Same question, different answers

A statue of Xenophon in front of the parliament building in Vienna. [Photo provided to China Daily]

He ate only so much as to make eating pleasant, and came to his meals in such a condition that appetite was his best sauce. Every kind of drink was pleasant to him, because he drank only when he was thirsty. And whenever he accepted an invitation to dinner, he easily resisted what most people find very difficult — eating beyond the point of satisfaction."

In The Memorabilia, an extended defense and portrayal of Socrates — whom many regard as the first Western moral philosopher — Xenophon (c. 430-355/354 BC), the Greek philosopher and historian who knew him personally, portrays his mentor as a man who trained his body to enjoy ordinary pleasures without becoming their slave and turned daily life into an exercise of virtue.

This differs markedly from the Socrates of Plato, his other, far more famous student. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates questions, tests, and turns arguments upon themselves, often exposing how little his interlocutors truly know. Conversations frequently end not with a solution, but with aporia — a bewildering recognition of ignorance.

The Four Books of Xenophon, a Chinese version of Xenophon's works on Socrates. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"In Plato's dialogues, Socrates emerges as a highly analytical and argumentative philosopher, and the discussions become extremely intellectually demanding. By contrast, Xenophon's Socrates is constantly in conversation with ordinary people, discussing questions closely connected to everyday life. What happens when you lack self-discipline or moderation? What if you neglect your physical health, fail to honor your parents, or don't get along with your siblings? These are the kinds of problems ordinary people encounter, and Xenophon's Socrates responds with guidance and moral counsel," said Peng Lei, a professor of Western classics at Renmin University of China. Earlier this year, Peng published a Chinese translation of Xenophon's four surviving works on Socrates, titled The Four Books of Xenophon, with Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

Peng Lei [Photo provided to China Daily]

"Taken together, Xenophon's four Socratic works form an extended defense of Socrates, reconstructing him not as the corrupter of youth or the impious eccentric condemned by Athens — a condemnation that led to his execution by hemlock in 399 BC — but, on the contrary, as someone who, in Xenophon's own words, sought to 'benefit to the greatest extent those who dealt with him'," said Peng.

The Memorabilia, the longest of the four, presents Socrates as a moral educator concerned with self-control, justice, piety, friendship, and education. Oeconomicus, or "On Household Management", turns to farming, wealth, leadership, and the cultivation of excellence, revealing his concern with the practical art of living well.

"This argument — that it is desirable to die while one's physical and mental faculties are still intact — is a familiar one, and one that is easy for people, both then and now, to understand and accept," said Peng. He contrasted Xenophon's pragmatic reasoning with Socrates' contemplation of death in Plato's Phaedo, where philosophy becomes a preparation for death, and Socrates develops dialectical and metaphysical arguments for the soul's immortality.

When Socrates died in 399 BC, he was about 70, while Plato and Xenophon were still roughly 30. Neither was present at his final moments: Plato was reportedly ill, while Xenophon was away with Cyrus the Younger's expedition in Persia. Yet they responded differently to his death. Socrates left no writings, but Plato largely effaced himself, allowing his mentor's voice to carry the philosophical argument through dialogue. Xenophon, by contrast, defended Socrates, often writing in the first person and drawing on personal memory and testimony.

"I will first tell what I once heard him say," Xenophon introduces a conversation in The Memorabilia with these words. Peng observes that this habit of placing himself within his account characterizes his writing. Unlike Plato, who established the Academy and devoted himself to the life of the mind, Xenophon was drawn into war, leadership and political upheaval.

The second World Conference of Classics takes place in Athens, Greece, in June. [Photo by De Yongjian/China News Service]

In 401 BC, Xenophon joined Cyrus the Younger's expedition against the Persian king Artaxerxes II. After Cyrus was killed at Cunaxa and the Greek commanders were seized and executed, thousands of Greek mercenaries were stranded deep in hostile territory without effective leadership. Xenophon emerged as one of their new commanders and helped lead their arduous retreat to the Black Sea, an experience he later recounted in the Anabasis. In 394 BC, he fought alongside the Spartans against Athens and its allies at Coronea, after which he was exiled from Athens.

Although the dates of Xenophon's works remain uncertain, much of his writing, including his Socratic works, is thought to belong to his later years. His Hellenica, which continues Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War from 411 BC to 362 BC, makes him one of the principal surviving sources for 4thcentury BC Greek history.

According to Peng, Xenophon's later reputation as a historian rather than a philosopher owes something to the way 19th-century German scholarship came to define philosophy as an increasingly systematic body of concepts and arguments. By that measure, Plato was an obvious philosopher, while Xenophon, whose thought was dispersed across history, biography, political writing, and practical reflection, proved harder to classify. He was consequently relegated to the role of "another disciple who wrote about Socrates".

"In antiquity, philosophy was not confined to abstract theorizing; how one shall live was itself a philosophical question. Reading Xenophon made us rethink the modern classification of academic disciplines we encountered in our study of classical civilization, because his work blurs the boundaries between history, literature and philosophy. Xenophon is, above all, a classical writer," said Peng, who first studied ancient Greek between 2006 and 2009 while pursuing his doctorate in philosophy and theology. He now heads the Classics Research and Teaching Section at School of Liberal Arts of Renmin University of China.

He Fangying, head of the Classical Studies Research Office at the Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is co-editor-in-chief of Classics and Interpretation, the series under which the volume was published. "Working on a classic can be a solitary experience, yet there is also something serendipitous about it. You may find yourself drawn to a particular author — Xenophon, for instance — and follow his work wherever it leads. Perhaps each of us finds our own guide among the classics," said He, one of the organizers of this year's Conference of Classics, held in Athens in June, where the series was on display.

"Around 800 books have so far appeared in the series. Together, they reflect the willingness of Chinese scholars to work with their Western counterparts to rediscover works of classical wisdom that are rarely studied today," she added.

A statue of Confucius stands in front of the Confucius Temple in Beijing. [Photo by Li Chao/For China Daily]

Comparing the portrayals of Socrates (c. 470-399 BC) and Confucius (551-479 BC) by their disciples and later followers — in the works of Plato and Xenophon on the one hand, and the Analects on the other — Peng said, "The Analects, a collection of quotes and conversations associated with Confucius, preserves much of his teaching in brief quotations and dialogues. By contrast, Plato and Xenophon offers a much more detailed and rounded portrayal of Socrates."

Peng suggested that Socrates and Confucius were remarkably alike. Neither taught according to a single, fixed formula. They responded to different students in different ways. Their answers could even shift with the person and the moment on the same question.

"Perhaps that is also why neither can be fully captured in abstract concepts or confined to a set of philosophical terms. To distill Socrates into a system of doctrines is to miss the living quality of his thought, which unfolded in conversation. Likewise, to take a single saying of Confucius and turn it into a definitive interpretation is to lose the nuances and richness of his teaching," he said. "Perhaps the classics endure precisely because they resist any single, final meaning. They continue to speak anew to each generation, and to each person who reads them."