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Xenophon's Socrates on Political Ambition and Political Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Benjamin Lorch
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Abstract

This essay investigates Xenophon's claim in the Memorabilia that political ambition is a qualification for the study of political philosophy, through an examination of three conversations between Socrates and politically ambitious men. These conversations reveal that the basis for the ambition to serve the public welfare is a concern not only with one's political community but also with one's own character and its excellence or virtue. Politically ambitious men hold virtue to be the greatest good, but they may not know what virtue is. For someone who is conscious of his concern with virtue and of his ignorance of virtue, there is no more urgent task than to search for the knowledge of virtue through the study of political philosophy.

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Type
Research Article
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The Review of Politics , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , Spring 2010, pp. 189 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2010

Introduction

At the beginning of the fourth book of the Memorabilia, Xenophon identifies the qualities that Socrates holds to distinguish the most promising students of philosophy. One of these qualities is a powerful natural desire to learn everything that is required in order to direct a city nobly (IV 1.2).Footnote 1 The reason why Xenophon's Socrates considers this desire to be a qualification for the study of philosophy appears to be related to the political and moral focus of Xenophon's presentation of Socratic philosophy.Footnote 2 For Xenophon proceeds to show that these potential students may be led to suspend or abandon their active involvement in politics in order to search for the knowledge at which political philosophy aims if they realize that they do not know what justice is (IV 2). He suggests in this way that people who desire to learn how to succeed nobly in politics are particularly liable to turn to political philosophy because justice, virtue, and the other themes of political philosophy are among the subjects that they desire to learn.

Yet it is unclear why the knowledge of the themes of political philosophy is necessary in order to engage in politics, even in order to do so successfully and well as these potential students aspire to do. In the conversation in the Memorabilia that illustrates the manner in which Socrates convinces a potential student that he is ignorant of justice, the interlocutor's ignorance of justice does not evidently incapacitate him for political action. For the interlocutor Euthydemus is not prevented by his ignorance from determining what should be done in any of the particular situations that Socrates mentions (IV 2.14–17). Euthydemus is ignorant, not of what is just in any given situation, but rather of justice itself and of what all particular just actions have in common. And although he feels that he is prevented by this ignorance from engaging in politics, and he is led to turn away from his political endeavors and become a student of Socrates, it is unclear from this conversation why his reaction is a necessary one and why the discovery of this ignorance should lead a politically ambitious man to turn to political philosophy. On the contrary, the more concerned someone is with political affairs, the less likely he seems to set aside his preoccupation with these affairs in order to investigate a matter not directly relevant to them.

The aim of this article is to discover the motive that leads men who desire to succeed in politics to undertake the Socratic investigation of virtue.Footnote 3 The thesis of this essay is that the relation between political ambition and political philosophy is clarified in the section of the Memorabilia whose theme is political ambition itself. This section of the Memorabilia consists of the first seven chapters of Book Three. In a brief introduction to these conversations, Xenophon indicates explicitly that the interlocutors with whom Socrates converses are all animated by the concern that Socrates holds to distinguish potential students of political philosophy, in that they “long for the noble things” (III 1.1).Footnote 4 They are all politically ambitious, and aim to satisfy their longing for the noble by attaining high political and military offices and honors.Footnote 5

Admittedly, Socrates does not persuade or even encourage any of the interlocutors in these conversations to turn to political philosophy, not even the most talented one. On the contrary, the most talented interlocutor, Charmides, is the only person whom Xenophon's Socrates ever encourages to go into politics (III 7).Footnote 6 Instead, Socrates confines his advice to these interlocutors to the qualifications and responsibilities of the offices to which they aspire, and he teaches them only how to succeed in politics. Yet the fact that Socrates does not encourage these particular interlocutors to turn to political philosophy does not contradict Xenophon's claim that noble political ambition is a qualification for political philosophy. For Socrates holds that ambition is only one of the qualifications that a promising student must have, and his ambitious interlocutors may be unsuited in other respects for the study of political philosophy (IV 1.2).Footnote 7 Moreover, even if this is the case, the philosophical dimension of the ambition that the interlocutors feel is still of concern to other participants in the conversations.Footnote 8 For either Xenophon himself or someone who deems the conversation significant enough to report it to Xenophon is present at all of the conversations in the Memorabilia. Xenophon encourages the reader to consider what effect the conversations in the Memorabilia may have on witnesses besides the interlocutors by noting repeatedly that Socrates is in the habit of using a conversation as an occasion for benefiting a member of the audience with whom he is not actually conversing (I 3.8, II 5.1, III 8.1, IV 1.1). This essay will demonstrate that these conversations are intended to reveal more to the reader than Socrates does to his interlocutors, and in particular that they illuminate the path that leads from political ambition to political philosophy. Moreover, they do so not in spite of the philosophical inaptitude of the interlocutors but rather precisely because of it.

