key to a fuller understanding of oneself and of human society. Logos, according to Isokrates, is the constitutive principle of all human communities; in his speech written for Nikokles he puts in the king’s mouth a long paean to logos, which he repeats in part in the Antidosis (7.253–257). Logos, Isokrates says, was what first enabled humans to come together in community (3.6). It is the means by which both individuals and communities decide on what is right and wrong, what is noble or shameful; in short, it is the basis of all law, order and morality (3.8–9).21 If logos is the central principle of society, then only the man who studies logos can truly play a proper part in his society. A training in the philosophy of logos, Isokrates affirms, is essential for those who would “nobly manage their private homes and the common concerns of the polis” (15.285).22 In both the Areopagiticus (15.283–285) and Antidosis (7.20), Isokrates asserts that Athens’ current troubles stem in large part from the fact that citizens have ceased to respect logos but have perverted and distorted language in order to advance an agenda of hedonism and selfish will-to-power.23 Noble words are twisted into masks for ignoble actions (15.20) – licentiousness (akolasia) is called “democracy”, and lawlessness (anomia) trumpeted as “liberty” (eleutheria). The selfish and self-destructive behaviour of contemporary Athenian youth (save those who have undergone Isokrates’ programme) is evidence of the deleterious effects of the neglect of education in proper respect for logos (7.7.48–49, 15.286–287). Isokrates’ vision of civic virtue is thus very close to Xenophon’s. Neither defines good citizenship as participation in civic institutions and Jaeger 1943: 147–148; Haskins 2004: 42. For more detailed exploration of Isokrates’ concept of philosophia, see Livingstone 2007. 20 See Poulakos 1997: 66–67, Morgan 2003b: 133. 21 On Isokrates’ view of logos, see Jaeger 1943: 90, Poulakos 1997: 9–25. 22 On the civilising function of rhetorical education in Isokrates, see Jaeger 1943: 90, Poulakos 1997: 54–55, Poulakos 2004: 74–78. This emphasis on the political function of Isokratean education makes puzzling Heilbrunn’s assertion (1975: 161) that Isokrates’ logos is “alien to citizen perspective and allegiance”. 23 Too 1995: 112–114. 18

19

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practices. Isokrates seems to imply that the best citizens in fact avoid too much involvement in the day-to-day conflicts of the democracy. Instead, for both Xenophon and Isokrates, good citizenship consists of the cultivation of virtuous personal qualities that make one able to benefit one’s friends, neighbours, and fellow citizens. For Xenophon, this self-refinement is expressed as becoming a kalos kagathos and pursuing a life of self-control, friendship, and principled leadership; for Isokrates, civic virtue consists of thoroughly understanding the logos that constitutes human society, and applying this knowledge to one’s relationships with others. This does not, however, mean that the polis is irrelevant to the good life. In several works, Isokrates is careful to emphasise that this cultivation of logos is intrinsically bound up with living in a pluralistic city-state – indeed, that it originates and finds its highest expression in the polis of Athens.

Isokrates’ Athens Near the end of the Antidosis, Isokrates warns the Athenians that in devaluing speech they ultimately reject their own heritage. The greatest glory of Athens lies not in her military strength, nor her good government, nor her preservation of ancestral law, but “in being better educated in thought and speech than others” (15.294). Similar sentiments are expressed in the Panegyricus: Athens values philosophy more than any other city (46–50), to the point that, as Thucydides had Perikles boast in the previous century, she has become the education of all Hellas (50). Isokrates goes still further in defining Athens as first and foremost a city of logos. Going through the great political leaders of Athens’ past – Solon, Kleisthenes, Themistokles, Perikles – he identifies them all as “orators” (rhētores), and thus “men who did not neglect logoi” (235). These men were popularly regarded as not merely great statesmen, but as the figures who created and perfected the democratic constitution. By invoking these figures, Isokrates appropriates democracy itself for his logos-centred outlook: democracy becomes a product of the application of logos by men who understand it thoroughly. To be an ideal Athenian citizen, then, means living up to Athens’ heritage of logos. Citizenship does not consist simply of obeying the city’s laws, or participating in the democracy, but of learning to respect and use logos, the principle that lies at the heart of Athens’ politeia, wisely.24 This redefinition of Athenian identity has major consequences for Isokrates’ own position. If the essence of Athens is logos, then the people who most deserve to be called its citizens, the true successors to her greatest 24 Too 1995: 118–119. Chase (2009: 249–252) argues that Isokrates sees logos ultimately as a gift from the gods; this certainly would tie into his view of the archaic Athenians, devoted as they were to logos, as the most pious of mortals (12.124).

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leaders, are not the politicians and generals of today, most of whom have failed to use logos with respect and honesty. Rather, it is men like Isokrates, who developed their knowledge of logos to the greatest degree, who most deserve to be called citizens of Athens and heirs to her golden age.25 This self-definition is partly aimed at Isokrates’ immediate goal in the Antidosis of clearing himself of the accusation of disloyalty to Athens, painting him instead as the very embodiment of the Athenian spirit. It also, however, applies beyond this single speech, or indeed any of his domestic political works. It has particularly important implications for the interpretation of his letters to monarchs. If Isokrates is the most Athenian of Athenians, how could he possibly speak to a king in any way but worthily of that city? His communications with rulers suggest that this is indeed the case: the values of citizenship that Isokrates applied to Athens are indeed replicated in his advice to kings.

2. Citizen-kings To Nicocles: Learning to Rule with Logos To Nicocles, Isokrates’ letter of advice to the Cypriot king, begins with a strong statement that Isokrates’ advice will be rooted in polis values. Inhabitants of poleis, Isokrates explains to the king, have a much easier time developing virtue than monarchs (2.2–3): For there are many things that educate private men (idiōtas) – most of all that they are not surrounded by luxury, but are compelled to deliberate about their livelihood every day; then there are the laws under which each happens to be governed, and in addition there is parrhēsia, and the ability of friends to criticize openly and enemies to attack each other’s faults.

The advantages to civic life that Isokrates lists are rooted in deliberation and speech – civic virtue, Isokrates reaffirms, is the result of the proper application of logos. The final point, parrhēsia is a significant concept in Isokrates and in fourth-century thought more generally. Like isēgoria, parrhēsia describes how one ought to speak in a polis, particularly in a democratic one. However, where isēgoria conceives of the polis as a community of equals, where everyone speaks frankly and easily to one another, parrhēsia rather views communication as taking place across at least a potential power imbalance. Parrhēsia describes how a less powerful individual speaks to a more powerful person or group. A passage from Demosthenes’ fourth Philippic Oration serves as a good summary of what Athenians saw as the primary qualities of parrhēsia (Dem. 10.76): 25

So Livingstone 2007: 29.

Isokrates: Making Laws for Monarchs 125 This is the truth, told with complete parrhesia, the best advice spoken simply and with good intention. It is not flattery, a speech drenched in harm and deceit, aimed at enriching the speaker while putting the state into the enemy’s hands.

Three primary characteristics stand out here.26 First, Demosthenes emphasises that his advice is the truth. To be parrhēsia, a statement must be true – or at least sincerely believed to be true by the speaker. Secondly, Demosthenes says that his speech is delivered “with good intention”. Parrhēsia aims at the improvement of its hearer. Simple abuse, even if sincerely believed, is not parrhēsia. Parrhēsia is thus, as here, often presented as the antithesis of flattery, which tells pleasing untruths for the advantage of the speaker, not the hearer.27 A final aspect of parrhēsia not explicitly covered in this speech is that the practice involves an element of risk.28 Since parrhēsia is conceived of as taking place across a power differential, the less powerful party is vulnerable if they speak the unvarnished truth. On a personal level, one risks the anger of the individual to whom one tells it, while in political life the parrhēsiastes may be shouted down, laughed at, or even prosecuted.29 To speak one’s mind despite these risks demands courage, and democratic discourse at times equates the courage of the parrhēsiastes with that of the warrior in battle, standing his ground despite great danger.30 In Athens, parrhēsia generally (but not exclusively) describes how individual citizens communicate with the Athenian people as a whole. The sovereign dēmos enjoyed considerable power over its individual members, comparable to the power of a monarch over his subjects. Athenian orators thus tended to portray themselves as engaging in parrhēsia, speaking truth to the power and risking the displeasure of the majority in order to do them good.31 Because it exists across differences in status, parrhēsia can function in a non-democratic context. While isēgoria required an equal community to In what follows I am largely following the definition of French philosopher Michel Foucault, given in a series of lectures given at Berkely in the 1980s (Foucault 1983). See, in addition, particularly Monoson 1994, Henderson 1998, Saxonhouse 2006, and the essays collected in Sluiter and Rosen 2004. 27 Roisman 2004: 269. 28 Foucault 1983: 5. 29 This element of risk separates parrhēsia from modern conceptions of free speech, which envision an individual being protected from at least some of the consequences of their speech – see Carter 2004 for discussion of this difference. 30 Balot 2004: 246–253. See, for example, Demosthenes on the Chersonese 8.68–69. 31 See, for example, Dem. 10.76. The stance of helpful parrhēsiastes was a powerful one in Athenian politics – see Roisman 2004: 268–275 for how claims of parrhēsia serve as a potent weapon in political discourse. 26

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function, parrhēsia requires only individuals courageous enough to risk the danger that their speech implies. Nonetheless, as we have seen Isokrates states that parrhēsia is more easily developed in a collective polis than in a monarchy. True, in political assemblies the Athenian dēmos may not always accept parrhēsia when it should – both Isokrates and Athenian democratic politicians agree on this fault.32 Nevertheless, Isokrates makes clear that even when Athenians fail to honour parrhēsia collectively, they continue to practise it individually, criticising friends and enemies alike regardless of their status.33 As we have seen, individual practice is, in Isokrates, the primary locus of good citizenship; thus whether or not the Athenians in assembly listen to honest advice, enough people do so in private life that it remains an important component of Athenian identity. One place where parrhēsia does not grow naturally is in the court of an absolute monarch. As in Herodotus, Isokrates depicts a royal court as a hotbed of flattery and dishonesty (2.4): For tyrants, none of this exists. Rather, they, who more than anyone else should be educated, go through life without critique from the moment they take power. Most people do not wish to come near them, and those who do associate with them do so for the sake of favour.

Where citizens enjoy the benefit of parrhēsia in their daily lives, ensuring that friends and foes alike serve as sources of education, monarchs are isolated and associate only with those who seek to get something out of them. Honest, helpful, and courageous speech are thus largely unknown in a monarchic court. The result is that, bereft of good advice, monarchs tend to make “ignoble” (ou kalōs) use of their vast wealth and power. Perhaps echoing Otanes’ statement that “even the best of mortals” would be perverted by absolute power, Isokrates states that many monarchs end up “compelled to wrong those closest to them” (2.5). Every monarch, the implication seems to be, risks sliding into tyrannical and abusive rule.34 Monarchs thus need someone to employ parrhēsia and frankly tell them where they are going wrong. That person must also communicate to the monarch the values that one learns automatically by living as an ordinary See Isoc. 8.14, Dem. 9.3. On the challenges and tensions involved in Athenian parrhēsia, see Landauer 2019 ch. 5. 33 Demosthenes makes the same contrast between Athenians’ private practice of parrhēsia and their public reluctance to respect it (Dem. 9.3): You think you ought to make parrhēsia universal for everyone in the city, so that foreigners and slaves have a share in it, and one sees many of our domestic servants having more capacity to say what they wish than citizens in certain other states; but from your public debates you have completely expelled it. 34 See also L6 12, L7 4, 8.91. 32

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inhabitant of a polis. None of the ruler’s courtiers can be counted on to do this – fear and ambition constrain them to say only what they hope will please their ruler; having grown up in a monarchic environment themselves, they may not even know the kinds of civic virtues that the ruler needs. It therefore requires an outsider to speak to a monarch and give him the frank advice he needs. For Nikokles, Isokrates will be that outsider. He will fearlessly communicate to the king the values of the polis, as he understands them. Throughout the speech Isokrates’ advice to Nikokles echoes the principles he laid down for the Athenians. His first advice to the king is to cultivate himself, to become more intelligent ( phronimōteron) than all his subjects, drawing on the wisest men of the past and present (10–13). Isokrates goes so far as to suggest that it is only by educating himself that Nikokles can make his rule truly legitimate: “consider that it is a terrible thing for the worse to rule the better, and the more thoughtless to rule the more intelligent” (2.14). Just as education was the key to true citizenship in Athens, here it is presented as the key to true kingship. Nikokles’ title to rule is thus depicted as depending not on his descent or military strength, but on his personal merits. The echoes of Isokrates’ domestic teaching continue a few chapters later. Isokrates tells Nikokles to practise speaking and deliberating about noble subjects, and to avoid ruining his judgement with pointless eristics (38–39). Again, this harmonises exactly with Isokrates’ teachings in the Antidosis, that eristics are at best preparatory exercises and have nothing to do with moulding a good citizen.35 The critical skills that Nikokles is urged to develop are to be directed to the examination of kingship itself: “one must investigate what the work of kings is” by establishing the general principal that can then be applied to specific cases (9). Just as Isokrates taught his Athenian students to apply their understanding of logos to their social and political lives, so he encourages Nikokles to do the same for his royal authority, establishing it on a rational and coherent foundation. Nikokles, then, receives largely the same education as the polis citizens who studied under Isokrates. Its effects go beyond simply making him more wise, just, and self-controlled (17, 21, 29–35): having received what Isokrates has called the best education for a democratic citizen, Nikokles will himself become more democratic. Isokrates urges that the young king “be a good demagogue” (kalōs dēmagōgeis, 16). The term “demagogue” (dēmagōgēs) is deeply rooted in an Athenian and democratic context. In many ways a more pejorative synonym of prostatēs, the word describes a man who had no institutional authority but rather led by persuading the people that his 35

Usher 1994: 212.

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policies were most likely to serve their interests. Isokrates’ application of the term to the king implies that Nikokles too is expected to govern more by reliance on his knowledge and speech than on his de jure power.36 What is more, a demagogue’s power depended on the willing obedience of the masses, a fact that Isokrates highlights in introducing the concept: “even among oligarchies, as well as all other constitutions, those that endure the longest time are those that best serve (therapeuōsin) the masses” (2.16). In the Areopagiticus, Isokrates depicted elite politicians as the servants of the sovereign dēmos (26). Here, the use of the therapeuein, with its overtones of servility and paying court, suggests that Nikokles will serve the same function for his own people. It remains true that, apart from a vague injunction to “change and alter those statutes and customs which are not well instituted” (17), Isokrates does not advise that Nikokles institute any institutional reforms to entrench his position as a responsible ruler. This proves, however, to be perfectly in line with Isokrates’ general devaluation of political structure in favour of the character and education of the leadership.37 As in Hiero, the path to reforming a monarchy is envisioned not as changing laws and institutions, but in transforming the character and outlook of the monarch. The way to secure good government, for Salamis, does not lie in political reform, but in ensuring that Nikokles is trained in the values of the polis.

Nicocles: Portrait of the Ideal Ruler Nicocles, Isokrates’ other composition for the Cypriot king, appears at first sight to move away from collective politics, presenting a justification for unquestioned obedience to an absolute monarch. On closer examination however, one can find a great deal in it that continues Nikokles’ assimilation to a civic, even democratic, leader. The first thing to consider is the work’s audience. It is ostensibly a speech to be delivered by the king in order to secure his subjects’ obedience (3.11). This seems, however, an odd motivation for its composition. It seems implausible that the Cypriots, ruled by kings for many centuries, would need to be convinced – by an outsider no less – to continue accepting their monarchy.38 It seems more plausible to see the letter, like its companion, as directed at least partly at the king himself.39 By putting words in Nikokles’ mouth, Isokrates can model for him 36 See Morgan 2003b: 202. The term is, of course, frequently a term of abuse, and Isokrates takes care to soften these associations by specifying that Nikokles will lead the people “nobly”. 37 Azoulay 2006: 142. 38 On the origins and history of Cypriot kingship, see Zournatzi 1996. 39 In addition, one must remember that, as Isokrates’ works seem to have been published in his lifetime, the wider Greek public also constitutes his audience (15.69).

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the sort of king he should aspire to be. Once again, that turns out to be a very citizen-like king, one who bases his leadership on rational persuasion and whose authority ultimately rests on the consent of the dēmos. The very existence of a speech in which a monarch justifies his authority to the people introduces an element of civic values. Nikokles is not shown assuming that obedience is naturally his, but as accepting that it needs to be given as a result of persuasion. There is certainly no indication that Nikokles’ power is ultimately dependant on the people’s will – he says only that he is explaining it so that their obedience will be more willing (11) – but the fact that he sees it as necessary to persuade them to this rather than simply taking it for granted shows that he takes his people seriously as a force in their own right.40 The speech opens with what has been described as a “hymn to logos” emphasising the central role of speech in society and defending its study against those who see it as pointless or sinister (1–9). Scholars have tended to abstract this section from its context, reading it as Isokrates’ own credo, which, for unknown reasons, he has chosen to put in the mouth of a Cypriot king.41 The fact that Isokrates repeats much of the speech in the Antidosis certainly shows that he does see it as universally applicable. Nevertheless, its presence at the opening of Nikokles’ speech surely implies that it also has relevance for that speech, whatever its more general application. In the hymn to logos, Nikokles indicates a specific view of society as communitarian and non-autocratic. Logos is depicted as a unifying principle of society (6): Because there exists in us the capacity to persuade each other and make clear to each other what we are thinking about, not only have we been delivered from the life of beasts, but we have come together and founded states, established laws and discovered arts.

Society is here depicted as a voluntary and rational association, created collectively by its members through the mediation of logos.42 In the context of the speech, this has serious implications for the role of monarchy. Unquestioning obedience to an absolute monarch is not presented as the Reading the Cyprian orations, elite citizens throughout Greece could apply the lessons on leadership they contain to their own contexts, and learn the correct way to think and speak about such matters; see Poulakos 1997: 27; Morgan 2003b: 192–193; Konstan 2004: 120. 40 Haskins 2004: 127–128, Konstan 2004: 118–119. 41 For example, Poulakos 1997: 11–25, Haskins 2004: 87–90. 42 So Poulakos 1997: 16–17, who points out that the verb sunerchesthai implies deliberate coming together, as opposed to the sunathroisesthai – “to be gathered together” – used by Plato’s Protagoras in a comparable speech. See also Jaeger 1943: 90–91.

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natural form of society, and needs to be justified if it is to be accepted. By beginning with an invocation of logos, Nikokles indicates that he intends to reign in accordance with logos. His acts as king will not be arbitrary or whimsical, but will all be defensible in terms of rational discourse.43 In the next section of the speech, Nikokles proceeds to do this. He explicitly tells his subjects they should not accept monarchy simply because the monarch holds de facto power over them, or even because it is their traditional form of government, but only if it can be rationally demonstrated that it is the best constitution they could be under (12). The arguments he raises all draw on familiar Isokratean principles. Monarchy has the best potential to appoint the virtuous to office (15, 21), it allows the greatest scope for the ruler to learn how to rule (18), and it gives him space to deliberate, free from the animosity and chaos of a democratic assembly (19–21). Monarchy is praiseworthy insofar as it promotes merit, education, and deliberation – all the qualities Isokrates encouraged the Athenians to adopt in their own constitution. Monarchy is tested, and found acceptable, in accordance with the principles by which any polis ought to be run. Fundamentally, monarchy is presented not as an absolute and arbitrary possession, but as a political office instituted for the good of the city. Even democratic and oligarchic poleis, Isokrates points out, find a use for sole leaders in certain, primarily military, spheres (24). Finally, Nikokles argues why he particularly should be accepted as Salamis’ monarch. Once again, the implication is that in order to reign legitimately, he must deserve the throne.44 Poulakos perceptively notes that the arguments Nikokles makes to support his claim centre on his personal qualities and his interpersonal relations, the same qualities that marked the ancient Athenian politeia.45 In Isokrates’ speech in praise of Nikokles’ late father, Euagoras, the Athenian had focussed on his military exploits and his great works in Salamis. In Nicocles, he focusses instead on the ruler’s “temperance and justice” (tēn te sōphrosunēn kai tēn dikaiosunēn, 29), personal virtues shared by monarchs and citizens alike. Isokrates has Nikokles state that he has remained faithful to his wife and avoided outraging other men’s wives (36–37), preserved harmony both in his household and the city (41–42), and dealt with public money honestly (31–33). All these points match the conduct that one would expect of a private citizen or polis magistrate – royal virtue and civic virtue emerge as the same.46 Once again, then, the absolute ruler of a Cypriot kingdom is assimilated to the responsible leader of a Greek polis. 43 44 45 46

Chase 2009: 253. Poulakos 1997: 27. Poulakos 1997: 28–31. Poulakos 1997: 28.

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This is not to say that Nikokles ceases to be an autocrat. In the final section of his speech he does indeed demand complete obedience from his subjects. But these injunctions lose some of their harshness considering what has come before. The people are not to obey Nikokles out of fear or out of superstitious reverence for monarchy, but because he has persuaded them of his fitness to rule. Only after he has proved, through rational argument, that he should be obeyed can the king demand obedience. In the Nicocles, Isokrates effects a kind of political transubstantiation: Salamis remains in form an absolute monarchy, but because its king has been educated in citizenship, in its essence it is civic, even perhaps democratic. Having been taught citizen values by Isokrates, the king legitimises his rule by demonstrating to his citizens that he has absorbed those values.47 Isokrates’ advice in these two works for Nikokles strongly evokes Simonides’ counsel at the end of Hiero. In both cases, the citizen-advisor focusses his advice on changing the monarch’s relationship with his people, while largely avoiding any specific discussions about laws or institutions. The ruler is encouraged to cultivate his people’s goodwill, exchanging compelled obedience out of fear for willing obedience born of admiration and respect. Each monarch is invited to see his authority through a civic lens, considering himself not as an unaccountable sovereign but as a popularly endorsed leader – a prostatēs, archōn, or demagogue. This transformation, in both cases, is achieved through instructing the monarch in civic values, the same attitudes and practices that make someone a good citizen of a polis. Xenophon and Isokrates thus seem to share the same basic sense of the possibilities inherent in the education of monarchs. Both men endorse a highly personalised vision of civic virtue, which can be abstracted from the polis-context that spawned it and transplanted into a very different political and social system. When done successfully, this transplantation results in benefits all around – the ruler reigns more happily and securely, his subjects enjoy a freer and more benevolent rule, and the citizen-counsellor proves himself the firm friend and confidante of the monarch.

A Universal Programme Isokrates’ speeches, for Nikokles, form the largest and most developed examples of his education of monarchs His communications with other monarchs, however, can be found to contain principles like those found in his speeches for Nikokles. In his letter to Timotheus, ruler of Heraklea Pontikē, Isokrates advises the young tyrant to “seek and philosophise” 47 Too 1995: 90 suggests that the fact that the tone of Nicocles is so like that of Isokrates is meant to suggest that the king has fully assimilated his master’s teachings and viewpoint.

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(zētein kai philosophein, L7.3) concerning the best way to make his people happy. As a model, Isokrates recommends he imitate Kleommis, ruler of Mytilene: so confident is that monarch in his rule that he permits his citizens to bear arms, believing that “it is more profitable for him to die while displaying his virtue toward his citizens rather than to live a longer time responsible for the greatest evil against his city”. Kleommis implicitly places his rule in the hands of his subjects: by arming them, he indicates that he is prepared to rule them only as long as they wish him to. Isokrates, then, urges Timotheus to view his rule as depending on his people’s goodwill, just as he has Nikokles take his case to the Salaminians in order to legitimate his rule. Isokrates’ letter to the children of Jason of Pherai, the assassinated ruler of Thessaly, is quite similar. Once again, the new rulers are urged to apply a logical analysis to their authority and ensure that it is founded on rational and defensible principles (9), a process he explicitly says is the one that he teaches all his students (8). This letter also contains Isokrates’ most explicit statement to a monarch in defence of civic values (L6.11): To me the more preferable and happier life seems to be that of those who live privately rather than those who are tyrants, and I believe the honours enjoyed in constitutional states more pleasant than those in monarchies.

As at the beginning of To Nicocles, Isokrates sets up a situation in which monarchs must learn from the collectively ruled polis if they wish to rule virtuously and effectively. In his letter to Prince Alexander of Macedon, Isokrates continues his emphasis on civic education as essential for future rulers. Like both Nikokles and Isokrates’ citizen-students in the Antidosis, Alexander is urged to reject eristics as unhelpful for political life (3).48 Instead, Isokrates rejoices that the prince prefers to pursue “education focussed on logos”, the discipline that best allows for deliberation “on public affairs” (L5.4). Yet again, Isokrates emphasises the centrality of logos and its importance for political life. The assimilation of monarch to the democratic leader that occurred in To Nicocles also recurs in compressed form in the letter: Alexander is told he is wise to avoid eristics as fitting neither “for the leaders of the masses nor for those who hold monarchic power” (L5 4).

This injunction has been read as part of a struggle between Isokrates’ school and the Platonic Academy over which institution would be charged with Alexander’s education, a struggle that, depending on the date of the letter, the Academy was either about to win or had just won. On the dating of the letter, see Mathieu and Brémond (1928: 177), Garnjobst 2006: 253. 48

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Democratic Monarchy Isokrates’ communications with monarchs thus show a consistent set of principles, which are in harmony with Isokrates’ broader political views. To summarise: for Isokrates, citizenship consists primarily not of legal status or civic participation, but of self-cultivation and skill in the proper use of political language. These abilities are developed most easily in the context of the polis, and Athens is the polis in which they have historically been most refined. Though they most naturally arise in the democratic polis, they can be transferred to other political systems, and all systems whose rulers adopt these principles can be considered legitimate and well-run (12.132–133). Monarchies are particularly fertile for conversion into well-run states, because only a single ruler need be educated (2.8). If a monarch does accept these civic principles, he will be transformed from an arbitrary despot into something resembling a civic magistrate. In learning to analyse his authority according to rational and ethical principles he will realise that his role is fundamentally to serve his people and secure their material and ethical welfare. The people, for their part, seeing that their ruler exercises his power based on reason and justice, will enthusiastically consent to his supremacy; from a rule based solely on force or on apathetic acquiescence, the monarch’s position is transformed into a popularly supported regime based on public recognition of his ethical and rational superiority. The paradigm for Isokrates’ conception of enlightened monarchy is Theseus, founder of the greater Athenian state. In his Encomium to Helen, Isokrates says that the Athenian king, realising that absolute monarchs live in perpetual terror of assassination (10.32–33), voluntarily laid down his sovereignty and “established competition for virtue on equal terms” (10.35). In return, however, the citizens “voted that he should rule alone, judging his monarchy to be more trustworthy and more public-spirited than their democracy” (10.36–37). Theseus thus reigned, as Isokrates urges his monarchic pupils to, as absolute monarch by the grace of the people. In an echo of his advice to Nikokles, Isokrates describes the Athenian king as ruling “with the power of a tyrant, but the benefactions of a demagogue” (10.37). It is this ideal combination of formally absolute power but democratic spirit that Isokrates urges all his monarchic students to imitate. 3. Isokrates’ New Language In all previous writers, citizen values could be communicated to tyrants with difficulty, if at all. In Herodotus, Solon and Demaratos’ praises of polis life fell on deaf ears. Xenophon in the Anabasis must carefully explain his way of thinking to Seuthes in order to make him understand his grievance, and Simonides can only teach Hieron civic values after first appearing to

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embrace the aims of tyranny. One might then expect that Isokrates too would feel obliged to change the form and content of his speeches when seeking to convey civic values to monarchs. In fact, for the most part, he does nothing of the sort. It has long been noted that Isokrates’ style is remarkably consistent, regardless of occasion or recipient.49 He addresses both autocratic kings and the Athenian dēmos in the same language and sets out many of the same principles. There is no sense in any of Isokrates’ addresses to monarchs that he is softening his points or couching his lessons in special language to make them more absorbable.

The Power of Writing This leads us to ask why Isokrates, unlike all his predecessors, is so confident in his ability to communicate. The answer lies in the innovative use Isokrates makes of language, the new logos politikos that he claims that he has formulated. At several points in his work, Isokrates says that he was prevented from taking part in Athenian public life by the fact that he “did not have enough of a voice or the boldness to deal with the masses” (5.81, 12.9). While such statements were once taken as straightforwardly autobiographical,50 it is now more or less universally seen as an ideological statement, in which Isokrates separates himself from the violence of contemporary democratic oratory.51 Instead of loud and intemperate speeches designed to win on specific issues on occasions in assembly or law court, Isokrates opts to compose logoi politikoi, dealing generally with “Hellenic, royal and polis concerns” (12.11).52 One of the main features that differentiates Isokrates’ writings from contemporary political speech is precisely that they are written. While some of his writings have the fiction of being delivered orally (7.1, 8.1, 15.14), Isokrates’ repeated statements that he has never spoken in public suggest that he does not expect this fiction to be taken seriously (and in fact explicitly identifies it as a fiction in the Antidosis, 11–13). As Yun Lee Too has shown, in working in a purely literary medium Isokrates has chosen a form that was traditionally regarded with suspicion in Athens.53 Writing See Too 1995: 36–73, 149–150. For example, Jaeger 1939: 51. 51 See especially Too 1995: 103–112; see also Heilbrunn 1975: 157–158 Haskins 2004: 16–18. 52 Poulakos (1997: 114–119) argues that logos politikos is that which deals with values and deliberation in general, rather than seeking to apply them too strictly to specific cases. Heilbrunn’s assertion (1975: 156) that “the polis takes third place” and thus is least valued in this list is unconvincing – one could just as easily see it as an ascending tricolon in which the polis formed the most significant element. In fact, I see nothing that suggests that Isokrates sees any of these elements as more significant than the others. 53 Too 1995: 114–119. 49 50

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was seen as a mercenary activity, in which the eloquent prostituted their talents to the inarticulate in return for material gain. More revolutionary thinkers like Plato mistrusted writing out of concern that a written text did not allow for the sort of examination of assumptions so essential to Sokratic dialectic.54 Isokrates is aware of these prejudices and takes pains to address them, arguing that writing is in fact superior as a means of communication to oral delivery. He is quick in the Antidosis to deny that he engages in the mercenary trade of speech writing (15.41). He is also aware of the potential suspicion of a text whose absent author cannot be interrogated, and acknowledges this potential stumbling-block in his messages to both Philip II (5.25–27) and Dionysios I of Syracuse (L1.2–3).55 To both rulers, Isokrates apologises for not being able to deliver the address in person, but urges them to set aside their prejudices against purely written texts and read carefully in order to ensure they have correctly grasped his meaning. Not only does Isokrates seek to combat prejudice against written texts, but implicit in his discourses is the suggestion that written texts have advantages over oral delivery. First, they can travel farther and reach more people simultaneously than an individual orator could.56 The same speech can be read by kings, democrats, oligarchs, and philosophers, all of whom may be able to draw from it lessons to apply to their own contexts. Many of Isokrates’ speeches are “panhellenic” in content, arguing for Greek unity and opposition to a perceived non-Greek threat;57 in their capacity to be circulated to various audiences throughout the Greek world they are also panhellenic in form, available to all Greeks who might make use of them.58 The second advantage written discourse has over orally delivered speech is time. The writer has time to compose his speech thoughtfully, unconstrained by the limits imposed by the water clock that timed court speeches, and free from the fear of being interrupted, challenged, or shouted Too 1995: 119–127. Too 1995: 120–124. 56 Too 1995: 128–129. 57 The most comprehensive discussion of this kind of aggressive “panhellenism” is Mitchell 2007; in chapter 5, she argues that for fifth- and fourth-century Greeks, the idea of a perpetual war between Greeks and barbarians had become an important way of structuring time: the distant past contained glorious victories over barbarians (the Trojan and Persian wars); the present contained shameful compromise, and the future could be either a return to the glorious past or a continuation of the ignoble present (169–176). Mitchell sees Isokrates, with his repeated evocations of mythical and historical victories, as a key exponent of this patterning. See also Perlman 1976, Flower 2012. 58 Pownall 2007: 16–18. 54 55

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down that dogged assembly speakers.59 The reader has time to absorb the work reflectively, free from distractions.60 Anything he finds difficult he can reread as many times as he needs, absorbing the information with far greater care than he could a speech heard once in a crowded assembly. This is certainly how Isokrates advises Philip to read his address (5.29): taking up each point in your mind and examine it closely, not treating it as a minor chore nor with a desultory spirit, but with reason and philosophy, in which indeed they say you have long engaged.

Written discourse thus necessitates precisely the kind of careful deliberation and thoughtful analysis that Isokrates considers essential to good citizenship.61 Finally, written discourse is freed from the agonistic framework of day-to-day politics. Where an assembly or law-court speech is formed amidst the clash of opposing opinions, in which the audience can be seen almost as the speaker’s adversaries, an Isokratean text frees the author to consider the issue calmly and objectively. Instead of being designed to persuade a potentially hostile audience to a partisan position, Isokrates’ works can be seen as uniting writer and reader in the quest to understand fully the issue at hand.62 These aspects of Isokratean writing all make it well suited to cross political boundaries. Because his writing is not tied to any specific context or occasion, there is no need to present a great deal of background to enable his readers to understand it. If there is anything that a reader from a different political background does not understand, he has the time to ponder and reread in order to gain insight. Not being agonistic, there is no risk of alienating readers by too combative an approach, particularly readers whose political systems do not promote debate and unfettered speech.

The Role of the Citizen-Counsellor The overall impression given in Isokrates’ works is that advisors who come from poleis are indispensable for successful monarchs. Isokrates makes clear it is only by living in a polis that one can gain the citizen-virtues that every good governor requires, and it is only citizens who are habituated enough to parrhēsia to have the courage and objectivity to express those values freely. It is necessary, then, that monarchs should have a citizen to advise them. Poulakos 1997: 70. Poulakos 1997: 71–72. 61 So Bons 1993: 164: “Philip, then, should be aware of the fact that the discourse to be read has another, a higher intellectual level than the speech to be delivered.” 62 Livingstone 2007: 30–31. 59 60

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Isokrates makes this clear in his letter to the Macedonian regent Antipatros, recommending his student Diodotos as his advisor. Diodotos, he says, is well endowed with helpful parrhēsia (L4 5–6): the sort which rulers who have a notable degree of intelligence honour as useful, but which rulers whose nature is weaker than their power take ill … for it is logical that if they only chose those who say what is pleasing, not only monarchies, which attract many inevitable dangers, but also constitutional states, though they have stability, will not be able to endure.

Diodotos’ brand of parrhēsia is, apparently, not something that he can get in Macedon – it apparently requires upbringing in a polis and then special education of the sort Isokrates provides to be practised.63 The necessity of being advised by someone from a polis-context makes the citizen-counsellor a figure of profound importance. Since it is upon his advice that the welfare of the monarchy depends, the counsellor could even be seen as superior to the monarch, who must depend on him to preserve his throne. Isokrates hints at this exalted status when, in To Nicocles, he describes his function as “to make laws for monarchies” (nomothetein tais monarchiais, 2.8). In a monarchy, it is the ruler who makes law for his subjects (2.17, 15.40); Isokrates, however, as a result of his supreme cultivation, is capable of legislating for monarchs.64 Further, there may even be an implication that without Isokrates’ advice monarchies will lack nomos (law/ customary order): he teaches monarchs to put their rule on a logical and ethical grounding without which it would simply be arbitrary, whimsical and “tyrannical” in the most negative sense of the term.65 Finally, it may be suggested that the use of nomothetein once again links Isokrates to legendary lawgivers like Solon, who both gave laws to Athenians and spoke truth to monarchs – including, according to Herodotus, an earlier king of Cypriot Salamis (Hdt. 5.113.2).

