Xenophon

Kathleen Conn (Independent Scholar - Europe)

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The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University)

Dates

Activity -450--352
Born -430
Died -352

Places

Born in Ancient Greece
Active in Ancient Greece

Activities

Primary

Biographer
Essayist
Historian / Chronicler
Soldier

Other

Novelist
Rhetorician/ Orator

Resources

Born in Athens between 431 and 427 BCE, at the start of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (431 to 404 BCE), Xenophon lived a life as tumultuous and full of contrast as his written works. Having grown up during the most flagrant excesses of the Athenian democracy, he was an admirer of Sparta and a critic of rule by the demos. A cavalryman for Athens around 409, he later applied the principles of military command learned during brutal combat to history, biography, education, economics and philosophy. Having left Athens to fight with a mercenary army in Persia, he devoted himself to writing in the sublime style of Plato's Academy. He is the first extant prose writer who demonstrates a clear awareness of his own methods on a …

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2915 words

Citation: Conn, Kathleen. "Xenophon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 March 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4824, accessed 17 April 2025.]