For all of the interlocutors prove to be in need of the guidance that they receive from Socrates for the same reason. They do not have a sufficiently clear view of what their responsibilities to Athens are, and the reason for this lack of clarity is also the same in every case: the interlocutors do not determine their responsibilities to Athens by looking solely to what is best for Athens. Instead, they look also to what they believe to be best for them personally, and their views of their responsibilities to Athens are distorted by their anticipation of the ways in which serving Athens will serve their own interests. Each interlocutor holds a confused view of the relation between his duties and the result for him of satisfying his duties, between virtue and happiness, the noble and the good.Footnote 9 In some conversations, the interlocutors turn out to have sought public office solely from the belief that their interests will be served by occupying high office, without reflecting on the duties to others that their offices entail and the manner in which these duties may restrict the happiness that they have a right to expect (III 2 and III 3). A more interesting case is the veteran soldier Nicomachides, who insists that he deserves to be appointed general as a reward for the risks that he has run on behalf of the city, and who is led by this demand to argue wrongly that running these risks is the single most important qualification for the generalship. Like the other interlocutors, Nicomachides' view of the requirements of the office to which he aspires is distorted by his view of the reward that he deserves in return for his services to Athens (III 4).

In another case, the general Pericles the younger is blinded by his moral aspirations to the gravity of the current political and military crisis in Athens. Pericles exhibits his failure to recognize the seriousness of the situation when he attributes the current crisis to chance (sumphora: III 5.4), and when he ignores Socrates' suggestion that fear is the only motive that is likely to inspire the Athenians to defend the city (III 5.5). His failure to face up to the situation appears to be related to his expectation that the ancient Athenian virtue can be restored, an expectation which is based on his belief that this virtue is so attractive that the Athenians can be made to “fall back in love” with it (III 5.7). Socrates leads Pericles to realize that the situation has deteriorated so far that comprehensive reform is no longer possible, and this more sober assessment of the situation implies that the virtue that Pericles hopes to restore is not as good as it seems to him (see I 2.9–11 and III 9.4). Further, once Pericles realizes that comprehensive reform is impossible, his excessive optimism is transformed into extreme pessimism and he despairs of accomplishing anything at all. While this despair makes him open to Socrates' suggestion of a more modest but more promising approach, it also reveals that Pericles is unable to conceive of aiding the city in any way that would not also realize the moral vision to which he is so attached.

The same basic error clouds the judgment of Charmides. Charmides is clearly more capable than any other Athenian politician, but he is awed by the Athenian demos, and the prospect of being ridiculed by them leads him not only to refrain from going into public life but even to challenge Socrates' suggestion that he is competent to do so (III 7.2). Charmides holds wrongly that the measure of a leader's competence is the reaction of the demos, and that a leader must be capable not only of benefiting the people whom he leads but also of earning their respect. In this way, his view of what leadership calls for is distorted by his view of what he expects to gain by leading. All of these interlocutors hold defective views of what is required in order to serve Athens nobly, and all of these defective views of the noble are based on their views of the way in which acting nobly will be good for them.

In the conversations with the men who long for noble things, Socrates provides the guidance about their responsibilities that his interlocutors require.Footnote 10 But for the reason just indicated, these conversations present more than Socrates' politically astute but “bland, familiar and unexciting” advice.Footnote 11 They expose an additional dimension of the ambition that the interlocutors feel, beyond the desire to succeed in office: a moral dimension, whose core is the belief that their happiness depends on satisfying their responsibilities to Athens, or that the good depends on the noble. The most thorough consideration of this dimension of political ambition and of the characteristic error that the interlocutors share occurs in the second, third, and fourth conversations in this section, to which this essay will now turn. I will argue that these conversations explain why Socrates does not accompany his political advice with an explicit discussion of the deeper confusion about the noble and the good on which his interlocutors' errors about their duties are based. The clarification of this confusion would point in a completely different direction than the practical advice that Socrates gives to his interlocutors; it would require the suspension of one's political endeavors altogether, pending the investigation of the noble and its relation to the good through the study of political philosophy.