Rejecting Interculturalism? Isokrates’ insistence on the ability of his writing to transcend political and cultural barriers places him at odds with both Herodotus and Xenophon’s approaches. Both, in their own way, suggested that successful communication with monarchs required some degree of intercultural knowledge. 63 In a similar vein, Isokrates urges both Timotheus (L7 3) and Nikokles (2.13) to send for the wisest advisers from abroad in order to secure the best possible counsel. 64 As Livingstone 1998: 280 points out, Isokrates’ advice to monarchs is presented as so great a gift that nothing can be offered in recompense, putting the writer in an unassailably superior position. 65 So Jaeger 1943: 87. On the key role of “l’orateur-conseiller” in political life in Isokrates’ thought more generally, see Azoulay 2006: 141–142.

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Citizens must, according to both writers, put themselves in the shoes of the monarch, adopting their language and outlook to some degree in order to communicate effectively. Isokrates, however, appears to reject any need for such assimilation. His logos politikos can pass through barriers of culture or politics, allowing individuals of a range of backgrounds to extract its wisdom. His written discourse gives Athenian democrats, Mytilenean oligarchs, and Syracusan tyrants the same opportunity to engage with his words “with reason and philosophy”, and all are seen as equally able to apply themselves to this task. Isokrates’ approach can thus be seen broadly as a rejection of the intercultural principles that underlie the other authors discussed. For Isokrates, at least among Greeks, culture and social structure are not significant boundaries, at least to a wise and skilled rhetorician. In this, Isokrates anticipates the arguments of modern opponents of interculturalism. In response to the claims of intercultural theorists, there are some who have claimed that culture is not, or is no longer, a salient issue in international relations. Diplomatic practices and institutions, they suggest, have become so universal and streamlined that, whatever their culture of origin, diplomats generally speak the same professional language. In essence, the only culture that matters is the shared culture of diplomats.66 Isokrates, in a similar vein, looks forward to a shared philosophical culture and language that can exist among and above individual poleis – a shared culture that, by taking on students and corresponding with monarchs from across the Greek world, Isokrates himself is bringing into being.

4. Philip of Macedon: Reintegrating the Alienated Monarch Having just asserted Isokrates’ rejection of intercultural practices, I must now complicate that statement. There is one monarch for whom Isokrates’ hope for a decontextualised logos politikos seems to break down. Philip II of Macedon, the rising power whom Isokrates assiduously courted, seems to have been someone that Isokrates did not trust to be able to assimilate his words unaided. While he believes them to be Greek in origin, Isokrates seems to feel that the Macedonian dynasty has been alienated so long from the Hellenic mainstream that Isokrates’ panhellenic discourse may not reach them as easily as it does other rulers. Nikokles and Timotheus ruled poleis, Jason’s children a long-standing confederation of poleis. The 66

For example, Zartman 1993: 19: In this internationalized world, it is not clear that previous national differences prevail any longer, because many have disappeared into a homogenized cosmopolitan culture of international negotiations fostered by the United Nations and other multilateral encounters.

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Macedonian monarchy, however, is depicted as separate from any polis, instead ruling an archē (kingdom/empire) of non-Greek subjects (5.13–14, 106). Not only does Philip not belong to a polis, but he is descended from a man who was temperamentally incapable of living in one. Afflicted by a desire for absolute power, Isokrates says, the founder of the Macedonian kingdom realised that he could not remain in his native Argos without plunging it into chaos and destruction. He therefore chose to leave the city and establish dominion over the “barbarian” Macedonians (5.106–107). With the dynasty alienated from poleis for so long, there is now the risk that the current Macedonian monarch will forget his ancestor’s wisdom and look on Greeks as legitimate targets for their ambition. Isokrates must therefore find some way of reconnecting to the polis a man whose position and ancestry profoundly separate him from it. The method he uses is not unlike that modelled by Xenophon. Rather than immediately launching into logos politikos with Philip, Isokrates instead begins with what he believes to be common ground that Philip will recognise. Only once he believes he has won the king’s goodwill and interest does he begin, cautiously, to try to reintegrate Philip into the world of the Greek polis.

A Turn to Dictatorship? At this point, there is some need to justify my position that Isokrates does in fact seek to align Philip with the polis. Many scholars have seen Isokrates’ decision to cultivate an absolute monarch, and indeed to urge him to take on the leadership of Greece as reflecting the author’s abandonment of the polis as a viable concept. Instead of seeing himself as a citizen of a small, collectively ruled state, they suggest, Isokrates pledges allegiance to a united panhellenic community under the benevolent but despotic rule of the Macedonian monarchy.67 It is true that in his address to Philip, Isokrates expresses disappointment in the Athenian dēmos’ failure to heed his call for a crusade against Persia (129); he also expresses hope that, unhampered by legal limitation or public pressure, Philip can act more decisively (14). By the same token, the fact that Philip is not tied to any specific polis makes him a good potential “honest broker” who can persuade the Greek states to be reconciled (41–45). None of this, however, means that Isokrates sees the polis as irrelevant. A closer reading of his communications with Philip reveals that far from rejecting the Greek poleis, Isokrates is keen to protect them from Philip’s potential 67 See, for example, Jaeger 1943: 153, Heilbrunn 1975: 160–161, Markle 1976. Azoulay 2006: 150–151 argues that Isokrates’ emphasis on Philip as benefactor of the Greeks foreshadows Hellenistic conceptions of royal euergesia.

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expansionism and inculcate in the king a greater respect for them. In calling for Philip to take on the leadership of a military expedition against Persia, Isokrates nowhere suggests that the Macedonian king exercise political supremacy over the poleis. The closest he comes is telling Philip that, if he behaves well to Greece, the cities will be eager to hear his advice on panhellenic affairs (69–70). Even here Isokrates is careful to say that Philip will “take counsel with them about collective safety” – while he will be a valued advisor to the poleis, he will by no means be their dictator. Throughout his correspondence with the king, Isokrates emphasises that Philip’s relationship to the Greeks should be based on persuasion and benefaction, not force (e.g. 5.116–118 L2 21).68 In the Nicocles, Isokrates pointed out that democracies and oligarchies regularly entrust their military affairs to a single man (3.24). Isokrates seems to envisage Philip playing a similar role for the broader community of Greek poleis. After reconciling the Greeks, the king will move eastward to make war on Persia, leaving the Greek cities to handle their own affairs.69 It is important not to read back Philip’s actual actions following his victory over Greece, which did involve some political subjugation of the poleis, into Isokrates’ idealised vision of his leadership, which is limited solely to military command and a certain amount of charismatic persuasion.

Reintegrating the Macedonian How, then, does Isokrates go about aligning Philip with the Greek poleis? The king’s alienated position means that he must take a very different tack from what we have seen with Nikokles and other more Hellenised monarchs. Isokrates does not say that the polis is the nursery of virtue, and that kings must learn its principles. He does not urge Philip to philosophise, master logos, and ensure that his rule is based on informed consent. Such concepts would mean little to the Macedonian king. Instead, he turns to mythology, using Philip’s legendary ancestor, the hero Herakles, to provide a link between Philip and the world of the polis. Given Herakles’ panhellenic reach, the hero forms a useful means of linking Philip to multiple cities. Philip must be well disposed to Thebes, Isokrates argues, because the Thebans revere Herakles more than any other Greeks (32); to Sparta, because its kings are descendants of the hero, and thus Philip’s distant cousins (33); to Athens, because Athens defended Herakles’ children 68 Markle (1976: 86–89) argues that these statements are merely propaganda for Greek consumption – between the lines, Isokrates subtly encourages Philip to use force to eliminate all opposition to him within the Greek states. This interpretation, however, rests on a highly convoluted understanding of the passages in question, and thus fails to be very convincing. 69 So Perlman 1969: 372–373.

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when they were beset by Eurystheus (33–34). Given these connections, Isokrates suggests, it would be unthinkable for Philip to seek to harm the Greeks, to the point that anyone suggesting such a thing must clearly be mad (76). In addition, Herakles forms the perfect role model for Philip. Like Philip he is a peripatetic figure, not bound to any polis. Nevertheless, his life is spent fighting to make life safe for polis Greeks: just as Philip is to do, he persuaded the Greeks to cease their fighting and led them against the greatest power in Asia (111).70 While Isokrates’ communications with Philip involve far less civic rhetoric than his addresses to other monarchs, Isokrates does not seem to see it as entirely hopeless to introduce some degree of polis values to the king. Once he believes he has linked Philip to the poleis, Isokrates allows himself occasionally to nudge the king in the direction of a more civic self-conception. Throughout the speech, Isokrates repeats that Philip can obtain the fullest measure of glory not by military conquest but by engaging in deliberation and negotiation. He has already argued that the king will gain greater renown by acting as the chief counsellor of Greece than as its conqueror (68–70); later in the speech, Isokrates says that the greatest glory is accorded to men who are able to “both act politically and command troops” (140). Philip is clearly already well qualified as a general; so it is primarily political engagement that this passage urges the king to cultivate.71 The general drift would seem to be to convert Philip from being solely a man of action, whose glory is won through violent conquest, into a man of words, who wins admiration by presenting the best advice in collective deliberation. Isokrates’ correspondence with Philip II reveals the limitations of his logos politikos. A panhellenic system of communication only functions within a fully Hellenic context. Philip, living on the farthest fringe of the Greek world, cannot be counted on automatically to grasp Isokrates’ civic discourse.72 Faced with this barrier, Isokrates falls back on the kind Markle (1976: 84–85) suggests that these passages may also be aimed at Isokrates’ Greek audience, reassuring them that Philip has a right to lead a Panhellenic enterprise. 71 Heilbrunn 1975: 163. 72 The Cypriot Nikokles might have been another such alienated monarch on the fringes of Greece were it not for the fact that his father Euagoras had embarked on a thorough project of Hellenising his court and domain (9.49–51). Nikokles would thus have grown up in a Hellenic and Hellenophile environment, placing him in a much better position to receive Isokrates’ panhellenic logos. It is possible that Isokrates hoped a similar process may be repeated in Macedonia. Isokrates’ letter to Alexander is much more explicitly civic than anything he writes to Philip; perhaps Isokrates hoped that Alexander too might be brought up to embrace Greek civic values to a degree impossible for his more hardened father. 70

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of intercultural tactics found in Xenophon.73 He seeks common ground between Philip and the polis-world, and uses this as a wedge to secure the king’s goodwill. Only after he has gone through these preliminaries does he attempt, gently, to introduce Philip to some civic ideals. Isokrates’ use of intercultural discourse is far more limited than that presented by Xenophon. Isokrates never seeks to present himself as sharing in monarchic or Macedonian values, nor does he attempt in any way to make Philip doubt the efficacy of his own rule. While Isokrates realises that some level of adaptation is needed with so foreign a figure, he does not go to the lengths that Xenophon depicts. His persona does not change, he merely slightly adjusts his emphasis to lessen the distance between the Macedonian king and the world of the polis.

5. The Limits of Education The example of Philip suggests, however, that there is a limit to the reach of logos politikos. Philip, at the edge of the Greek world, required special effort to assimilate. Are there monarchs who are completely beyond its power to educate? Some of Isokrates’ writings suggest so. Timotheus’ father, Klearchos, despite having studied with Isokrates, proved incapable of retaining his education, and ruled his city as exactly the sort of self-centred, unreflecting tyrant that Isokrates cautions his son against becoming (L7.12). In the same way, the “rulers of Asia” failed to appreciate the value of Diodotos’ parrhēsia and ignored his advice in favour of the slanders of their courtiers (L4.7). The location of the rulers who refused to listen to Diodotos raises an important question. All the rulers Isokrates addresses in his writing are ones he considers to be Greek. Are barbarians, and in particular barbarian monarchs, capable of absorbing civic education in the way Greeks are?

The Education of Barbarians The educability of barbarians in Isokrates’ thought has been a vexed question in recent scholarship. In the Antidosis, Isokrates makes the capacity to use logos the main feature that distinguishes Greeks from barbarians (15.293). He does not, however, make clear whether this difference is innate or the result of the deficient education of contemporary barbarians. Much of the discussion has centred on Isokrates’ statement in the Panegyricus that, We have no direct evidence that Isokrates read Xenophon’s works, but the two men seem to have been on good terms – Isokrates is said to have written a eulogy for Xenophon’s son Gryllos, killed during the Corinthian War (Diog. Laert. 2.6.55). It is thus not implausible that Isokrates was familiar with his contemporary’s writings, and even drew on some of his ideas in formulating his own arguments. 73

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having educated all of Greece, Athens has “made the name ‘Greek’ no longer that of a race but of a way of thinking, and those people are called Greek more who share in our education than those who share in a common nature” (4.50). Isokrates’ language here is ambiguous enough to allow for two entirely opposite interpretations.74 Some have seen him as narrowing the definition of Greekness, so that even those who are Greek by blood can no longer claim to be Greek if they lack sufficient education.75 Others have seen it as widening the definition of Greekness: anyone who acquires Greek education can be considered Greek, regardless of ethnic origin.76 In fact, both interpretations would seem to read more into the passage than is wise. The context of the passage does not primarily concern the education of barbarians, nor even the definition of Greeks. The point, rather, is to praise Athens as being so culturally elevated that her own culture is now perceived (dokein einai) as synonymous with Greekness. There is nothing that suggests that he intends it to serve as a wider statement on Hellenic identity, let alone a description of whether that identity is transferable.77 Other passages from Isokrates’ works that specifically discuss barbarians are more useful. In his speeches urging war against barbarians, he uses language that suggests he sees them as uneducable, fit only for slavery to Greeks. In the Panegyricus, he urges Athenians to consider it absurd that, when they consider barbarians as naturally slaves at home, they allow the barbarian Persians so much power over them (181). He tells Philip that barbarians are incapable of anything other than absolute monarchy (5.107), and he later urges the Macedonian king to make the barbarians he conquers “serfs (heilotai) to the Greeks” (L3 5). Yet this is only part of the story. Isokrates specifically tells Philip to reduce to serfdom all barbarians “except those who fight on your side”, suggesting that some barbarians may be capable of self-government if they have the wisdom to join with the Greeks.78 A passage from the Panegyricus seems to support the idea that barbarians are at least theoretically improvable. The weakness and disorganisation of the barbarians, Isokrates says, is a product of how they are “raised and governed” (trephoumenous kai politeuomenous, 150), and, implicitly, not innate racial characteristics. With different education and government, could the lot of barbarians be improved? Livingstone 2007: 28–29. Cartledge 1994: 150. 76 So de Romilly 1992: 6, Usher 1994: 142–143. 77 So Livingstone 2007: 29. 78 Perlman’s (1969: 339) interpretation that this refers only to a small class of vassal rulers is entirely possible, but I see nothing in the letter that renders it necessary. 74

75

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One example suggests that such a thing is not impossible. In Isokrates’ encomium to Nikokles’ father Euagoras, the late Cypriot king is praised as having “transformed the citizens from barbarians into Greeks” (9.66).79 This statement serves as a summary for the broader transformation that the king has wrought on Cypriot society: the island’s natives, before his reign deeply hostile to Greeks, now welcome Greeks, marry Greek women, acquire Greek goods and, most tellingly, invite to Cyprus many Greeks who pursue “the arts and other forms of education” (9.49–50).80 The enthusiasm for Greek culture among the barbarians suggests that, at least to some degree, they are capable of acquiring the education that Greeks enjoy. Taken together, Isokrates’ statements about barbarians seem to incline more toward the idea that some barbarians, in the right circumstances, can be taught something close to the civic values that, thanks to Athens, have come to be identified with Greekness. “In the right circumstances”, however, is the key phrase. The Hellenisation of the Cypriots occurred under the rule of an enlightened Greek monarch. There is nothing in Isokrates that suggests that barbarians ruled by other barbarians, or barbarian rulers themselves, are as educable. None of Isokrates’ writings are addressed to barbarian monarchs. Barbarian kings are virtually never held up as models of just or enlightened rule.81 Persian Great Kings may be held up as good military leaders (3.23, L2.7), but they are never praised as governors or teachers of their people.82 The inability of barbarian monarchs to be educated to rule well is consistent with Isokrates’ views on monarchy. A barbarian king would be subject to all the handicaps that beset monarchs, as listed in the opening of To Nicocles (3.4): disconnection from the people, lack of honest advice, and a steady diet of flattery. In addition, as they grew up they also have experienced the enervating life of Persian grandees, described in the Panegyricus (4.151):

Cartledge (1994: 150) suggests that this refers only to the Greek citizens of Cyprus, whose barbarisation under non-Greek rulers Euagoras has reversed. This interpretation, however, would seem to be undermined by sections 49–50, which explicitly refer to barbarians who are adopting Greek ways. 80 Even Perlman (1969: 342), in general deeply sceptical that Isokrates expects barbarians to be educable, is obliged to concede that “this educational achievement may have raised the barbarians nearer to the level of Greek civilisation”. 81 The one exception is the Egyptian king Busiris, who is praised for establishing Egyptian society on rational and productive lines (11.15–24). But as Usher (1994: 143) points out, it is not clear if Isokrates intends Busiris to be viewed as a barbarian. The word barbaros never appears in the work, and Egyptians were something of a special case in Greek thought – not Greek, but not quite barbarians either. 82 So Usher 1994: 144. 79

Isokrates: Making Laws for Monarchs 145 They spend all their time outraging some people and in servitude to others, a lifestyle by which men are most likely to destroy their natures; on account of their wealth, they pamper their bodies, but on account of the monarchy they keep their souls in a state of grovelling and fear […] prostrating themselves before a mortal man and addressing him as a deity, setting the gods at less worth than humans.

It would be surprising if a man with such an elevated view of himself, so used to complete supremacy, would be able to subject himself to the wisdom of a citizen-counsellor. Isokrates’ report of Diodotos’ experiences would suggest that it is indeed impossible for barbarian rulers to see the value of civic education, regarding the citizen-counsellor’s advice as nothing but insolence. Monarchic position and barbarian upbringing combine to make it impossible to educate the Great King as Isokrates did Nikokles, or even temper his aggression as he attempted with Philip. Barbarian kings, having no connection whatsoever to the polis, represent too different an Other ever to be integrated into the civic milieu.

The Legitimisation of Violence If the Macedonian kings’ partial alienation from the polis made them potential threats to the Greek world, the Persian kings’ complete separateness makes them a certain danger. It is always reasonable, Isokrates asserts, to assume that the Great King is plotting harm to the Greeks (5.122). As a result of Greek weakness and disunity, he has already managed to place the Greeks of Asia wholly in his power (4.137), and even the nominally free poleis of Europe, through the treaty of Antalkidas, have come to delusionally see him as the defender of their independence (175). As a result, all the leading poleis, though unconquered in war, have begun to approach the King as if they were his vassals (137). The King’s project of domination can be seen as the antithesis of Isokrates’ project of spreading civic virtue. If Isokrates’ goal is to bring citizen values to monarchies, the King, through bribery and diplomacy, is trying to make Greek citizens adopt the mindset of subjects of a despotic monarchy. Against this psychological assault Isokrates sees physical force as the only defence. Incapable of being educated in civic values, and threatening to undermine those values in Greece, the Great King must be violently resisted, and, if not deposed, at least disarmed and rendered incapable of threatening the polis again. The need to break Persian power is one of the most consistent themes in Isokrates’ work.83 In the Panegyricus, Isokrates 83 Flower 2012: 95. Pownall (2007: 18–25) argues that Isokrates sees the destruction of the barbarian not as an end in itself, but as a means of achieving harmony, unity, and prosperity for Greece. The repeated invective against the Great King makes this

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urges the Athenians to “transform the war we are currently engaged in into one against the men of the continent, and transfer the prosperity of Asia to Europe” (4.186). Philip likewise is told to conquer the entire Persian empire if possible, or, at the very least, to push the king out of Asia Minor and open the land up for Greek colonisation (5.120–122). The search for the state or person who can lead such an enterprise forms the theme of many of Isokrates’ works – the city of Athens (4.18), King Archidamos of Sparta (L9), Dionysios I of Syracuse (L1) and, finally, Philip II of Macedon are all sounded out for the role. Taken together, Isokrates’ works seem to imply two categories of monarch. First, there are those who can be educated in civic values. These are the rulers whom Greek citizens ought to cherish and cultivate, teaching them the reverence for logos that undergirds Greek civilisation and thereby transforming them into citizen-kings who will govern rationally and benevolently with their people’s consent. There also exist, however, monarchs who are not educable.84 This category includes both Greeks like Klearchos, whose incorrigibility apparently stems from some defect of his nature, and barbarian monarchs like the Great King, whose despotic upbringing makes him incapable of absorbing citizen values. Such rulers can never be taught to be anything other than cruel tyrants: force is the only language they can understand, and force is the only way that Greek poleis can reply to them. The only way to deal with the ineducable is to wage unceasing war until their power is broken and their subjects freed. Isokrates’ approach, dividing monarchs into corrigible and incorrigible, represents another way in which he departs from the thought of other writers discussed so far. From Herodotus onward, barbarian monarchs and Greek tyrants were seen as possessing similar psychological makeups. Even Xenophon, who gives cultural differences major significance in the Anabasis, does not see barbarians as impervious to Greek civic ideas. He portrays himself as able to convey polis values to Seuthes much as Simonides does to the Greek Hieron. While a certain amount of extra effort may be required for Xenophon to communicate his values to the Thracian, Seuthes’ foreignness is not portrayed as an obstacle to his education. In Isokrates,

difficult to accept entirely; moreover, I see nothing that suggests that the desire for Greek harmony takes precedence over the destruction of the King – both are equally desirable, and both will be achieved if Greece unites against Persia. Such unity, as Perlman (1976: 25–29) makes clear, does not constitute the uniting of poleis into a single Greek nation, or even a federation of the sort that Philip in fact set up after Chaironea, but rather of the creation of homonoia between the poleis as they work to a common purpose. 84 Cf. Soph. 13.21, Antid. 15.274, where Isokrates declares that truly vicious characters cannot be reformed by education.

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however, ethnicity and culture have become key. The significant cleavage in Isokrates’ communication theory is not citizen vs monarch – logos politikos can straddle that divide with little effort – but Greek vs barbarian. The less Greek a ruler is, the less likely he is to absorb civic wisdom. The semi-barbarised Philip II requires some degree of intercultural handling before he can be made to appreciate Isokrates’ logos; the Great King and his vassals are incapable of understanding it at all. In his sharp distinction between those rulers who can be reformed and those who cannot, Isokrates anticipates another trend in twentiethand twenty-first-century thought that emerges around the same time as intercultural theory, but takes very different conclusions. The neoconservative movement of the United States, far from advocating that American representatives should adapt to the ways of other societies, advocated for an aggressive policy of making other societies more closely resemble their own. The foundational document of neoconservatism, an essay written in 1979 by political scientist Jeanne Kirkpatrick, laid out the basic principles of the movement. Entitled “Dictatorships and Double Standards”, the document criticised what Kirkpatrick and other neoconservatives saw as the too-lenient treatment of some autocratic regimes by President Jimmy Carter and his administration. In the article, Kirkpatrick divided dictatorships into “authoritarian” – potentially reformable and amenable to US interests (and, generally, right wing), and “totalitarian” – unreformable and hostile to America (and mostly left wing).85 President Carter, Kirkpatrick alleged, had spent too much time fruitlessly seeking to cultivate the latter category, while treating friendly dictators with unnecessary harshness. For Kirkpatrick, this was the reverse of the appropriate policy. She argued America should befriend “authoritarian” rulers and seek to persuade them to accept American liberal and democratic values; with “totalitarians”, there could be no meeting of minds, and America should be prepared to “meet military force with military force”.86 Isokrates would have found Kirkpatrick’s arguments familiar. While the ideologies of liberal capitalism and revolutionary communism would both have been alien to him, Isokrates would have clearly recognised and endorsed the division of autocrats into those one can work with and those one cannot. Though for Isokrates the deciding factors are ethnicity and Kirkpatrick 1979: 72–73. Kirkpatrick 1979: 73. Neoconservatism became the guiding foreign-policy philosophy of Carter’s successor Ronald Reagan, who appointed Kirkpatrick as his ambassador to the United Nations – for an admittedly partisan discussion of the implementation of Neoconservative principles under Reagan, see Bright 1990. For Neoconservative influences on the “War on Terror” under President George W. Bush, see Noon 2007. 85 86

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education, not political ideology, his dual approach to monarchs has a strongly “neoconservative” flavour. With monarchs who are to some degree “like us”, he advocates education and reform, keeping them in power but working to moderate their rule. With those who are irreparably Other, the only solution is unremitting force.

Chapter 5

A Platonic Rejoinder A Platonic Rejoinder

1. Introduction Our next author, Plato, could be considered a man who needs no introduction. Both through his own works and through his influence on his one-time student Aristotle, Plato can claim an impact on Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophical thought. Discussing Plato in any survey of Classical thinkers can thus be a daunting task, given his unparalleled influence on philosophy and the mountain of work that has been written on him over more than two thousand years. It is important, however, not to let Plato’s posthumous impact blind us to the fact that, in his time, he was one thinker among many. Plato inhabited a community of fourth-century philosophers, who continuously interacted, competed, and critiqued each other’s work. This chapter aims to look at Plato in this context, as a political thinker in fourth-century Athens. Like Isokrates and Xenophon, Plato responds to and critiques the ideas around him, both those present in popular culture and those advanced by other thinkers of his day. In this chapter, I will explore the ways that Plato engages with contemporary discussions of interaction with kings and tyrants. I will argue that in many places Plato can be read as indirectly commenting on the approaches advocated by his contemporaries, and viewing their optimistic visions with a sceptical and suspicious eye. The attitude that emerges, I argue, is a surprisingly conservative one: Plato has more in common with Herodotus than with his contemporaries, seeing the chance of reforming a tyrant as slim indeed. In fact, Plato seems to a large degree to endorse the “popular” view represented in Aristophanes’ Acharnians: that association with monarchs will corrupt the citizens who interact with them. Monarchy and political power were certainly subjects that fascinated Plato. This fascination could have something to do with his own life experiences. From an elite Athenian family, Plato was born early in the Peloponnesian War to one Ariston, within the city of Athens proper. Our knowledge of Plato’s early life is very poor – such stories as do exist may well be later mythologisations – but he presumably received a standard 149

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upper-class education in music, poetry, and rhetoric.1 When still young, Plato, along with his brothers Adeimantos and Glaukon, and his cousins Kritias and Charmides, became a disciple of Sokrates. Following the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, at least two of these relations became major figures in the anti-democratic movement. Kritias was a leading figure in the Thirty, the dictatorial regime that, with Spartan backing, seized power after Athens’ defeat. Charmides, for his part, served in a subordinate office under their government.2 In the Seventh Letter, which purports to be a text written by Plato himself, the philosopher is made to say that he was invited to participate in the regime by his relatives, and was initially sympathetic to what he believed to be their goal of “leading the city from its unjust lifestyle into a just outlook” (Plato L7 324e). While (as will be discussed in detail later) the authenticity of this text is highly debated, the philosopher’s social class and the fact that relatives and fellow-students were among the Thirty makes it entirely plausible that he was initially optimistic about the Thirty’s agenda. If so, he was to be very disappointed. Far from restoring the (non-democratic) “ancient laws” as they promised (Xen. Hell. 2.3.2), the Thirty inaugurated a brutal reign of terror targeting both democrats and moderate oligarchs. More than a thousand Athenians were killed, and thousands more driven into exile, and the city ultimately plunged into a bitter civil war that was only halted by Spartan intervention. Whatever its accuracy, the way that the Seventh Letter presents Plato reacting to the Thirty underscores a dichotomy that runs throughout his work. On one hand, there is a lingering attraction to the potential for an autocratic regime to transform and regulate society for the better; on the other, there is the sad awareness of how brutal such regimes tend to be in actual practice. In numerous works, Plato provides images of both positive and negative authoritarians. On the positive side, there is the concept of the philosopher-king/expert statesman, someone whose perfect knowledge allows him (or her – see Rep. 5.451–452) to administer a state single-handedly with justice and compassion, needing no advisors or checks. On the negative, there is the image of the tyrant, a ruler driven by violent passions and insatiable desires, who brings ruin and misery both to his community and, ultimately, to himself. The figure of the tyrant particularly is a frequent one in Plato’s dialogues, held up as a role model by men who value power, control, and freedom For a summary of what we know about Plato’s life, and a discussion of our sources, see Nails 2006. 2 On Charmides’ role, and the frequent misconception that he was a full member of the Thirty, see Nails 2002: 92. 1

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of action, and condemned as the ultimate evil by those of a more philosophical bent.3 Given Plato’s fascination with forms of sole rule, it is perhaps surprising that there seems little in his dialogues that explicitly discusses communication and interaction with monarchs. Characters in Plato’s works are more likely to put themselves in the place of the tyrant himself than of people seeking to speak to them, and, unlike Xenophon, Plato writes no dialogues in which tyrants appear as interlocutors. This does not, mean, however, that Plato is without interest for our purposes. First, while discussion of interaction with monarchs is not frequent, it is not entirely absent, and the few instances we do find will be examined most closely. Secondly, and most significantly, the way that Plato depicts monarchs and monarchy has implications for how one might communicate with them, and teasing out these implications can be very fruitful.

How to read Plato? Before continuing, it is worth taking a moment to ask what it means to say “Plato says” about anything. All of Plato’s works are dialogues, in which at least two individuals are given voices, often expressing very divergent opinions. Some, such as the Euthyphro, involve a fairly balanced give-and-take, with the speakers enjoying more or less equal time to articulate their views. Others, such as Phaedo or the The Republic, focus much more on a single speaker, with the other interlocutors reduced to offering periodic agreement or occasional objection. Plato himself never appears as a character in any of the dialogues, and unlike Xenophon in the Memorabilia, there is no authorial voice that endorses particular opinions or the individuals who express them. The question therefore arises: how can we know which, if any, of the opinions expressed in Plato’s dialogues receive authorial approval? Does it even make sense to ascribe any of the Platonic characters’ views to Plato himself? There are a number of ways that this question has been approached.4 The first approach, which has been the traditional one in much of Platonic scholarship, is to take certain characters as Plato’s “spokesmen” or “mouthpieces”. Sokrates in the dialogues where he plays a leading role, the Eleatic Stranger in Sophist and Statesman, and the Athenian in The Laws are thus treated more or less as stand-ins for Plato himself, and views they express are regarded as essentially identical to those of the author.5 At the other end of the spectrum are scholars who reject the suggestion that any character speaks directly for Plato, and often that a single philosophical 3 4 5

See, for example, Gorg. 469a–c, Rep. 3.344b–d. For a range of such approaches, see the essays collected in Press 2000. For a thoughtful defence of this approach, see Gerson 2000.

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lesson is even intended to be drawn from the dialogues. Rather, for these readers, the point of Plato’s dialogues is to model for his readers how one might set about engaging in philosophical discussion, and the conclusions that are reached are less important than the process by which they are reached.6 My own approach might be described as somewhere between the two. I am sceptical that any character can be read as a straightforward mouthpiece – had Plato wished to present his own views clearly and simply, he could easily have written essays, and if he had wanted his readers to accept a specific character as his mouthpiece, there is a range of ways he could have indicated this. Thus, I accept that, to a degree, the reader is meant to be uncertain as to the author’s true sympathies, and to examine all participants in dialogues, even Sokrates, with a certain degree of scepticism. At the same time, it seems extreme to reject the idea that Plato had no specific ideas that he wished to get across and to hold that he was strictly neutral to all the arguments advanced in his works. It is worth noting in this connection that both Plato’s contemporaries and his later ancient readers all believed that specific arguments could be extracted from his works, and felt comfortable critiquing what they saw as Plato’s thought on this basis.7 My approach, therefore, is that, while I accept that we cannot establish Plato’s views with certainty, it is possible to say with some comfort where his sympathies lie. This is best achieved through reading multiple dialogues together and noting patterns that emerge, guided by three main principles. First, an idea that is repeatedly brought up across multiple dialogues is likely to be one that Plato considers significant and worthy of investigation. Second, an idea that is repeatedly brought up and repeatedly subjected to refutation (such as the suggestion that a tyrant is happy) is likely one that Plato regards as implausible. On the flip side, an idea that is frequently brought up and never receives sound refutation is likely one that Plato considers compelling, whether or not he gives it his whole agreement. With this approach in mind, let us examine Plato’s dialogues to see where his sympathies may lie in the question of how to talk to tyrants.

See, for example, Blondell 2000 on the Republic as presenting different approaches to philosophical inquiry. 7 See Tarrant 2000 for a review of the ancient tradition of Platonic interpretation, and Murphy 2013 for a discussion of how Plato’s contemporary Isokrates read his dialogues. 6

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2. Can Tyrants be Taught? Isokrates and Xenophon both base their optimistic views on the educability of tyrants on two essential assumptions. First, both believe that living in a polis provides at least some citizens with a form of civic wisdom, and second, that at least some monarchs are capable of understanding that wisdom if it is communicated effectively. In Plato’s dialogues, however, both these ideas are subjected to repeated criticism. Across many dialogues the idea that contemporary constitutions impart any kind of wisdom or virtue to their citizens is called into question, while the consistent picture of the tyrant that is painted in Plato leaves little room for improvement or educability.

Virtue and the Polis Across the writers we have read so far, we can see a range of attitudes to how civic virtue is engendered in citizens. In Herodotus, civic virtue seems to have been accessible to all citizens regardless of status – simply living in a city, obeying its laws, and participating in its life was sufficient to make someone like Tellos virtuous and happy. In Isokrates and Xenophon, full access to civic virtue is not open to all citizens, but requires additional special training. Nevertheless, both these authors see this training as building upon a foundation of good character that has been moulded by life in the polis.8 The idea that the polis is itself a teacher of virtue is certainly one that is articulated at times in Plato’s works. In the Apology, for example, Sokrates’ accuser Meletos declares that the whole politically active population of Athens can teach young people virtuous conduct, while Sokrates alone serves to corrupt them (Ap. 24c–25a). In Protagoras, the title character explains that all citizens possess some modicum of the art of politics ( politikē technē), and can teach this to their children (Prot. 322d–328a).9 There is, however, also ample discussion throughout Plato’s works that contradicts or complicates this assertion. To begin with, in both these cases there is reason to believe that the audience is encouraged to look on Meletos’ and Protagoras’ assertions with a critical eye. Meletos’ statement that all Athenians educate the young except Sokrates is absurdly broad, and Meletos is soon brought to a confused aporia on the subject by only the briefest of examinations.10 While Sokrates does not directly challenge Isoc. 2.2–3, Xen. Mem. 4.4.14–17 (on which see Gray 2011b: 9–10). Like Xenophon and Isokrates, Protagoras also holds that there is a higher level of political virtue that can be achieved with advanced teaching of the type that he himself provides (318e, 328b). 10 For a detailed discussion of Sokrates’ cross-examination of Meletos, and its implications for the Apology as a whole, see Calef 1993, Karbonowska 2013: 33–38. 8 9

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Protagoras’ claims on the universality of civic virtue, he does sow doubt as to whether the sophist has as firm an understanding of what virtue is as he claims. By the end, we find Protagoras having been led into arguing against his original premise about the teachability of virtue, prompting him to abandon the conversation entirely. What is more, throughout Plato’s other works, the idea is repeatedly advanced that no existing polis, and least of all democratic Athens, can inculcate any kind of virtue, judgement, or secure political insight into its citizens. This point is particularly emphasised in The Republic. In Sokrates’ famous image of the Ship of Fools, democratic Athens is portrayed as a ship crewed by ignorant narcissists and con men (6.488a–489c). Each man falsely claims to have true knowledge of how to sail the ship of state and continually fights with his fellow sailors, all of whom are just as ignorant as he. Meanwhile, the rare man who truly possesses the knowledge to guide them is derided as a useless dreamer and excluded from all discussions. There is no sense here that civic life has bestowed anything resembling political wisdom on its citizens – the rare person with actual philosophical knowledge appears to enjoy such wisdom despite, not because of, his living in the city. Sokrates goes on to suggest that not only does the polis not teach virtue, but in fact can serve to corrupt anyone who has, against the odds, managed to achieve some level of insight (6.492b–d). The ignorant and vicious majority, through a combination of peer pressure, tempting pleasures, and state punishments, are presented as working to draw a virtuous soul away from its true vocation of philosophy and into serving yet another crewman on the ship of fools. The only way to preserve a philosophical life in any contemporary state, Sokrates concludes, is to avoid, as far as possible, any involvement in the daily life of the city (6.496b–d).11 In The Laws, the Athenian Stranger applies similar descriptions to specific states. Athens, he says, once had a constitution that could inculcate some degree of virtue (3.699c). Fourth-century Athens, however, has lost this ancestral virtue – now, says the Athenian, every citizen sees himself as wiser than the laws, and sets himself up as supreme judge of what is right or wrong (3.700b– 3.701b). From such a polis, nothing could be learned but shamelessness (anaischuntia, 3.701b). Sparta and the states of Crete, which initially appear more disciplined and moderate, are revealed also to be woefully inadequate. All their strict training, the Athenian explains, is geared toward producing good soldiers, but it does nothing to inculcate civic virtue more broadly (1.628d–e, 2.666e–2.667a). Finally, in the Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger and his interlocutors agree that it is impossible for the basilikē technē, the royal art of government, to be found in anything but a tiny minority of the population (292d–e, 11

See also Tht. 173c–175a.

