Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Penguin Classics) (31 page)

1
.
hounds:
The author refers to them throughout in the feminine gender. See also
chapter 7 note 1
.

1
.
thin ears
: The ideal type of Greek hunting hound seems to have been akin to our fox-terrier; cf. 3.5.

1
.
moon… obscures them:
Had Shakespeare written ‘Fear no more the heat of the moon’, we would have been surprised – but not so, apparently, the Greeks. See e.g. Plutarch,
Moralia
658b–d.

2
.
bodies are relaxed
: Cf. perhaps 4.6, where the good hound does not abandon the chase apparently because she retains a keen sense of smell even in the heat of the day. There may be an allusion to some physiological theory of smell, such as that of Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus, according to which scents can be detected only if the appropriate bodily pores or channels are tight enough to keep the air inside the body in proportion with the scent-bearing outer air.

3
.
the goddess’s care
: Artemis. For the quasi-religious scruple see
note 7
below.

4
.
sacred islands
: The author probably has in mind especially Delos, which was the birthplace of and sacred to both Apollo and his sister Artemis.

5
.
eyes bulge outwards
: In
The Dinner-party
5.4 (Penguin
Conversations of Socrates
) Socrates is allowed to claim without contradiction that his eyes, because they are bulging and therefore see sideways as well as straight ahead, are ‘more beautiful’ than his interlocutor’s in the sense that they are better constructed for the particular function, sight, for which humans possess eyes.

6
.
his passions
: For a similar rhetorically expressed point, see
Cavalry Commander
chapter 8 note 2
.

7
.
normal practice
: The Greek
nomos
could mean a formal law, but the author specifies none, so the alternative meaning of ‘custom or ‘tradition’ seems preferable. The author’s scruple against hunting through all sorts of crops (contrast 12.6) is probably no more strictly religious than the taboo on hunting leverets (5.14); but springs and streams, inhabited by or identified with nymphs, sprites and even gods, might have been avoided by hunters for properly religious reasons. See also
chapter 6 note 1
.

8
.
days when hunting is forbidden
: The tabooed days were religious festivals.

1
.
After praying… Artemis the Huntress
: For the tithe consecrated to Artemis by Xenophon and his fellow hunters at Scillous, see Introduction.

2
.
hit it
: The author, despite 2.2, had omitted to mention that the slave net-keeper (see
chapter 2 note 2
) might carry a club, an interesting partial exception to the rule that slaves were not permitted offensive weapons.

1
.
best season… develop in
: For the breeding of hounds, see 3.1. Up to 7.6 the assumption is that hounds for hunting are female; the adjectival phrase translated ‘physically well-formed’ at 7.7 reverts once again to the feminine gender.

2
.
discipline
: The word translated here as discipline,
kosmos
, meant at its root ‘order’, and by extension, because it was assumed that the workings of the universe were ordered and orderly, the cosmos. Because orderliness was considered becoming,
kosmos
could also mean adornment, whence our ‘cosmetics’. Emphasis is again placed on ‘due order’ (the adverbial
kosmios
) at 10.8.

1
.
hard work
: Anderson,
Hunting
,
p. 49
, expressed the wish that ‘this chapter was not Xenophon’s work’, contrasting its opening injunction to hunt fawns with the earlier injunction to spare young leverets (5.14). ‘Indian’ hounds could be a distinct breed specially imported in the author’s day from the Indian subcontinent (or Tibet?), or more generically hounds known or thought to have originated somewhere in the Far East. Herodotus 1.192.4 (four large villages of Babylonia were exempted from all other tribute in return for looking after the huge numbers of Indian hounds belonging to the Persian Great King) makes the latter more likely.

2
.
this makes it set off
: Had the author perhaps seen a fawn trembling in fear before bolting and assumed that it was cold? For the connection between shivering and physiological contraction, see the Hippocratic treatise
Places in Man
, chapter 9.

3
.
spikes
…
into it
: The scenario we envisage (the text being, as often, less than transparently clear) is as follows: the purpose of the wooden spikes is to give way, so that when the deer steps in the trap, they yield sufficiently to let its foot in; then, when the deer tries to set off, its foot becomes impaled on the metal spikes.