In the first conversation that this essay will consider in detail, Socrates states clearly in what the nobility of political leadership consists, and what aspect of political leadership in particular attracts the men who long for noble things. The noble aspect of political leadership proves to be the services to one's political community that leadership affords the opportunity to perform. The second conversation investigates the motive that attracts political men to serve their community nobly, even in cases that require them to put the interests of others ahead of their own. The conversation concludes that the basis for the dedication to the noble is the conviction that by serving others nobly one's own interests are served. The longing for the noble turns out to rest on the longing for the good. But in the third and final conversation that this essay will consider, this position is shown to be incoherent. The very fact that the noble services that one performs for others aim ultimately at one's own good contradicts the requirement that the noble entail the concern with something other than oneself. Accordingly, Socrates suggests in this conversation that political leadership is not noble at all, and that the longing for the noble cannot find adequate fulfillment in politics; the search for the noble rather transcends politics.

Politics and the Noble (Memorabilia III 2)

This chapter is the appropriate starting point for the analysis of noble political ambition because in it, Socrates identifies that aspect of generalship and leadership more generally that is noble and that makes politics an attractive pursuit for the men who long for noble things. According to Socrates, the noble aspect of generalship is the selfless concern with the public welfare that it calls for. Socrates attempts in this conversation to foster this attitude in the general with whom he converses, who seems to be in need of this elementary instruction.

Socrates presents his advice in the form of a commentary on two verses from the Iliad that refer to Agamemnon. In the first verse, Homer calls Agamemnon “shepherd of the people,” because a general should care for his soldiers just as a shepherd cares for his sheep, which according to Socrates means that he should care for the happiness of the soldiers. Socrates clarifies this exhortation by means of a more extensive interpretation of a second Homeric reference to Agamemnon in which, Socrates claims, Homer “praised” Agamemnon by calling him “both a good king and a strong spearman” (III 2.1–3). Socrates' longer discussion of this second verse clarifies or qualifies the exhortation to care for the happiness of the soldiers, in two ways. First, Socrates distinguishes between the happiness of the led and the happiness of the leader; second, he distinguishes between the responsibility of the general for his soldiers and his responsibility for “those who elected him.” I will argue that these two distinctions raise the possibility that the responsibility of the general for the happiness of others may require him not only to care for the people whom he leads, as a shepherd cares for his sheep, but also to sacrifice his own happiness for their sake.Footnote 12

With regard to the distinction between the happiness of the leader and the happiness of the led, Socrates initially claims that Agamemnon should care both for himself and for the people whom he leads; but at the end of his speech Socrates claims that it is noble to care for the happiness of the led, and he is silent about the happiness of the leader. Socrates raises and then drops the claim that the praiseworthy or noble general cares for his own happiness in addition to the happiness of the led. And Xenophon concludes the chapter by emphasizing in his own name that Socrates holds the virtue of a good leader to consist solely in caring for the happiness of the led (III 2.2–4). The nobility of leadership consists solely in the care that the leader takes for others, which means that any happiness that accrues to the noble leader is not the direct result of his noble behavior, much less the object of his longing for noble things, but merely an incidental byproduct of his noble deeds.Footnote 13

The second distinction reinforces this emphasis on the responsibility of the general for the happiness of others. Socrates identifies two distinct responsibilities of Agamemnon: his responsibility, as a “strong spearman,” to make his soldiers fight well (and not to make them happy, unlike what Socrates suggests in the analogy between generals and shepherds), and his responsibility as a “good king” to make those who elected him happy (III 2.2–3). And after mentioning these two tasks, the remainder of Socrates' speech mentions only the general's responsibility for the happiness of the electors. The responsibility for the happiness of the soldiers, which was raised in the comparison between the general and the shepherd, is dropped. Moreover, Socrates suggests that the second description of the general's responsibilities supersedes the first one: he claims that Homer “praised” Agamemnon for being a good king and strong spearman, and he suggests in this way that Homer does not praise Agamemnon for being a “shepherd of the people” who, according to Socrates, cares for the happiness of the soldiers. The reason seems to be that the happiness of the political community does not necessarily coincide with the happiness of the soldiers: they diverge in cases where the happiness of the community requires its soldiers and perhaps the general to lay down their lives. The general's responsibility to those who elected him, which Socrates calls noble, may require his interests and the interests of his soldiers to suffer.Footnote 14 In such a case, for someone who is concerned with the noble, the good of others must take priority over his own good.Footnote 15