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297b, 300e).12 This stands in stark contrast to Xenophon’s image of the basilikē technē as the art “through which people become politicians and house-managers, fitted for leadership and helpful to other people and to themselves” (Mem. 4.2.11). In this formulation, the basilikē technē appears to be something to which all kaloi kagathoi should aspire – rather than an esoteric art open only to a select few, it is the grounding of good citizenship. In both The Republic and The Laws, it is suggested that only the ideal states that the dialogues’ participants are imagining would truly be able to teach their inhabitants any kind of virtue.13 The degree to which existing states fall short of this ideal is vividly demonstrated in Sokrates’ (in)famous description of what one would have to do to begin to transform a polis into his Republic (Rep. 7.540e–7.541a): “Well,” I said, “everyone in the city who is more than ten years old they would send out to the countryside. The remaining children they would remove from the customs currently prevailing and which they inherited from their parents, and bring them up according to their own practices and principles, which are those we have already gone over. In this way, the city and constitution which we have been discussing would quickly and easily be established and flourish, and the nation in which it arises would most benefit.”

So little virtue exists in cities as they currently stand, this passage implies, that all their practices must be swept away before a truly virtuous state can come into being. Given the disdain for the mores of most existing states, it is hard to see how a Platonic observer could approve of the image of a polis citizen teaching civic virtue to a tyrant. Virtually every citizen, it would seem, knows nothing worth teaching. Even Xenophon and Isokrates’ visions of a more limited circle of truly virtuous citizens would, by this light, seem absurdly optimistic. If their lessons are based in the principles that underlie the polis of Athens as it stands, Xenophon and Isokrates, in the Platonic view, would have nothing to teach Seuthes or Nikokles but vanity, shamelessness, and reckless stupidity – precisely the qualities that those writers present themselves as trying to expel from the rulers’ minds. There is something of a paradox here, given that earlier in the dialogue (259a–b) the Stranger had proposed that the basilikē technē encompassed the running of a household. Either, then, the definition here is being narrowed, or, more radically, the Stranger is suggesting that even properly running one’s own home is beyond the grasp of most people. I am grateful to Amber Ace for pointing out this contradiction. 13 See, for example, Laws 7.770d, 822e, Rep. 501b–c. Even in these states it is a question as to whether the ordinary citizen enjoys true virtue, or simply participates in the superior virtue of the rulers – see Veltman 2005 for further discussion. 12

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The Teachability of Monarchs Throughout Plato’s works, then, serious doubts are repeatedly raised that ordinary citizens can know any kind of civic virtue that is worth teaching. This does not, however, completely rule out the idea that Plato might still endorse the education of tyrants. Even in the corrupt states that currently exist, philosophers can and do arise. Blessed from birth with love of wisdom, some of these individuals have the good fortune to preserve this focus against the forces that seek to turn them to mundane ambition (6.496b–e). Is it possible that one of these individuals, should they encounter a king or tyrant, might be able to turn the monarch himself to philosophy? If we turn to The Republic, there at first appears to be a suggestion of hope for such an outcome. When asked how the ideal state he has been sketching might come into existence, Sokrates says that it is impossible until “philosophers act as kings in cities, or else those who are now called kings and rulers come to philosophise fully and legitimately” (5.473c–d). The suggestion of kings coming to philosophise could be read as raising the possibility that they might be taught to do so, that a suitably adept philosopher might be able to lead monarchs into a more genuinely philosophical attitude. The more one reads of The Republic, however, the less likely this interpretation seems. In the ideal state itself, a would-be ruler must undergo a lifetime of rigorous training in order to exercise truly philosophical rule.14 This training is only possible in a total system, an environment where philosophy has already become dominant discourse. Plato makes clear that, in the absence of such a system, the philosophising ruler can only come into being through “divine inspiration” (theias epipnoias, 499b). An itinerant philosopher at a tyrant’s court would be in no position to implement such an educational regimen, and would face competition from multiple influences that sought to push the ruler further down the road of tyranny. Human action, it seems, is impossible to turn a tyrant’s eyes toward philosophy – only the gods are able to do this, and those who hope for a better state can only hope and pray for this to come to pass.15 To The Republic’s argument from silence may be added more direct discussion of interaction with monarchs from two other dialogues. First comes the Gorgias, a discussion of the efficacy and morality of the See Rep. 7.521b–540c; for a good summary and discussion of Plato’s educational programme, see Jaeger 1939: 312–320. 15 Sokrates is keen to underline that such a miracle is unlikely, but not completely impossible (6.499d, 502a–b). How seriously one takes this statement is an important point in debates over whether the Republic is to be read as a genuine project for an ideal state, an unachievable utopia, or a darkly ironic satire that is meant to highlight the absurdity of utopian projects. For good discussions of this issue, with summaries of the various stances, see Schofield 2006: 195–249, Morrison 2007. 14

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rhetorician’s art. In seeking to prove to the aspiring orator Kallikles that the power and influence he hopes to gain from rhetoric is entirely illusory, Sokrates paints a picture that will be very familiar to my readers. He invites Kallikles to imagine how one might achieve power and security in a city “where a savage and uneducated tyrant is the ruler” (Gorg. 510b). Given the principle that like attracts like, Sokrates gains Kallikles’ agreement that there is only one way to win such a tyrant’s favour: This, then is the only friend worth mentioning who remains for such a man: someone who is of the same temper as him, who blames and praises the same things he does, who is willing to be ruled and to be subject to the ruler. This man will have great power in the city, and no-one will be eager to wrong him. Is this not so?

The suggestion that to win a tyrant’s favour one must be “of the same temper” (homoēthēs) with him puts us squarely back in “Herodotean” territory. Sokrates’ picture strongly evokes the story of Alkmaion at Kroisos’ court, both the Athenian’s fervent embrace of monarchic greed, and Kroisos’ delight at discovering a kindred soul. Nor is there any suggestion that Sokrates’ hypothetical flatterer can be seen as equivalent to Simonides in Hiero, assuming the tyrant’s values in order to deliver a contrary lesson. By assimilating himself to the tyrant, Sokrates says, the friend will find himself “deformed and mutilated in soul” (Gorg. 511a). Plato’s sympathies appear to be firmly with tragedy and comedy: to associate with a tyrant is to become his slave.16 The most direct engagement with the possibility of educating tyrants comes in Plato’s The Laws, generally agreed to be the final work of the philosopher’s career.17 Once again, a new better-governed state is being hypothesised, this time by three old men walking down a Cretan road. As in The Republic, the conversation at one point turns to how an existing community might be transformed into their imagined state. The nameless Athenian, who has taken the leading role in the shaping of their state, puts himself in the role of its legislator and names his requirements (709e): “Give me a city under a tyrant,” he would say, “and let the tyrant be young, endowed with a good memory and a good education, brave, and magnificent by nature.” 16

17

So Schofield 2017: 23: It is easy enough to conceive of a general argument which would deliver this conclusion: e.g. that those who pretend assimilation to a tyrant must already like him have an overpowering appetite for power, leading them to make the pretence, which shows that it is no mere pretence. See Bradwood 1992 for a detailed discussion of questions of Platonic chronology.

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To these qualities the Athenian adds self-control (sōphrosunē), and proclaims that such a tyrant is in the perfect position to remake his city into the best possible constitution. All that would be needed is the combination of this “orderly tyrant” (turannou kosmiou) with a “top lawgiver” (nomothetou akrou, 710d), and the imagined state could quickly and easily be brought into being. This section seems like a ringing endorsement of the possibility of educating tyrants. Unlike in The Republic, the transformation of the state no longer rests upon the miraculous emergence of a monarch with an in-dwelling passion for philosophy. Now, it is possible for an educated outsider, endowed with the practical wisdom of legislation, to teach and guide a young tyrant into bringing about the desired reforms. Neither legislator nor tyrant needs to be or become a true philosopher, apparently setting the hurdle a great deal lower. Here, it seems, for one of the first times in Plato, is a suggestion of a kind of civic wisdom separate from the full majesty of philosophical knowledge, which is presumably easier to acquire and transmit than the high philosophy of The Republic.18 The image here is reminiscent of what was seen in Xenophon’s Hiero: a wise man who can advise a tyrant on how to transform his city into a more benevolent government, without necessarily making him into a complete paragon of virtue. As Malcolm Schofield has magnificently demonstrated, however, even this apparently more optimistic vision has a sting in the tail.19 When viewed considering other passages in The Laws, and in Plato’s works more generally, the prospect of there being such a thing as an orderly tyrant becomes increasingly improbable. In The Republic, for example, Sokrates asserts that the tyrant is the very opposite of kosmios – he is a creature of disorder, entirely dominated by irrational and overwhelming desires and “filled with madness” (manias plērou, Rep. 9.573b). In The Laws, this image is reiterated by the Athenian, who declares that no human soul, particularly not a young one, can resist the corruption of absolute power (3.691c). Inevitably, he says “its thought-process will become filled with unreason, the greatest sickness” (3.691e). This point is repeated not long after the invocation of the kosmios turannos: the Athenian explains that, in the Golden Age, the god Kronos put humans under the rule of benevolent spirits, because “no human nature can become absolute governor of all affairs without becoming drenched in hubris and injustice” (7.413c). Considering this, I am convinced by Schofield’s argument that the Athenian’s image of a wise lawgiver teaching This is in line with the general tenor of The Laws, where the speakers agree that the constitution they are aiming to construct will be “the second best” to the kind of perfectly just city envisioned in the Republic (Laws 5.739a). 19 See Schofield 2003: 38–41. 18

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virtue to an orderly tyrant is intended to be read as a fantasy – if not completely impossible, then at lease deeply improbable.20 The question then is raised what the purpose of this excursus has been. Why raise the possibility of teaching a tyrant only to undermine it? Two explanations have generally been favoured. The first sees Plato as engaged in an intertextual conversation with his earlier work, especially The Republic. By this reading, Plato is distancing himself from his earlier statements in favour of philosopher-kings. No longer is it possible for an absolute ruler also to possess a philosophical nature; still worse, it is deeply unlikely that he would even be equipped to take the advice of anyone who did possess civic wisdom.21 The second reads this passage autobiographically, as Plato’s reflection on his own experiences trying to educate Dionysios II, tyrant of Syracuse. In this view, the passage serves as a kind of apologia for Plato’s engagement with the Syracusan regime – he hoped to find in Dionysios the kind of orderly tyrant who might be amenable to putting his ideas into practice.22 Both of these interpretations are entirely plausible, and not necessarily contradictory. I wish here to add a third potential reading into the mix, which sees Plato as engaging not only with his own work and life, but those of his contemporaries as well. As much as the description of a legislator counselling a young tyrant could apply to Plato and Dionysios II, it is just as applicable to Isokrates’ relationship with Nikokles, Timotheos, or the heirs of Jason. Indeed, Isokrates seems to have made something of a habit of seeking out young rulers to advise – witness his letter to Alexander, then only around 12 years old. There are aspects of the passage in The Laws that can be read as ironic comments on Isokrates’ works. The Athenian’s assertion that a reforming monarch will “lay down all the guidelines by his own actions” Schofield 2003: 41: A conclusion beckons. The Stranger’s fiction of an ‘orderly tyrant’ is a deliberate irony, warning us of the extreme unlikelihood of realising our political hopes by entrusting them to absolute rulers. One of the anonymous readers suggested that Plato may be hoping to catch a tyrant so young that the corruption has not yet set in. But how young must this be? Earlier in The Laws the Athenian says that the children of powerful monarchs are raised from birth in an atmosphere of flattery and luxury (3.694–695). Is the lawgiver then to be seen as overseeing the education of an infant? In that case, the situation remains improbable – a tyrant must die suddenly, leaving a very young child as nominal ruler just when a top lawgiver happens to be available. 21 Vlastos 1973: 215–216, Schofield 2003: 44. 22 See, for example, Post 1929: 20, Sinclair 1967: 191, Klosko 2006: 253. Schofield (2006: 114) reports a suggestion by Roberto Polito that any reference to Dionysios here is ironic: the Athenian’s description encapsulates everything the Syracusan tyrant was not. 20

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(Laws 711b) accords well with Isokrates’ claim that “the lifestyle of the whole state is modelled on its rulers” (Isoc. 2.31). The image of the kosmios turannos also evokes Isokratean language: in both his works on Nikokles, Isokrates declares that it is wrong to think that “others must live orderly lives (zēn kosmiōs), while kings live uncontrolled ones” (2.31). In a similar vein, in his letter to Timotheos, Isokrates urges the young ruler to fulfil the duties of “those who exercise tyranny correctly (orthōs) and thoughtfully ( phronimōs)” (Isoc. L7 3). While the term kosmios does not occur here, the linking of tyranny to two adjectives that would traditionally have been seen as diametrically opposed to it creates a similar effect to Plato’s use of kosmios turannos. Finally, the combination of the tyrant with a “top lawgiver” may evoke Isokrates’ own immodest claims to “give laws to monarchies” (nomothetein tais monarchiais, 2.8).23 If we read the “orderly tyrant” discussion in The Laws as commenting on Isokrates’ desire to educate monarchs, then Plato’s irony encompasses not only his own failed project of tyrannical reform, but those of his contemporaries as well.24 Plato agrees with Xenophon and Isokrates that if a possessor of genuine civic wisdom could be brought together with a tyrant with the capacity to learn, the tyrant could indeed be transformed for the better by the experience. But that “if ” represents, in Plato’s formulations, an apparently insuperable barrier. Both halves of the equation are presented as deeply unlikely, and the chance of them coming together almost impossible. The image of a citizen, even an unusually enlightened one, being able to teach civic virtue goes against much of what is found in Plato’s works. Civic virtue is to be found only ideal cities that have linked philosophy with practical politics, something that has been achieved in no existing polis. What passes for virtue in existing cities is really only convention and sham, the lofty gibberish spouted by imposters or the unexamined prejudices of the mob. Granted, by the grace of the gods even in this unfertile soil a few genuine philosophers do manage to emerge; but even they would find themselves incapable of communicating anything of value to a tyrant. Driven by wild and whirling thoughts and erotic obsessions, tyrants are 23 This would be far from the first time that Plato can be read as critiquing Isokrates’ ideas. The Phaedrus mentions Isokrates by name (279e) and has often been seen as responding to Isokrates’ rhetorical theories, whether in approval (Goggin and Long 1993), or, more commonly, mockery (Wilcox 1943, de Vries 1953, MacAdon 2004). In addition, scholars have posited references to Isokrates’ thought in Euthydemus, Menexenus, and Gorgias (Taylor 1926: 43–53, Dušanić 1999). See Murphy 2013: 337–349 for a good overview of the ways in which Isokrates and Plato can be read as reacting to each other’s work. 24 I can find no specific echoes of Xenophon in the passage, but Plato’s scepticism over Isokrates’ project of reform would encompass the kind of education presented in Hiero as well.

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in no position to absorb even the simplest of moral lessons. A tyrant is, by definition, not kosmios, and in no position to understand even conventional wisdom, let alone the true “royal art”. Any attempt to befriend a tyrant would require joining them in their depravity, with the result, as Sokrates makes clear in Gorgias, of a “mutilated soul”. Plato’s views seem, then, to hearken back to Herodotos’ pessimistic paradigm, where tyrants were incapable of grasping alternative worldviews. Indeed, he seems to incline toward the “popular” views that Herodotus himself minimised, that interactions with monarchy is inevitably corrupting. In Plato’s work the gulf is not primarily between the tyrant and the ordinary citizen, as in Herodotus and other fifth-century literature. Sokrates suggests in The Republic that the tyrant and the ordinary citizen are much more similar than most would want to think.25 Rather, it is between the tyrant and the philosopher, who stand at opposite ends of the scale of wisdom and happiness (Rep. 6.485e). Plato’s works thus seem to represent a wholesale rejection of the intercultural approach to tyrants. Isokrates and Xenophon’s dreams of reforming tyranny are revealed as hollow. Our only hope, apparently, is to wait and pray for the gods to send a philosopher-king, someone who unites within themselves the apparently contradictory attributes of philosophy and political power.

3. Contradictory Practice If we were to confine ourselves to Plato’s dialogues, the story could end here. In contrast to his contemporaries’ optimism about interaction with tyrants, Plato returns to the pessimism of the previous century, amplified by the belief that contemporary poleis are not themselves of much value when it comes to creating happiness or virtue. When we expand our sight to the actual practices of Plato and his students, however, the picture becomes much more complicated. Far from abstaining from engagement with monarchs as harmful to the soul, Plato and his students forged connections with a wide array of rulers from across the Greek world. We do not know exactly when Plato began his activities as a teacher – as with many other aspects of his biography, his educational career is murky. In the mid-380s, however, Plato seems to have established a permanent school at a gymnasium (traditionally a site of both physical and mental training in the Greek world) in a grove sacred to the Athenian hero Akadēmos. Taking its name from the hero, this institution became known as hē Akadēmē – the Academy. This new school began attracting students from Athens and indeed throughout the Greek world.26 While the Academy 25 26

On the similarities between democracy and tyranny, see Rep. 8.562–564. On the early history of the Academy, see Haake 2020.

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charged no fees for its students and thus was theoretically open to all, most students seem to have come from elite, and often ruling families. A number of these young scholars would, after their time with Plato, seek out positions as advisors to kings and tyrants across the Mediterranean. The earliest example we hear of is Euphraios of Oreus, apparently a student of Plato, who became a court favourite of King Perdikkas III of Macedon. According to an anti-Platonic tradition preserved by Athenaeus, Euphraios sought to bring enlightenment to the Macedonian court, excluding anyone untrained in geometry or philosophy from the royal banquets (Athen. 506a, 508b). Three other Platonic students, Erastos, Koriskos, and Aristotle, are reported to have spent time at the court of Hermeias, ruler of Atarneus in Asia Minor.27 Aristotle is also said to have dedicated his first work, the Protrepticus, to one Themision, identified in later traditions as “a king of Cyprus”.28 Finally, and most famously, Aristotle served as tutor to Prince Alexander of Macedon, son of Philip II and future conqueror of the Persians.29 Not only do we find Plato’s students advising and associating with monarchs, but some individuals who studied at the Academy would go on to become rulers themselves. Athenaeus mentions Euaion of Lampsakos and Timaios of Kyzikos as seizing power in their native cities (508e–509a), though little more is known about either man. According to the Suda, Klearchos, tyrant of Herakleia Pontikē, studied with Plato as well as Isokrates during his time in Athens, after which he instituted a tyranny notable for both its cruelty and its baroque excesses of megalomania.30 Hermeias of Atarneus was himself said to have studied with Plato prior to assuming power (Strabo 13.1.57). We do not, of course, know if any of the Platonic students who advised or became monarchs did so with Plato’s blessing or encouragement. However, it does seem clear that their experience at the Academy did not significantly discourage them from seeking engagement with monarchs – despite what I have argued was a consistent disapproval in Plato’s works of such a course.31 Even if these students did all become involved with monarchy against their teacher’s will, there remains the thorny question of Plato’s own deep engagement with one of the most autocratic regimes of his day. The most famous and detailed account of interaction between Platonic philosophy Strabo 13.1.57; see further testimonia in Düring 1957: 272–283. Stob. Flor. 4.32.21. This document has been seen as an attempt to counter Isokrates’ influence in Cyprus – see Chroust 1966. 29 Diog. Laert. 5.1.4, Plut. Alex. 7.2–3. 30 Suda, ka. 1714. 31 I thus find myself very sceptical of Brunt’s (1993: 282–332) argument that nothing can be deduced about the Academy’s attitude to politics from its students’ activities. 27 28

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and monarchy must be Plato’s own visits to the court of Dionysios II of Syracuse.32 Plato invited by Dion, the brother of Dionysios I’s Syracusan wife Aristomache,33 is said to have first journeyed to Dionysios II’s court in 366, shortly after the younger tyrant’s accession. Dion was, apparently, a devotee of Plato’s thought, and hoped that the philosopher could contribute to the education of Dionysius II, whose paranoid father had failed to provide him any kind of training in statecraft (Plut. Dion 9–11). Plato’s sojourn in Syracuse was not fruitful. Attempts to educate Dionysios were thwarted by factional intrigue at court and by Dionysios’ own capricious nature (Plut. Dion 12–16). Eventually, with Dion driven into exile and war between Syracuse and Carthage threatening, Plato was permitted to leave, having accomplished little. Five years later, Dionysios wrote to Plato to request him to return to Syracuse so that they could resume their philosophical studies. Though deeply sceptical, Plato is said to have been persuaded to return both by the hope of reconciling Dion and Dionysios, and by threats that, if he did not, Dionysios would seek to punish Dion and others of Plato’s friends in Italy (Plut. Dion 18). This visit proved no more successful than the first, and Plato spend a deal of time as a virtual prisoner of the tyrant (Plut. Dion 19–20). Since antiquity, the contrast between Plato’s writing and his actions has been noted. On the one hand, we have a body of work in which any involvement in practical politics, and particularly contact with autocrats, is condemned as both useless and dangerous for a true philosopher. On the other, we have the author of that work and his students routinely becoming involved with a range of tyrannical regimes, apparently in defiance of his philosophical precepts. Plato’s personal involvement, is, of course, a particular flashpoint. It seems that, in his own time, Plato was accused of greed, hypocrisy, and vanity, of cultivating Dionysios to enhance his own wealth, power, and prestige.34 Other ancient readers, however, were more generous, and sought to understand Plato’s motivations and actions considering what they knew of Plato’s life and philosophy. In what follows, I examine one of the most significant attempts to explore Plato’s engagement with monarchy – the so-called Seventh Letter of Plato.

Plato is also said to have visited Sicily under Dionysius I (Diog. Laert. 3.18–20). The story that he clashed with the tyrant and was sold into slavery, despite its uncritical acceptance by some scholars (for example, Nails 2006: 6), I regard as little more than a folktale – see Riginos 1976: 88–89 for discussion. 33 Contrary to normal Greek practice, Dionysios I married two women simultaneously, Aristomache, from his home city of Syracuse, and Doris, from Locris on the Italian mainland. Doris was the mother of his son and successor Dionysios II, whom Dionysios I married to Arete, his daughter by Aristomache. 34 See Geffcken 1928: 89–92, Riginos 1976: 72–74. 32

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4. Wrestling with Contradictions: The Seventh Letter From antiquity onward, those seeking to understand how and why Plato and his students engaged with monarchs have turned to what they have seen as the words of the man himself. Thirteen letters have been preserved within the Platonic corpus, which purport to be communications between the philosopher and a variety of individuals across the Greek world. Most of these letters are addressed to rulers, and often concern the activities of Plato or his students at their courts or in their territories.35 Others, addressed to Dion’s intimates, discuss Plato’s time in Syracuse in detail, and go into some depth as to his thoughts and motivations for engaging with Dionysios. If these are in fact genuine communications from Plato, then they would certainly provide invaluable evidence for what prompted the philosopher to begin these relationships, what he hoped to achieve, and how he went about communicating with the monarchs with whom he dealt. But are they genuine communications from Plato? The letters certainly date from antiquity – we have references to them as early as the second century bce , and at least some of them are accepted as genuine products of Plato’s mind by ancient writers.36 At the same time, since antiquity, doubts have been raised about some or all the letters. In some manuscripts of Letter 12, for example, ostensibly written to the philosopher Archytas of Tarentum, there is a copyist’s note reading “it is asserted that this is not by Plato” (L12 359e). In modern scholarship, the debate has raged since at least the eighteenth century ce , when Christof Meiners condemned all the Platonic letters as forgeries. Since then, critics have argued consistently over which, if any, of the letters should be regarded as genuine, and, for those deemed spurious, how, when, and by whom they were actually written.37 The letter that is most frequently regarded as genuine, even by scholars who doubt the authenticity of other letters, is the seventh in the collection, addressed to the comrades of the now-assassinated Dion of Syracuse. The longest of the Platonic letters, this text contains an account of Plato’s formative years, a description of his journeys to Sicily and his hopes for what he might achieve there, and a philosophical excursus hinting at the existence of secret doctrines that Plato has never committed to writing. Given the insight that such a document would give into Plato’s thinking if it proved genuine, it is not surprising that many scholars have been motivated to view it as a reliable source. Much of the discussion of the letter tends to Seven letters in total are addressed to monarchs: Letters 1, 2, 3, and 13 to Dionysios II, Letter 4 to Dion, Letter 5 to Perdikkas of Macedon, and Letter 6 to Hermeias of Atarneus. 36 For example, Cic. Off. 1.22, Fin. 2.45, Fam. 1.9.18. 37 For an overview of the history of the reception of the letters, see Frede 2015: 6–7. 35

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view it one of two ways: either it is a genuine missive from Plato, or, if a forgery, it is by someone who was intimately associated with Plato and who had good awareness both of his philosophical thought and of the historical events the letter relates.38 At this point, I might as well say explicitly what I suspect my language has already been hinting: I am generally unconvinced by the arguments in favour of the authenticity of the Seventh Letter, or indeed any of the Platonic letters.39 These arguments generally rest on the assertion that the author of the Seventh Letter shows intimate familiarity with Plato and his thought, and thus must be either Plato or someone closely connected to him. It is certainly true that the author has read and can paraphrase a good deal of Plato, but this requires only that they had the dialogues to hand. Recently published essays by Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede have argued that, far from showing intimate understanding of Plato’s thought or character, the author of the letter has in fact deeply misunderstood a great deal of Platonic doctrine.40 Burnyeat goes so far as to refer to the letters author as a “philosophical incompetent”, whose attempts at esoteric doctrine emerge as incoherent gibberish.41 My scepticism is increased by the often negative light in which the letter shows Plato: the philosopher comes across as vain, weak-willed, and deeply gullible. While it is entirely possible that the historical Plato was all those things, it seems odd that he would choose to portray himself as such in a letter interpreted by its defenders as a public apologia and defence of his own conduct. None of this, I acknowledge, is conclusive proof that the letter is not genuine. But it is enough, I believe, to warrant not unquestioningly treating it as such. If the letter is neither a genuine communication from Plato nor necessarily by someone with any personal familiarity with him, is it then of any value to our discussion? I would argue that it is. Whatever its authorship, the Seventh Letter is still an ancient reflection on Plato and his engagement with an absolute monarch. I regard the letter as an attempt by its author to wrestle with the paradox of Plato’s dealings with Dionysios, and to put forward his own view of why and how the philosopher came to engage with a man who seemed the very antithesis of his philosophical ideals. Whenever the letter was, in fact, written, its author was clearly closer to Plato, temporally and culturally, than we are: as a result, while not authoritative, its perspective is worth serious consideration. See, for example, Guthrie 1978: 8, Brunt 1993: 339–341, Schofield 2000: 299. The arguments for the inauthenticity of the letter are too many and complex to go into in depth here; see Edelstein 1966, especially 49–69, for a detailed examination; see also Boas 1948: 52–57, Frede 2015, Burnyeat 2015, Lennartz 2019. 40 Frede 2015: 41–65, Burnyeat 2015: 121–133. 41 Burnyeat 2015: 132. 38 39

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In discussing the Seventh Letter, the first issue to deal with is the purpose and genre of the text. Even those scholars who believe it to be a genuine letter from Plato accept that it is not only a personal letter. Instead, it is generally seen as an “open letter” designed to explain and justify Plato’s actions to the Greek world at large.42 By this view, the letter is designed to defend Plato from accusations of having gone to Dionysios’ court out of greed and ambition by demonstrating that his motives were always altruistic and philosophical. More recently, Miles Burnyeat has advanced a new interpretation that focusses on the letter as a work of creative writing. The Seventh Letter, Burnyeat suggests, is an attempt at “prose tragedy”, showing the doom of Plato’s philosophical ambitions at the hand of a hostile divinity (336b).43 My own view is something of a synthesis of these positions. I agree with Burnyeat that the letter is in many ways a “literary” composition, in which Plato appears as a flawed and somewhat tragic character rather than as philosophical hero. I do, however, believe that there also exists a vindicatory agenda. Where I differ from previous scholars is that I do not see the letter as aimed so much at justifying the actions of Plato the character, who after all does not come across as particularly wise or sensible, but of Plato’s ideas. The author of the Seventh Letter has absorbed and accepts the idea found throughout the dialogues that a philosopher should not try to engage in contemporary politics, and should particularly avoid any dealings with tyrants. Plato’s troubles, in this view, come from his having forgotten his own principles and plunging into the mire of tyrannical politics from which no one, even a philosopher, can emerge unstained.

Motives Near the beginning of the letter, the author has Plato reaffirm the idea presented in The Republic that there is no place for a philosopher in contemporary politics (325d–326b). Plato’s experiences with both the rule of the Thirty Tyrants and the restored democracy that followed it have led him to conclude that neither oligarchy nor democracy has any hope of being reformed into a virtuous form of government, so great is the corruption of both individuals and institutions. As a result, he concludes, in a close paraphrase of the The Republic, that “the races of humanity will have no respite from evils until either the class of those who philosophise truly and properly gain political power, or those who rule in cities, by some divine fortune, actually philosophise” (326a–b). As in The Republic, the letter emphasises that this combination of devotion to philosophy and political power will only come about “by divine fortune” (ek tinos moiras 42 43

See, for example, Karsten 1864: 40, 240, Gonzalez 2019: 276. Burnyeat 2015: 136, 143–144.

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theias) – only the gods, not human action, can bring about the rise of a philosopher-king. If this was Plato’s belief, why then did he go to Syracuse? One of the answers put forward by the Seventh Letter is that Plato was led to believe that this divinely granted opportunity had in fact arrived. When Dion writes to Plato to encourage him to come to Syracuse, he tells the philosopher that “by divine chance” (theiāi tini tuchēi, 327e) philosophical temper and political power have come to be united in Dionysios II. The tyrant, says Dion, is already intrigued by philosophy, and with Plato’s help he might be turned fully to its study, and so become the fulfilment of “all my hope that the same people could become both philosophers and rulers of great states” (328a). At this point, it is not clear whether Dion himself believes this to be true, or whether he is cynically manipulating Plato by dangling the carrot of the realisation of a philosopher-king before him. Either way, Plato’s high opinion of Dion is clearly another major factor in convincing him to go. The Plato of the letter admits to scepticism about Dionysios’ commitment to philosophy – young men, he knows, are changeable and inconstant (328b). However, Plato puts faith in Dion’s own character, presumably both because the older man could prove a stabilising influence on the tyrant, and because he trusts Dion’s judgement about his nephew. Plato therefore is shown as suppressing his doubts – the risk, he concludes, is worth it because, in an echo of The Laws 4.711, if Plato does manage to convert Dionysios to philosophy, he would bring about “everything good” (panta agatha, 328c). In addition to the desire to help Dionysios and his subjects, “Plato” admits to a more personal motivation. If he did not go, he explains, he feared that he would reproach himself as being “nothing but words” (logos monon, 328c), unwilling and afraid to step up and put his theoretical ideas to the test. This self-condemnation for being a mere theoretician is surprising considering the real Plato’s works. Time and again throughout the Platonic dialogues, the idea is raised that in contemporary society this is precisely what a philosopher ought to expect. So different are his values and priorities from those of the average citizen that he cannot help but seem a “stargazer, babbler, and useless man” (Rep. 6.488e).44 The Plato of the letter, however, is troubled by this image. It is as if the gibes of the unlearned have gotten under his skin, and he has begun to doubt his own doctrines. No longer does it seem enough that his Republic be “a pattern established in heaven” (en ouranōi paradeigma anakeitai, Rep. 9.592b), to which philosophers throughout the world can pledge their spiritual allegiance. Now, to be valid, the heavenly vision must be brought down to earth and planted in the uncertain soil of Syracuse. 44 See also Tht. 174–175 for a description of the philosopher’s alienation from city life and politics.

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Two further motivations may be briefly sketched out. In the letter, Plato says that he felt obligations of friendship toward Dion, and worried about the consequences to his friend if he did not lend his aid. He pictures Dion, exiled by an increasingly arbitrary tyrant, bitterly reproaching him for not lending his “words and persuasion” to make Dionysios into a nobler individual (328d). Here it is hard not to scent a whiff of vanity. Such is Plato’s faith in his own powers of persuasion that he pictures himself as able to completely turn Dionysios around, to be the saviour of both Syracuse and his friend. This image is also pure dramatic irony: as it will turn out, Dion will indeed be exiled, and far from saving him, Plato’s presence and arguments will play a substantial role in Dion’s downfall. Plato would have served his friend better by staying home. Finally, the letter alludes briefly to Plato’s fear that, should he not gain Dionysios’ ear, “others” would get to him first and put him on a very different path. These “others” could refer to philosophical rivals – other disciples of Sokrates, including Aristippos, Aischines, and Polyxenos, are said to have been at Dionysios’ court. It may also, however, refer more broadly to those who encourage Dionysios’ tyrannical predilections. In The Republic, Sokrates refers to malign advisors who latch onto a tyrannical soul and encourage it to give free rein to its consuming appetites (Rep. 9.572e). In this case, these might be the courtiers and generals of Dionysios’ father, who hope for the new tyrant to continue his predecessor’s autocratic style. Plato, the letter will reveal, was right to fear these men: in the contest for Dionysios’ soul, they will prove the victors. All in all, the letter paints Plato’s motives for going to Syracuse as not ignoble, but not necessarily as particularly wise. Plato is shown as putting an inordinate faith in Dion’s description of Dionysios’ character, as giving in to popular criticism of philosophers as all talk and no action, and as trusting excessively in his own rhetorical abilities.45 In his eagerness to put his theories into practice, Plato forgets the more pessimistic advice found in his published writings. If we follow Burnyeat’s view of the letter as a prose tragedy, then this enthusiasm can easily be viewed as the hamartia, the fundamental error, that leads to the catastrophe that follows. In The Republic, Sokrates opines that, even in the ideal state, a philosopher must be compelled against his own desires to take on political responsibility (7.520a–521b). In the Letter, however, Plato shows a haste to plunge into politics that sits uncomfortably with his status as a man of wisdom and reflection.

45

On Plato’s overestimation of his own rhetoric, see Araújo 2019: 86.

