After this he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus, which is a strong place in the district of Elis, at no great distance from the city. And a woman followed him, whose name was Philesia, as Demetrius the Magnesian relates; and his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus states in the action against Xenophon; and they were also called Dioscuri. And when Megabyzus came into the country on the occasion of some public assembly, he took back the money and bought a piece of ground, and consecrated it to the Goddess; and a river named Selinus, which is the same name as that of the river at Ephesus, flows through the land. And there he continued hunting, and entertaining his friends, and writing histories. But Dinarchus says that the Lacedaemonians gave him a house and land. They say also that Philopides the Spartan sent him there, as a present, some slaves who had been taken prisoners of war, natives of Dardanus, and that he located them as he pleased. And that the Eleans, having made an expedition against Scillus, took the place, as the Lacedaemonians dawdled in coming to his assistance.
But then his sons escaped privily to Lepreum, with a few servants; and Xenophon himself fled to Elis before the place fell; and from thence he went to Lepreum to his children, and from thence he escaped in safety to Corinth, and settled in that city.
In the meantime, as the Athenians had passed a vote to go to the assistance of the Lacedaemonians, he sent his sons to Athens to join in the expedition in aid of the Lacedaemonians; for they had been educated in Sparta, as Diocles relates in his Lives of the Philosophers. Diodorus returned safe back again, without having at all distinguished himself in the battle. And he had a son who bore the same name as his brother Gryllus. But Gryllus, serving in the cavalry (and the battle took place at Mantinea), fought very gallantly, and was slain, as Ephorus tells us in his twenty-fifth book; Cephisodorus being the Captain of the cavalry, and Hegesides the commander-in-chief. Epaminondas also fell in this battle. And after the battle, they say that Xenophon offered sacrifice, wearing a crown on his head; but when the news of the death of his son arrived, he took off the crown; but after that, hearing that he had fallen gloriously, he put the crown on again. And some say that he did not even shed a tear, but said, “I knew that I was the father of a mortal man.” And Aristotle says that innumerable writers wrote panegyrics and epitaphs upon Gryllus, partly out of a wish to gratify his father. And Hermippus, in his Treatise on Theophrastus, says that Isocrates also composed a panegyric on Gryllus. But Timon ridicules him in these words:
A silly couplet, or e’en triplet of speeches, Or longer series still, just such as Xenophon Might write, or Meagre Aeschines.
Such, then, was the life of Xenophon.
And he flourished about the fourth year of the ninety-fourth Olympiad; and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus, in the archonship of Xenaenetus, the year before the death of Socrates. And he died, as Stesiclides the Athenian states in his List of Archons and Conquerors at Olympia, in the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, in the archonship of Callidemides; in which year Philip the son of Amyntas began to reign over the Macedonians. And he died at Corinth, as Demetrius the Magnesian says, being of a very advanced age.
And he was a man of great distinction in all points, and very fond of horses and of dogs, and a great tactician, as is manifest from his writings. And he was a pious man, fond of sacrificing to the Gods, and a great authority as to what was due to them, and a very ardent admirer and imitator of Socrates.
He also wrote near forty books; though different critics divide them differently. He wrote an account of the expedition of Cyrus, to each book of which work he prefixed a summary, though he gave none of the whole history. He also wrote the Cyropaedia, and a history of Greece, and Memorabilia of Socrates, and a treatise called the Banquet, and an essay on Economy, and one on Horsemanship, and one on Breaking Dogs, and one on Managing Horses, and a Defense of Socrates, and a Treatise on Revenues, and one called Hiero, or the Tyrant, and one called Agesilaus; one on the Constitution of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, which, however, Demetrius the Magnesian says is not the work of Xenophon. It is said, also, that he secretly got possession of the books of Thucydides, which were previously unknown, and himself published them.
He was also called the Attic Muse, because of the sweetness of his diction, in respect of which he and Plato felt a spirit of rivalry towards one another, as we shall relate further in our life of Plato. And we ourselves have composed an epigram on him, which runs thus:
Not only up to Babylon for Cyrus Did Xenophon go, but now he’s mounted up The path which leads to Jove’s eternal realms— For he, recounting the great deeds of Greece, Displays his noble genius, and he shows The depth of wisdom of his master Socrates.