Xenophon concludes the chapter by suggesting that “the virtue of a good leader” that Socrates discusses in this speech is not necessarily the view of virtue that Socrates holds. His final remark refers not only to the view that he attributes to Socrates but also to the manner in which Socrates presents this view: by examining “in this way” (houtōs), Xenophon says, what the virtue of a good leader is, Socrates reduced political virtue to caring for the happiness of the led (III 2.4). Xenophon may be referring to the fact that Socrates offers no justification for the content of his exhortation to the general besides his claim that this is Homer's view. By referring to the form of the advice as well as to its content, Xenophon warns against concluding that Socrates endorses the selfless devotion to the common good and the actions that such devotion inspires. It is true that Socrates calls these actions noble, but he stipulates carefully that it is “difficult” to find anything nobler than this, which implies that it is not impossible and that the longing for noble things may be better satisfied by a different, nobler pursuit (III 2.4). In this speech Socrates describes noble political ambition as it is experienced, namely, as the willingness to sacrifice one's happiness for the sake of the community, but both Socrates and Xenophon end the conversation on a reserved note that raises the possibility that Socrates may not share the view of the noble that he recommends to the general. It may be for this reason that this is the only conversation in this section of the Memorabilia in which Socrates does not explicitly or implicitly identify knowledge as a qualification for political leadership as he describes it (compare III 1.4, 3.9, 4.6, 5.21–22, 6.17–18, 7.4).

However this may be, in light of this view of noble ambition, Xenophon's claim that politically ambitious men are potential students of political philosophy seems paradoxical. For according to this view, precisely the people who are willing to make great sacrifices for the sake of the public welfare are by virtue of this willingness liable to suspend or abandon their public service and turn to political philosophy. The next chapter clarifies this paradoxical claim by bringing to light the aspect of noble political ambition that points beyond the concern with the public welfare to the even deeper concern with virtue itself.

The Noble and the Good (Memorabilia III 3)

The dramatic form of the next conversation is as integral a part of Xenophon's argument as the speeches of Socrates and his interlocutor. The drama shows how someone who is actively engaged in politics may be led to reflect on his own dedication to the public welfare and to discover the deepest root of that dedication. Such a reflection does not arise spontaneously for someone who is ambitious to serve the public welfare in the noble manner that the previous conversation brought to light. It is no simple matter for such a person to call this dedication to the noble into question and ask why he should prefer the welfare of the political community to his own safety. The only questions about his service to the public welfare that he deems legitimate concern his specific duties and tasks. Someone who is genuinely dedicated to the public welfare could only be led to question the reason for his dedication if an understanding of this reason were itself necessary in order to satisfy his responsibilities to his community. Accordingly, this conversation between Socrates and a newly elected commander of the Athenian cavalry takes the form of a discussion of the officer's tasks. Socrates teaches his interlocutor that it is his responsibility to inspire in his subordinates the same willingness to risk their lives for the sake of Athens that the officer himself ought to feel, and in this way Socrates leads the officer to consider how this willingness may be fostered. The primary aim of the reflection to which Socrates leads the officer is not greater self-understanding but rather the successful performance of his duties. Xenophon emphasizes this point by choosing as Socrates' interlocutor an officer for whom such a reflection cannot contribute directly to his self-understanding, since he does not feel the selfless dedication to the public welfare that Socrates leads him to analyze. Although he is genuinely eager to serve Athens by leading the cavalry, he is not prepared to expose himself to harm for the sake of the public welfare, because he is so thoughtless about his duties that he has not realized that they entail any risk at all. The comedy that results from the interlocutor's thoughtlessness serves Xenophon's serious purpose of illuminating the manner in which the reflection that leads to political philosophy may arise for politically ambitious people.