4
.
esparto
: The plant may be Spanish broom (
genista
, whence ‘Plantagenet’) rather than the grass now called esparto (
stipa tenuissima
). Some have seen a connection between
spartos
and the town Sparta.

1
.
Indian… and traps
: Indian hounds – see 9.1; Laconian – 3.5; Locrian –
Agesilaus
chapter 2 note 2
. Anderson,
Hunting
,
p. 53
rightly comments that the ‘admirable description’ in 10.1 – 18 ‘requires little in the way of either interpretation or commentary’.

2
.
a spear:
A hoplite’s spear, that is, made from
cornus mas
.

3
.
for deer.
See 9.11–16.

4
.
right hand:
The author, in common with Greek practice generally, did not recognize the ‘natural southpaw’. Plato (
Laws
794d-795d) entered a solitary and unheeded protest in favour of ambidexterity.

5
.
wrestling stance:
The allusion to wrestling invokes another characteristically upper-class leisure activity with its own elaborated codes, rituals and protocols.

6
.
by victory:
Overcoming the boar is compared to winning a military victory; for another such comparison, to different effect, see 13.12.

7
.
to hunt
: Now it is the human hunters who must show ‘courage’ or ‘spirit’,
eupsukhia
; for the hounds, see 4.6.

8
.
the pike
: This summarizes 10.4.

1
.
Pangaeum… Macedon
: It is interesting that the author should have included the Pangaeum district, in Chalcidice and so well within the Greek sphere, as a ‘foreign land’ (
xene chora
) roamed by exotic fauna. Note that one of the cantons of Macedonia was named Lyncestis, ‘lynx-land’.

1
.
practical aspects of hunting
: Here begins the politico-philosophical epilogue, which some have attributed to a different hand from the preceding practicalities.

2
.
hunting animals
: Actually, hoplite infantry militiamen and
a fortiori
the even wealthier cavalrymen had slave attendants to carry their equipment for them off the battlefield. This remark would seem to apply with greater force to mercenaries.

3
.
prime… condition success is never far off
: The author is claiming that hunting completed the hoplite warrior’s armoury, by adding extra fitness and flexibility.
There were competitions for
euexia
(‘fitness’) at several local agonistic festivals, apparently akin to the
euandria
(‘manly excellence’) contest at the Panathenaic Games (
Memoirs of Socrates
3.3.12), but what exactly they involved is unclear: D. G. Kyle in J. Neils (ed.),
Goddess and Polis: The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens
(Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 206–7 n. 102.

4
.
not deprive… of their game
: This passage implies a distinction between professional huntsmen and the enthusiastic amateurs to whom the (rest of the) treatise is directed. Among hoplites, the Spartans were unique for their skill in night-movements.

5
.
undertake any other honourable occupation they like
: Provided, that is, they have the leisure to pursue them–which, it is understood, such elite young men will.

6
.
their own:
If the treatise is indeed a fourth-century work, this passage could be seen as a contribution to the important debate over the proper political relationship between the public and the private spheres. Rather than emphasizing the priority of the public over the private, as a democrat would, the author first counters the accusation that hunting involves neglect of private affairs and then affirms the thesis developed at length in The
Estate-manager
that the private and the public are not only compatible but mutually reinforcing and beneficial.

7
.
needs protection:
The author displays an odd – but perhaps quintessentially Xenophontic – combination of a pre-scientific belief in straightforward retribution for evildoers with a Socratic despisal of all pleasure, especially bodily.

8
.
qualities a good man should have:
Xenophon’s
Agesilaus
discourses upon the qualities comprising ‘perfect goodness’.

9
.
as I mentioned:
See 1.3.

10
.
by him:
This casual insertion of a reference to a pederastic relationship speaks worlds for the author’s social purview and pedagogic frame of reference. See
Hiero
chapter 1 note 4
. For pederasty’s supposed pedagogic function, see Xenophon,
Spartan Society 2
(Penguin
Plutarch on Sparta
). As noted in the Introduction, a hare was a typical love-gift from pederastic lover to desired beloved.

1
.
sophists… exactly the opposite
: On the sophists, see main Introduction. On this author’s hostile attitude towards them, see Introduction to this treatise; it is interesting that he should think of their teaching as being given in written not oral form. The teachability of virtue was a cardinal point of opposition
between Plato’s Socrates and the sophist Protagoras of Abdera as represented in the Platonic dialogue named after him.