And another which ends thus:
O Xenophon, if th’ ungrateful countrymen Of Cranon and Cecrops, banished you, Jealous of Cyrus’ favor which he show’d you, Still hospitable Corinth, with glad heart, Received you, and you lived there happily, And so resolved to stay in that fair city.
But I have found it stated in some places that he flourished about the eighty-ninth Olympiad, at the same time as the rest of the disciples of Socrates. And Ister says that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus, and that he was recalled by another decree proposed by the same person.
But there were seven people of the name of Xenophon. First of all, this philosopher of ours; secondly, an Athenian, a brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the poem called the Theseid, and who wrote other works too, especially the lives of Epaminondas and Pelopidas; the third was a physician of Cos; the fourth, a man who wrote a history of Alcibiades; the fifth, was a writer who composed a book full of fabulous prodigies; the sixth, a citizen of Paros, a sculptor; the seventh, a poet of the Old Comedy.
Aeschines was the son of Charinus, the sausage-maker, but as some writers say of Lysanias; he was a citizen of Athens, of an industrious disposition from his boyhood upwards, on which account he never quitted Socrates.
And this induced Socrates to say: the only one who knows how to pay us proper respect is the son of the sausage-seller. Idomeneus asserts that it was he who, in the prison, tried to persuade Socrates to make his escape, and not Crito. But that Plato, as he was rather inclined to favor Aristippus, attributed his advice to Crito.
And Aeschines was calumniated on more than one occasion; and especially by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that he appropriated many dialogues of Socrates as his own, having procured them from Xanthippe. And those of them which are called “headless” are exceedingly slovenly performances, showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus, of Ephesus, used to say that they were not the work of Aeschines. There are seven of them, and most of them are stated by Persaeus to be the work of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and to have been inserted by him among the works of Aeschines. And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from the Dialogues of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then of Aeschines, which profess to give an idea of the system of Socrates are, as I have said, seven in number. First of all, the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias, the Axiochus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Telauges, and the Rhino. And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Dionysius, and was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by Aristippus, and that he gave Dionysius some of his dialogues, and received presents for them.
After that he came to Athens, and there he did not venture to practice the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Aristippus were in high reputation there. But he gave lectures for money, and wrote speeches to be delivered in the courts of law for persons under prosecution. On which account, Timon said of him: “The speeches of Aeschines which do not convince anyone.” And they say that when he was in great straights through poverty, Socrates advised him to borrow of himself, by deducting some part of his expenditure in his food.
And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some of his Dialogues; accordingly, they say that when he was reciting some of them at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said to him: “Oh! you thief; where did you get that?”
And Polycritus of Menda, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Carcinus, the tragedian, was also with him. And here is extant a letter of Aeschines addressed to Dionysius.
But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is plain from the defense of his father Phaeax, the general; and from the works which he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias of Leontini. And Lysias wrote an oration against him entitling it, On Sycophancy; from all which circumstances it is plain that he was a skillful orator. And one man is spoken of as his especial friend, Aristotle, who was surnamed The Table.
Now Panaetius thinks that the Dialogues of the following disciples of the Socratic school are all genuine—Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aeschines; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phaedon, and Euclides; and he utterly repudiates all the others.
And there were eight men of the name of Aeschines. The first, this philosopher of ours; the second was a man who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art; the third was the orator who spoke against Demosthenes; the fourth was an Arcadian, a disciple of Isocrates; the fifth was a citizen of Mitylene, whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators; the sixth was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple and favorite of Melanthius, of Rhode; the seventh was a Milesian, a political writer; the eighth was a statuary.
Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to Athens, as Aeschines says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates.
He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias of Eresus the Peripatetic informs us, was the first of the pupils of Socrates who exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once he sent him twenty drachmas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates said that his daemon would not allow him to accept them; for in fact he was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon used to hate him; on which account he wrote his book against pleasure as an attack upon Aristippus, and assigned the main argument to Socrates. Theodorus also, in his Treatise on Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has Plato in his book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.