Socrates initiates the conversation by asking his interlocutor why he desired to command the cavalry in the first place. But Socrates, and not his interlocutor, answers the question. Xenophon does not indicate whether this is because Socrates does not give the cavalry commander an opportunity to answer, or because there is a protracted silence between Socrates' question and his answer, during which the officer realizes that he is at a loss to explain why he is so pleased with his new rank. At any rate, the cavalry commander agrees with Socrates' suggestion that he did not aspire merely to ride at the head of the cavalry formations, after Socrates points out that this is ordinarily not a sign of distinction, because the front rank is the proper place for the archers. Nor does he want merely for everyone to recognize him, the cavalry commander agrees, after Socrates points out that everyone recognizes madmen, as well. In this way, Socrates leads the cavalry commander to realize that he wants not merely to receive honor, but to earn it by performing valuable services for Athens. Accordingly, the cavalry commander agrees emphatically with Socrates' third suggestion, which is that he wants to command the cavalry in order to improve its fitness to benefit Athens. He accepts that his office is a responsibility, not a reward. As for Socrates, he appears to endorse his interlocutor's aspirations as enthusiastically as the cavalry commander himself. He even swears: “By Zeus, it is noble indeed, if you are really able to do these things” (III 3.1–2). As this reaction suggests, the remainder of the conversation is devoted to discussing what the ability to do these things entails.

Socrates begins the discussion of the cavalry commander's tasks by asking him how he plans to train the horses. The cavalry commander does not think that it is his responsibility to worry about the horses at all. Yet Socrates points out that he will not be able to do any good for Athens if the horses are weak and undisciplined. The cavalry commander seems to have thought less about the condition of the horses than about the dignity of his rank and the indignity of certain tasks. He proves not to have given much thought to his other responsibilities either.Footnote 16 In particular, he does not seem to have realized that he must prepare his men for battle. Socrates leaves no doubt that the cavalry is currently unfit for combat by asking the cavalry commander if, in the event of a battle, he intends to lure enemies onto the sandy terrain on which the cavalry is used to riding, or if he will conduct military exercises on the kind of terrain where the battles are likely to be fought. The cavalry commander agrees that the latter alternative would be “better.” When Socrates asks if he plans to conduct target practice, the cavalry commander concedes tacitly that he has not thought about this, either, by agreeing that this would also be “better.” And he admits explicitly that he has not thought about preparing his men psychologically for battle. Yet he is aware that he is responsible for the safety of his men, for he takes precautions against the danger that the cavalrymen will get trampled by their own horses: when Socrates asks if he will make them practice mounting their horses, he answers that he plans to do this so that his men will be more likely to remain safe if they fall off. The problem is that this seems to be the only risk that he is aware of, and he does not grasp that he must prepare the cavalry for combat (III 3.3–7).

Next, Socrates turns to the question of how the cavalry commander can make the cavalry obey him. The cavalry commander seems especially interested in this subject, for when Socrates introduces it he addresses Socrates by name and asks for advice for the first time, perhaps because he is having trouble making himself obeyed. Socrates answers that just as sick people want to be treated by the best doctors, sailors want to be under the command of the best pilots, and generally in every matter people want to obey whomever they deem best, so it is likely that in horsemanship as well, the others will want most to obey whoever most visibly knows what should be done. The cavalry commander asks if this means that his men will obey him if he is manifestly the best one of them. His suggestion implies that the qualities that he must possess in order to make himself obeyed are essentially the same as the qualities of a good cavalryman. He does not realize that leadership makes demands of the leader over and above the demands that military service makes of the soldier. Socrates expresses these additional demands by telling the officer that in addition to excelling at the work of ordinary cavalrymen, he must teach his men that it is both nobler and safer for them to obey him (III 3.8–10). By suggesting that the cavalry commander teach the cavalrymen that it is safer to obey him, Socrates suggests that one reason why the cavalry commander believes wrongly that the cavalrymen will spontaneously follow his example may be that he has not taken to heart the danger that serving in the cavalry entails. If he took this danger to heart and prepared himself and his men accordingly, then he might be able to convince them that it is safer for them to obey him, as Socrates suggests, for it is indeed safer to fight after training hard and under the leadership of a competent commander than untrained and in a disorderly way. But Socrates advises the cavalry commander to teach his men not only that it is safer to obey him, but also that it is nobler to do this. The reason seems to be that it is not enough to teach the cavalrymen that it is safer to obey: there is likely to remain an even safer course of action than fighting obediently, such as running away, and the cavalry commander will not be able to persuade them to choose the more dangerous option by appealing to their concern with their safety. This is why Socrates tells the cavalry commander to teach his men that it is nobler to obey him, in addition to safer. The cavalry commander must foster in his men the noble willingness to put the public good ahead of their own safety that came to light in the last chapter. In order to make his men obey him, the cavalry commander must not only be a good cavalryman himself; he must also concern himself with his men's characters and make them willing to suffer physical harm for the sake of Athens, and so he must understand why someone might willingly do this.