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Meeting Dionysios The letter strongly implies that Plato set out for Syracuse with the aim of transforming Dionysios into a Republic-style philosopher-king.46 Dion invokes the same language of divine providence found in Sokrates’ discussions of the philosopher-king in The Republic, and his description of Dionysios as having the potential to be both a philosopher and the ruler of a great state strongly echoes The Republic’s description of the philosopher-king as someone in whom are united the apparent irreconcilables of “political power and philosophy” (dunamis politikē kai philosophia, Rep. 5.473d).47 The language of the letter suggests that its Plato initially shares Dion’s ambitions. He expresses the hope that, should he succeed in educating the tyrant, the Syracusans will enjoy “inconceivable bliss” (amēchanon makariotēti) and “a happy life” (bion eudaimona 327c). This evokes statements in The Republic that the ideal state will enjoy “the most happiness” ( pleistē eudaimonia, 4.421b) and will be “as happy as possible” (eudaimonestatēn, 5.466a).48 If this is to be read as Plato’s initial agenda, the letter makes clear it does not long survive contact with Dionysios and his court. The court, the letter says, was “drenched in factionalism and slanders about Dion’s aims concerning the tyranny” (staseōs […] mesta sumpanta kai diabolōn pros tēn turannida Diōnos peri, 329b–c). Dionysios himself proved just as inconstant and unreliable as Plato had initially feared. In the face of Dionysios’ vanity and paranoia, Plato is shown as lowering his ambitions. Just as a doctor would not treat a patient against his will, the letter explains, Plato declines to give philosophical advice to either a man or a city that is not 46 Frede (2015: 48) uses this as evidence that the letter cannot be by Plato, who would surely have known better than to think that Dionysios was a suitable candidate. Burnyeat (2015: 121) perceptively notes that nothing in the letter includes any reference to the major reforms that the philosopher-king in a non-ideal state would be expected to carry out – community of property, the abolition of family units, and the expulsion of everyone over the age of ten. Gonzalez’s interpretation, however, that Plato never thought that Dionysios could be a philosopher king, however, I consider excessive (Gonzalez 2019: 273–276). 47 Burnyeat points out (2015: 146) that Dion’s emphasis on Dionysios as ruler of a great state runs counter to ideas expressed in the Republic that the ideal city must remain small in order to achieve unity and harmony (423b–c). Is this an example of the author of the letter sloppily understanding Plato, or is it meant to point once again to the notion that Plato has abandoned some of his principles in his enthusiasm for his Syracusan project? 48 I find Gonzalez’s dismissal of this language as simply “exaggeration for rhetorical effect” (Gonzalez 2019: 275) weak and unconvincing. Whatever their identity, the author of the letter is clearly a careful writer who pays close attention to the use of language – as they need to be to accomplish their goal “to sound like Plato” (Burnyeat 2015: 133, emphasis in original).

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prepared to accept it.49 Dionysios being, by implication, such a person, Plato therefore abandons an attempt to teach the tyrant any genuine philosophical principles. This does not mean, however, that he gives up on any possibility of reforming Dionysios. His aims, however, are much more modest. The advice that the letter depicts Plato (and, before his exile, Dion with him) offering the tyrant is not philosophical, but more the kind of standard civic advice offered in Hiero or Isokrates’ works.50 In the first place, Plato and Dion urge Dionysios to “control yourself ” (enkratēs autos autou, 331e) and to acquire “faithful friends” ( pistous philous). This emphasis on self-control and the acquisition of friends cannot but remind us of Xenophon, where self-mastery and friendship were two of the main pillars of civic virtue and personal happiness. It surely makes us think especially of Hiero, in which the lack of both the capacity to limit his appetites and of the presence of true friends were some of the greatest miseries of the tyrant’s condition.51 There is also perhaps a faint echo of Isokrates’ advice to Nikokles to “honour with offices the nearest of your friends, and in particular those who are most devoted to truth itself ” (Isoc. 2.20). The fundamentally civic nature of this advice is underscored by the paradigms that Plato and Dion hold up for Dionysios to imitate. First, there is Dareios I, Great King of Persia (332a). Both here and in Plato’s Laws, Dareios is held up as a model of competent administration, but hardly of deep philosophical knowledge. In The Laws in particular, he is condemned for having allowed his son Xerxes to be corrupted by the flattery of nurses and eunuchs and to become vain, uncontrolled, and tyrannical (3.695c–e). One might also think of Herodotus’ report of a Persian saying that where Cyrus was a father and Kambyses a master, “Dareios was a businessman” – a far cry from the philosopher-king who disdains all worldly profit.52 The second example is the policy of the Athenian empire of the fifth century, which, the letter says, ensured control over its imperial subjects by cultivating friends in the tributary cities (332c). Here again, while this might be a good model for efficient imperial rule, it is hardly representative of philosophical virtue. In The Laws, after all, fifth-century Athens is held up 49 This reflects a striking contrast with Plato’s Statesman, where the Eleatic Stranger evokes agreement that, if he was certain that his remedy would be helpful, a doctor would be entirely justified in using force against an unwilling patient (296b–c). 50 So Araújo 2019: 85. 51 The emphasis in the Seventh Letter on both self-control and friendship has been noted in recent scholarship. See Araújo 2019 for a discussion of the former (which, it must be said, I believe somewhat overemphasises the role of self-control in the letter); for a good overview of the role of friendship in the letter, see Leyh 2019. 52 Hdt. 3.89.3. On the philosopher’s lack of interest in money, see Rep. 6.485e, Phdr. 82c.

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as the paradigm of how excessive liberty corrupts the populace and leads to a an entirely vicious community spirit (3.701a–c). It is clear, then, that there is no longer any hope of raising Dionysios to the level of a philosophical ruler. The advice Plato and Dion give him is aimed merely at ameliorating his tyranny: the best they can hope for Dionysios to become is not a philosopher-king, but a kosmios turannos. Dion and Plato, the letter further explains, were “speaking ambiguously and striving in words” to nudge Dionysios into becoming “harmonious regarding virtue” (sumphōnos pros aretēn), and “thoughtful and temperate” (emphrona te kai sōphrona, 332d–e). The carrot held in front of Dionysios was that it is only by virtuous conduct that “every man saves himself and those of whom he is the leader” (332d). Personal virtue is thus presented as the tool for saving his tyranny. We are now squarely in Xenophon’s world. Concealed within this apparently tyrannical discourse are basic lessons in civic virtue: self-control, the importance of friends, and competent administration. The philosophers stand in the same position as Simonides in Hiero – seeking to win the goodwill of a Syracusan tyrant by aping his values, all the while ultimately seeking to temper and reform his rule. In essence, Plato is depicted as adopting the principles of Xenophon when his own hopes of creating a philosopher-king have failed. Plato’s Xenophontic approach is, however, no more successful than his previous philosophical attempts. Dionysios lacks the self-awareness displayed by Xenophon’s Hieron, and/or Plato greatly overestimates his own capability for this kind of delicate rhetoric.53 In addition, Plato and Dion are contending with other sources of advice for Dionysios. These voices, whom the letter labels “the slanderers”, correctly interpret Plato and Dion’s advice as concealing an ulterior motive, but paint it in a much darker light (333c): [Dionysios], his mind bewitched by education, would neglect his power and turn it over to [Dion], who would then usurp it and expel Dionysios from power by stealth.

It was to these voices that Dionysios most hearkened. As the letter has Plato ruefully admit, “I strove against the slanderers, and I lost” (333d).54 In essence, we have here the situation that Strauss erroneously projects onto Xenophon’s Hiero: the tyrant fears that the “wise men” who are counselling him are actually plotting against him, and takes actions to protect himself So Araújo 2019: 86. One might compare this situation with the way Isokrates positions himself and his students as locked in a struggle against tyrants’ flatterers, a struggle in which he expresses confidence that he will prevail (Isoc. L1 4, L4 6, L6 13). 53 54

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from them. Dion is exiled, Plato detained, and the whole project of reform seems to have collapsed.

Return to Syracuse After leaving Dionysios’ court, Plato spends five years back in Athens, ignoring pleas for his return from both Dionysios, and, surprisingly, the still-exiled Dion. Dion, the letter says, was continually telling Plato that, since his departure, Dionysios had genuinely become interested in philosophy, and longs for Plato to come and explain the doctrines that he had rejected in their first association (338b). When this fails to entice Plato, Dionysios turns to compulsion. If Plato does not come, the tyrant says, he will do everything in his power to undermine both Dion and Plato’s friends in Tarentum, a city that has only recently formed a profitable alliance with Syracuse (339e). Once again, Plato feels compelled by loyalty to his friends to put aside his misgivings and go. Once he decides to go, however, the letter depicts Plato as immediately rationalising his decision (339e): It came to me that there was nothing surprising if a young man, after hearing tell of important matters, should, being keen-witted, fall in love with the most blessed lifestyle. It surely then behoved me to investigate the situation properly and see how things really stood, and not betray the opportunity or become subject to the ultimate criticism, if what was reported was indeed true.

For a second time, Plato lets hope and duty triumph, this time not only over caution but also over his own bitter experience. In retrospect, the letter says, Plato acknowledges that he was “blindfolded by this argument” (tōi logismōi toutōi katakalupsamenos, 340a). To his credit, on arriving back in Syracuse he does not take Dionysios’ new-found philosophical interest for granted, but instead subjects him to what he describes as his standard test to see if a prospective philosopher is truly committed to the path. This test does not consist of any overt philosophical instruction, but rather is a kind of prospectus, laying out for the hearer all the rigours and difficulties of the philosophical life (340b–e).55 True philosophers, Plato says, react to his description of the arduous path with joy and enthusiasm, while pretenders are generally scared off by the amount of time, effort, and self-denial it entails. Dionysios’ responds to this test in the worst possible way. “He claimed”, says the letter, “that he knew most of even the greatest doctrines already, and that he understood them sufficiently through the second-hand reports 55

For details as to what this test might have involved in detail, see Forcignanò 2019.

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of others” (341b). The tyrant, the letter continues, later compounded this arrogance by writing a book that he claimed laid out Plato’s most elevated ideas, which the narrator angrily decries as utterly unconnected with his own philosophy.56 Dionysios thus displays what, in Plato’s dialogues, is presented as the philosophical original sin: he believes he knows things he truly does not know.57 This conceit is depicted as endemic to humanity, but it can be seen as particularly virulent in tyrants. Surrounded by flatterers and used to instant gratification, tyrants are least of all people apt to recognise their own deficiencies.58 At this point, the blindfold comes off for good. “I saw clearly Dionysios’ ‘enthusiasm’ for philosophy”, the letter sarcastically declares (345d). Plato is shown realising that he has been wasting his time: Dionysios will never be a philosopher. Plato is unphilosophically angry – at Dionysios, yes, but also at himself (fool me once, shame on you …) and at Dion and all the others who induced him, with trumped-up tales of Dionysios’ philosophical interests, “to come a third time to the straits of Skylla and ‘yet again run the length of deadly Charybdis’” (345e, quoting Odyssey 12.42). The Odyssey quote here is pointed. At the most basic level, it nods to the fact that by the Classical period, the location of the two epic monsters was believed to have lain in the Straits of Messina between Sicily and Italy.59 More symbolically, Skylla and Charybdis represent a no-win situation, wherein no matter what one does there will be terrible costs. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is forced to watch Skylla devour six of his men, helpless to save or defend them (12.245–250); the reference may thus point to Plato’s sense of helplessness after realising that all his efforts in Syracuse have been in vain.60 The precise context of the Odyssey may also be significant. It comes when Odysseus encounters 56 This book was presumably based on the second-hand reports that Dionysios has heard; Gonzalez rightly criticises translations that imply that the book was somehow based on Plato’s test, which seems to have contained no genuine philosophical content (Gonzalez 2019: 272). 57 So Burnyeat 2015: 162. 58 So Forcignanò 2019: 156–157: Son of a tyrant and a tyrant himself, Dionysius was used to having everything right away. From his point of view, it was intolerable that a hobby (since that is precisely what philosophy amounted to for him) might require a lot of patience, considerable effort, and a moderate lifestyle […] With the arrogance typical of powerful men, Dionysius thought he could do whatever he wanted; since at that moment he wanted to be a philosopher, he wrote a book of philosophy. We might compare Dionysios’ bumbling attempts to become a philosopher with the Scythian king Skyles’ equally failed project to become a Greek citizen in Herodotus – prevented by their egos from true transformation, tyrants who seek to become something else achieve only a kind of ridiculous burlesque. 59 See Thuc. 4.24.5. 60 So Jażdżewska 2013: 319.

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the monsters a second time, after Zeus has destroyed his ship and crew as punishment for devouring the cattle of the Sun. The image here is of folly, short-sightedness, and being led by one’s desires to ignore warnings of one’s ultimate fate.61 On that grim epic note, the experiment ends. There will be no more attempts to turn the tyrant to philosophy. From here on, the Seventh Letter becomes a political thriller, replete with court machinations, troop revolts, and dramatic chases across Syracuse. Plato’s only communication with the tyrant now is to beg him for clemency toward Dion and other perceived enemies – and these entreaties are as unsuccessful as all of Plato’s other approaches. Eventually Plato returns to Greece, rescued by Archytas of Tarentum, “hating his wanderings and misfortune in Sicily” (350d).

A Warning to the Ambitious The Seventh Letter emerges from this analysis as a thoughtful and creative reflection on a philosopher’s engagement with tyranny. Whatever the author’s understanding of Plato’s more advanced theory, they have clearly absorbed and endorsed the attitude to philosophers in politics found in the dialogues. The story of Plato’s misadventures in Syracuse serves as a powerful vindication of the oft-repeated statements both that philosophers should have nothing to do with contemporary politics, and that tyrants are incorrigible and least likely of anyone to listen to genuine philosophy. In The Republic, Sokrates put the philosopher at the opposite extreme of the scale of happiness from the tyrant; the Seventh Letter reaffirms the gulf between tyranny and philosophy, and returns the philosopher-king to his original place as an improbable ideal. By showing the consequences that follow when Plato forgot this principle, the author of the letter vividly demonstrates the wisdom of the original formulation. Even the best of philosophers cannot transform a selfish tyrant into a philosopher-king, or even into the kind of self-disciplined ruler who might usher in the second-best constitution of The Laws. In sum, the Seventh Letter endorses the ideas presented in Plato the writer by showing the cost of their neglect to Plato the man. Paradoxically, the letter seems to show Plato’s practical failures upholding his theoretical wisdom. The letter can thus be read as a kind of warning against the temptations of philosophical arrogance. Even Plato, it suggests, succumbed to the intoxication of hope, seduced by the fantasy of making his speculations a reality. His experience can serve as an object lesson for his successors. Avoid entanglements with tyrants, the author warns: you cannot hope to change them, and our own life will be blighted and made miserable. 61

So Burnyeat 2015: 173.

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5. Other Letters, Other Platos The Seventh Letter is the longest and most detailed of the letters ascribed to Plato, and thus has received by far the most scholarly study. It is not, however, the only letter in the collection worthy of attention. As mentioned above, some of the letters are written to and about monarchs. As with the Seventh Letter, I see the writers of many of those texts grappling with the questions and contradictions around the engagement by Plato and his students with autocratic rulers. Each letter reveals a different image of Plato, with different motives and approaches. Some seem to justify or exculpate Plato from criticism; others seem to come from hostile traditions and paint a decidedly unflattering picture of the philosopher.62

Letters to Dionysios The first letter in the corpus, purporting to be a missive to Dionysios II written after his second sojourn in Syracuse, is deeply bitter in tone. Its Plato charges Dionysios with ingratitude and lack of friendship. It comes, I suspect, from a tradition that is not terribly favourable to Plato, as the philosopher’s anger is depicted as springing entirely from personal slights, and not from philosophical disapproval of tyranny. The Plato of this letter even declares that he himself held office under Dionysios, “often guarding your city with absolute power” (L1 309b). The second half of the letter contains quotes from tragedians on the misery of tyrants who are bereft of friends, which it warns that Dionysios will soon experience himself. This declaration of the unhappiness of tyrants might be seen as approaching philosophic condemnation, but its force is blunted by the fact that Plato’s anger springs entirely from the fact that Dionysios has treated him badly – while in favour, he was happy to serve the tyrant and guard his city for him. The Second Letter is also critical of Dionysios, but is more temperate and reflective. Of primary interest here is the statement that “it is natural for thought ( phronēsis) and great power (dunamis megalē) to come together” (310e). This is, of course, a deeply un-Platonic sentiment – in the dialogues, wise and thoughtful men are generally shown as wanting nothing to do with political power or its wielders. The letter, however, reinforces the claim by listing rulers and wise men from throughout history and mythology who associated with each other – among them Hieron and Simonides, Solon and Kroisos, Agamemnon and Nestor, and Zeus and Prometheus (311a–b). Considerations of space prevent my discussing another letter to a monarch that is closely associated with Plato: the letter attributed to Speusippos, Plato’s successor as head of the Academy, written to Philip II of Macedon. Fortunately, some good comparatively recent discussions of this text exist, and I urge the readers to consult Wareh 2012, Natoli 2004. 62

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The natural association of wisdom and power, the letter makes clear, is not always a friendly one – in some cases, the rulers and the wise men quarrelled, in others they found common ground. Plato and Dionysios, the letter goes on, are destined to become another such exemplary pair. It behoves them, therefore, to be remembered as a harmonious and positive example. This is, of course, a deliberate irony on the part of the letter’s author, who knows that Plato and Dionysios have indeed joined the ranks of famous pairs of monarchs and wise men, but as a decidedly negative example. Beyond this metatextual winking, the passage lays out a vague programme for the interactions of monarchs and wise men. Such men ought to be friends, it implies, and thus rules out a stridently Herodotean approach that sees wise men telling unwelcome civic lessons to monarchs. Rather, the situation seems reminiscent of Sokrates’ comments in Xenophon’s Memorabilia that it would be folly for a tyrant to ignore a wise advisor, since “punishment lies ahead if one disregards one who speaks well” (3.9.12). The Second Letter also presents Plato as continuing to instruct Dionysios in esoteric doctrines, despite the two having become somewhat estranged. These doctrines are presented as theological and mystical, and seem to have no political import. Unlike in the Seventh Letter, there is no suggestion that learning these doctrines will make Dionysios a better statesman or contribute to the happiness of his subjects. The Third Letter is, after the second, the most detailed discussion of Plato’s time in Syracuse. Addressed, like the two previous letters, to Dionysios, this letter presents itself as Plato’s angry response to rumours that have been circulating about his advice to the tyrant. According to these rumours, the letter says, Plato had thwarted Dionysios’ plans to resettle abandoned Greek cities in Sicily, and to convert his empire from a tyranny to a kingship (basileia, 315d). The letter now envisions Plato writing to say that these are precisely the agendas that he had in fact advised Dionysios to pursue. The letter thus, like the Seventh, envisions Plato giving practical, civic advice to Dionysios instead of/in addition to esoteric philosophical instruction. Indeed, the Plato of this letter even says that he participated in the governance of Syracuse, writing preambles to some of Dionysios’ legislation (316a). This emphasis on preambles (or, more accurately, “overtures” – the term prooimia refers literally to short pieces preceding longer musical compositions) is significant. In The Laws, the Athenian Stranger emphasises the necessity of such introductory explanations for laws: the preamble explains to the law’s subjects the need for the legislation, and thus persuades them to obey it willingly (4.722e–723b). Without such a preamble, the Athenian explains, a law is simply a “tyrannical decree” (turannikon epitagma, 4.722e). In this light, Plato’s work on the preludes to Dionysios’ laws could be read as an attempt to move Dionysios’ regime from one based on force

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to one based more on persuasion and willing obedience. Plato would, in this case, be acting in a similar vein to Simonides with Hieron and Isokrates with Nikokles, who likewise aim to transform monarchs into leaders ruling with the consent and approval of his subjects. If Plato is to be read as having such a reforming agenda, the letter makes clear that it failed. Following Plato’s departure, the letter says, Dionysios and his court have largely rewritten the preambles, removing all but faint traces of Plato’s influence.63 Further evidence of Dionysios’ disdain for Plato’s attempts to educate him can be found in an anecdote related later in the letter. During his second visit to Syracuse, shortly before his final departure, Dionysios and Plato fell to discussing Plato’s initial advice regarding the transformation of his rule and the resettlement of Greek cities (319a–c). Plato asks Dionysios what he had specifically said to Dionysios about this plan, and the tyrant replied: “that if I had been educated, I should do it all, otherwise, I should not do it” (319c). Plato replies that he has remembered excellently. This is likely another call-back to The Laws – a good memory was, after all, one of the attributes required of the kosmios turannos. Here, the reference is surely ironic, as by now Dionysios has proved to be anything but kosmios. Dionysios’ further response shows how little he has absorbed Plato’s lessons: “educated in geometry, or what?” This reply contains an untranslatable pun. The Greek verb geōmetrein can be both “to do geometry” and “to measure land”. Dionysios thus may be interpreting the study of geometry that the philosopher once urged on him – part, in The Republic, of a philosopher-king’s preliminary education – as practical instruction in land-surveying. The tyrant thus evokes what would be to him an absurd image of himself standing in the ruins of Sicilian cities with measuring tools, and suggests that Plato’s philosophical instruction is little better than a menial trade. We are thus very much back in a Herodotean mould – education in civic virtue evokes only mockery from a monarch, and the sage who seeks to teach him is dismissed as a useless annoyance. The Third Letter shares many features with the Seventh: the political project under discussion is the same, and Plato is once again depicted as counselling Dionysios on practical politics. The reference to geometry suggests that he may at one There may be significance in the verb diaskeuōreō, which the letter uses to describe this revision. This is a very rare term in Greek: its only other significant appearance is in Plato’s Republic, where it is used of the philosopher-ruler’s “revision” of a state to transform it into the ideal Republic (7.540e). Specifically, it refers to the act of expelling everyone over the age of ten, to leave a clean slate on which to build the new city. There may thus be a pointed irony here: rather than transforming his city, Dionysios and his cronies prefer to transform the laws designed to improve it.

63

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point have attempted to teach Dionysios the kind of curriculum appropriate for a philosopher-king, but that project now seems to have been abandoned. As in the Seventh Letter, Plato’s sojourn in Sicily is an unmitigated failure, with no true communication between philosopher and tyrant ever properly achieved. The Thirteenth Letter also purports to be a letter from Plato to Dionysios. Unlike all the other letters addressed to the tyrant, this depicts Plato and Dionysios as enjoying friendly relations. At the opening of the letter, there is some discussion of Dionysios’ philosophical studies: Plato is sending him both some of his own works and some Pythagorean texts (360b), and recommends to him a mathematician who will be visiting his court (360c–e). The remainder of the letter deals with financial matters. Plato has been acting as Dionysios’ agent in various Athenian business dealings and reports on their success (361a, 362a, 363b–c); he also asks for the tyrant to send him money for his own use, particularly to pay for the dowry of one of his nieces (361b–e). There is scarcely anything civic or political in this letter. The closest its Plato comes to any kind of admonition to the tyrant is when he advises Dionysios to ensure that his financial agents tell him the whole truth about his expenses (362c–d). At the moment, he says, they are concealing the extent of his financial obligations out of fear, leading to Dionysios gaining a reputation for fiscal unreliability. This warning does, admittedly, tie into traditional ideas of tyrants’ subjects being unwilling to tell them the truth, and evokes Isokrates’ advice to Nikokles that the king deal fairly with foreigners, appoint trustworthy agents, and listen even to unwelcome voices (Isoc. 2.22, 26–27). The Plato of this letter does not, however, connect it to any broader principles of civic government, but quickly moves on to discussing other practical affairs. The Thirteenth Letter thus gives us a Plato who has little interest in Syracusan politics: his philosophical lessons are presented as abstract and theoretical, and his practical discussions are solely concerned with their finances. This letter can easily be read as upholding the views of Plato’s contemporary critics that the philosopher went to Syracuse out of greed and desire for a powerful patron.

Letters Five and Six Two of the letters in the corpus are addressed to monarchs unconnected to Syracuse or western Greece. The Fifth Letter is presented as a letter of recommendation for Plato’s student Euphraios to Perdikkas II of Macedon, while the Sixth is addressed jointly to Hermeias, ruler of Atarneus, and Plato’s students Erastos and Koriskos. The Fifth Letter focusses particularly on speech, taking language as its fundamental metaphor. Early in the letter, Plato is made to explain to the Perdikkas why Euphraios will be such an asset to his reign. Just like living things, he says, “there is a specific voice for

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each constitution” (321d). The success of a constitution depends upon how well it can speak its own language (321e): Whichever constitution speaks in its own voice to gods and mortals, and displays actions that conform to its voice, will prosper and survive; but if it imitates another voice, it will be destroyed.

Euphraios, the letter continues, is well placed to help the Macedonian king to fully understand “the language of monarchy” (monarchias logous, 322a). This letter presents a vision of communication with monarchs that is at odds with everything discussed so far. All the writers previously covered, Plato included, had seen the language of monarchy as something that all monarchs naturally speak. It is the language of self-centredness, power, and greed, and of seeing everything through the lens of personal relationships. In this letter, however, monarchic language is something very different. It is, apparently, a kind of specialised language that not even most monarchs fully understand. The goal of a good advisor is not, as in Xenophon and Isokrates, to teach monarchs to speak civic language, but rather to teach them how to speak more perfectly as a monarch. The letter in fact emphasises that if a monarch were to try to speak the language of a democracy or oligarchy, it would lead to his destruction. Where Isokrates and Xenophon had as their goal transforming autocratic monarchies into more civic polities, the letter seems to expect that Euphraios will make the Macedonian monarchy more perfectly monarchic.64 Letter Six also differs from the other letters to monarchs, this time in being the only one not to present philosophers as contributing to the education of monarchs. The goal of the letter is gain Hermeias of Atarneus’ protection for two of Plato’s students who have taken up residence in his city. Unlike Euphraios in the Fifth Letter and Plato in the letters to Dionysios, the philosophers here are not depicted as teaching or advising the monarch. Rather, it is Hermeias who is portrayed as obliged to assist them. As philosophers, the letter says, Erastos and Koriskos have little knowledge of practical life, particularly how to deal with people who have not been made virtuous by philosophy (322d–e). Hermeias is therefore called on to protect the philosophers from the uglier side of life, so that they can devote themselves more fully to “true wisdom” (322e–323a). In return for his protection, the philosophers will give Hermeias their friendship, something described as more valuable to the ruler than all I do not, however, accept Post’s claim (1925: 133) that this pro-monarchic slant indicates that the letter comes from a writer hostile to Plato. As will be discussed in the epilogue, this image of perfecting monarchy is in line with Hellenistic ideas about ideal kingship. 64

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his wealth and power (322d). The letter does not, however, explain why their friendship is so valuable. There is no suggestion that they will teach Hermeias philosophical principles or assist him in governing his city. The value of Erastos and Koriskos to Hermeias rather seems to be simply that they are men of “sound character” (ēthos hugies, 322d). Friendship with such men is treated in the letter as a self-evident benefit, without the need to describe any specific services that such friends might perform. The Sixth Letter thus gives a very different picture of the motives leading Plato and his students to engage with monarchs. Unlike the other letters, it suggests that rather than seeking to educate monarchs in philosophical principles, Plato’s goal was simply to convince them to provide his students with protection and security. The goal appears to be to create safe spaces where philosophy can take place uninterrupted by the demands of ordinary life. The power and resources possessed by monarchs puts them in a good position to provide this security, but there is no special mission to educate or reform them. The Platonic Letters present an appropriately Platonic polyphony of narratives. As ancient writers struggled to reconcile the stridently anti-tyrannical tone of the dialogues with the real-world interactions of Plato and his students with a range of monarchs, they produce a kaleidoscope of different Platos with wildly differing motivations. The Seventh Letter gives us a Plato misled by his own naivety and vanity into forgetting his own teachings; others give us Platos who are seeking simply to provide safe havens for their students, to teach monarchs more effectively to speak monarchy, or simply to enrich themselves and their friends from tyrants’ wealth. All these visions are plausible, and more explanations could be considered besides. If we follow Danielle Allen’s thesis that Plato sought to have his philosophical and political language adopted in society at large, then cultivating monarchs would provide him with a powerful aid to that dissemination.65 Or perhaps, if we take up the reference in the Seventh Letter to Plato’s fear of other influences on Dionysios, we could see him motivated primarily by a concern to curtail the influence of rival philosophies. Even if he did not hold out much hope that he could reform Dionysios, perhaps he felt that he would at least do less damage than Aristippos or Polyxenos. In the absence of any undisputed personal testimony from Plato, the question of how to reconcile his teaching with his actions must remain open. What cannot, I submit, be denied is that the contradiction exists. When it comes to communication with monarchs, Plato stands as a rock 65 Allen 2010: 3–8. In this connection, it is worth noting the traditions that Plato gave public lectures while in Syracuse – if nothing else, his connection with Dionysios did provide him an avenue to introduce his philosophy to a new audience.

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in the stream of fourth-century thought, refusing to be drawn along with the current. He has no truck with the optimism shown by Isokrates and Xenophon that tyrants can be educated and reformed. His image of the tyrant is of a person incapable of taking on new information or analysing anything rationally. While The Republic holds out the faint hope of a ruler coming to philosophise, such an event is presented as the result of divine intervention, not the agency of a human teacher. The optimistic visions of Plato’s contemporaries are skewered in The Laws as resting on the pipe dream of finding a kosmios turannos, a creature so improbable as to be functionally non-existent. Plato’s conservatism in this respect put him at odds not only with his philosophical rivals, but also with the drift of culture as a whole. For all his vast influence on subsequent philosophy, his views on communication with monarchs were largely ignored both by his contemporary society and his immediate posterity. As monarchy became increasingly inescapable, it was the models of Xenophon and Isokrates that would catch the imagination of politicians and philosophers. Plato’s pessimism increasingly seemed untenable in a world where monarchic power was a fact of life, and philosopher and citizen alike had to find ways of living with the omnipresence of despotic rulers. In the next chapter, we will turn from the world of theory to practice, and look at how Athenian politicians discussed their city’s relations with rulers, and the ways in which the works of philosophers may have affected real-world interactions with monarchs.

Chapter 6

From Theory to Practice Talking to Tyrants in Demosthenes and his Contemporaries Talking to Tyrants in Demosthenes and his Contemporaries

1. Demosthenes and Company We are blessed with a wealth of evidence of Athenian political discourse in the fourth century. From the end of the Peloponnesian War onward, we have a plethora of speeches by major players in Athenian political and legal life. Among these are a number who directly take on the question of how the polis and its citizens should deal with monarchs: the embittered aristocrat Andokides, who boasts of his friendships with kings and excoriates the dēmos for naivety and arrogance; the accomplished orator, Lysias, who positions himself as the champion of the people and scourge of tyranny; the actor-turned-politician, Aischines, who offers himself as a bridge between the people of Athens and the Macedonian monarchy. Of all the fourth-century orators, however, none engages more with the question than the man who can boast by far the best-preserved corpus of any Classical Greek rhetorician: Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of the deme of Paiania. A man from a well-off background – his father had owned a factory that produced beds and knives – Demosthenes swiftly grew to being a sought-after speech writer for men engaged in legal cases, generally championing the interests of Athens’ traditional elites against more radical politicians.1 As his political influence grew, Demosthenes also came to be identified with a policy of aggressive promotion of Athenian interests and ideals, concerted resistance to the ambitions of other would-be imperialists, and a muscular and interventionist foreign policy. A total of 61 orations have been attributed to Demosthenes. Even omitting the five or so that are likely spurious, we are still left with nearly twice the number we have for Lysias, the next most attested Athenian orator. This corpus contains a range of different types of speech: political 1 Burke 2002. The most recent English biography of Demosthenes is MacDowell 2009.

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speeches in the assembly, court speeches from major state trials, commissioned speeches for private cases, and one epitaphios, a ceremonial eulogy for Athens’ war-dead. Many of these orations touch to some degree on Athens’ relationship to a range of monarchs and autocratic figures. Of these, a large proportion deal with the city’s interaction with King Philip II of Macedon, which was to become Demosthenes’ primary focus in the latter half of his career. In addition, we also have speeches that deal with the rulers of Bosporan Kingdom, the Great King of Persia, and a range of local rulers around the Greek world.

Monarchy in Demosthenes Demosthenes’ views on monarchy are, by and large, conservative. In his speeches, sole power is depicted as having much the same psychological effects on its possessors as found in Herodotus and other fifth-century authors. In Demosthenes’ second Philippic oration, for example, he paints a deeply unflattering portrait of the character of the Macedonian king, which hits many notes familiar from the Herodotean presentation of monarchy. Demosthenes states that Philip’s troops follow him only grudgingly, since they have no share in the glory he gains from victory (2.16), which strongly echoes Herodotus’ explanation of why the Athenians were far stronger after the overthrow of their tyrants (Hdt. 5.78). Demosthenes goes on to say that Philip has sidelined all experienced soldiers out of jealousy, and expelled anyone who objects to the general chaos and licentiousness of his court (2.18). Here, again, this strongly echoes Otanes’ statement that the monarch “envies the best men who live about him, and rejoices in the basest of the citizens” (Hdt. 3.80.4). Earlier in the speech, Demosthenes has emphatically stated that it is impossible for Philip’s current success to last long, built as it is on injustice and bad faith. Here, again, he echoes Herodotus, both Otanes’ description of monarchy as not “a stable thing” (chrēma katartēmenon, 5.80.3), and the general pattern that few dynasties in Herodotus are able to establish themselves for more than a few generations.2 2. Individual Corruption The age of Demosthenes was an age that saw an almost unprecedented degree of contact between individual Athenians and a range of monarchs around the Mediterranean. In some cases, these were long-established hereditary connections (xeniai) between the citizen’s family and the royal dynasty; in others, Athenians on diplomatic, military, or trade expeditions managed to establish personal relationships with the kings and tyrants with 2

So Pelling 2002: 150–152.

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whom they were dealing.3 Many of Athens’ leading politicians and generals could boast impressive arrays of contacts with foreign monarchs. Both the general Konon and his son Timotheus, for example, enjoyed good relations with rulers in Cyprus, Asia Minor, Thrace, and Macedon. Timotheus’ contemporary Iphikrates had a particularly close relationship with both the Thracian and Macedonian royal families, marrying the daughter of the Thracian king Kotys and becoming the adopted son of the Macedonian king Amyntas II.4 The all-important Athenian grain trade with the Bosporan Kingdom seems to have been dominated by men with ancestral connections to the ruling Spartokid dynasty. Among these we find Androtion, target of a prosecution speech by Demosthenes and mover of a decree in honour of Bosporan royals, and Demosthenes himself, who enjoyed a hereditary connection with the ruling family and displays intimate knowledge of the grain trade in several speeches.5 These personal connections could be of immense value to Athenian interests generally. Men like Konon, Timotheus, Iphikrates, and Androtion could parlay their personal connections into formal alliances between Athens and the various royal courts. Individuals who enjoyed such connections could view them as a source of pride, and argue that their contacts allowed them to secure favours for the dēmos. The exiled orator Andokides, for example, boasts of his friendship with the Macedonian and Cypriot courts, and says that these connections have secured valuable resources for the city.6 Indeed, there is strong evidence that the Athenian people were happy to exploit these connections, deliberately assigning men commands and ambassadorships in regions where they had pre-existing connections.7 Nevertheless, it is also clear that men with links to monarchic regimes could also be regarded with mistrust. I argued in the first chapter that fifth-century comedy and tragedy indicate a popular belief that prolonged interaction with kings and tyrants will lead a citizen to “go native”, abandoning their self-controlled civic identity for a life of luxury, self-indulgence, and autocratic behaviour. Demosthenes’ speeches suggest that similar beliefs continued into the next century, and the orator was all-too-keen to exploit them to blacken his political rivals. Men who dealt with monarchs could easily be accused of having abandoned their commitment to Athens, their very identity as Athenians, in favour of the wealth and power that friendship with monarchs could bring. 3 See Mitchell 1997 ch. 5 for an overview of the overseas contacts of prominent Athenians. 4 Dem. 23.129, Aeschin. 2.228. 5 Moreno 2007: 176. 6 Andoc. 2.11, 20. 7 See Mitchell 1997, ch. 5.

