The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians

By Xenophon

The Lacedaemonion Politeia, known in English as the Polity, Constitution, or Republic of the Lacedaemonians, or the Spartan Constitution, is a treatise attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Xenophon, describing the institutions, customs, and practices of the ancient Spartans.

Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of the borough of Erchia; and he was a man of great modesty, and as handsome as can be imagined. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, and put his stick across it and prevented him from passing by, asking him where all kinds of necessary things were sold. And when he had answered him, he asked him again where men where made good and virtuous. And as he did not know, he said, "Follow me, then, and learn." And from this time forth, Xenophon became a follower of Socrates. And he was the first person who took down conversations as they occurred, and published them among men, calling them Memorabilia. He was also the first man who wrote a history of philosophers.

Xenophon, (born c. 430 bce, Attica, Greece—died shortly before 350, Attica), Greek historian and philosopher whose numerous surviving works are valuable for their depiction of late Classical Greece. His Anabasis (“Upcountry March”) in particular was highly regarded in antiquity and had a strong influence on Latin literature.

Xenophon’s life history before 401 is scantily recorded; at that time, prompted by a Boeotian friend, he left postwar Athens, joined the Greek mercenary army of the Achaemenian prince Cyrus the Younger, and became involved in Cyrus’s rebellion against his brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes II. After Cyrus’s defeat at Cunaxa (about 50 miles [80 km] from Babylon in what is now Iraq), the Greeks (later known as the Ten Thousand) returned to Byzantium via Mesopotamia, Armenia, and northern Anatolia. Xenophon was one of the men selected to replace five generals seized and executed by the Persians. The persistence and skill of the Greek soldiers were used by proponents of Panhellenism as proof that the Persians were vulnerable. Initially viewed with hostility by Sparta (the current Greek hegemonic power), the mercenaries found employment in the winter of 400–399 with the Thracian prince Seuthes but then entered Spartan service for a war to liberate Anatolian Greeks from Persian rule. Unpersuaded by Seuthes’s offers of land and marriage to his daughter and evidently disinclined (despite protestations to the contrary) to return home, Xenophon remained with his comrades. Although the Anabasis narrative stops at this point and further details are lacking, he clearly became closely involved with senior Spartans, notably (after 396) King Agesilaus II. When a Greek coalition, including Athens, rebelled against Spartan hegemony in mainland Greece, Xenophon fought (at Coronea in 394) for Sparta.

Whether his service to Sparta caused or reflected his formal exile from Athens remains a matter of some dispute, but exiled he certainly was.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lighthouse Books for Translation and Publishing
• Release date: Aug 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780599448896

Xenophon

Xenophon of Athens was an ancient Greek historian, philosopher, and soldier. He became commander of the Ten Thousand at about age thirty. Noted military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge said of him, “The centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior.”