2
.
are offensive
: Whether or not this treatise, or this portion of it, is by Xenophon, here is the keynote of Xenophon’s moral pedagogy in all the treatises included in this selection – they are designed to teach serious and socially useful lessons in virtue in a practical way.

3
.
people who really know… professional deceivers
: This may be intended as an allusive plural referring specifically to Socrates, who – at least as he is represented by Plato – claimed to ‘know’ in a special way.

4
.
men’s fortunes
: In addition to all their other crimes, sophists commit the ultimate sin – the abuse of hunting. There may well be an implied contrast here with the pedagogic practice of Socrates, who taught free of formal charge (
Memoirs of Socrates
1.2.7–8).

5
.
of piety
: The treatise (or epilogue) climaxes in a fresh exhortation to piety, which leads on to the two concluding paragraphs, which in turn refer the reader back to the introduction: a neat piece of ring-composition.

6
.
watching it
: See
chapter 1
. For the inspiration allegedly due to being overseen, see 12.20. See also
The Estate-manager
12.20 and 21.10–11.

7
.
Procris
: Procris was married to Cephalus (see 1.2) and shared her husband’s enthusiasm for hunting. Atalanta (chapter 1 note 5) was so devoted to hunting that she resolved to remain unmarried, like Artemis, unless a suitor could beat her at the footrace; no one could – until Meilanion slowed her down by dropping golden apples, given him by Aphrodite, to tempt her.

1
.
the allied cities
: The allies in question are those of the so-called Second Athenian Sea-League, formed in 378 on the basis of mutual hostility to Sparta; within half a dozen years, the number of allies had reached seventy-five, but within the same span Athens was seen to have broken the anti-imperialist guarantees with which she had encouraged allies to join (see
chapter 5 note 7
). The Social (Allied) War of 357–355 put an end to the League as a viable alliance – and was a major contributory cause of Athens’ public penury at the time of the treatise’s writing. Some modern scholars are of the view that not only
Ways and Means
but also
A History of My Times
, which probably reached its final form around the time that the former was being contemplated or drafted (see
chapter 4 note 18
and
chapter 5 note 19
), were motivated by
Xenophon’s determinedly anti-imperialist moral stance, but see
chapter 5 notes 4 and 8
.

2
.
anywhere else
: Xenophon’s paean here and in 1.5 yields to none in patriotic fervour, but it does conflict rather sharply with the general and not unjustified perception (e.g. Thucydides 2.2; Plato,
Critias
III) that Attica was not exceptionally blessed by nature, a defect which was compensated for by commerce seconded by imperial power (e.g. Thucydides 2.38). See P. Garnsey,
Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World
(Cambridge University Press, 1988), Part III. Praise of ‘the gods’ is partly conventional, partly Xenophontic – and almost superstitious.

3
.
supply of stone
: The most famous and expensive marble, used lavishly on the Acropolis, was from Mount Pentelicum; but Mount Hymettus also yielded fine marble, and workable local limestone (
poros
) abounded: see R. E. Wycherley,
The Stones of Athens
(Princeton University Press, 1978).

4
.
silver ore… or sea
: On Attic silver, see chapter 4. After Laureium, the nearest substantial deposits of the ore were in the Mount Pangaeum district of Chalcidice (also a source of exotic huntable fauna, see
On Hunting
11.1
); these constituted a major part of the economic basis of the rise of Philip of Macedon (reigned 359–336).

5
.
Athens… centre of Greece and… inhabited world
: More encomiastic hyperbole, so far as Athens was concerned; Aristotle (
Politics
1327b29–30) saw Greece as at the centre of the
oecumene
, but most Greeks would automatically have identified Delphi, not Athens, as the centre of Greece.

6
.
pivot of a circle
: Cf. Isocrates 4.42 on the economic centrality of Peiraeus. By ‘Greece’ here is meant not just mainland Greece, the southern extension of the Balkan peninsula, but the entire Greek world from Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles (see
On Hunting
chapter 2 note 3
).

7
.
most states have non-Greeks on their borders… non-Greek lands:
‘Most states’ is numerically accurate – Xenophon is here taking an enlarged view of the Greek world with its well over 1,000 states.