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Iphikrates One of the best examples of the kind of mistrust that contacts with monarchs could evoke in the fourth century can be found in the discourse surrounding the statesman and general Iphikrates. Iphikrates’ unusually close connections to the Thracians and Macedonians helped restore Athenian influence in the North Aegean after a period of eclipse.8 They also, however, opened him up to charges of abandoning his Athenian identity for the luxurious life of a barbarian prince at the court of the Thracian king Kotys. Demosthenes certainly presents Iphikrates in this light. In Against Aristocrates, Demosthenes holds up Iphikrates as a self-centred, power-hungry adventurer, who exploits connections to foreign monarchs for the sake of personal gain. Iphikrates, Demosthenes says, enjoyed all the civic honours that the Athenian democracy could bestow, and still betrayed his home (23.130): Well, men of Athens, you of course remember that Iphikrates was blessed with a bronze statue from you, and meals at the State House, among other grants and honours; and yet he dared to fight at sea for the interests of Kotys against your own generals, and considered the welfare of that man of greater moment than all the previous honours you gave him. Indeed, if your anger had not been more restrained than his insolence, nothing could have prevented him from becoming the most wretched of mortals.

Admittedly, Demosthenes does not depict Iphikrates as wholly corrupted. Iphikrates, he concedes, refused to obey Kotys’ order to attack Athens’ possessions in Thrace, earning him the enmity of both his native city and his ungrateful barbarian father-in-law (23.131–2). Nevertheless, Demosthenes makes it clear that Iphikrates cannot be regarded as a true Athenian any longer. His pointed list of the Athenian civic honours on which Iphikrates turned his back serves to highlight the degree to which the general had abandoned his former identity. Seduced by his closeness to Kotys, he spurned the gratitude of the dēmos for the fickle favour of a barbarian king.9 In invoking Iphikrates as a negative example, Demosthenes may be drawing on popular prejudice against him. Timotheos, himself no stranger to monarchic entanglements, seems to have exploited the disapproval of Mitchell 1997: 102–103. The degree to which accusations that Iphikrates betrayed Athens should be believed is the subject of debate. Certain scholars suggest that, even after his apparent defection, Iphikrates continued to advance Athenian interests unofficially in Thrace (see Kallet 1983, Low 2017); others accept the ancient verdict, arguing that Iphikrates’ actions were motivated fundamentally by self-interest (Harris 1989, Sears 2013: 120, 133–138). 8 9

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Iphikrates to undermine his political rival. In pseudo-Demosthenic speech Against Timotheus ([Dem.] 49.66), the speaker reports that Timotheos planned to charge Iphikrates with being a foreigner falsely claiming Athenian citizenship.10 Accusations of foreign ancestry were, of course, commonplace in Athenian politics – Demosthenes himself was accused of Scythian ancestry by his enemies (Aesch. 3.172). There is, however, no extant tradition holding that Iphikrates had non-Athenian ancestors.11 It therefore seems plausible that Timotheos based his charge not on Iphikrates’ ancestry, but on his marriage to King Kotys’ daughter. By marrying into a barbarian royal family, the argument may have run, Iphikrates had forfeited his membership in the dēmos of Athens, and any future claims to citizenship were a usurpation of a status he had definitively rejected.12 That it was a popular belief that Iphikrates had become “barbarised” to some degree is further supported by a fragment of the contemporary comic playwright Anaxandrides. In this, Iphikrates’ marriage to Kotys’ daughter is depicted as a scene of barbaric splendour, highlighting the alien and undemocratic world to which the general has assimilated himself (KA 42ff.).

Aischines Perhaps unsurprisingly, the figure who is most graphically singled out as corrupted by association with a monarch is Demosthenes’ great political rival, Aischines. A former tragic actor, Aischines rose to prominence in Athens at around the same time as Demosthenes. Both Demosthenes and Aischines served on the embassy to Philip in 346; by the end of the mission, they had become bitter personal and political enemies. According to Demosthenes, the reason for this animosity was that, during the negotiations with Philip, Aischines had betrayed his fatherland. Having set out for Macedon suspicious of Philip’s intentions, Demosthenes repeatedly claims, Aischines returned as a strident supporter of the Macedonian king’s agenda. In his speech in 343, delivered as part of his prosecution of Aischines for perverting the embassy, Demosthenes alleges there can be only one explanation for Aischines’ about-face: Philip has corrupted him. In part, Demosthenes alleges that this corruption took the form of straightforward bribery. Throughout his speech, he takes it as a given that Aischines, along with several other members of the embassy, received lavish gifts from 10 Though this speech is preserved in the Demosthenic corpus, it has been suggested by several scholars that it is the work of the man who delivered it, Demosthenes’ associate Apollodoros; see Trevett 1992 ch. 2 for detailed arguments. 11 Ironically, a tradition does exist that Timotheos’ mother was a Thracian courtesan (Athen. 13.38) – quite possibly promoted by Timotheos’ own political enemies. 12 So Sears 2013: 118–119.

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Philip in exchange for promoting his interests in Athens.13 He also suggests, however, that Aischines’ repeated interactions with Philip led to a form of moral corruption, alleging that his rival integrated far more than was appropriate into the autocratic culture of Macedon. An example of this integration can be found in Demosthenes’ account of Aischines’ participation in a Macedonian banquet during the third embassy to Philip (of which Demosthenes was not a member). This banquet, Demosthenes says, was held during the Pythian games in celebration of Philip’s defeat of Athens’ ally, the state of Phokis. The terms Philip had imposed on his defeated enemy were harsh: the Phokian cities were to be torn down, its populace scattered into small villages, and its armies disbanded (Diod. Sic. 16.60). In Demosthenes’ account, while the Athenians formally boycotted the games to protest this harshness, Aischines enthusiastically took part in the celebrations (19.130): This man was a guest at the party that the Thebans and Philip held to celebrate their triumph in their plans and in the war, and took part in the libations and prayers – that is, he prayed for the destruction of your allies’ walls and territory and armies. Together with Philip he wore garlands and sang the paian, and drank to him in the cup of friendship.

The image of a pair of men wearing garlands, singing together, and toasting each other has a long pedigree as an emblem of friendship, and even of romantic attachment, in Archaic and Classical elite culture. Poets and pots alike throughout the ancient world celebrated an amicable drinking party (symposion) as a model of social harmony and elite male companionship.14 By picturing Aischines and Philip sharing in this conviviality, Demosthenes paints an image of Aischines as the fast friend of the Macedonian king, absorbed to a degree into the royal entourage. That this took place at a banquet celebrating the defeat of Athens’ allies serves to raise the stakes still higher, moving Aischines’ embrace of Philip’s friendship from merely unbecoming to outright treacherous.15 Another banquet, which, Demosthenes says, took place during the second embassy, shows the degree to which Aischines has adopted the tyrannical and quasi-barbaric manners of Macedon (19.196–198). This banquet, Demosthenes says, took place at the house of one Xenophron. 13 See, inter alia, Dem. 19.88, 114 191, 201, 340. Modern scholars generally reject the idea that Aischines was bribed: see, for example, Harris 1995: 85–86, Buckler 2000: 135. 14 See Hobden 2013: 32–34. 15 Aischines, in his own speech on the embassy, angrily rejects this accusation – while he admits he was present at the feast, he asserts that he was simply one of a large crowd and had no interaction with Philip (Aeschin. 2.162–163).

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Xenophron, the orator explains, was the son of an exiled member of the Thirty, the authoritarian junta who had briefly ruled Athens following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War (19.196). This banquet thus takes on a doubly tyrannical air: not only is it held in territory of the authoritarian monarchy of Macedon, but the host is the son of a man who shared in his regime’s near-tyrannical power over Athens. Demosthenes’ narrative suggests that this monarchic atmosphere rubbed off on Aischines and his fellow guests. Toward the end of the banquet, Demosthenes says, Xenophron introduced a young woman to entertain them. This girl was a former citizen of the city of Olynthos, which Philip had recently destroyed, enslaving most of the surviving population. The drunken diners demanded that she sing and recline with them; when she refused, Demosthenes says, Aischines began to show his true colours (19.197): This man, as well as Phrynon, said that it was insolence, and not to be borne, that a prize of war from the god-hated, accursed Olynthians should put on such airs. “Call a slave,” he said, and “someone bring a whip!” A slave came in with a horsewhip; they were full of drink, I suppose, and needed only small cause for anger. While she begged and wept, the slave tore off her sheer gown and gave her many lashes across the back.

Drinking to the point of losing control to this degree was looked on with suspicion in Athenian, and indeed in wider Greek culture. Poetry, drama, and political literature all celebrate moderate drinkers who consume diluted wine in judicious amounts, and refrain from excessive passion.16 The Macedonians, by contrast, were seen as a people who set no limits on their consumption of wine. Anecdotes abound of Macedonians drinking large quantities of wine, resulting in rowdy and, to Athenian eyes, unseemly behaviour.17 Demosthenes was himself quick to apply this stereotype to Philip. The king’s own life, Demosthenes says, is characterised by a lack of restraint (akrasia), and his court is a den of drunkenness and obscene dancing (Dem. 2.18–19). In his behaviour at Xenophron’s party, Aischines apes his Macedonian host, transgressing the limits of decency in both his drunkenness and his behaviour toward the girl.18 Aischines’ quasi-sexual sadism towards this

Papakonstantinou 2012, Hobden 2013: 57–65. Separating actual Macedonian practice from anti-Macedonian rhetoric is difficult; for a good discussion of Macedonian drinking culture that takes account of both textual and archaeological evidence, see Carney 2009. 18 Aischines, for his part, condemns this entire story as a complete fabrication (Aeschin. 2.4–5). 16 17

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woman evokes two further tyrannical tropes. First, one of the defining features of tyranny in Classical discourse was that it collapsed the difference between slave and free, treating all subjects in the arbitrary fashion of a master with slaves.19 While this woman is, in a legal sense, a slave, Demosthenes makes clear that the fact that she was, until recently, free and well born ought to entitle her to more respectful treatment. Aischines, however, seems elated by the opportunity to treat her as he wishes, and is outraged when she insists upon any vestige of her former dignity. Secondly, the current of erotic violence that runs through this scene recalls the well-established trope that tyrants are both cruel and perverse in their sexuality. “Forcing women” is one of the worst behaviours of the tyrant in Otanes’ speech (Hdt. 3.80.3), and throughout Classical literature we see references to tyrants exercising their violent lusts on unwilling partners.20 By demanding the woman lie with him and then stripping her bare and ordering her whipped, Aischines commits precisely the kind of sexual hubris that marked tyrants in the popular imagination. To be sure, Demosthenes partly attributes Aischines’ behaviour to his own innate wickedness and his debauched upbringing (19.199–201); nonetheless, the emphasis on the location suggests that the depraved milieu gave him the freedom to express, and perhaps intensified, his tyrannical impulses. Here in the realm of the tyrant Philip, at the house of a former tyrant, Aischines felt free to display his cruelty, disdain, and propensity for needless violence. While the version as we have it does not contain any explicit reference to Aischines as tyrannical, it is possible that the speech as delivered did: in his response to this speech, Aischines reports that Demosthenes “attempted to compare me to Dionysios, tyrant of Sicily” (Aeschin. 2.10).21

3. Risking Athenian Ideals in Against Aristocrates According to Demosthenes, it is not just individual citizens who run moral risks in associating with monarchs. Entire cities can risk their ideals, their 19 In the sixth century, Solon warns his city against submitting to “the slavery of a monarch” (doulosunēn te monarchou, fr. 9W); see also Arist. Pol. 1.1255b, and Sophocles fr. 873 Radt. 20 See, for example, Eur. Supp. 452–455, El. 945–946, Arist. Pol. 5.1311a–b. On the image of tyrants as sexually depraved and violent, see Holt 1998: 221–241, 234–237, Wohl 2002: 221–222. 21 Accusing political enemies of possessing tyrannical characteristics seems to have been part of Demosthenes’ rhetorical arsenal: it has been convincingly argued that in his prosecution of Meidias, three years before his attack on Aischines, the orator carefully painted his opponent as a tyrant in embryo and a threat to Athenian democracy (Hendren 2015).

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identity, and even their freedom if they get too close to autocratic rulers. In the Second Philippic, delivered in 344/343, Demosthenes explains that Philip was able easily to conquer the city of Olynthus because the Olynthians’ previous friendship with Macedon had led to the corruption of many of its leading citizens. “Excessive associations with tyrants”, he concludes “are not safe for constitutional states ( politeiai)” (Dem. 6.21). Against such corruption, there is only one sure defence: mistrust (apistia, 6.24). Here and elsewhere, Demosthenes’ prescription is stark: if one wishes to avoid being corrupted and ultimately destroyed by autocrats, one must resolutely avoid getting too close.22 After all, he concludes, “each and every king and tyrant is the enemy of freedom, and the opponent of the laws” (Dem. 6.25).

The Good Old Days In Demosthenes, and indeed in fourth-century rhetoric more generally, closeness to tyrants is the very antithesis of Athenian identity. One of the themes found throughout fourth-century orators is the evocation of fifth-century Athens as a model of anti-tyrannical virtue. The period prior to the Peloponnesian War – and particularly the years immediately following the Persian invasions – are presented not only as the time when Athens was at the height of its political power, but also when its inhabitants displayed the greatest moral uprightness and commitment to Athenian ideals. Demosthenes and his fellow orators consistently paint a picture of an Athens that has, throughout its history, stood against tyranny and defended the weak and oppressed. Mythological episodes such as the Athenian defence of the children of Herakles, the burial of the Argives who fell at Thebes, and the resistance to the Amazons are all invoked as evidence of Athens’ long-standing tradition of defending the weak and disarming the proud.23 The fifth-century empire, which Thucydides has both Athenians and their enemies characterise as the rule of a “tyrant city”, is recast as an anti-tyrannical enterprise.24 The period of Athenian dominance is presented by fourth-century Athenian rhetoric as a time of universal peace and freedom, when all the states of Greece were “without experience of tyrannies, free from the barbarians, free from strife with each other, living in peace with all people” (Isoc. 4.106).25 22 On the theme of mistrust of non-democratic governments in Demosthenes, see Leopold 1981. 23 Lys. 2.4–16; Isoc. 4.54–61, 67–68; Dem. 60.8. 24 For the characterisation of Athens as a tyrant city, see Thuc. 1.122, 2.63, 3.37, 6.85. 25 See also Lys. 2.57, Dem. 60.11. As Roger Brock has convincingly shown, fifth-century imperial Athens had no fixed policy of promoting democracy, and was in fact happy to count tyrants among its tribute-paying allies (Brock 2009).

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Demosthenes earnestly endorses this rosy view of Athenian history. In his Funeral Oration, he gives a brief but unambiguous picture of fifth-century Athens’ virtuous foreign policy: What is more, they underwent perils in punishing aggrandisement among the Greeks themselves whenever they encountered it. Wherever a just cause was to be found, there they stationed themselves, right up until time brings us to the present day.

As the final sentence of this quote shows, Demosthenes saw this commitment to justice as something that the Athens of his day could and should continue to practise. Throughout his orations, Demosthenes invokes Athenian enmity to tyranny as a strong motivator for action by contemporary Athens. In his speech advocating that the Athenians overthrow the Persian-backed oligarchy on Rhodes, Demosthenes urges his fellow citizens to take up their natural mantle as “the common champions of the liberty of all” (Dem. 15.30). In his Second Philippic, the orator tells his audience that Philip is particularly opposed to Athens because it is the one city that cannot be persuaded “to betray the common rights of the Greeks for any price” (Dem. 6.10), while in the Fourth Philippic he characterises the Athenians as “zealous to obstruct utterly all those seeking to rule, and to lead all people into liberty” (Dem. 10.14).

Against Aristocrates In Against Aristocrates, Demosthenes warns that this tradition of opposition to tyranny is at risk. This speech focusses on the relationship between Athens and a mercenary commander named Charidemos. This man had spent the previous decade jumping from employer to employer, alternating chiefly between the Athenians and the court of King Kotys of Thrace. At the time of the speech, Charidemos had inveigled himself as de facto regent for the late Kotys’ young son, Kersobleptes. At this point, Charidemos was once more being wooed by the Athenians, who hoped to make use of his talents and connections in their quest to recover their former colony of Amphipolis from the Macedonians. During an earlier stint serving Athens, Charidemos had already been granted a golden crown and Athenian citizenship, by this point normal honours for benefactors of the city. Now Aristokrates, the target of the speech, has proposed a further, unprecedented honour: if anyone should harm Charidemos, he moves, they should be unable to enter the territory of Athens or its allies without immediate arrest and execution (23.16). Demosthenes’ speech is a strident condemnation of this proposal. According to ancient testimonia, it was composed for a certain Euthykles, who was prosecuting Aristokrates for graphē paranomon, an unconstitutional

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legislative proposal.26 In point of fact, only roughly the first half of the speech deals with arguing that the proposed decree is unlawful. The remainder constitutes a sustained argument that, whatever its legality, the proposed protection is contrary to Athens’ interests and ideals. Charidemos, Demosthenes implies, is a man of tyrannical disposition, seeking only the increase of his own power. Not only are such men unreliable friends, but cultivating them risks undermining Athens’ identity as a city that defends liberty and opposes autocratic government. Demosthenes portrays the overall drift of Charidemos’ career as toward positions of greater power and control. The date of the speech’s delivery finds him in the position of being “the man controlling the government of Kersobleptes” (23.103). In addition, he has secured personal control of the strategic city of Kardia (23.181), in effect setting himself up as an autonomous ruler. This echoes Charidemos’ earlier attempt to make himself an independent sovereign in the Troad, seizing the cities of Ilion, Skepsis and Kebren from his ostensible employer, the rebel satrap Artabazos (154–156). A man so set on personal power and advancement, Demosthenes implies, cannot ever be trusted to serve Athenian interests. In addition to arguing that providing protection to Charidemos is tactically undesirable, Demosthenes also asserts that it would have a disastrous effect on Athens’ civic identity. The kind of protection proposed for Charidemos, he argues, would set a dangerous precedent, ultimately obliging Athens to offer protection to a range of oppressive rulers. Athens, he reminds the audience, still counts autocrats among her allies. Should such men get wind of this new-fangled honour, the consequences to Athens’ moral standing could be catastrophic (23.123–124): Tell me, if Menestratos of Eretria should ask us to vote him this privilege, or Phaÿllos of Phokis, or any other ruler – after all, when the times require it we have often become friends with such men – will we grant it to all of them or not? Why, we’ll grant it, by Zeus! And then what fine excuse will we make, men of Athens, if, while we claim to stand for the freedom of the Greeks, we are revealed as bodyguards for men who keep the masses down with private armies?

A fundamental aspect of Athenian identity is thus at stake. If Athens continues down the path that Aristokrates has set them on, the Athenians will no longer be able to think of themselves as champions of liberty. Rather than the scourge of tyrants, they will be their protector. To underscore this Dionysios of Halikarnassos states it was delivered in 352 bce , but has been disputed by modern scholars, who propose an earlier date of c. 356 – see Lane Fox 1997: 183–187.

26

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point, Demosthenes invokes two recent instances in which former allies of Athens, Kotys of Thrace and Philiskos, another mercenary warlord, were assassinated by disgruntled subjects (23.119, 142). Had the Athenians given them the protection now proposed for Charidemos, they would have found themselves obligated to hunt down and kill these men’s assassins. Given that one of the foundational narratives of Athenian democracy was the murder of the tyrant Hipparkhos by the lovers Harmodios and Aristogeiton, such an act would have amounted almost to a repudiation of democracy itself (23.143): How would you not have been doing a shameful and terrible deed, men of Athens, if, after being seen to erect bronze statues to men who did a similar deed, honouring them with the greatest rewards, you decreed that men elsewhere, who had the same commitment to their own country, should be handed over to death?

Demosthenes has already reminded the Athenians that, in the real world, they had in fact voted their highest honours – golden crowns and honorary citizenship – to the killers of Kotys (23.119).27 The contrast between this world and the one which, he says, Aristokrates’ proposal would inaugurate, could not be starker: in the one, the Athenians honour those who share their commitment to democracy and imitate their tyrannicides; in the other, they become the defenders of tyrants and abandon their commitment to freedom before the eyes of the world.

4. Against Leptines: The Constraints of Dependence From what has just been discussed, it could easily seem that Demosthenes’ preferred course would be for the Athenians to eschew contact with monarchies entirely. A wider look at Demosthenes’ works, however, shows he would recognise this approach as untenable Another Demosthenic speech, delivered in roughly the same period as Against Aristocrates, reveals the orator taking a very different position. Where in Aristocrates Demosthenes seems to argue that contact with monarchs is corrupting and undesirable, Against Leptines shows him arguing forcefully and eloquently that a close and friendly relationship with a powerful monarchy is essential for Athens’ needs.

27 The fact that, in both cases, Demosthenes makes clear that the assassins were pairs of men further serves to underline the connection to Athens’ own celebrated tyrannicide couple.

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Losing Control If the driving force of Against Aristocrates was a nostalgic attachment to a supposed Athenian ideal of opposition to monarchy, then that of Against Leptines is a grim acknowledgement of the degree to which fourth-century Athens has come to depend on monarchs for its survival. The way in which Demosthenes’ Athens interacted with monarchies was very different from how the city had dealt with rulers in the days of Herodotus and Thucydides. During the period of their empire, the Athenians exercised near-total dominance over the Aegean Sea. Controlling as they did most of the islands and the Eastern coastline, including the highly strategic entrance to the Black Sea, the Athenians could exercise near-unchallenged dominance over the region’s maritime trade. The author of a fifth-century anti-democratic pamphlet, referred to by modern scholars as Pseudo-Xenophon and nicknamed “The Old Oligarch”, says that the Athenians’ naval supremacy allowed them both to set the rules for trade between maritime cities, and to secure for themselves the best imports from around the Mediterranean (Ps. Xen. 2.6–7, 11–12). The privileged access to imports that the Athenian stranglehold on Aegean trade allowed is corroborated, and indeed celebrated, in fifth-century sources more friendly to democracy. Thucydides has Perikles, in his funeral oration, declare that “because of our greatness, all the products of every land come to us” (2.37.2). A fragment of mock-epic from the comic poet Hermippos reinforces the idea: the god Dionysos is pictured as managing the import to Athens of luxuries from across the known world.28 Hermippos’ catalogue includes territories under monarchic rule. As well as provinces of the Persian Empire like Phoenicia, Egypt, and Phrygia, he names two specific rulers with whom Athens was dealing: Sitalkes of Odrysian Thrace, and Perdikkas II of Macedon. There is evidence that the Athenians saw the kings in their orbit as equally susceptible to Athenian pressure as any island or coastal city. Perhaps indicative of Athenian confidence in the face of monarchs is a decree from the early years of the Peloponnesian War.29 Following a dispute between Perdikkas and the Athenian subject-city of Methone, the Athenians write to him as they would to an imperial dependant. In the copy of the decree preserved in Athens, they condescendingly tell the king how they “think it just” (18) that he should act, and warn him that his good name in Athens depends upon whether the Athenian generals in the region report that he is cooperative (27–28). The peremptory language toward an independent monarch suggests a dēmos that is little Quoted in Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 1.27. For a discussion of the celebration by the Athenians of the wealth brought by the empire, see Braund 1994. 29 OR 65. On the date and context of this inscription, see Mattingly 1961. 28

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awed by Perdikkas’ power and perhaps even revels in its ability to impose conditions on kings.30 Following the destruction of Athens’ empire after the Peloponnesian War, this overbearing tone could no longer stand. The Athenians could still, of course, trade with the various regions that supplied them. Lacking their earlier degree of coercive power, however, they were now obliged to secure their access by negotiation and persuasion.31 Control of the relationship had shifted away from Athens toward either a more equal balance, or, in many cases, in the direction of the exporters. Among the providers of goods and services to the Athenians, we find many monarchies, both old and new. Controlling vital resources, strategic positions, and large numbers of recruitable troops, the rulers of previously marginal territories found themselves in a commanding position relative to their dealings with Athens.32 The Athenians, for their part, found themselves dependent on the goodwill of these rulers to supply essential products and services. Much of the wood that built the Athenian merchant and naval fleets came from the mountains of the northern Balkans, necessitating continuous engagement with the Thracians and Macedonians who ruled the slopes.33 Metals, both practical and precious, were also in short supply in Attika but could be found in the territories of Balkan and Cypriot kings.34 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, from the rich hinterlands of the Bosporan Kingdom came boatloads of the wheat that supplied much of the Athenians’ daily bread.35 30 A memory of this attitude can perhaps be found in Demosthenes’ Third Olynthiac, in which he declares that under Athens’ empire, “the king of that land [Macedon] was then their subject, as a barbarian ought to be to Greeks” (Dem. 3.24). 31 So Braund 2007: 55. 32 For the recruitment of Thracian mercenaries, for example, see Best 1969. 33 On Athens’ need for imported wood, see Meiggs 1984: 188–189; on imports from Macedon, see Borza 1987. 34 See Treister 1996: 258, Raptou 1999: 151–152, Borza 1990: 120. 35 There is considerable debate over how far Classical Athens was dependent on imported grain. Estimates of the productivity of the Attic countryside range from Osborne’s (1987: 45) proposal of a creditable 1,000–1,500 kg of wheat/hectare and a seed: yield ratio of 1:10, to Moreno’s 600 kg/ha and ratio of 1:3–1:5 (2007: 26–27), numbers that would have made the Athenians highly dependent on imports to survive. Garnsey’s (1988: 104) 900 kg/ha comes roughly midway between them. The population this grain had to feed is likewise uncertain. Osborne proposes 150,000 individuals, all of whom could, at maximum productivity, be fed from domestic grain. Garnsey suggests 250,000 at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, falling to between 150,000 and 200,000 in the fourth century (90), out of which only 150,000 could be fed (104). Moreno posits 337,000 people, less than a third of whom could be supplied from domestic agriculture (31–32). Barring the discovery of further evidence, it seems unlikely that any satisfactory conclusion will be reached. Whatever the true figures, as will be seen, the Athenians clearly perceived themselves as heavily dependent on grain imports.

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The increasing economic and strategic dependence on monarchs and their associates did not go unremarked-on in Athens. Throughout the fourth century, orators express concern that their city, and the Greek world in general, are becoming increasingly under the influence of powerful kings and tyrants whose authority stood at odds with Greek ideals of polis autonomy and collective government. In his Olympic Oration, Lysias singles out the Great King of Persia and Dionysios I of Syracuse as men who, by virtue of their wealth and naval power, have made themselves, in essence, owners of “the bodies of the Greeks” (Lys. 33.5). Isokrates similarly complains of Greek dependence on the Persian monarch for money, strategic support, and arbitration (Isoc. 4.120): Now it is he who administers the affairs of the Greeks, lays down what each of us should do, and does everything short of appointing governors in our cities … do we not sail to him, as if he were our master, to condemn each other? Do we not hail him as “Great King” as if we were his conquered subjects? Do we not place our hopes on him in our wars against each other, he who would happily destroy both sides?

This awareness of an increasing dependence on monarchs, and growing anxieties about their influence on Athenian politics, forms the background of Against Leptines. In that speech, Demosthenes sets out masterfully to exploit Athenian concerns, leveraging fear of a monarch’s displeasure to argue against changes to domestic policy.

Against Leptines This speech (number 20 in the corpus) was delivered between 357 and 354, in opposition to a proposed reform of Athens’ system of public finance.36 To fund large projects like the construction of warships or the mounting of tragedies, the Athenian state had long relied on compelling individual wealthy citizens to provide the cash. Over the years, however, individuals and groups had been granted immunity from these demands in return for voluntary services to the democracy. Leptines now proposed that virtually all these exemptions should be abolished, the sole exception being members of the families of the two tyrannicides (20.18). Leptines’ proposal came against the backdrop of a financial crisis that had enveloped the Athenians in the wake of the “Social War”, the revolt a large number of Athens’ allies.37 With the revenues derived from allied contributions lost, the dēmos was obliged to lean even more heavily on its wealthy citizens to remain solvent, making it imperative to maximise 36 37

For the dating and background of this speech, see Kremmydas 2012: 33–34. For a brief account of the Social War, see Buckler 2003: 377–384.

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the number of men who could be called on to pay.38 In arguing for this reform, Leptines and his supporters seem to have presented the abolition of immunity not merely as a fiscal but a moral necessity. If Demosthenes’ presentation of their arguments is fair (which, admittedly, cannot be known), they placed a good deal of emphasis on the “unworthiness” of many of the recipients of the honour. The bar for worthiness that they set is extremely high: only the self-sacrificing civic heroism of the tyrannicides can be seen as deserving of this honour. This emphasis on the worthiness and unworthiness of recipients, as well as the presentation of tyrant-slayers as the epitome of worthiness, may suggest that Leptines and company were seeking to exploit the same anxieties about supporting tyrants that Demosthenes makes use of in Against Aristokrates. Like Demosthenes in that speech, the proponents of Leptines’ law may have argued that the Athenians have granted too much honour to too many questionable recipients, putting them in danger of losing some central part of their identity. If this is so, then Demosthenes, ironically, in this case finds himself on the other side of the question than what he will champion in his later speech. Demosthenes attacks Leptines’ proposal by warning of its disastrous effects on Athens’ prosperity. If Leptines’ motion to cancel all exemptions from liturgies should pass, he argues, the city would risk the ire of powerful benefactors upon whom the city depends for its well-being. As his first example of such a benefactor, Demosthenes cites not a native-born Athenian citizen, but one of its most influential trading partners: Leukon, the ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom. Athens, Demosthenes says, imports more grain than any other state, and fully half of its total imports – up 400,000 medimnoi (c. 20,000,000 litres) – come from the Bosporan realm (20.21).39 What is more, Demosthenes says, Leukon has generously waived export taxes on this grain for Athenian merchants, which the orator presents as a gift of around 3,000 units of grain out of every 100,000 (20.32). Should the Athenians withdraw the exemption given to Leukon, Demosthenes says, the Bosporan ruler would surely retaliate by revoking the privileges he has granted the Athenians. Demosthenes stresses that Leukon’s resentment would come out of philotimia – “love of honour” or “ambition” – rather than out of need So Kremmydas 2012: 23, 34. Scholars are divided as to whether Demosthenes’ high figures are to be trusted, based both on the reconstructed bearing capacity of the Bosporan Kingdom and the absence of Athenian goods or coinage in the Crimea. Tsetskhladze (1998: 53–62) takes a sceptical view, arguing that the evidence for large-scale grain trade between Athens and the Bosporan kingdom is poor. Moreno (2007: 205–208, with notes) argues in favour of the traditional figures. Braund (2007: 60–61) strikes a middle ground, suggesting that the Bosporans did in fact at one point send 400,000 medimnoi of grain, but that this was a one-time special gift at a time of need, and not indicative of normal amounts. 38 39

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(chreia).40 In doing so, he hints at a fundamental inequality of the relationship between Athens and the Bosporan monarchy. Athens, implicitly, does not possess anything that the Bosporan kings require. Their only form of leverage over Leukon is honour and respect. Any potential slight to Leukon’s dignity could thus have serious ramifications for Athens’ economic well-being. In emphasising the need to keep Leukon well-disposed by offering him Athenian friendship and honours, Demosthenes depicts the city as being in precisely the position he warned of in Against Aristocrates: earnestly guarding the dignity of autocrats in order to secure the city’s position and prosperity. It should be observed that the debate for which this speech was written did not, in the main, concern Athens’ relationship with the Bosporan Kingdom. Leptines’ motion seems to have primarily been presented as a reform of domestic taxation, designed to increase the ability of the state to draw on the resources of wealthy Athenian residents. In bringing up Leukon as a potential factor, Demosthenes raises the uncomfortable possibility that even in considering purely domestic issues, the interests of foreign monarchs need to be considered.41 Demosthenes goes so far as to ask his audience to imagine themselves obliged to justify their laws to Leukon (20.38–39): Come then, if Leukon should send to us and ask us what we charge against him, and on the grounds of what complaint we have taken away his immunity, what, by the gods will we say or write to defend our resolution? By Zeus, I suppose we’ll say that some of them were unworthy. And what if he then says to that, “well, perhaps some of the Athenians are scoundrels, and I did not deprive good ones because of that – since I judge that the people as a whole are good, I prefer to leave everyone be”? Would he not then be speaking more justly than us?

Not only is Leukon depicted as passing comment on Athenian laws, he is put in the position of holding the moral high ground. In essence, Demosthenes’ speech presents the inverse of the decree regarding Perdikkas mentioned 40 Demosthenes does grant that, since Leukon does own property in Athens, it is not impossible that he might feel the practical effects of the law as well (20.40). Nevertheless, it is made clear that it is primarily the slight to his dignity that would irk Leukon. 41 Demosthenes was not alone in suggesting that the city’s relationship with the Bosporan kingdom needed to be considered in domestic deliberations. In Isokrates’ Trapeziticus, a law court speech written for a member of the Bosporan aristocracy doing business in Athens, the speaker reminds the audience that his suit has the support of Leukon’s predecessor, King Satyros. Both the king and the speaker’s father, a high Bosporan official, “have always esteemed you above all the Greeks” and given the Athenians many economic and judicial favours; as a result, in deciding the case, the jury are warned that they “reasonably ought not, therefore, disdain their letters” (Isoc. 17.57).

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above: here it is the foreign monarch who is declaring what he thinks just, and warning the Athenians of the need to remain in his good graces. No starker reminder could be seen of how the Athenian perception of their relationship with monarchs had shifted in the wake of their loss of empire. At first glance, Against Leptines seems to present an almost diametrically opposed argument to Against Aristocrates. In Against Aristocrates, Demosthenes seemed to argue that Athens would do best to avoid dealing with monarchs and would-be monarchs entirely, that providing honours to monarchs will trap them in a spiral of ever-increasing sycophancy that will ultimately undermine their democratic identity. In Against Leptines, Demosthenes argues in favour of providing honours for a monarch, and hints that such honours are necessary for ensuring the city’s survival.42 This contradiction is, of course, partly due to the fact that Demosthenes has different objectives in the two speeches, and thus employs different rhetorical strategies – in Against Aristocrates, he is seeking to dissuade the Athenians from heaping honours on a powerful individual, while in Against Leptines he is arguing in favour of continued honours for a variety of people. The fact that he considers both forms of argument viable, however, surely suggests that both would resonate with the audience, and thus that the dēmos was to an extent divided between these positions. A closer look at Against Aristocrates, moreover, reveals that even here the calls for Athens to honour her ideals are tempered by an awareness that friendship with monarchs is not something that can be avoided entirely. In the same breath that he warns the Athenians that pandering to rulers risks the city’s status as champion of freedom, he admits that the city has no choice but to befriend these rulers “when the times require” (dia kairous tinas, 23.123). Even amidst a strident call to limit Athenian engagement with monarchs, Demosthenes cannot help but acknowledge that such engagements are, in fact, unavoidable. Taken together with his broader articulation of Athenian dependence in Against Leptines, this gives the strong sense that Demosthenes sees his city as caught in an apparently insoluble dilemma. Friendship with autocratic rulers runs counter to the defence of liberty and justice that fourthcentury discourse sees as central to Athenian identity. At the same time, as is hinted at in Against Aristocrates and overtly stated in Against Leptines, however, friendship with monarchs was very often also an economic and strategic necessity for the Athenians of the fifth century. The dēmos is thus presented as occupying a deeply uncomfortable position, forced by circumstances to befriend men whose power they consider immoral, and to compromise their own democratic ideals and potentially even their identity. 42 This kind of inconsistency did not go unnoticed by Demosthenes’ rivals: Dinarchus condemns Demosthenes for declaring himself a great democrat while proposing the erection of statues to “the tyrants from Pontus” (1.43).