The cavalry commander realizes this much, that it is a matter not merely of setting a good example but also of addressing his men in speech, of awakening and appealing to a motive that they might not feel otherwise. Or rather, he asks Socrates if this is the case. Socrates replies with his longest speech of the conversation:

Haven't you taken to heart the fact that as many things as we have learned by means of the law that they are noble, on account of which we understand how to live—we learned all of these things through speech; and if someone learns any other noble learning, he learns it through speech; and the best teachers make use of speech the most; and those who understand the most the most serious things, converse most nobly? (III 3.11)

Socrates seems to mean that the cavalry commander must somehow convince his men by means of speech to disregard their safety, on the grounds that this is noble. But the scope of Socrates' speech is broader than what is required for the purpose of explaining this to the cavalry commander. The noble things that the cavalry commander must persuade his men to do belong to the first category of noble things that Socrates mentions, the “things that we have learned by means of the law that they are noble,” insofar as service to the political community is encouraged and supported by legal rewards and penalties. The mention of other, extralegal kinds of nobility does not seem relevant, much less the suggestion that conversation is noble in its own right, at least when it is a conversation between people who “understand the most the most serious things.” None of this seems to be called for by the purpose of the present conversation, and indeed it is not clear what Socrates has in mind.

In order to arrive at a provisional understanding of this enigmatic speech, it is helpful to consider more precisely the content of the argument that might convince soldiers to risk their lives for a noble cause. Socrates suggests what argument might accomplish this in the remainder of the conversation. He points out that the chorus that is chosen to represent Athens in pan-Hellenic contests always wins, and many Athenians possess exceptional handsomeness (euandria), but this is not due to any innate Athenian superiority in voice or body.Footnote 17 Socrates suggests that the reason is rather that the Athenians surpass everyone else in their love of honor, the same motive that appeared to animate the cavalry commander at the beginning of the conversation. Socrates asks the cavalry commander if this love of honor will make the cavalrymen excel at their work and in particular at voluntarily exposing themselves to danger. The cavalry commander answers dubiously that Socrates' suggestion is “plausible (eikos), at least.” Just as he did not previously realize what risks he and his men must be prepared to run, so also he seems not to have previously imagined that the honor that he sought could be so good as to justify running these risks. Accordingly, Socrates concludes with an exhortation that emphasizes how great a good honor is. He encourages the officer to turn his men to what will benefit “you,” the cavalry commander, “and the city through you.” Socrates emphasizes the benefit for the cavalry commander of leading the cavalry and implies that the reward is so great that even the services that the cavalry commander performs for Athens are not the primary goal of his efforts, but rather come about “through” his pursuit of honor and as mere byproducts of that pursuit (III 3.12–15). The suggestion seems to be that the cavalrymen will willingly obey their commander if they believe this same thing: the honor that they stand to earn is such a great reward that the services that they perform for Athens are at least as much in their interest as they are in the interest of the Athenian civilians (see III 9.11). The willingness to suffer harm in order to earn praise and honor is based on the belief that honor is such a great good that it outweighs the evil of injury and even death in battle.