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Androtion’s Decree: Papering over the Cracks? It is worth asking at this point how representative Demosthenes’ formulation is of general Athenian attitudes. Did Athenian citizens more broadly feel the same sense of being trapped between their ideals and their material needs that Demosthenes appears to? A document roughly contemporary with Against Leptines may, potentially, shed some light on this question. In 347/346, the Athenian assembly approved the motion of a businessman named Androtion regarding Spartokos and Pairisades, sons of the now-deceased Leukon and co-regents of the Bosporan realm. The stele on which this decree was inscribed has survived more or less intact.43 This text throws valuable light on Athenian perceptions of their dealings with the Spartokids, as it seeks both to honour the kings and, at the same time, to obfuscate their status and the extent of Athens’ dependence upon them. To begin with, the text in no way acknowledges the Bosporan kings’ position or status. As noted in the discussion of Hiero, the Bosporan rulers referred to themselves simultaneously as kings of Scythian tribes and Archons of Bosporus and Theodosia. Archon, as the title of Athens’ now largely ceremonial chief magistrate, had a civic and potentially even democratic ring to it. Demosthenes, for example, felt comfortable using it to describe Leukon in Against Leptines (20.29). Androtion’s decree, however, avoids even this term, choosing instead to refer to the Bosporan royals simply as “Spartokos, Pairisades, Apollonios, sons of Leukon”. The omission of monarchs’ titles is in fact a common feature of Athenian honorific decrees. Out of 25 monarchs who were honoured between 403 and 338, ten are identified solely by name, without any title or indication of their status.44 As Katarzyna Hagemajer Allen has noted, there is also virtually no difference, quantitative or qualitative, between the kinds of honours shown to non-Greek rulers and to citizens of Greek poleis.45 These practices surely do not indicate that the Athenians were ignorant of the status of any of their honorees. Rather, by omitting any reference to that status, honorific decrees like that of Androtion serve to communicate the Athenians’ indifference to their partners’ royal status. The dēmos will deal with the Bosporans and other monarchs as they would with any individuals, unswayed by their titles, wealth, or power.46 RO 64. A few examples: IG II² 22 in honour of Thracian kings Medokos (Amadokos) and Sidalkes (Sitalkes); IG II² 102, for Macedonian rulers Amyntas and Alexander; IG II² 226 for Arrybas, king of the Molossians. 45 Allen 2003: 223–224. 46 So Moreno 2007: 261: “by avoiding all the Bosporan titulature Androtion is outdoing Demosthenes in creating a set of meticulously democratic personae for himself and those he praises.” 43

44

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Attempts to obscure the Bosporans’ status continue elsewhere in the decree. When specifying the reasons motivating the honours granted to Spartokos and Pairisades, the decree seeks to paint the Bosporan rulers as to some degree subordinate in the relationship (lines 13–17): They report to the dēmos of the Athenians that they will take care of the export of grain just as their father took care of it, and will earnestly undertake whatever the dēmos requires.

If they do this, the decree continues, the Bosporans “will be denied nothing by the demos of the Athenians”.47 The language of the decree suggests a degree of subordination on the part of the Spartokids to the dēmos. The kings’ honours are presented as the dependant on their doing “whatever the demos requires”. This language is almost the exact inverse of Demosthenes’ in Against Leptines. There, the orator emphasised the power that the Bosporan rulers possessed over the Athenians’ grain trade, and the need to keep them friendly. Here, it is the Athenians that are painted as the dominant party. The language is almost reminiscent of the decree for Perdikkas discussed above – though, to be sure, less peremptory or overbearing. Rather than independent sovereigns, Spartokos and Pairisades are presented almost as Athenian agents overseas, charged with ensuring that their city’s grain supply remains uninterrupted. So far, it might seem that the decree would suggest that the Athenians did not share Demosthenes’ sense of powerlessness in the face of foreign monarchs, but rather saw themselves as remaining the dominant partner in relationships with monarchs. This may well have been the effect Androtion was aiming for when presenting this text for approval, but a closer look at the text reveals an ambivalence of language. The attempts to drape the naked power of the Bosporan kings with a democratic garment is revealed as less than successful. The decree declares that Spartokos and Pairisades have given the same “gifts” to the Athenians as their father Leukon and their grandfather Satyros, and confirms them in the same honours that the dēmos gave the previous generations of Spartokids. For all the decree’s avoidance of titularity, this emphasis on the honourees’ ancestry serves subtly to remind the reader that the two men are in fact hereditary rulers, whose status depends upon their membership in a royal family. When we turn from the inscription to the relief that accompanies it, the recipients’ royal status becomes even clearer.48 Athenian honorific reliefs IG II² 212 19–20. Whether Androtion had any hand in designing the relief accompanying his motion is uncertain. The Grammateus (Secretary) of the Council was responsible for erecting the inscription, and presumably was the one who contracted the sculptors (Lawton 1995: 47 48

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generally depict the honouree standing before the city’s patron goddess Athena as supplicant, making clear that in the relationship between the city and its honorand, Athens occupied the dominant position.49 Similarly, alliances between Athens and other communities depicted Athena clasping hands with the other city’s patron deity, indicating equality between the communities.50 Androtion’s decree, however, has a very different iconographic scheme. There is no visual reference to Athens at all. Two men, universally identified as Spartokos and Pairisades, sit on ornate thrones, facing the viewer. Their chests are bare, revealing heroic musculature, and their long hair flows freely onto their shoulders. One of the brothers holds his fist up in front of him, originally probably grasping a sceptre. A third man, often thought to be the kings’ non-reigning brother, Apollonios, stands off to the side, with similar clothing and hair to his siblings.51 The image of the brothers is redolent with signs of royal power. Most obviously, the thrones and sceptre evoke traditional depictions of both gods and mythical kings. The muscular chests and long hair also contribute to an image of heroic masculinity often identified with gods, kings, and heroes.52 Taken together, the image is about as far from a depiction of democratic citizens as one can get.53 Androtion’s decree thus presents something of a paradox. On one hand, it appears to downplay the honourees’ royal status and assimilate them to the status of private, even democratic individuals. At the same time, however, its language and iconography serve to highlight precisely the status that it 26–27). It does not seem inconceivable that he might have consulted with the proposer of the decree, particularly on so politically and economically sensitive a matter as relations with the Bosporan Kingdom. In any case, once completed, the inscription and relief would be read by the Athenians, and by us, as a single unit, and that is how they will be treated here. 49 See Lawton 1995: 31–32. 50 Lawton 1995: 36. 51 Lawton 1995: 98, Moreno 2007: 265. For the alternative interpretation that the figure is in fact the royal brothers’ deceased father, Leukon, see Braund 2019. 52 Compare the portrait of the personified Demos on the anti-tyrannical law of Eucrates of 337/6 (IG II³ 1 320), whose kingly attributes serve to emphasis the sovereignty of the Athenian people. 53 Lawton’s interpretation of long hair as “an attempt at characterizing them as foreigners” (1995: 98) seems unconvincing; as Moreno points out, the kings have none of the attributes that typify either barbarians in general or Scythians particularly in Classical iconography (2007: 265–266). Moreno, for his part, seeks to explain the long hair as representing the kings as Athenian aristocrats, and thus as more familiar figures (2007: 265–269). I am sceptical of this interpretation: even if the thrones and sceptres did not incline one to see the men as kings, the long-haired aristocrat, as Moreno himself acknowledges, was not himself a particularly democratic figure in Athenian discourse.

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initially seemed at pains to conceal. This contradictory messaging can be read as a symptom of the same bind that Demosthenes’ speeches highlight.54 Androtion’s law was designed to be read by two distinct audiences. First, of course, there was the local audience of Athenian citizens for whom the obfuscation of the Bosporans’ status as powerful foreign monarchs would have proved comforting. The other audience for the inscription, however, consisted of the Bosporans themselves. This inscription itself testifies that it was erected in Athens’ port-town of Peiraios, next to an existing stele honouring Leukon and Satyros (line 47). There, it could have been seen by merchants and other visitors from the Bosporan Kingdom itself, some of whom, as Isokrates’ Trapeziticus shows, enjoyed close ties to the royal family (Isoc. 17.3). It would be important to show such people that the Athenian dēmos was treating their rulers with the proper respect, in order to maintain good relations and thus keep the flow of grain regular. For this audience, the heroic portraiture and emphasis on the hereditary good relations between Athens and the Bosporan dynasty were guarantees that the Athenians held the Spartokids in appropriate regard. As with the two speeches of Demosthenes discussed above, the simultaneous need to reassure the Athenians and honour the Bosporans results in a degree of incoherence, revealing once again the bind in which the Athenians of the latter fourth century found themselves.

5. Dysfunctional Diplomacy Athenian difficulties in their relationships with monarchs were not only ethical and ideological. The sense in fourth-century discourse that the city had lost control of these relationships was exacerbated by the fact that Athens’ traditional diplomatic procedures seem to have been of questionable effectiveness in dealing with monarchs.

Representing Democracy Throughout the history of the democracy, Athens’ formal diplomatic contacts had been handled by teams of ambassadors, publicly elected by the Athenian assembly for specific short-term missions. The number of ambassadors could be highly variable, from as few as two to as many as ten, with embassies perceived as important generally given more members. The criteria for choosing ambassadors were multiple: envoys were often older men (the Greek word for ambassador, presbus, also means Blanshard 2007 argues that such tension between image and text is possible, and perhaps even inevitable, in most Attic decrees. While I find his arguments compelling, I would suggest that the unprecedented nature of the image, and the ideological concerns raised by the disjunct, make that tension particularly obvious and intense in this case. 54

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“elder”), chosen from among leading politicians, and frequently seem to come from the city’s elite families.55 In some cases, preference was also given to men with connections to the communities to which they were being sent.56 One further consideration also seems to have applied to the selection of embassies, which could become a major stumbling-block for the effectiveness of missions to monarchic courts. Ambassadors seem to have been chosen with an eye to representing the diversity of views in Athens at the time of their election.57 As a result, one can find evidence of members of the same embassy displaying starkly different views on the issue at hand, and probably representing different factions within Athenian political debates. This tendency toward including multiple perspectives in embassies was surely partly based on practical considerations. Providing representation for the various political streams was necessary in order to achieve consensus on the composition of the embassy, as each faction would demand the presence of “their” man in order to support the whole delegation. The exact mechanism by which this representation was achieved is uncertain – perhaps a certain amount of negotiation and horse-trading went on “behind the scenes” prior to the formal vote.58 The inclusion of multiple viewpoints also served an ideological function. By giving voice to different perspectives and opinions, Athenian embassies ended up reflecting the polyphonic nature of democracy itself. We find a striking example of the diversity of members of an embassy in Xenophon’s account of the speeches of the three Athenian ambassadors to Sparta in 371.59 Charged with negotiating an end to the war between their states, the three men each deliver very different arguments. The aristocratic Kallias first gives a rather grandiloquent speech, dwelling on the mythical connections between Athens and Sparta. His colleague Autokles then delivers an angry denunciation of Sparta’s crimes and hypocrisy over the last few decades. Finally, the third member, Kallistratos, gives a balanced and conciliatory speech that avoids putting too much blame on either side and focusses on the material benefits that peace will bring both parties. While it is entirely possible that these speeches are Xenophon’s

Aristophanes mocks the tendency of a small number of elite individuals to monopolise ambassadorships at Acharnians 608–617; For overviews of the nature and composition of Athenian embassies, see Adcock and Mosley 1975: 154–160, Brun 2017: 664–667. 56 See Mitchell 1997, ch. 5. 57 Mitchell 1997: 92–95. 58 The ability of envoys to nominate other men to be their colleagues also played a role – see Mitchell 1997: 93. 59 Xen. Hell. 6.3.4–18. 55

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compositions, his account does suggest that such a diversity of approaches would not have seemed implausible to his audience. Between poleis, this kind of diplomatic polyphony, with different ambassadors from the same state providing starkly contrasting rhetoric, seems to have been expected. In Xenophon’s account, the Spartans are said to have judged all three orators “to have spoken rightly” (Xen. Hell. 6.3.18), and acceded to Athens’ position. When dealing with monarchs, however, this kind of multivocality could prove a hindrance. In modern negotiations, negotiators from cultures that value unity and order have been known to view public disagreement between members of an opposing team as a sign of weakness.60 A similar dynamic seems to be at work in accounts of Athenian interactions with monarchs in the fourth century. By definition, a sole ruler operates from a single will and produces a single message. When confronted by a multitude of voices all claiming to speak for the same state, a monarch could easily conclude that his interlocutors were incapable of achieving a coherent position, and thus could be easily overawed or exploited.

Quarrelling in Macedon: The Embassies of 346 The most dramatic example of this mismatch between democratic plurality and monarchic unity must be the missions to Philip II in 346. Sent to negotiate an end to the state of war that had existed between Athens and Macedon since 357, these embassies provide unmatched insight into the practices of Athenian diplomacy. They reveal a level of disorganisation, lack of coordination, and interpersonal rivalry that seems shocking in comparison to modern professional diplomacy. We owe our knowledge of these embassies to the accounts of two of their participants, Demosthenes and Aischines. As noted earlier, in 343, Demosthenes brought charges against Aischines for diplomatic misconduct ( parapresbeias), and the speeches made by plaintiff and defendant provide the main sources for the events of the two missions. Both accounts are, of course, highly tendentious with each man blaming the other for problems with the embassy. For our purposes, what matters is less the precise accuracy of any of the charges, and more the degree to which both accounts reveal how poorly these embassies seem to have functioned at representing the interests of Athens effectively.61 The ten men chosen to go to Macedon represented one of the largest embassies in Athenian history. The unprecedented number of ambassadors likely served to signal the importance that the Athenians placed on their mission; it also allowed a broad range of political opinions to be Gelfland and Cai 2004: 248–249. For good discussions of the reliability of the conflicting narratives, see Harris 1995: 58–61, Buckler 2000: 148–154. 60

61

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represented.62 A small majority of the ambassadors were men who either had connections to Philip, or who favoured reconciliation with Macedon. Iatrokles, Phrynon, and Aristodemos had all had previous dealings with Philip – Aristodemos, in fact, was one of the Macedonian king’s favourite actors.63 Less personally familiar with Philip, but still in favour of an accommodation, were Philokrates, Ktesiphon, and (surprisingly given his later anti-Macedonian stance) Demosthenes. By contrast, Nausikles, Aischines, and Derkylas seem to have represented the “hawks”, mistrustful of Macedon and prepared to drive a hard bargain. The final Athenian member of the embassy, Kimon, is completely unknown to us, and his political views are irrecoverable. The ten Athenians were accompanied by a single representative of Athens’ allies, Aglaokreon of Tenedos; his contributions, however, are ignored by both Demosthenes and Aischines and his role in the negotiations is unknown. These men were first sent to Macedon in early 346, charged with bringing the Athenians’ proposed peace terms to the king, and reporting back his response. Then, when the assembly had ratified Philip’s counteroffer, the same men were re-elected to return to Macedon to receive the oath of Philip and his allies to uphold the treaty. In both cases, the politically and socially diverse ambassadors displayed a marked lack of unity and cooperation. In neither embassy did the ambassadors come up with a single, unified message. While in his account of the first embassy, Aischines does refer to the ambassadors as “examining what should be said” (2.21), it does not seem that there was much effort to coordinate their messages. Aischines reports, for example that while Demosthenes constantly boasted about how good his speech would be, he gave no indication about its contents. Tellingly, Aischines does not mark this lack of discussion as anything as strange or unusual. When brought before Philip, the ambassadors spoke individually in order of oldest to youngest, beginning with Philokrates and ending with Demosthenes. Aischines, our sole source for this embassy, does not describe any of the speeches except his own. If what was depicted in Xenophon’s accounts of embassies held good, however, it seems likely that, coming from so diverse a group, all the speeches could have varied strikingly in both tone and content. In the second embassy, the envoys did try to agree on a message. When they reached the Macedonian capital, a meeting was held, in which they debated whether they should involve themselves in the negotiations over the recently concluded Third Sacred War between Macedon and Phokis. Here too, however, the political and personal divisions prevented any 62 See Harris 1995: 56 and Brun 2017: 667–673 for discussions of the political alignment of the various ambassadors. 63 Brun 2017: 670–672.

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coordinated action. Demosthenes and Aischines clashed angrily, and in the final vote it was decided that each man should say whatever he individually thought was in Athens’ interest (2.107). This the ambassadors did the next day before Philip, now apparently going from youngest to oldest. Aeschines reports that Demosthenes, in his speech to Philip (delivered first by the ambassadors), went so far as to reveal the Athenians’ disunity to the Macedonian king: “not all of us”, he said, “have come with the same goals, nor are we united in our opinions” (Aeschin. 2.109).64

False Expectations In addition to leading them to display disunity and the lack of a coherent message, the ambassadors’ democratic background may also have led to a fatal misunderstanding of the nature of the interaction. At least in Aischines’ recounting, their discussions prior to their meeting with the king suggested that they were anticipating entering equal negotiations with Philip (2.21). Both Kimon’s anxiety that Philip would overcome them “in pleading his case” (dikaiologoumenos), and Demosthenes’ boast that his speech would be so eloquent as to “sew Philip’s mouth shut”, imply that they expected to meet the king in a contest of rhetoric in which he and they would each present their cases, and the most persuasive side would carry the day. In essence, they expected the kind of debate one might see in the Athenian assembly or lawcourts. It is not at all clear, however, that Philip had any intention of being drawn into debate. While Aischines states that Philip’s response to the ambassadors touched on all their arguments, it is also worth noting that the king made no clear commitments to any action on his part. I would suggest that, rather than seeking to take part in an equal debate with them, it is possible that Philip was in fact probing the ambassadors for weakness, seeking to discover how much resistance he might expect from the Athenians. Contemporary intercultural negotiation scholars have perceived similar mismatches in approaches to negotiation in encounters between, for example, American and North Korean diplomats. In such negotiations, where the Americans expect give-and-take, the North Korean approach seeks only to force compromise out of the other side, while making no concessions of their own.65 Demosthenes, for his part, does not deny his increasing alienation from many of his colleagues. He lays the blame on them, however, explaining that, since he had come to believe that his fellow ambassadors were not honestly serving Athens, he no longer considered them to be his colleagues (Dem. 19.187). Wherever responsibility is placed, however, what is clear from both accounts is that the embassies to Philip were marked by dissension, lack of co-ordination, and a general atmosphere of mistrust. 65 Snyder 1999: 78–79, 85: North Korean negotiators assiduously study the weaknesses, divisions, and priorities of their negotiating counterpart and manoeuver in the negotiation 64

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A similar process may have been going on here: the Athenians came expecting discussion and mutual compromise, while Philip was simply waiting to see how he might exploit the situation.66 If he was in fact probing the Athenians for weakness, then it seems likely that the disunity among the ambassadors would have seemed an ideal opportunity. Philip had a reputation as a swift and decisive actor, quick to exploit all opportunities that presented themselves. Both Philip’s admirer Isokrates and his opponent Demosthenes remark on the king’s ability to act swiftly and freely, in contrast to the slow and complex processes of decision-making in the pluralistic Greek poleis.67 When confronted by ten men, all of whom give different speeches and some of whom even openly criticise each other, the king could easily conclude that the Athenians were fatally divided and unlikely to mount a coherent resistance to his aims. Philip’s behaviour following these embassies seems to suggest that he did indeed have a low opinion of Athenian unity and resolve. He sent the ambassadors away with vague promises and meaningless assurances of friendship, but made no concrete commitments.68 As Philip may have hoped, these airy statements served only to exacerbate divisions in Athens, as some ambassadors returned to report that they had won his friendship, while others were equally confident in asserting that the king meant them no good. According to Demosthenes at least, squabbling between these factions led to a fatal weakness in Athens’ ability to confront Philip’s increasingly aggressive actions (10.55): Whenever the discussion turns to Philip, up jumps someone to say how good it is to be at peace, and how hard it is to supply a large army, and how “some people want to rob you of your money”, and other words like this. And so they distract you, and leave Philip in peace to do what he wants.

From the point of view of modern theory, it can be read as a failure of intercultural communication. The ambassadors were chosen in such process to achieve maximal concessions while limiting co-operation on the priority issues of the negotiating counterpart. 66 Compare Cohen 1997: 106: Americans tend naturally to assume a give-and-take model of negotiation in which reciprocal concessions lead to eventual compromise. This model may, however, be confronted by a quite different one, which does not take reciprocity or compromise for granted but is quite happy to demand one-sided concessions in payment of a supposed moral debt or as the duty of the stronger party. 67 Isoc. 5.14, Dem. 1.4. On the complexity of Athenian decision-making, by contrast, see Dem. 19.185–186. 68 Dem. 19.38–39, 68–69. For an analysis of Philip’s tactics here, see Mitchell 1997: 156, 165.

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a way as to reflect the diversity of the polis, and they arrived in Pella anticipating Athenian-style political negotiations with a partner who was equally committed to discussion and compromise. They assumed that Philip was playing by the same rules as them, and would, like other Greek states, look through their competing rhetoric to the unity of purpose that, they hoped, would shine through. Instead, they found a canny monarch who had no interest in making concessions, and who saw the diversity of the embassy as representing a weakness to be exploited. Lynette Mitchell has argued that Philip took advantage of Athenian expectations of reciprocity to lull them into a false sense of security with vague and ultimately empty promises.69 In the same way, it is possible that the king profited from Athenian practices and expectations, allowing the disunity of their embassy to reveal the lack of coordination prevailing in the polis as a whole. It is, of course, impossible to say how far the disunity and naive expectations of the embassy affected the ultimate settlement. It is possible that, even if they had agreed on a single coherent message, maintained good relations amongst themselves, and been on guard against revealing any weakness, the Athenian ambassadors would still have failed to secure any meaningful concessions from Philip. Nevertheless, in revealing the extent to which they, and by implication their city, could not agree about how to deal with Philip, the ambassadors surely made it that much easier for the king to sow dissension and lead them astray with vague protestations of friendship.

6. Theory into Practice All was clearly not well in Athenian interactions with monarchs. The wealth and power of rulers required the Athenians to court them, but in doing so they risked compromising cherished ideals and letting foreign kings dictate the affairs of their city. Their negotiations with monarchs were hampered by the democratic texture of their embassies, which prioritised multiple voices and equal representation over establishing a coherent message. The works of Xenophon and Isokrates can be seen in part as responses and solutions to these anxieties. Though Demosthenes’ works, where those anxieties are most clearly articulated, postdate Xenophon, and come toward the end of Isokrates’ life, there is evidence that concerns over the ethical costs of Athenian closeness to monarchs were already rising earlier in the century. Already in the 380s, Lysias and Isokrates were sounding alarm at the influence of rulers like Artaxerxes II and Dionysios I in Greek affairs. Xenophon’s own account of the embassy of Leon and 69

Mitchell 1997: 164–166.

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Timagoras to Persia in the 370s shows that there were concerns over the effect that ambassadors with conflicting interests could have on negotiations with foreign monarchs.70 Xenophon and Isokrates suggest that it is in fact possible to communicate effectively with monarchs without compromising one’s civic identity, and even to communicate some degree of polis values to monarchs, including “barbarian” ones. This new optimism is not simply based on greater confidence in human ingenuity, but also on a significant redefinition of what it means to be a citizen. In Herodotus, civic values were absorbed simply by living and participating in a polis. Monarchs, lacking this experience, could never be expected to understand those values. In Xenophon and Isokrates, good citizenship is conceived of less in terms of simple civic participation, and more in the cultivation of a set of virtues and qualities. While it seems reasonable to say that these virtues are most easily acquired in the polis, they are not so tightly bound to it that they cannot be translated into other contexts. Xenophon and Isokrates are both able to encourage the monarchs they address to accept this lesson, transplanting a bit of civic virtue into tyrannical soil. These thinkers’ works may also suggest a rethinking of who should be entrusted with the task of communicating with monarchs. Neither Simonides nor the Xenophon of the Anabasis has any official status from poleis – they are not ambassadors or elected generals and have no formal mandate to fulfil. Rather, they are both private men, distinguished by intelligence, flexibility, and insight. While it would probably be an overreading to interpret this as a direct call for a reform of Athenian diplomatic procedure, it does point to an outlook that potentially runs contrary to democratic custom. The qualities that Xenophon depicts as furthering communication with monarchs – self-control, the ability to make personal connections, and the capacity to provide moral leadership – all accord with the primary qualities of the kalos kagathos. As in other matters, then, it seems that Xenophon would hold that the dēmos should gracefully surrender the field of diplomacy to enlightened kaloi kagathoi. Even more than Xenophon, Isokrates’ works can also be read as an attempt to shift the responsibility for dealing with monarchs away from democratic politicians and diplomats, and toward a philosophically trained elite. Through teaching princes at his school, sending his students to the courts of monarchs, and writing directly to the rulers themselves, Isokrates can be seen as creating a network of communications and influence that is independent from Athens’ formal diplomatic activities. This network is used not only to disseminate Isokrates’ wisdom, but also to transmit practical diplomatic advice. We see him prescribing 70

Xen. Hell. 7.1.33–38. For a discussion of this embassy, see Bearzot 2017.

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how Philip should engage with Athens in his first letter to the king (L2 15–18), and in his second he off handedly mentions having discussed Athenian–Macedonian relations with Philip’s deputy Antipatros (L3 1). Isokrates comes across from these works as acting as a kind of freelance representative of Athens, using his wisdom and influence to advance his city’s interests with rulers with whom the city’s formal embassies struggled to communicate.71 Isokrates recognises that his private diplomacy at times runs counter to his city’s official stance (L4 1, L6 3). He seems to take the view, however, that his philosophically inflected diplomacy is in fact superior to that practised by the Athenian dēmos and its leaders. In his letter to Dionysios, Isokrates says that while it may seem surprising for someone without official position or political leadership to seek to advise a ruler, his lack of this kind of status masks a higher qualification (L1 9–10): I demurred from engaging in public affairs, for reasons that it would be laborious to relate. I think, however, that I will not be revealed as lacking in that education which disdains small matters but seeks to be suited for great ones. It is thus not unreasonable if I am more able to see more opportunities than those who practice politics haphazardly (eikēi), however much reputation that gets them.

Athens’ “haphazard politics” were very much on display over the course of the embassies to Philip. When confronted with the chaos, self-aggrandisement, and backstabbing of Demosthenes and Aischines, it is clear that some might begin to see the attraction of diplomacy carried out through Isokrates’ carefully written letters.

Philosophical Influence? If Xenophon and Isokrates were responding in part to the anxieties of the Athenian public, did the Athenian public listen? This kind of influence is not possible to prove decisively, but it is not, on the face of it, implausible. Isokrates’ influence on fourth-century Athens’ elite is well-documented.72 Isokrates repeatedly boasts of having had many students (Isoc. 5.5, 41, 87), and the Pseudo-Plutarchan Lives of the Ten Orators credits him with over a hundred pupils ([Plut]. X orat. 4). Among the more notable were Timotheos, one of Athens’ leading statesmen and generals (Isoc. 15.101, Moreno (2007: 175–177, 295–296) has persuasively argued that Isokrates and his school played a similar role in facilitating Athenian engagement with the Bosporan rulers, giving them a major stake in the lucrative grain trade in the process. 72 Much has been written on the possible influence of Isokrates’ thought on his contemporaries – see, for example, Laistner 1930, Jaeger 1943: 126, Cawkwell 1963. 71

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4), and Laodamas and Lakritos, orators contemporary with Demosthenes and Aischines.73 The Plutarchan Life also records traditions that other major orators, Isaios and Hypereides, were also Isokrates’ pupils. It has even been alleged that Demosthenes himself either studied under Isokrates ([Plut.] X orat. 8) or sought to do so but could not afford the tuition ([Plut]. X orat. 4).74 Xenophon’s influence is more difficult to trace. Since he did not take on students, we have less direct means of establishing which figures he might have influenced. Nevertheless, his works were presumably circulating in Athens at the same time as Isokrates’, and could easily have been read in the same elite circles. His publication of a pamphlet on the Athenian economy in the 350s – his Poroi, or “Ways and Means”, shows that, even while residing outside Athens, he took a keen interest in his home city’s affairs, and expected influential people to read his thoughts. It has, for example, been argued that the Athenian politician Euboulos, in drawing up his plans to reform the Athenian economy, was heavily influenced by Poroi, and put into practice many of its proposed innovations.75

Aischines’ Speech I suggest, in fact, that there is one place in the corpus of fourth-century oratory where it may be possible to see the ideas of Xenophon and Isokrates being carried into practice. In his speech on the embassies of 346, Aischines devotes a decent amount of time to recounting his interactions with Philip.76 Indeed, he includes a summary of his speech before the king during the first embassy. His tactics in this speech remind one strikingly of those showcased in Xenophon’s writing, both in Hiero and the negotiations with Seuthes in the Anabasis. In arguing for Athens’ right to control Amphipolis, Aischines moves seamlessly between appeals to Macedonian ideals and practices, and invocations of Greek civic procedure. Aischines begins firmly in the Macedonian context. He recounts how, when Philip’s family were expelled from the throne by the usurper Pausanias, Philip’s mother Eurydike turned Demosthenes wrote a prosecution-speech against Lakritos, in which he mocks the airs his opponent puts on as a student of Isokrates (Dem. 35.40). 74 In support of some association between Isokrates and Demosthenes is the fact that both authors share a fondness for certain rare terms that are not employed much by their contemporaries – see Allen 2010: 195 n. 31. Rowe 2000, on the other hand, notes that many of the men prosecuted by Demosthenes were Isokrates’ students, and suggests that the orator enjoyed something of a feud with the Isokratean school. 75 Cawkwell 1963: 56. 76 Demosthenes, by contrast, is largely silent about communications with Philip. Dina Guth has recently argued that this is a deliberate attempt to portray Philip as incapable of rational speech, relying instead on force and bribery to achieve his ends (Guth 2016). 73

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to the Athenian general Iphikrates for support and protection (Aeschin. 2.27): Your mother Eurydike sent for him, and, according to everyone who was there, placed your brother Perdikkas in Iphikrates’ hands, and placed you, then a little baby, onto his knees, and said: “When he lived, Amyntas, the father of these boys, made you his son, and was well-disposed to the city of Athens; so now it is the case that, on a personal level (idiāi), you are the brother of these children, and politically (demosiāi), you are our friend.”

I argued earlier that Iphikrates’ personal connections to northern kingdoms were viewed with some suspicion in Athens. His entry into the Thracian royal family by marriage to the king’s daughter, for example, could be portrayed as a betrayal of his Athenian identity. Here, however, Iphikrates’ adoption by the Macedonian ruler is portrayed as an unambiguously positive development, and moreover one that is in perfect harmony with Iphikrates’ public (demosia) function as a representative of Athens. In prioritising this personal relationship, Aischines is adapting to the ideals of the Macedonian court. Like many other Classical monarchies, Macedon was administered to a large degree through the king’s personal connections. Civil and military authority seems to have been exercised primarily by the “friends” ( philoi) or “companions” (hetairoi) of the king, aristocrats bound by ties of personal loyalty, and at times actual kinship, to the monarch.77 By describing the close personal ties between Philip and Iphikrates, Aischines thus puts relations between Athens and Macedon into a context that Philip can readily understand: Iphikrates, and through him the Athenian state he represents, stands in the same relation to Philip as one of his Macedonian philoi, and thus is owed the same measure of support and goodwill as he owes his loyal nobles. Having established Philip’s obligation to Athens in terms of Macedonian values, Aischines then moves on to argue that, from the point of view of Greek civic procedure, the king is equally bound to recognise Athens’ claim to Amphipolis (2.32): When the Lakedaimonians and the other Greeks came together in alliance – a congress to which Amyntas, father of Philip sent a delegate whose vote he completely controlled – he voted with the other Greeks to support the return of Amphipolis to the Athenians. As evidence for this, I presented On the role of philoi and hetairoi in the time of Philip, see Anson 2008: 136–137. These roles continued, and became more institutionalised, in the Hellenistic successor states – see Herman 1980/1.

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Talking to Tyrants in Demosthenes and his Contemporaries 215 from public records the general resolution of the Greeks, along with the names of the voters.

Having just recounted Iphikrates’ participation in the practices of the Macedonian royal family, Aischines now shifts to the participation of a Macedonian king in the practices of Greek politics. Amyntas took part in a congress of Greek states and engaged in the quintessentially civic practice of voting. What is more, Aischines presents this collective decision as equally binding on the Macedonian monarchy as Philip’s personal debt of honour to Athens (2.33): “A claim that Amyntas abjured in the presence of all Greece – and not only in word, but by vote – such a claim” I said, “it is not just for you, his son, to advance.”

In his arguments, then, Aischines subtly blends “civic” and “monarchic” concepts in order to convince Philip that surrendering Amphipolis is his only legitimate option. First, he emphasises the way in which the monarchic practice of royal adoption created a bond of obligation not only between Philip and his “brother” Iphikrates, but also with the Athenian state in whose name Iphikrates was acting. Then, Aischines emphasises that Amyntas’ participation in a civic congress created a binding obligation on the Macedonian monarchy as a whole: Amyntas is figured not simply as a king making a statement of personal declaration, but as an agent of the Macedonian state committing his community to an irrevocable agreement. From the point of view of both Macedonian court tradition and Greek civic practice, then, Philip is equally bound, and his only moral course is to renounce his claim to Amphipolis for good.78 Philip, Aischines implies, took this speech particularly to heart. The king, he says, “seems to have spent the greatest portion of his speech on my words – indeed, I think there was nothing of what I said that he left out” (Aeschin. 2.38). This statement of course serves to highlight the significance of Aischines in the embassy, but it also points to Philip’s keen rhetorical awareness and memory. Similarly, Aischines says that during Demosthenes’ Demosthenes, by contrast, seems to advocate a more “Herodotean” approach to Philip: making use of the Macedonian culture of royal gift-giving to manipulate the king into achieving short-term, clearly defined goals. So, for example, the Theban ambassadors refuse Philip’s physical gifts and instead ask that he “gift” them with friendship to their city (19.139–140); the Athenian comedian Satyros extracts a promise from Philip to do him a favour and then asks for the release of the captive relatives of his friend (19.193–194); Demosthenes himself stymies Philip’s attempts to bribe the ambassadors under cover of gift-giving by asking him to redirect the money to ransoming prisoners of war (19.167–168). 78

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disastrous attempts to speak before Philip, the Macedonian king took on the role of a rhetorical coach (Aeschin. 2.38), reassuring the young orator and encouraging him to pick up his argument as best he could. This picture of Philip puts Aischines squarely in the camp of Xenophon and Isokrates. In contrast to the Herodotean picture of the monarch as someone who was both unwilling and unable to receive communication that contradicted his beliefs, both Xenophon and Isokrates present images of rulers who are thoughtful, receptive, and prepared to enter intellectual discussion. In Hiero, the tyrant engages enthusiastically and reflectively with Simonides, carefully considering the points the poet raises and subjecting them to rational analysis. Isokrates encourages Nikokles to engage in a similar practice of reflection and discussion (Isoc. 2.28), and urges Philip to read his words “with rationality and philosophy, of which they say that you possess a share” (Isoc. 5.29). Aischines appears to share Isokrates’ view of Philip. On the return trip he reports that he gushed to his fellow ambassadors at how Philip “spoke ably and with good memory” (2.48). Demosthenes confirms this admiration, stating that his rival praised Philip in the assembly as “the Greekest of mortals, most clever in speech, and a friend of Athens” (19.308). Philip, in Aischines’ speech, is painted as a kind of citizen-king, a man who would be at home in an Athenian assembly, law court, or philosophical discussion.79 As Demosthenes’ speeches show, Athenians were already feeling uncertain and anxious about their relationships with monarchs, and their traditional diplomatic approaches did not seem effective in the courts of kings and tyrants. The new ideas presented by the city’s political thinkers would have proved attractive to politicians searching for ways both to communicate effectively with rulers and to allay their fellow citizens’ fears over a relationship that was felt to be moving increasingly out of Athens’ control. This was particularly the case in confronting a powerful and self-assured ruler like Philip. Against his wealth and military might, the Athenians placed the rhetorical skills of their representatives. In such a weighty task, the ideas of Xenophon and Isokrates would have seemed powerful tools. If Philip could be made to understand, and even respect, the Athenian point of view, he might be transformed from a dangerous enemy into an invaluable ally. More modestly, he might at least be defanged to some degree, steered by the ambassadors’ communicative abilities into a course not directly to Athens’ detriment. Such hopes were not to be realised. The steamroller of Philip’s ambition So Guth 2016: 337–341. Allen (2010: 118–123) argues that Aischines’ emphasis on Philip’s memory also reveals the influence of Platonic thought, where a good memory is seen as an essential requirement for a true philosopher. Memory was, of course, also an attribute of the kosmios tyrannos in The Laws. 79

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could not be diverted, and soon much of the Aegean world would be under Macedonian domination. With Philip’s victory, a new age of monarchy dawned in the Greek world. For the next three centuries, the Eastern Mediterranean would be dominated by Macedonian dynasties. Even more than in Demosthenes’ time, the cultivation of monarchs became a matter of survival. In the next chapter, we will take a brief look at this period and discuss how communication with monarchs evolved, and how the works of the writers we have covered formed models for philosophers and politicians to come.

Epilogue A Lasting Legacy Epilogue

1. A New World In 338 bce , despite the efforts of philosophers and diplomats alike, Philip ended Greek resistance to his aims by force. Accompanied by his teenage son Alexander, Philip defeated the armies of a coalition of Greek states near Chaironea, in Boiotia. For the little that remained of his life, Philip was leader of Greece, head of an alliance of Greek states bound to Macedon by treaties dictated by the king. With Philip’s death in 336, that headship was inherited by his son Alexander III. Even as he marched ever eastward in his conquest of the Persian empire, Alexander continued to send orders back to his Greek vassals, to be enforced by Antipatros, the stern regent of Macedon.1 Alexander’s death in 323 saw no let-up in the dominance of monarchy in the Greek world. The conqueror’s vast empire, which at his death stretched from Macedon to present-day Pakistan, was swiftly carved up between his ambitious generals. By 303, these warlords had all proclaimed themselves kings, with Alexander’s nominal heirs, his infant son and disabled brother, pushed aside and eventually murdered. If the fourth century was an age of increasing monarchic influence in Greece, the centuries that followed saw its zenith. The era following Alexander’s death, dubbed “Hellenistic” by modern scholars, presented new challenges for the Greek poleis, but it certainly did not see their abolition. Mainland Greece and the Aegean remained, for the most part, composed of independent city-states and federations of cities. While these non-monarchic states remained vulnerable to the monarchic superpowers and to some degree dependent on their goodwill, the existence of multiple monarchies provided opportunities to play off different kingdoms against each other and thus keep some measure of freedom of action.2 As On Alexander’s relationship with the Greek poleis, see Bosworth 1988: 187–197, 220–228. Faraguna 2002. 2 On the relationship between cities and the Hellenistic kingdoms, see Kralli 2000, Strootman 2011. 1

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in Demosthenes’ time, much of the contact between kings and cities was managed not through formal diplomacy, but through the informal agency of “friends of the king” ( philoi tou basileos). Whether residents of the city with connections to courts, or courtiers who spoke in the interests of their ancestral polis, these “friends” sought to secure favourable treatment from the monarchs for their home cities, and conversely to represent the king’s interests to their fellow-countrymen.3 It was in this new era of monarchies that Isokrates and Xenophon’s influence reached new heights. Though neither philosopher could claim any disciples by this period – Isokrates’ school did not survive its founder, and no students of Xenophon are known of – their approaches to monarchs would become to a large degree the model for Hellenistic practice. Xenophon and Isokrates both seem to have envisioned an increased role for men like themselves in relations with monarchs. Perhaps in response to the perceived failures of traditional diplomacy, both writers imply that the people who would be most successful in dealing with monarchs would be not politicians elected by and from the dēmos at large, but instead a small philosophically trained elite. Such men would have the insight, mental flexibility, and self-control to be able to communicate with monarchs without compromising their own identity or their community’s interests. In the Hellenistic era, this view became mainstream, at least among philosophers and to some degree in the polis community at large.

The Diplomacy of Philosophers Both Plato and Isokrates seem to have been happy to place their students in the courts of kings and tyrants across the Greek world. This practice was continued and expanded by the many philosophical schools that proliferated from the end of the century onwards. As in so many aspects of Hellenistic monarchy, Alexander set the standard, bringing the Democritean philosopher Anaxarchos, Kallisthenes, great-nephew and student of Aristotle, and Onesikritos, a follower of the Cynic Diogenes, on his journey eastward. When power passed to the successor-kings, philosophers found a place at their courts too. The school founded by Aristotle, the Lykeion or Peripatos, provided many court philosophers. To Ptolemy I of Egypt, for example, it sent Demetrios of Phaleron, former Macedonian puppet-ruler of Athens (Diog. Laert. 5.5.78) and Straton of Lampsakos, who tutored the future Ptolemy II (Diog. Laert. 5.3.58). One head of the school, Lykon, even lived at the court of the kingdom of Pergamon, advising its first two kings (Diog. Laert. 5.4.67). The newer school of the Stoics had similar success, for example sending Persaios, student of the founder Zenon, to 3 On the formal role of the king’s friends, see Herman 1980/1, Strootman 2011: 147–150.

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advise Antigonos Gonatas of Macedon (Diog. Laert. 7.1.8),4 and Sphairos to both the quixotic Spartan king Kleomenes III (Plut. Cleom. 11.2) and to Ptolemy IV of Egypt (Diog. Laert. 7.6.177). Detailed accounts of these philosophers’ activities at court have not survived, but various anecdotes have come down to us that at least tell us what the role of a court philosopher was perceived to be. What comes through from these meagre traditions is an image of a philosopher who seeks to play the role that Xenophon gives Simonides in Hiero, and that Isokrates claims for himself and his students. Court philosophers are found giving moral and political advice aimed at helping the king both to be more secure in his rule and to exercise that rule justly, temperately, and for the benefit of his subjects.5 At times, we find philosophers serving in official offices under kings – Persaios was appointed by Antigonos Gonatas as governor of a major fortification (Paus. 2.8.4, Plut. Arat. 18.1), while the later Macedonian king Antigonos III Doson appointed the peripatetic philosopher Prytanis to settle internal strife in the city of Megalopolis (Polyb. 5.93). Perhaps most significantly, philosophers are often seen functioning as tutors to heirs to the throne, echoing the role that Aristotle played with Alexander and that Isokrates hoped to play with young rulers like Nikokles, Timotheos, and the heirs of Jason.6 The closeness of many philosophers to rulers permitted them to act as intermediaries between their poleis and patrons. Once again, Isokrates seems to be, if not the model, the first clear example of this. Bypassing Athens’ formal diplomatic system, Isokrates wrote to Philip personally to offer him advice on how to relate to his city and the other Greeks. Trusting in his logos politikos to bridge the gap more effectively than formal diplomacy, Isokrates presents himself as working to clear up misunderstandings that have arisen between the city and the king. This kind of informal philosophical diplomacy continued in the Hellenistic era. Menedemos of Eretria, for example, is said to have approached Antigonos Gonatas’ father, the warlord Demetrios Poliorketes, for assistance in suppressing aspiring tyrants in his Antigonos was something of a collector of philosophers: in addition to Persaios he invited the Cynic Bion of Borysthenes, the Sokratic philosopher Menedemos of Eretria, and another Stoic, Philonides of Thebes (Erskine 2011: 183); he also kept up a long friendship with Persaios’ teacher Zenon, founder of Stoicism (Diog. Laert. 7.1.6–8, 13–14). 5 See, for example, stories of Menedemos and Persaios with Antigonos Gonatas (Diog. Laert. 2.17.123, 141), Sphairos and Kleomenes of Sparta (Plut. Cleom. 11), Stilpo and Demetrios Poliorketes (Diog. Laert. 2.11.116), and Demetrius of Phaleron with Ptolemy I (Ael. VH 3.17, Diog. Laert. 5.5.78). 6 So, for example, Antigonos Gonatas is said to have been tutored by the philosopher Euphantos (Diog. Laert. 2.10.110), and later appointed Persaios as tutor to his own son, Halkyoneus (Diog. Laert. 7.1.36); meanwhile, the Peripatetic Straton taught the future Ptolemy II (Diog. Laert. 5.3.58). 4

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home city (Diog. Laert. 2.17.143). Theophrastos, Aristotle’s successor as head of the peripatetic school, is also said to have interceded with Demetrios to allow the return of Athenian citizens exiled as partisans of his opponent, Kassandros, ruler of Macedon ([Plut.] X orat. 850D). Increasingly, however, philosophers did not need to rely on informal channels to speak for their poleis. As time went on, cities themselves began to appoint philosophers as their official representatives. The process began early in the Hellenistic period. In 322 bce , following a failed revolt against Macedonian power, Athens selected Xenokrates, head of the Platonic Academy, as one of their representatives to negotiations with the Macedonian regent Antipatros (Diog. Laert. 4.2.9, Plut. Phoc. 27.1–6). Another source adds that Demetrios of Phaleron, a student of Aristotle and later the Macedonian puppet-ruler of Athens, was also appointed to the same embassy (Demetr. Eloc. 289). The selection of philosophers from two of the prominent schools in the city emphasised the degree to which the Athenian dēmos had come to see such men as significant assets in their negotiations with rulers, and to accept philosophers’ self-presentation as the most effective communicators of the city’s interests. The trend of choosing philosophers as representatives would continue throughout the Hellenistic era. The philosopher Krates – either Xenokrates’ successor as head of the Academy, or else the Cynic philosopher of the same name – was sent to negotiate with Demetrios Poliorketes in 287 bce (Plut. Demetr. 46.3–4).7 A generation later, we find the Academic philosopher Arkesilaos overcoming his general distaste for politics to accept a position as ambassador to Antigonos Gonatas of Macedon (Diog. Laert. 4.6.39). So desirable did the use of philosophers as intermediaries become that cities would at times appoint philosophers from other communities as their representatives. In 226 bce , the Athenians appointed the philosopher Prytanis of Karystos as their ambassador to Antigonos III Doson, king of Macedon (IG II³ 1 1147). Menedemos of Eretria, whom we met advocating for his own city, was also appointed as ambassador to Demetrios by his wife’s polis of Oropos (Diog. Laert. 2.17.141).

Manuals for Monarchs The one activity of philosophers concerning monarchs about which we have the best knowledge is the production of treatises on how to rule. Usually entitled “On Kingship” (Peri Basileias), these treatises were produced by many thinkers from almost all the major philosophical schools.8 Even Epikouros, whose philosophy famously rejected political On the issue of which Krates Plutarch means, see Paschidis 2008: 150–152. The most comprehensive treatment of these texts is the never-published doctoral thesis of Oswyn Murray (Murray 1971, summarised in Murray 2007). 7 8

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activity as disturbing the soul’s equilibrium, is said to have written a work titled On Kingship.9 Virtually none of these texts now survives in any degree of completeness. Nevertheless, we have sufficient fragments and references to reconstruct with some confidence what a typical Hellenistic kingship treatise would have contained.10 This skeletal reconstruction appears strikingly familiar considering what has been discussed already, owing much to the models set out by both Isokrates and Xenophon. As in Isokrates’ Nicocles, these texts began with philosophical justifications of monarchy as a natural, just, and beneficial form of government. Many of the arguments raised by Isokrates, such as the king’s freedom to benefit his subjects (3.15–16), the practical successes of historical kings (3.22–24), and the kingship of Zeus as a model for mortal government (3.26), find themselves echoed in later kingship treatises.11 After establishing the bona fides of kingship, the treatises move on to enumerate the virtues that a good king must possess. Once again, both Xenophon and Isokrates provide the models.12 Chief among the king’s virtues is philanthropia, love of humanity, which both Isokrates and Xenophon make one of the cornerstones of the good ruler’s identity. Xenophon, for example, praises the philanthropia of King Agesilaos of Sparta in his treatment of conquered cities (Xen. Ages. 1.22), while Isokrates urges Philip II to cultivate the same quality in all his dealings with Greece (Isoc. 5.114–116). In both the fourth century and Hellenistic writers, the virtue of philanthropia leads to the practise of euergesia – “good works/benefaction”. In Hiero, euergesia is cited by the tyrant as the means by which one gains true admiration and approval (7.9); Isokrates repeatedly praises the euergesia of Nikokles’ father Euagoras, and urges Philip to adopt it as the basis of all his policies.13 In order to be a good king, the treatises add, a ruler must surround himself with good advisors. As Isokrates urges Nikokles (2.28), they emphasise that a king must grant parrhēsia to his inner circle, and reject the voices of those who seek to flatter or deceive them. The results of good kingship in the Hellenistic treatises closely echo the blessed life that Simonides predicts for the reformed Hieron: “The consequences of being such a king would be that his people would love him. There would be no plots; he would have plenty of true friends to help him in his task.”14 On the complexities of Epicurean attitudes to monarchy, see Murray 1971: 195–200, McConnell 2010. 10 In this, I follow Murray 1971: 298–310. 11 Murray 1971: 302. 12 On the influence of these writers on Hellenistic theories of monarchy, see Murray 1971: 26–31, Azoulay 2006: 148–151. 13 Isoc. 5.36, 37, 116, 140, 9.45, 54, 57. 14 Murray 1971: 304. See, for example, an excerpt from the Neopythagorean treatise On the Good King According to Homer (quoted in Murray 1965: 168), which states that a king 9

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So far, the content of these treatises strongly evokes the civic-inclining discourse of fourth-century models. The virtues discussed are, by and large, the same as those evoked by Xenophon and Isokrates, grounded in what those authors see as the ideals of the collectively governed polis. Indeed, as Murray observes, kingship treatises tend to conceive of kingship as exercised over a single polis rather than the vast, multi-ethnic empires that the Hellenistic monarchs controlled.15 At the same time, however, in at least some of the tracts there are elements that diverge markedly from the civic discourse found in fourth-century works. This trait is particularly marked in the Neopythagorean works, where, in line with the general mystical tendency of the sect, kingship is given a metaphysical character.16 A king in their formulations is “living law” (nomos empsychos), embodying in his person the ordering principles of society. His position in the community echoes the position of the supreme deity in the universe, meaning that the king has something of divinity about him. These conceptions of kingship have little to do with the polis or its values – viewing kings as godlike incarnations of law was something that, in Classical thought was seen as an error of barbarian subjects.17 In these aspects, the kingship treatises appear less like the works of Isokrates and Xenophon, teaching monarchs civic values, and more like the activity recommended in the PseudoPlatonic Fifth Letter, teaching monarchs how best to speak the language of monarchy. In form, kingship orations seem to owe more to Isokrates than to Xenophon. Their communicative strategy displays the same optimism about the power of philosophical discourse to transcend boundaries displayed in Isokrates’ work. There is no evidence that any of these texts contain any material designed to win a sceptical ruler’s goodwill, or to translate their principles into language easier for a monarch to understand. Just as Isokrates was confident that his logos politikos could transcend cultural and political boundaries, so the authors of these treatises assume that their philosophical discourse is accessible to king and citizen alike. will “appear mild either in acquittal or in judgement, both because of his gentleness be loved, and because of his harshness, when it is necessary, be not despised. Such a man is not seen taking vengeance for plots, because he has held to a course of action aiming at goodwill.” 15 Murray 1971: 300. 16 On these works see Murray 1971: 255–272, Walbank 1984: 75–81, Roskam 2020, Trapp 2020. 17 See, for example, Aesch. Pers. 644, Supp. 370–375, Hdt. 3.31.4. It is true that in the Cyropaedia, Xenophon refers to Cyrus as believing himself, as king, to be bleponta nomon anthrōpois – “a law that sees people” (8.1.22). This is, however, not quite the same as the king embodying the law – rather, Cyrus can be seen as the law’s conscious agent, ensuring that it is actually followed. See Farber 1979: 504, Azoulay 1999: 16.

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The Hellenistic kingship treatises, therefore, seem to herald the death of the intercultural paradigm in communication with monarchs. In a world where kings are a familiar part of the political scene, the sense of profound difference that characterised Classical approaches to monarchy seems swiftly to have faded. Kings and cities seem in these texts to be viewed as a part of a common Hellenic sphere, bound together to a large degree by a common reverence for philosophy and cultured education.18 The rise of Cynic and Stoic ideas of the kosmopolis – the notion that all people were members of a single, overarching world community – may have helped in undermining the sense of difference between king and citizen.19 The production of treatises on kingship formed a kind of miniature ecology within the Hellenistic world, encompassing the philosopher, his city, his philosophical school, and the monarch. By writing such a treatise, a philosopher signalled his acceptance of the monarchic order and, if he dedicated it to a specific monarch, the implication that his dedicatee could embody the virtues presented in the treatise. In return, he might hope for a place for himself or his students at court, financial support for his school, or favourable treatment for his home city.20 By accepting a treatise on kingship, the monarch presented himself as a virtuous ruler, prepared to listen to the advice of the wise and to seek to conform to the image of ideal kingship that the treatise presented. The philosopher’s city could, perhaps, hope that the philosopher would serve as an advocate at court, and that they could enjoy royal favour as the home city of the king’s advisor. Instead of attempts to bridge the gap between two different systems of society, then, the kingship treatises can be seen as part of a single large system that encompassed both kings and poleis.21

Another area in which Isokrates was to prove prophetic – see Paneg. 4.50. On the Stoic picture of the kosmopolis, see Schofield 1991: 64–92; on the Cynic picture, see Moles 1996. 20 On support of Hellenistic monarchs of philosophical schools in Athens, see Habicht 1994: 243–244. 21 It may be noted that some trace of “Herodotean” narratives does survive in traditions about Hellenistic philosophers. Stories of uncompromising condemnation of monarchy in the presence of kings remained popular, attaching themselves particularly to members of the anarchistic Cynic school (Bosman 2006). Conversely, certain philosophers could also be depicted as corrupted by attachment to monarchs, in particular Alexander’s follower Anaxarchos (Arr. Anab. 4.11.2, 6, see Borza 1981 for discussion) and Antigonos Gonatas’ court philosopher Persaios (on whom see Erskine 2011). 18

19

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2. Did It Work? After all this discussion of approaches to monarchs in the fourth century and beyond, readers might be justified in asking “but did it work?”. Did the theories of Isokrates and Xenophon provide a means for Greek citizens to communicate their values effectively to monarchs? Can one point to instances of rulers whose government was rendered milder and more civic-minded by either philosopher’s approach, or even simply better disposed toward the poleis with which they interacted? In most cases, it is difficult to give definitive answers to any of these questions. Outside of the writings of Isokrates and Xenophon, we generally have little information about the rulers with whom they interacted, making conclusions about the degree of their influence difficult to draw. Moreover, even if one could see a change in their style of government, it would be difficult to prove that this was directly due to the philosopher’s influence. Nevertheless, it seems inappropriate not to at least attempt to examine what the influence of Xenophon and Isokrates might have been, with the caveat that any conclusions drawn from this examination will remain highly speculative.

Seuthes In the Anabasis, Xenophon presents himself as giving the Thracian warlord Seuthes a basic schooling in Greek civic values. Xenophon’s goal here is highly limited – unlike in Hiero, where Simonides seeks to completely reform the tyrant’s method of rule, Xenophon seeks simply to make Seuthes understand the reasons for the rift between himself and the Greek mercenaries, and to restore the friendship that had existed between the king and his hired soldiers. As Xenophon presents it, he was successful in at least this limited objective. How accurate Xenophon’s presentation of these events is cannot be established, given that we have no corroboration from any other source. It may, however, be worth asking whether Xenophon’s lessons could be said to have had any further influence on Seuthes, e.g. making him a milder ruler to his subjects, or inclining him to friendship with the poleis whose values Xenophon had tried to impart to him. The little we know about Seuthes tells us that he did indeed succeed in carving out a kingdom for himself. His growing power soon brought him into conflict with his former protector, Amadokos, king of the Thracians of the interior. The two kings were then reconciled by the Athenian general Thrasyboulos, and both made military alliances with the Athenians (Xen. Hell. 4.8.26, 9, Diod. Sic. 14.94.2). A generous reader might be tempted to attribute this Athenian diplomatic success to Seuthes having been previously “softened up” by Xenophon, who had made him sympathetic to Athenian values and ideals. There are problems, however, with such a view. First, we know that Seuthes was also on friendly terms with the Spartan general

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Derkyllidas, giving him troops and allowing him to stay at his court over the winter (Xen. Hell. 3.2.2, 9). As a result, Seuthes’ friendship with Thrasyboulos and the Athenians could easily be explained simply as a desire to court whichever Greek forces happened to be in his area. Moreover, Amadokos also seemed happy to ally himself with Athens without the benefit of Xenophon’s education, leading us further to question whether his teachings were particularly influential on Seuthes’ policy. Finally, it should be noted that Xenophon was not in fact the first Greek leader with whom Seuthes had come into contact: according to Diodorus Siculus, the Athenian renegade Alkibiades had already spent time in Thrace during one of his many periods of exile (13.105.3). The fact that Seuthes shows an awareness of the mythological kinship between the Odrysian Thracians and the Athenians could perhaps be ascribed to Alkibiades’ influence, making him already well disposed to the Athenians when Xenophon’s troops arrived (7.2.31). All in all, then, it is difficult to see any strong evidence that Xenophon’s teaching had a lasting influence on Seuthes. His interactions with the Athenians cannot be solidly connected to Xenophon’s intervention, and many other plausible influences can be suggested. As for the ways in which Seuthes governed his own subjects, whether Greek or Thracian, we have no knowledge whatsoever. Seuthes is the only real-life monarch with whom we have clear evidence that Xenophon interacted.22 Xenophon’s possible influence on Aischines has been discussed above, and the efficacy of these approaches will be investigated shortly. For the moment, however, I will shift focus to the addressees of Isokrates, and see if that philosopher was any more successful in influencing the actions of his royal correspondents.

Timotheos The traditions that survive of Timotheos of Herakleia Pontikē are almost universally positive. He is described as a wise, just, temperate, and benevolent monarch, qualities that particularly stand out in contrast to the brutal and megalomaniac reigns of his father and uncle (Phot. Co. 224, summarising the work of Memnon of Herakleia). Here, again, we might be tempted to give credit to Isokrates, painting a picture of a young ruler guided into benevolence by the fatherly advice of an elderly philosopher. Isokrates’ own letter, however, tells against this reading. Isokrates makes clear that even before he made contact, Timotheos was already acquiring a reputation 22 The suggestion has been made that Hiero was intended as oblique advice to Dionysios II of Syracuse (Hatzfeld 1946, Aalders 1953), and an anecdote does exist that places Xenophon at the Syracusan court (Ath. 10.31). Given that no other reference to Xenophon’s interaction with this dynasty exists, it seems of somewhat doubtful credibility, and the suggestion that Hiero was intended for a Syracusan tyrant, while attractive, remains entirely speculative.

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as a good ruler (L7 1). Isokrates’ advice amounts to little more than “stay the course” – encouraging, perhaps, but hardly the kind of transformative counsel that Isokrates boasts of in the opening of To Nicocles. What is more, if we were to credit Isokrates with Timotheos’ benevolence, then in fairness we would also have to give him some responsibility for the tyranny of his father Klearchos, who studied with Isokrates in Athens. Isokrates is, of course, keen to disclaim any influence on the elder ruler (L7 12), saying that his viciousness was absent or invisible when Klearchos was his student.Nevertheless, it would be excessively partisan to give Isokrates credit for the son’s success while denying any part in the father’s failure – as both men’s teacher, surely he had a hand in both or in neither. On the evidence we have, scant as it is, “neither” seems the more likely conclusion.

Nikokles Next to Philip, discussed below, Nikokles is Isokrates’ most frequent addressee. He is also the ruler for whom we have the best evidence as to whether Isokrates’ instruction took root. Traditions about Nikokles are not plentiful, but the little we have seems to make quite clear that Isokrates was not successful in implanting much in the way of civic virtue in his student. In his two works for Nikokles, Isokrates presents the king with a model of benevolent, popularly endorsed autocracy. In order to deserve his monarchic power, Isokrates writes, a king must be just, self-controlled, and respectful of the persons and property of those he rules. The accounts we have of Nikokles’ behaviour reveal the polar opposite of such a figure. According to Aristotle, Nikokles was in fact indirectly responsible for his father’s assassination, incensing one of his courtiers against the royal family by “stealing” the man’s wife (Arist. Pol. 5.1311b).23 Isokrates advised Nikokles to live with self-restraint and temperance as an example to his subjects; Nikokles is reported by the Roman-era writer Athenaeus to have in fact engaged in a long-running competition with King Abd’ashtart of Sidon (called Straton by the Greeks) as to which of them could live the most extravagantly and luxuriously (Athen. 12.41). While Isokrates told Nikokles to grant his subjects parrhēsia and to listen to their criticisms in order to improve himself, Athenaeus says the king executed the Athenian poet Stratonikos for condemning his lifestyle, criticisms that Athenaeus explicitly refers to as parrhēsia. Finally, Isokrates says that following his advice will give kings greater security in their rule (Isoc. 2.8); Nikokles, who If this is true, it reveals as the most cynical sophistry the claim that Isokrates puts in Nikokles’ mouth that “from the time I became king, I will never be revealed to have come near any body but that of my own wife” (3.36). Whatever the truth of this statement, his record before becoming king was hardly so spotless! 23

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seems to have ignored most of it, is said by Athenaeus to have come, like his competitor Straton, to an unspecified “violent end”. The example of Nikokles, on whom Isokrates lavished so much advice, stands as a strong counter to Isokrates’ hopes for his transcendent logos politikos. This young king, son of an energetic monarch who befriended numerous Athenian citizens and was a firm ally to Athens, might have been thought in a good position to receive the Athenian civic values that Isokrates presented to him. If Isokrates could not impress such a man with the value of his civic wisdom, the efficacy of his approach in general surely must be called into question.

Philip Philip II of Macedon has the distinction of being the only monarch on whom, I have argued, we have evidence of both Xenophon’s and Isokrates’ approaches being tried. I have argued that Aischines’ speech during the embassy to Philip may draw on the model Xenophon presents in Hiero and his exchange with Seuthes. Aischines’ speech represented a masterful weaving together of Macedonian and Greek civic principles, in order to create in Philip a sense of obligation toward Athens and an impetus to hand over Amphipolis to its mother city. In this, however, Aischines failed. Philip continued to hold Amphipolis, and indeed the city would remain part of the Macedonian realm until the coming of the Romans in the second century bce . We saw in the previous chapter that Philip’s general response to the Athenian negotiators was to string them along with empty assurances of friendship while promising nothing concrete and ruthlessly pursuing his own objectives. Aichines’ Xenophontic rhetoric failed to secure any tangible benefits for Athens, and, as already mentioned, his quarrels with Demosthenes may have encouraged Philip in the belief that the Athenians could not put up a concerted resistance to his ambitions. In tandem with Athens’ formal engagements with Philip, Isokrates was conducting his own campaign of personal diplomacy. In his missives to the king, Isokrates urged Philip to abandon any thought of aggression toward the Greeks, and instead seek to use his standing to effect a reconciliation between the various poleis. Having established peace and unity in Greece, Philip could then turn his aggressive tendencies eastward, spearheading an assault on the Persian empire. To achieve this goal, Isokrates mingled appeals to Philip’s mythic ancestry with gentle nudges in the direction of a more civic self-conception for the king. This combination, he clearly hoped, will be enough to convince Philip to identify more closely with the poleis to his south, and to champion their interests against what Isokrates sees as a common menace to Greece as a whole. The success of Isokrates’ entreaties is somewhat difficult to establish clearly. In one respect, his diplomacy clearly failed. Philip did not refrain

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from war against the southern poleis. The peace negotiated in 346 did not hold, with both Philip and the Athenians repeatedly provoking each other until war resumed in 341. Despite Isokrates’ invocation of the honour both states had shown to his ancestor Herakles, Philip had no qualms about destroying the armies of Thebes and Athens at Chaironea. Sparta too, whose kings also boasted descent from Herakles, was attacked and stripped of her few remaining subject peoples. Clearly, then, Isokrates had not managed to awaken in Philip any deep respect for those poleis, or to divert his aggression away from the Greeks. Philip was, however, comparatively lenient with his defeated foes. He did not annex Athens, Thebes, or their allies into his kingdom. Nor, as he had done in other areas he conquered, did he overthrow their constitutions and impose tyrannical or oligarchic puppet regimes. Instead, he simply demanded that the defeated states swear oaths of alliance with himself and each other, creating a new confederacy embracing most major Greek states (apart from Sparta). This League of Corinth (named after the city where the cities’ delegates met to take their oaths) did, of course, have Philip as hegemon, the military and political leader. But the king shared power with an assembly of the representatives of the allied states – the Synedrion – which had to ratify the hegemon’s decisions. In this relatively soft treatment of his opponents and his promotion of a broad-based alliance of poleis, some scholars have seen the influence of Isokrates’ teachings. Isokrates had, after all, urged Philip to unify the Greeks, and the League of Corinth appeared to do precisely that.24 Other features of the league charter – a ban on accepting Persian funding, compulsory arbitration for inter-city disputes, and guarantees of political autonomy for all states – do align with ideas Isokrates promotes in his works.25 The sense of Isokratean influence may be heightened by the fact that in 336 Philip announced plans to invade the Persian empire, and was duly elected supreme commander of the Greek armies by the League. Given the emphasis Isokrates put throughout his career on the need for a panhellenic campaign against the Persians, it once again is tempting to see here the philosopher’s influence on the king. Some notes of caution, however, should be sounded. The League of Corinth, while a new institution, had clear precedents in Greek history. It cannot therefore be seen simply as a crystallisation of Isokrates’ ideals in political form, but rather as an outgrowth of a long-standing tradition of alliances and common peace treaties in Greek interstate relations.26 The fact that the League of Corinth was born through Macedonian military 24 25 26

So Laistner 1930, de Romilly 1958: 100. Laistner 1930: 628. Perlman 1985.

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domination, and not through benefactions and persuasion, certainly indicates that Philip was not fully converted by Isokrates’ arguments. Indeed, in his last letter to Philip, Isokrates himself expresses uncertainty as to whether Philip’s moves against Persia are the result of his own advice, or were developed independently by the king (L3 3). While there may be an element of false modesty here, Isokrates’ statement underscores the fact that Philip’s motives and aims were and remain difficult to establish: the king kept his own counsel, and if anyone else influenced his thinking, he did not advertise the fact. One cautious middle ground might be that Isokrates provided at least a model of how Philip might appear in order to win the goodwill of the poleis. Whether he took any of Isokrates’ advice to heart, Philip might nonetheless have seen in his writings the kind of rhetoric and propaganda that would appeal to a Greek audience and help reconcile Greek citizens to Macedonian domination.27 This too ultimately remains speculation, and at the end of the day the question of Isokrates’ influence on Philip must remain open.

A Discourse of Reassurance Based on the evidence we have, the efficacy of Isokrates and Xenophon’s approaches seems, if not entirely absent, highly limited. Certainly, in no case do we see any fourth-century thinker bringing about the kind of wholesale reform that Xenophon envisions in Hiero, Isokrates attempts in Nikokles, and Plato ironically alludes to in The Laws. Plato’s experiences in Syracuse, whatever their precise motives, testify to the difficulty of convincing an entrenched autocrat to change his mode of life and governance. When viewed with hindsight, the fourth-century discourse seems to have functioned much more as a form of self-reassurance than as a practical guide to engagement with monarchs. The decades following the end of the Peloponnesian War saw increasing anxiety and discomfort over Athens’ increasing dependence on foreign monarchs. Before the war, secure in their power and independence, Athenians seem to have remained sanguine about their relationships with kings and tyrants. Cautionary tales of citizens “going native” such as Herodotus’ story of Alkmaion and the ambassadors in Acharnians did exist, but there is little evidence of the kind of angst one finds in Against Leptines or Against Aristokrates. After the loss of their empire, Athenians found the new prominence of monarchs among their allies deeply unnerving. Athenian politicians like Lysias and Demosthenes struggled to reconcile the need to cultivate friendly rulers with the fear that Athens was in danger of compromising her democratic and civic identity. Xenophon and Isokrates provided a way of thinking that mitigated, and even removed, the dilemma. The idea that citizens might be able to 27

So Perlman 1985: 153–154.