The failure of the cavalry commander to understand how honor could compensate the soldiers for the sacrifices that they may be required to make helps the reader to understand Socrates' suggestion. For the incomprehension of the cavalry commander suggests that there is only a superficial similarity between the noble longing for honor that Socrates has in mind, which would lead someone to lay down his life for his country, and the ambition for high military rank that animates the cavalry commander.Footnote 18 The longing for honor that Socrates has in mind is much deeper and more serious than the ordinary ambition for power and reputation. For someone who is animated by noble ambition, the consideration that he might not survive to enjoy the honor that he earns does not rob that honor of its attraction. The love of honor that leads someone to willingly lay down his life for his country is not the desire to receive and enjoy honor as a reward for his noble services to the community, because he is not deterred by the possibility that he may not live to receive his reward. It is rather the desire to deserve this reward, even if he does not live to receive it. This love of honor is the dedication, not only to the rewards for serving the public welfare, but also and especially to the intrinsic worth of performing these services. Someone who is moved by his love of honor to put the public welfare ahead of his own safety is concerned not only with the welfare of the community and its members but also with his own character and its excellence or virtue, with simply being the sort of person who cares about his country so much that he values it more than his very life, and possessing the qualities of soul of such a person. The physical harm that such a person suffers is not genuinely harmful because it coincides with and is outweighed by an incomparably greater good, which is his very willingness to suffer this harm for the sake of his political community.Footnote 19 The reward that compensates the cavalrymen for laying down their lives is virtue itself, which is the greatest good (III 9.4–5). The answer to the question of how to foster the willingness to prefer the welfare of the political community to one's own welfare appears to be to teach that by doing this one serves not only the public welfare but also one's own deepest and truest interest, which is to possess virtue.Footnote 20 Put differently, the explication and clarification of noble ambition transforms that ambition from the greatest degree of dedication to something other than oneself, which Socrates called noble in the preceding conversation, to the deepest concern with oneself.

The examination of the tasks and responsibilities of a military commander in the last two chapters has shed light on the motives of someone who performs these tasks. Noble political ambition is the desire to perform noble services for others. The case that the present conversation has considered, in which one is forced to choose between one's own welfare and the welfare of others, is the touchstone of such a desire.Footnote 21 The motive of someone who is willing in such a case to neglect his own welfare, in return for nothing but the honor that he will deserve for doing so, turns out to be the concern with his character, whose virtue he believes to consist in performing precisely these most demanding services.

But the attempt to articulate the motive for noble public services has robbed this motive of the concern with others in which nobility was originally said to consist. The moral outlook that has come to light is based, not on a concern with others, but rather on a concern with oneself, insofar as someone who nobly exposes himself to harm believes consciously or unconsciously that it is in his interest to do so. The touchstone of nobility, which is the willingness that one's interest suffer for the sake of the noble, is absent from this outlook. In the next and final conversation that this essay will consider, this insight will lead to the suggestion that political virtue is not genuinely noble and that the longing for the noble cannot be fully satisfied in political life.

Nobility and Political Virtue (Memorabilia III 4)

The occasion for the conversation is an election for the office of general, in which a veteran soldier, Nicomachides, is defeated by a wealthy businessman who is public spirited and a “lover of victory” but who possesses no military experience to speak of (III 4.3). Socrates attempts to placate Nicomachides by pointing out the many qualifications for generalship that the businessman Antisthenes may have, but Nicomachides is implacable. He insists that the one qualification that he undeniably possesses and Antisthenes does not is the decisive qualification for the generalship: his long service record and in particular the many wounds that he has suffered in battle, and the noble dedication to Athens to which they attest (III 4.1).Footnote 22 Accordingly Socrates can persuade Nicomachides to accept the election results only by attacking this very qualification and with it Nicomachides' conviction that his willingness to suffer harm for the sake of the public welfare is an essential part of “the virtue of a good leader,” as Socrates said that it is in an earlier conversation (III 2.4).

Socrates accomplishes this by denying that the noble deeds of the soldier possess any worth over and above the actual contribution that they make to the safety of Athens.Footnote 23 In particular, Socrates appears to ignore entirely the moral dimension of Nicomachides' claim to deserve to be the general, the superior moral desert that Nicomachides can plausibly claim to possess by virtue of his outstanding dedication to Athens. Instead, the conversation is devoted entirely to the consideration of whether Antisthenes possesses the narrow, technical competence to perform the work of a general. Yet the moral aspect of the question is the one that weighs most heavily on Nicomachides. He indicates that this is his concern not only by his emphasis on his wounds and his complaint that Antisthenes has an undistinguished service record but also by his amazement at the suggestion that Antisthenes, who “knows nothing besides making money,” and in general a household manager, whose distinguishing characteristic is his concern with profit, might make a good general (III 4.1 and 7). The task of the interpreter is to consider why Socrates ignores the moral dimension of Nicomachides' claim, especially in light of the emphasis on this aspect of ambition in the last two chapters. The following analysis will show that the key to this question is Socrates' consideration of the work of a general and the qualifications that are required to perform it, which proves to shed light on the question of Nicomachides' moral desert and the adequacy of his claim in this respect, as well.