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educate and improve monarchs could prove a highly seductive one for Athenians who despaired of finding a way out of their bind. To be able to see their relations with monarchs as both materially profitable and morally upstanding was surely an attractive prospect for a city struggling to hold on to a sense of itself as a champion of Greek liberty. This reassuring image of Athenian citizens who could serve as “lawgivers to monarchs” came with drawbacks for democratic Athens, however. First, it relied on a view of civic identity that, if not entirely hostile to democracy, certainly sat uncomfortably with it. Fifth-century literature saw civic identity in terms of engagement with the laws and institutions of the polis. Any citizen who did not actively reject his city’s order could be portrayed as possessing civic virtue. The fourth-century writers, however, present a much narrower view of civic values. For Isokrates and Xenophon, civic virtue is connected less to participation in common institutions, and more to the cultivation of a set of character traits and practices. While still based on the lifestyle of a city-state, these practices are not depicted by either writer as immediately accessible to all citizens. Instead, they require time, leisure, and intense cultivation to develop properly. True civic virtue, as a result, ends up being limited to a small elite whose wealth and social status enables them to engage in the self-improvement required to become philosophically educated kaloi kagathoi. The implication seems clear: Athens’ relationship to monarchs can only be made morally pure if its control, taken from the populace, is put in the hands of an educated few who have the training, insight, and self-control to deal with monarchs effectively. A second uncomfortable consequence of these optimistic theories of relationships with monarchs may be that those who embraced them developed an unwarranted confidence in their ability to communicate with rulers. This can, perhaps, be seen in Aischines’ engagement with Philip. Having given what he saw as a masterful speech to Philip, drawing on the approaches of Xenophon and Isokrates to blend civic and monarchic discourse, Aischines may have overestimated his effect on the Macedonian king. His statements that Philip paid close attention to his speech and responded to all its particulars certainly suggests that he believed he had made a dramatic impact. Perhaps, then, Aischines’ readiness to trust Philip’s vague promises stemmed in part from an overconfidence in his own communicative abilities. The Seventh Letter portrays Plato as falling victim to a similar overconfidence, trusting in his abilities as a teacher to effect a wholesale reformation of Dionysios II’s character. Whether or not this accurately represents the historical Plato’s beliefs, it may represent the author’s perception of a degree of overconfidence on the part of Athens’ intellectual elite. Having found, they believed, tools that enabled them to communicate with monarchs both effectively and ethically, educated Athenians may have assumed that the

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monarchs with whom they spoke truly had become reformed and friendly. The battlefield at Chaironea stands as evidence of the overconfidence of this view. Finally, writers who promoted the education of monarchs may ultimately have served, intentionally or not, as public relations managers for the rulers to whom they wrote. Nikokles is said to have paid Isokrates 20 talents for an oration ([Plut.] X orat. 4).28 Given that Nikokles seems to have had little interest in following Isokrates’ advice, it seems plausible that he was interested more in its propaganda value. By commissioning a well-known thinker to write advice on virtuous kingship, Nikokles could make himself appear keen to heed good advice and to cultivate an image (apparently largely hollow) of being an enlightened and philosophical monarch. It has been argued that the Bosporan kings similarly benefited from ideological whitewashing at the hands of Isokrates’ school. The Bosporan elite are known to have had close ties to Isokrates and his students, and Alfonso Moreno proposes that the utopian depictions of Scythian life found in the fragments of Isokrates’ students Ephoros and Theopomos could represent the ideology of the Greco-Scythian Spartokids.29 By promoting an image of Scythians as virtuous noble savages, Isokrates’ followers may have helped ease the kind of anxieties about dealing with the half-Scythian royal dynasty attested in Demosthenes’ speeches and Androtion’s decree. It has been suggested that the Hellenistic kingship treatises continued this trend, serving more as reassurance for citizens and propaganda for kings than as serious attempts at education. By receiving a kingship treatise, a monarch could reassure the various poleis that he intended to rule benevolently and in line with civic and philosophical values, avoiding the kind of behaviours and attitudes that would lead to tyranny.30 The treatises thus provided a selection of rhetorical tropes that a king could draw on to present himself as an enlightened monarch. So, for example, despite ruling the Peloponnese with an iron fist and installing tyrants in numerous cities, the Macedonian king, Antigonos Gonatas, was viewed by posterity as a “mild and democratic” philosopher-king because he used rhetoric consonant with kingship literature, such as his definition of kingship as “a noble slavery” (Ael. VH 2.20).31 It is not certain whether this refers to Evagoras, To Nicocles, or Nicocles, all of which were written to or for the Cypriot king. 29 See Moreno 2007: 192–204. I am sceptical of Moreno’s claim that this ideology was in fact developed for the Bosporans by Isokrates’ school. This idea seems to give too little credit to the Spartokids, and rests on deeply subjective interpretations of material culture. 30 Haake 2013: 178–184. 31 So Haake 2013: 186. On Antigonos’ treatment of poleis, see Tarn 1913: 278–281, Gabbert 1997: 42–43. 28

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3. Lessons? Throughout this work, I have had drawn inspiration from modern political and diplomatic theories. In this final section, I wish to reverse that process and spend some time thinking about what perspective the ancient authors might bring to modern discussions of interaction between modern democracies and authoritarian states. In doing so, I wish to make clear that I am not suggesting that the ancient authors have the solutions to our dilemmas. History does not repeat. The modern globalised world is not an analogue for the Mediterranean in the fourth century bce . Technology, economy, political structures, and social mores have changed to a degree that makes it highly unlikely that the thinkers of the past will have solutions that will be directly transferable to our own condition. Nor, as I hope I have made clear above, do I believe that any of the solutions found by ancient authors truly worked as advertised. With this proviso, however, I do believe that there are certain points of contact between the challenges that faced Greek poleis in the fifth and fourth centuries in dealing with the autocracies and the dilemmas of our own time. As in Athens in the fourth century, modern discussions of diplomacy with authoritarian states reveals a certain sense of aporia. Just as the Athenians found the increasing prominence of monarchies disturbing, we find multiple modern scholars expressing dismay at the loss of influence of Western democracies to rising authoritarian powers such as China and Russia.32 In the same way that Demosthenes and Androtion struggled to balance Athens’ stated commitment to Greek liberty with increasing dependence on rulers like the Bosporan kings, the increasing economic power of authoritarian states provides challenges to modern democracies’ ostensible support of democracy and human rights.33 Finally, modern concerns over attempts by authoritarian powers, whether through “dark money” or online interference, to influence the politics of democratic nations evokes Demosthenes and Isokrates’ worries about the corrosive effects of Macedonian and Persian gold on the deliberations of independent poleis.34

Dobbins et al. 2020, Kendall-Taylor and Shullman 2021. For example, Diamond and Schell 2019 on China and the United States; Patrahau and van Geuns 2021: 17–22 on the EU and Russia. 34 Rudolph and Morley 2020, Kalathil 2021. This anxiety became particularly pronounced following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, when it was argued that Russia’s ground war against the Ukrainian government was matched by an “information war” against Ukraine’s European and North American allies – see Boucher et al. 2022, Leahy 2022, Morejón-Llamas et al. 2022. 32 33

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Given that there are certain points of overlap between the experience of Greek poleis in the fourth century and that of contemporary representative democracies, is there anything in their approaches to the question that can be of use to us? To a large degree, of course, this is a question that readers will have to decide for themselves. I will, however, offer some of my own thoughts, as it has been impossible to work on this subject without developing some ideas about its potential applicability. The first lesson I might draw is to beware of falling into the trap of self-reassurance. As discussed above, in the final analysis much of the fourth-century theorising on effective ways to communicate with monarchs seems to have functioned more to make Athenians feel better about their dealings with monarchs than to effect any kind of lasting transformation on the monarchs themselves. This may suggest a degree of soul searching on our part is needed. We too have many voices calling to propose how we might square our material interests with our stated values. But are these truly aimed at effecting change in authoritarian regimes, or simply about easing our consciences about the autocrats with whom we, like the Athenians, are obliged to deal kata kairous – “as the times require”. Ultimately, I have suggested that images of the reform of monarchs served in fact to reconcile democratic Athens to monarchy as a system, and allowed autocrats to cloak their domination with a veneer of civic and philosophical respectability. It therefore may behove us to ask whether contemporary attempts at the reform of authoritarian states ultimately serve to provide them with propaganda opportunities. By appearing to listen, they can make themselves appear more benevolent and innocuous while maintaining as tight a hold on power as ever. In this light, my next thought is that it may be useful to consider ancient concerns about the moral dangers of talking to tyrants. Aristophanes, Euripides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes all depict Greek citizens who are drawn by the attractions of luxury, power, or influence to identify with the culture of the monarchic court. Such identification, when taken to an extreme, is depicted as leading to the loss of one’s previous civic identity, potentially rendering one a threat to one’s former community. Most modern diplomatic theory takes for granted the integrity and steadfastness of the democratic negotiator. Intercultural theorists ask how they might influence their authoritarian counterparts, but rarely seem to consider whether influence could flow the other way. As authoritarian states in our own time seem to be becoming more self-confident and open about their own systems – witness Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s proud description of his regime as “illiberal democracy”35 – perhaps it is time to consider the ways in which such ideas might be seductive 35

Innes 2015.

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toward those who engage deeply with them. As should be clear, I am very attracted by the approaches of intercultural negotiation and strategic moral diplomacy. Nevertheless, it seems not unreasonable to accept that such approaches are not entirely without risk, and that there may be a line where understanding turns into sympathy. There are some signs that this kind of anxiety is rising in at least Anglophone political discourse. The divisive presidency of Donald Trump led to a rapid resurgence of discussions in the United States that strongly echo the anxieties that discussions of the likes of Alkmaion, Themistokles, and Iphikrates. Multiple authors linked President Trump’s apparent fondness for authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, with what were seen as increasingly autocratic and undemocratic policies at home.36 As I write this midway through the term of Trump’s successor, such rhetoric has for the moment died down. The idea has, however, now been raised in ways that it had not before. The task now may be to move such ideas from the realm of partisan political rhetoric into genuine scholarly inquiry. My final point risks being criticised for banality, but nevertheless seems worth saying: this is not an easy question. For more than a century, Classical Athens wrestled with how best to engage with the many monarchs with whom it was obliged to deal. Historians, politicians, and philosophers all offered different perspectives and prescriptions, presenting often radically different ways of viewing the dilemma. In the end, none of these seem to have provided a fully satisfactory solution to the problem of how to balance civic identity with the need to engage with autocrats. With this in mind, we might wish to be wary of anything offered up as a total solution to our own dilemmas on this front. As Xenophon and Isokrates show, it is possible to paint very compelling theoretical pictures of one’s chosen approach; but the unimpressive record of either thinker’s approach in generating tangible results might make us pause when seeking clearcut solutions to our own dealings with dictators. Whatever its applicability to our own situation, it is my hope that this study has at least shed some light on how ancient thinkers approached their own uncertainties and dilemmas over talking to tyrants. I hope that I have See, for example: Thomas Carothers and Frances Z. Brown, “Can US Democracy Policy Survive Trump?” (Carnegie Endowment, 1 October 2018, https://carnegie endowment.org/2018/10/01/can-u.s.-democracy-policy-survive-tump-pub-77381), Jonathan Chait “Trump Now Sounds Like a Fan of North Korean Repression” (New York Magazine, 12 June 2018 https: //nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/trumpnow-sounds-like-a-fan-of-north-korean-repression.html), Jonathan Freedland “Donald Trump Wants to be a Dictator. It’s Not Enough Just to Laugh at Him” (The Guardian, 5 July 2019, https: //www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/05/donald-trumpdictator-not-enough-laugh). 36

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shown that the question of how to relate to monarchs was a central one in Athenian, and indeed wider Greek discourse. It was a question with which most of the surviving authors of Classical Greece engaged. They provide a series of striking images of different ways of engaging with monarchs. from Solon boldly denouncing Kroisos’ happiness as illusion, through Simonides leading Hieron from that illusion into the true joys of civic leadership, to the despair of the Seventh Letter’s Plato in his failure to do the same with Dionysios. The legacy of these works was to influence both political thought and diplomatic practice for centuries to come.

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Index Index

Aelian 221n5 Aeschylus Agamemnon 40n54 Eumenides 6 Persians 9, 224n17 Suppliants 6, 8, 224n17 Agamemnon 175 Agesilaos II, King of Sparta 58, 64, 76n66, 223 Aglaokreon of Tenedos 207 Aischines (Athenian politician) 183, 187–190, 206–208, 212–216, 227, 229, 232 2. On the Embassy 285n4, 188, 189n18, 190, 208, 213–216 3. Against Ctesiphon 24n21, 187 Aischines (philosopher) 168 Alexander of Pherai 56 Alexander II, King of Macedon 201n44 Alexander III, King of Macedon 118, 132, 141n72, 159, 162, 219–221, 225n21 Alkibiades 227 Alkmaion 47, 50, 52, 61, 65, 94, 110, 157, 231, 236 Allen, Danielle 180, 213n73, 216n79 Allen, Katerzyna Hagemajer 11–12, 201 Amadokos / Medokos, King of Thrace 201n44, 226–227 Amasis, King of Egypt 7n22, 36–37 Amazons 20, 191

ambassadors / embassies 41, 43, 48–51, 110, 185, 187–188, 204–216, 222, 229 Amphipolis 192, 213–215, 229 Amyntas II, King of Macedon 185, 201n44 Amyntas III, King of Macedon 214–215 Anaxandrides 187 Anaxarchos 220, 225n21 Andokides 183, 185 Antigonos II Gonatas, King of Macedon 221, 222, 225n21, 233 Antigonos III Doson, King of Macedon 221 Antipatros, Regent of Macedon 118, 137, 212, 219, 222 Apollodoros (Athenian orator) 10 aporia 65, 82, 153, 234 Apries, King of Egypt 22 Archelaos, King of Macedon 57 Archidamos, King of Sparta 146 archōn 86–89, 131, 201 Archytas of Tarentum 164, 174 Argos / Argives 8, 33, 139, 191 Ariaios 102 Aristagoras, Tyrant of Miletos 28 Aristippos 71–72, 168, 180 Aristodemos 207 Aristokrates 192–194 Aristophanes Acharnians 4, 17n3, 52, 110, 205n55, 231 261

262 Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought Aristotle 149, 162, 220–222 Athenaion Politeia (Constitution of Athens) 88n86 Politics 5–7, 25, 50, 60, 76n66, 85n78, 86n81, 190n20, 228 Rhetoric 61, 118 Arkesilaos 222 Arrian 225n21 Artabanos 24, 30 Artabazos 193 Artaxerxes II, King of Persia 55, 56, 95–96, 102–104, 210 Artaxerxes III, King of Persia 56 Artemisia, Queen of Halikarnassos 30–31, 35 Arystas 109 Athena 6, 203 Athenaeus 162, 228–229 Athens / Athenians 3n10, 4–6, 8–12, 18, 20n14, 24, 26–33, 39n51, 43, 45, 47–53, 55–58, 60n21, 61, 64, 67–68, 74, 80n69, 81, 86–88, 117, 119–127, 130, 133–134, 137–140, 143–144, 146, 149–150, 153–155, 161, 170, 172, 178, 183–217, 221–222, 225–227, 229–232, 234–237 Atossa, Queen of Persia 8–9, 44 Autokles 205 Azoulay, Vincent 73n61, 120, 137n65, 223 banausoi (manual tradesmen) 74 barbarians 3, 8–9, 11–12, 18, 25, 27–28, 49–51, 91, 95–98, 111–112, 135, 139, 142–146, 186–187, 191, 196n30, 203n53, 211, 224 basileia see kingship basilikē technē (the royal art) 71, 154–155 Bias of Priene 42–43, 47, 90–91 Bion of Borysthenes 221n4 Black Sea 107, 195

Blair, Tony 1 Borysthenes 41 Bosporan Kingdom 12, 56, 87, 184–185 196, 198–204, 212n71, 233, 234 Boulē (Council of Athens) 6, 31, 202n48 Boyd-Judson, Lyn 43, 92–93 Burma 39n52 Burnyeat, Miles 165–169 Byzantium 46, 95, 108 Carter, Jimmy 147 Carthage 55, 163 Chaironea, Battle of 219, 230, 233 Charidemos 192–194 charis 106, 112 Charmides 71, 150 China 1, 14n42, 234 Cicero 117, 164n36 citizen / citizenship 3–6, 8–12, 21, 26–30, 32–39, 41, 48, 51–52, 59, 66–79, 81, 84–92, 94, 96–98, 100–101, 108, 115, 119–127, 129–133, 136–139, 145–147, 153–155, 160–161, 167, 173n58, 183–187, 191–192, 194, 201, 203–204, 211, 216, 224–225, 231–235 (see also education; happiness) Clinton, Hillary 2–3 Corinth, League of 230 Corinthian War 142n73 corruption 48–52, 67–68, 119, 149, 153–154, 158–159, 161, 166, 170–171, 186–191, 194, 225n21, 235. Crete 6, 154 Crimea 56, 87, 198n39 Cynics (philosophical school) 220, 221n4, 222, 225 Cyprus, Cypriots 13, 55, 128, 162, 185, 196 Cyrus, Prince 58, 95–109, 112

Index 263 Cyrus the Great, King of Persia 23n18, 35n48, 40–41, 48, 59, 105, 170, 224n17 Dareios 20, 23n18, 25, 44, 105n28, 170 decrees, Athenian honorific 11–12, 81, 185, 195, 199, 201–204, 233 Deiokes, King of the Medes 23n18 Delian League 56n6 Delphi, Oracle of 21n15, 26, 31, 47, 107 demagogue (dēmagōgos) 120, 127–128, 131, 133 Demaratos 37–44, 47, 59, 73, 91, 133 Demetrios of Phaleron 220, 222 Demetrios Poliorketes 221–222 democracy ancient 3, 5–8, 10n28, 24–29, 67n46, 73–74, 86–88, 91, 96, 101, 119–120, 122–128, 130–134, 140, 150, 154, 161, 166, 179, 186–187, 191, 194–195, 197, 200–206, 208, 210–211, 231–233 modern 1–3, 52n79, 93n95, 147, 234–236 Demokedes 44 dēmos of Athens 12, 74, 88, 125–126, 128, 134, 139, 183, 185–187, 195, 197, 200–202, 204, 211–212, 220, 222 Demosthenes 4, 124–125, 183–218, 233–235 ambassador to Philip II 187–190, 206–209, 212, 213n76, 229 life of 183–184 1. First Olynthiac 209 2. Second Olynthiac 76n66, 184, 189 3. Third Olynthiac 196n30 6. Second Philippic 192 7. On the Halonessus 57 8. On the Chersonese 125n30

9. Third Philippic 126n33–34 10. Fourth Philippic 124–125, 209 15. On the Liberty of the Rhodians 192 19. On the False Embassy 188–190, 208n64, 209n67–68, 215n78 20. Against Leptines 194–195, 197–201 21. Against Midias 6, 190n21 23. Against Aristocrates 85n78, 185n4, 186, 190–194, 199–200 35. Against Lacritus 213n73 [49. Against Timotheus] 187 60. Funeral Oration 191–192 Derkylas 207 Derkyllidas 227 diabolē (slander) 21, 23–24, 169 Diodorus Siculus 87n84, 108n35, 188, 226, 227 Diodotos 137, 142, 145 Diogenes Laertius 142n73, 162n29, 163n32, 220–222 Diogenes of Sinope 220 Dion 163–164, 167–172 Dionysios I, Tyrant of Syracuse 55–56, 87, 135, 146, 163, 197, 210, 212 Dionysios II, Tyrant of Syracuse 159, 163–178, 180, 190, 227n22, 232 Dionysios of Halikarnassos 193n26 Dionysos 195 Duterte, Rodrigo 236 education / teaching of barbarians 142–146 of citizens 27, 64, 121–124, 67–69, 81, 98n14, 150, 153–155, 161, 225, 232 of monarchs 32, 37–42, 62, 67, 74, 76, 82–83, 90–91, 94, 111–115, 117–118, 124–128, 130–133, 137, 142, 144–146, 148, 156–160, 163, 169,

264 Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought 170–171, 177–181, 211–212, 224–225, 227–228, 230–233 Egypt / Egyptians 8, 20, 25, 36, 46, 144n81, 195 enkrateia (self-control) 68–70, 75, 77–78, 89, 115, 170 Epikouros 222–223 Epyaxa, Queen of Cilicia 99 Erastos 162, 178–180 eristics 121, 127, 132 Euagoras, King of Cypriot Salamis 55, 130, 141n72, 144, 223 Euagoras of Korkyra 81n70 Euaion of Lampsakos 162 Euboulos 213 euergesia (benefaction) 73n61, 80–81, 98, 139n67, 223 Euphraios of Oreus 162, 178–179 Euripides Electra 190n20 Helen 51 Orestes 50 Suppliants 5–9, 24n21, 76n66, 190n20 Eurydike, Queen of Macedon 213–214 Eurystheus 141 Euthydemos 71, 82 Euthykles 192 Gelon, Tyrant of Syracuse 60 gods / divinity 6, 18, 19n9, 22–23, 30, 33–37, 40, 51, 67, 81, 108n33, 123n24, 145, 156, 158, 160–161, 166–167, 169, 179, 181, 203–204, 224 Gottesman, Alex 12, 23, 28, 30n39 grain 12, 56, 185, 196, 198, 202, 204, 212n71 Great King of Persia 45, 49–50, 52, 56–57, 76n66, 89, 144–147, 184, 197 ( for specific kings, see Artaxerxes II; Artaxerxes III; Cyrus The Great; Dareios; Xerxes)

Halikarnassos 17–18, 30 happiness of citizens 33–35, 68–69, 72–74, 132, 153, 161 of monarchs 32–37, 43, 48, 59, 61–63, 66, 75–86, 89–92, 98n14, 131, 161, 170, 175 of philosophers 161, 174 Harmodios and Aristogeiton 194 Hekataios 20 Hekatomnid dynasty 55 Hellenistic period 73n61, 139n67, 64, 214n77, 219–225, 233 Heraklea Pontikē 118, 131, 162, 227–228 Herakleides 110–115 Herakles 86n79, 140–141, 230 Herman, Gabriel 10–11 Hermeias of Atarneus 162, 178–180 Hermippos 195 Herodotus 4, 7, 8n23, 17–53, 58–59, 61, 65, 67n46, 73, 74n63, 82n72, 85n78, 90–92, 95, 99, 104n24, 105n28, 110, 126, 133, 137, 146, 149, 153, 157, 161, 170, 173n58, 176–177, 184, 190, 195, 211, 215n78, 216, 224n17, 225n21, 231 life and work of 17–21 Hieron, Tyrant of Syracuse 59–63, 65–67, 75–94, 102, 113, 133, 146, 171, 175, 177, 223 Hipparkhos, Tyrant of Athens 194 Histiaios, Tyrant of Miletus 30–31 historiē 18–20 Homer 23, 109 Odyssey 173 hubris 21–22, 25, 158, 190 Hydarnes 41, 45 Hypereides 213 Iatrokles 207 idiōtēs (private citizen) 34, 59, 66–67, 90, 124 Ilion 193 India / Indians 20

Index 265 intercultural communication 14, 19–20, 29, 32, 43–51, 52n79, 91–93, 97, 102–109, 112–116, 137–138, 142, 147, 161, 208–210, 225, 236 Ionia / Ionians 18–20, 27, 32, 40, 42–43, 44n65, 50 Iphikrates 185–187 Isaios 213 Ischomachos 73 isēgoria 12, 28–33, 38, 124–125 Isokrates 1, 3–4, 13, 117–149, 152n7, 153, 155, 159–162, 170, 177, 179, 181, 210–213, 216, 220–224, 226–233 Letter 1. To Dionysius 135, 146, 171n54, 212 Letter 3. To Philip 143, 231 Letter 4. To Antipater 137, 142, 171n54, 212 Letter 5. To Alexander 132, 141n72, 159 Letter 6. To the Children of Jason 126n34, 132, 171n54, 212 Letter 7. To Timotheus 126n34, 132, 137n63, 160, 227–228 Letter 9. To Archidamus 146 2. To Nicocles 5, 67n46, 119, 124–128, 133, 137, 153n8, 160, 170, 178, 216, 223, 228–229 3. Nicocles 8, 118n8, 119, 122, 128–131, 140, 144, 223, 228–229 4. Panegyricus 57n8, 120, 142–146, 191, 197, 225n18 5. To Philip 134–136, 138–142, 146, 209n67, 212, 216, 223 7. Areopagiticus 120–122, 134 8. On the Peace 126n32, 134 9. Evagoras 55n1, 141n72, 144 10. Helen 85n78, 133 12. Panathenaicus 120, 122, 123n24, 134 13. Against the Sophists 121–122, 146n84

15. Antidosis 1, 117, 119, 121–123, 135, 146n84, 212 17. Trapezeticus 199n41, 204, 209 isonomia 22, 26–28 Italy 56, 163, 173 Japan 43, 85, 105n27 Jason of Pherai 56 children of 132, 138, 159, 221 Jones, Christopher 10 Kallias 205 Peace of 56n6 Kallikles 157 Kallisthenes 220 Kallistratos 205 kalos kagathos 67–74, 81, 89, 94, 123, 211 Kambyses, King of Persia 22, 38, 170 Kardia 193 Karia / Karians 18, 55 Kassandros, ruler of Macedon 222 Katanē 60 Kazakhstan 1 Kebren 193 Kersobleptes 192–193 Kim Jong Un 236 Kimon 207–208 King’s Peace 56–57 kingship (basileia) 8, 28, 62, 88–89, 127, 176, 179n64 kingship treatises, Hellenistic 222–225, 233 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne 2n6, 147 Klearchos, Spartan general 97–108, 110–112, 115 Klearchos, Tyrant of Heraklea Pontikē 142, 146, 162, 228 Kleisthenes 120, 123 Kleobis and Biton 33, 67 Kleomenes I, King of Sparta 30 Kleomenes III, King of Sparta 221 Kleommis, Tyrant of Mytilene 132 Koriskos 162, 178–180

266 Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought Kotys, King of Thrace 185–187, 192, 194 Krates 222 Kritoboulos 69–70, 74 Kroisos, king of Lydia 26, 31–40, 42–43, 47–48, 59, 61, 65–66, 90–91, 93, 157, 175 Kronos 158 Ktesiphon 207 Kypselid dynasty 25 Laibach 75n65 Lakritos 213 Laodamas 213 Leon 211–212 Leptines 197–199 Leukon, ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom 198–204 liberty (eleutheria) 4, 38, 41, 65, 122, 171, 192–193, 200, 232, 234 Libya (modern state) 92–93 logos 118, 122–124, 127, 129–130, 132, 140, 142, 146, 167, 179 logos politikos 134, 138–139, 141–142, 147, 221, 224, 229 Low, Polly 9 Lydia / Lydians 32, 35n48, 42, 48, 95, 106 Lykeion, Aristotle’s 220 Lykidas 31 Lykon 220 Lysander, Spartan admiral 102 Lysias 183, 210, 231 2. Olympic Oration 191n23, 197 Macedon / Macedonians 11, 13, 45, 52, 57, 137–142, 145, 162, 178–179, 185–192, 195–196, 201n44, 206–210, 212–217, 219, 222, 229 Magnesia 47 Maiandrios, Tyrant of Samos 28, 82n72 Mandela, Nelson 92–93 Marathon, Battle of 26, 47 Medes 23n18, 25, 46

Megabyxos 25 Meletos 153 Menedemos of Eretria 221–222 Menelaos 50 Menestratos, Tyrant of Eretria 193 Menon 97–100, 106–107, 111, 115 mercenaries 58, 84–85, 95, 97, 100–101, 106, 113, 192, 194, 196n32, 226 meson (the middle, Greek political concept) 24, 41 metal 196 Methone 195 Miltiades 26 Mitchell, Lynette 10–11, 135n57, 185n3, 210 Molossia / Molossians 45, 52, 201n44 monarchy (monarchia) 2, 5–9, 21–32, 37–38, 48, 51–52, 58, 89, 108, 120, 126–133, 137, 144–145, 179, 184, 219–220, 223–225 (see also education; happiness; kingship) Moreno, Alfonso 12, 196n35, 198n39, 201n46, 203n53, 212n71, 233 Munson, Rosaria 41 Murray, Oswyn 222n8, 224 Nausikles 207 Nazarbayev, Nursaltan 1 Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC) 105 Neoconservatism 147 Neopythagoreanism 223n14, 224 Nestor 175 Nikokles, King of Cypriot Salamis 1, 8, 117, 119, 122, 124–131, 132–133, 137n63, 138, 140, 141n72, 144–145, 155, 159, 160, 170, 177–178, 216, 221, 223, 228–229, 233 nomos 19, 26, 38–39, 51, 137, 224 nomothetein (to make laws) / nomothetēs (legislator) 137, 158–160 North Korea 14n42, 43, 93n95, 208, 236

Index 267 oikistēs (city founder) 60, 107 oligarchy 5, 6n17, 25, 27–30, 91, 119–120, 128, 130, 135, 138, 140, 150, 166, 179, 192, 195, 230 Olympia 60, 64 Onesikrates 220 Orbán, Viktor 235 Orestes 50 Oroites 36 Otanes 21–23, 25–29, 38, 91, 126, 184, 190 panhellenism 95, 96n5, 102, 120, 135, 138–141, 230 parrhēsia 124–126, 136–137, 142, 223, 228 Patterson, Lee 10 Pausanias, King of Macedon 213 Pausanias, Spartan general 46–47 Pausanias, travel writer 221 Peisistratid dynasty 25, 27–28, 61 Peisistratos, Tyrant of Athens 23n18 Peloponnesian War 13, 29, 52, 55–58, 95, 149–150, 189, 191, 195–196, 231 Perdikkas II, King of Macedon 52, 57, 195–196, 199, 202 Perdikkas III, King of Macedon 162, 178–179, 214 Pergamon 220 Periandros, Tyrant of Corinth 7n22, 22, 35n48 Perikles 88, 123, 195 Persaios 221–222, 225n21 Persia / Persians 4, 8–11, 13, 18, 21, 23–28, 37–41, 44–47, 49–50, 55–57, 59, 95–96, 99–107, 109, 140, 143–146, 170, 191–192, 195, 211, 219, 229–231, 234 Phaÿllos, Tyrant of Phokis 193 philanthropia 223 philia (friendship) 68–69, 71–75, 78–80, 89–90, 94, 100–107, 110, 112–113

Philip II, King of Macedon 13, 57, 118–120, 136, 138–143, 145–147, 162, 175n62, 184, 187–192, 206–210, 212–217, 219, 221, 223, 229–232 Philippines 236 Philiskos 194 philoi tou basileos (friends of the king, Macedonian officials) 124, 220 Philokrates 207 Philonides of Thebes 221n4 philosopher-king 23n18, 150, 156, 159, 166–167, 169n46, 170, 177–178 philosophy / philosophers 18, 32, 58, 62–64, 67n48, 82, 96, 118, 122–123, 131–132, 136, 138, 140, 149–156, 158–181 (see also happiness) Phoenicia 195 Phokis 188, 193, 207 Photius 227 Phrygia 195 Phrynon 189, 207 Pittakos of Mytilene 42–43, 47, 90–91 Plato 58, 61, 71, 98n14, 135, 149–182, 200, 216n79 Academy of 121–122, 132n48, 161–162, 175n62, 222 approach to reading 151–152 life of 149–151 Apology 153 Euthydemus 160n23 Euthyphro 151 Gorgias 98n14, 151n3, 156–157, 160n23 Laws 151, 154–155, 157–161, 167, 170–171, 174, 181, 231 Menedemus 160n23 Phaedo 151 Phaedrus 160n23 Protagoras 61n22, 129n42, 153

268 Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought Republic 61n22, 85n78, 150, 151, 154–159, 161, 167–169, 177n63, 181 Sophist 146n84, 151 Statesman 151, 154–155, 170n49 Theatetus 167n44 [Letter 1] 175 [Letter 2] 175–176 [Letter 3] 176–178 [Letter 5] 178–179, 224 [Letter 6] 179–180 [Letter 7] 164–174, 232 [Letter 12] 164 [Letter 13] 178 Plutarch De Gloria Athenensium 95n2 Life of Alexander 162n29 Life of Aratus 221 Life of Cleomenes 221 Life of Demetrius 222 Life of Dion 163 Life of Phocion 222 [Vita X Oratorum (Lives of the Ten Orators)] 117n1, 212–213, 222, 233 polemarch 26 polis (city-state) 3–10, 12, 21–40, 47, 58–59, 66–67, 69–75, 80–86, 90–92, 101, 119–134, 136–142, 145–146, 153–155, 160, 197, 210–212, 220, 224, 232 Polykrates, tyrant of Samos 7n22, 36–37 Polyxenos 168, 180 power distance 29, 32–33 Prometheus 175 prostatēs 86–89, 114, 127, 131 Proxenos 97–100, 107–108, 115 Prytanis of Karystos 221–222 Pseudartabas 50 Pseudo-Xenophon (“The Old Oligarch”) 29n35, 195 Ptolemy I, King of Egypt 220 Ptolemy II, King of Egypt 220 Ptolemy IV, King of Egypt 221

Putin, Vladimir 236 Pylades 50 Qaddafi, Muammar 92–93 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 12 Russia 14n42, 234, 236 Sacred War, Third 207 Salamis, Battle of 26, 27, 31, 44 Salamis, Cypriot 1, 55, 119, 128, 130–131, 137 Sardis 32, 47, 95 Satyros, Athenian comedian 215n78 Satyros, ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom 199n41, 202 Schofield, Malcolm 156n15, 157n16, 158–159 Scythians 19n9, 20, 41, 56, 87, 173n58, 187, 201, 203n53, 233 Seuthes, Thracian prince 58, 96–97, 108–116, 133, 146, 155, 213, 226–227, 229 sexual behaviour of tyrants 22, 75–78, 98–99, 189–190 Sicily 56, 87, 164, 173–174, 176 Simonides 39, 59–67, 75–94, 97, 101–102, 114–115, 131, 133–134, 146, 157, 171, 175, 177, 211, 216, 221, 223, 226 Sitalkes I, King of Thrace 49n74, 52, 195 Sitalkes II, King of Thrace 201n44 Skepsis 193 Skyles, Scythian king 41, 173n58 Skylla and Charybdis 173 slaves, monarchs’ subjects as 8, 25, 50–51, 104, 157, 190 Social War, Athenian 56 Sokrates 58, 60n21, 64–65, 67–74, 77, 79–82, 88, 90, 99, 107, 113, 119, 150–158, 161, 168, 174, 176 Sokratic dialogue 43, 58–60, 64–65, 82, 135, 151–152

Index 269 Solon 32–40, 42–43, 47–48, 59, 61, 73, 81, 90–91, 93, 120, 123, 133, 137, 175, 190n19 Somoza, Anastasio 12 Sophocles 51, 190n19 Antigone 7 South Africa 92–93 Sparta / Spartans 4, 10, 27, 29–31, 37–41, 46–47, 52, 55–56, 58, 64, 73–74, 100n20, 102, 108, 140, 150, 154, 205–206, 221, 226–227, 230 Spartokid dynasty 56, 185, 233 Spartokos I, ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom 56 Spartokos II and Pairisades, joint rulers of the Bosporan Kingdom 201–204 St Thomas, Andrew 64n37, 77n68, 86n8, 88 stereotypes 14, 50, 76n66, 104–105, 189 Stobaeus 162n28 Stoics 220–221, 225 Strabo 60n19, 162 Straton / Abd’ashtart, King of Sidon 228–229 Straton of Lampsakos 220, 221n6 Stratonikos of Athens 229 Strauss, Leo 59n17, 62–66, 67n48, 83–84, 88–89, 94, 171 Suda 162 symposion (drinking-party) 188 Syracuse 13, 55, 60, 83–89, 118, 138, 159, 163–178, 180n65, 227n22, 231 Tarentum 172 Tellos 33–34, 67n46, 73, 81, 153 Thebes / Thebans 5, 9, 55, 140, 188, 191, 215n78, 230 Themistokles 44–47, 88, 91, 123, 236 Theophrastos 222 Theramenes 88 Thermopylai, Battle of 37–40 Theseus 5–9, 120, 133

Thessaly 13, 56, 61, 118, 132 Thirty, The (rulers of Athens) 88, 150, 166, 189 Thrace / Thracians 4, 11, 46, 49n74, 52, 58, 96, 108–116 Thrasyboulos, Athenian general 226–227 Thrasyboulos, Tyrant of Miletos 7n22 Thucydides 7n18, 29, 45–47, 58, 95, 123, 173n59, 191, 195 Thurii 17n3 Timagoras 211 Timaios of Kyzikos 162 timē (honour / esteem) 80–81 Timotheos, Athenian general 185–187, 212 Timotheos, Tyrant of Heraklea Pontikē 131–132, 137n63, 138, 142, 159–160, 221, 227–228 Tissaphernes 95, 101–107, 111–112 Too, Yun Lee 123n24, 131n47, 134–135 Trump, Donald 236 Tyndareos 50 tyrannos kosmios (orderly tyrant) 158, 160–161, 171, 177, 181, 216n79. tyrant (tyrannos) / tyranny (tyrannis) see education; happiness; monarchy; sexual behaviour of tyrants; wealth United Kingdom 1, 85 United States of America 2–3, 43, 93n95, 103, 147, 208, 209n66, 234n33, 236 Venice 39n52 wealth 2, 4, 27, 32, 34–37, 41, 43, 47–48, 60–61, 65, 73, 78, 81–82, 85–86, 90n91, 93, 97–99, 109–110, 113, 115, 119, 126, 145, 163, 179–180, 185, 195, 197–199, 201, 210, 216, 232

270 Talking to Tyrants in Classical Greek Thought Wohl, Victoria 77, 190n20 wood 57 xenia (ritualised friendship) 10–11, 100, 184–185 Xenokrates 222 Xenophon 55–116, 122–123, 137, 139, 142, 146, 149, 151, 153, 155, 160–161, 170–171, 179, 181, 205–207, 210–213, 216, 220–224, 226–227, 229, 231 life of 57–59, 142n73 Agesilaus 76n66, 223 Anabasis 95–116, 133, 146, 211, 213, 226–227 Cyropaedia 58–59, 224n17 Hellenica 58, 87n85, 95, 100n20, 150, 205–206, 210–211, 226–227

Hiero 59–67, 75–94, 97, 101, 112–116, 128, 131, 157–158, 160n24, 170–171, 201, 213, 216, 221, 223, 227n22 Hipparchicus 58 Memorabilia 58, 64, 67–74, 81–82, 86n79, 87n85, 88, 151, 153n8, 155, 176 Oeconomicus 58, 71–74 Poroi 58, 213 Xenophron 188–189 Xerxes, King of Persia 23–24, 30–31, 35n44, 37–41, 44, 46, 81, 99, 170 Zenon of Kition 220–221 Zeus 108n33, 114n48, 174, 175, 223 Žižek, Slavoj 75 Zoroastrianism 104n24 Zwier, Paul J. 43, 93n95