Socrates defends the election of Antisthenes by enumerating many tasks of a general that moneymakers and household managers like Antisthenes are competent to perform, but Nicomachides is unpersuaded (III 4.2–9). The only task that matters to Nicomachides is fighting, and “fighting does not belong to both”; he concedes that household managers have enemies over whom they must prevail, but asks, “what benefit will the art of household management be if it is necessary to fight?” Socrates replies that the benefit of household management would be greatest in a fight, because the potential for profit and loss is greatest in such a case, and the household manager knows this. Accordingly, the household manager will makes sure that he can win the battles that he fights, and he will take care not to fight battles that he cannot win (III 4.10–11). Now, this argument fails to establish that a public-spirited household manager like Antisthenes is actually more qualified in this respect to be a general than Nicomachides. It would be necessary to show in addition that Nicomachides lacks the ability to determine when to fight and when not to fight that Socrates ascribes to a household manager, and nothing has been said that might suggest this. On the contrary, Nicomachides may possess all of the qualifications that Socrates attributes to household managers as well as additional ones, including the ability to actually fight when this becomes necessary (which Socrates does not suggest that the household manager possesses). Rather, the bearing of the argument on Nicomachides' claim is more modest: it diminishes the importance of the one qualification that Nicomachides deems most necessary for the generalship. How one handles oneself in battle is only one consideration among many in choosing a general, and it may not be the most important consideration, because the task of the highest ranking military officers is not primarily to fight. Indeed, it might be better if someone as valuable to the army as a general were to avoid risking his life in battle. Accordingly, even though the examination of the general's work does not settle the question of who is more competent to be a general, it calls attention to the inadequacy of basing the answer to this question on the relatively narrow consideration of Nicomachides' military experience, and so it raises the question of why Nicomachides considers the particular qualification on which he bases his claim to be so decisive.

A part of the answer is the very consideration that Socrates fails to acknowledge. Nicomachides places so much weight on his dedication to Athens not only or even primarily because it makes him competent to do the work of a general, but also and especially because it makes him the better man simply, and so the more deserving man. He holds that his dedication to Athens constitutes his virtue and makes him deserve the greatest rewards. In this respect, Nicomachides holds the moral outlook that Socrates encourages the cavalry commander in the last conversation to foster in his men. But this moral outlook does not adequately explain Nicomachides' position: it explains why Nicomachides believes himself to deserve the greatest reward, but not why Nicomachides holds the generalship to be the particular reward that he deserves. This second part of his position cannot be explained by reference to the view that being a soldier is virtue and virtue is the greatest good. Indeed, the demand to be general seems to deviate from the moral outlook, because Nicomachides is evidently not satisfied to deserve the highest honors unless he actually receives them. He does not hold that his virtue is the greatest good; he holds that the generalship is the greatest good. But even if one grants that Nicomachides' seriousness about virtue is not diminished by his evident failure to accept that virtue is its own reward nor by his demand for an additional reward over and above the very exercise of that virtue, it is not clear why Nicomachides must be rewarded with the generalship and not some other public honor. In short, it is not enough to show that Nicomachides holds that his conduct is noble and that noble conduct is or ought to be good: it is also necessary to show why Nicomachides holds that the generalship is the particular good thing that he deserves.

He does so, it seems to me, because it is essential to his view of virtue that virtue not only call for the greatest dedication to Athens and willingness to suffer for its sake but also make the greatest actual contribution to the safety of Athens. For if this were the case then the more virtuous person would truly deserve to be entrusted with the greater responsibility for the welfare of Athens, as Nicomachides claims that he deserves, because he would be more able to satisfy that responsibility. Indeed, Nicomachides' virtue receives at least a part of its worth from the contribution that it leads him to make to Athens. For if his virtue did not contribute to the welfare of Athens at all, then it would hardly possess any worth: unless he received his wounds in the service of some worthwhile object or goal, those wounds would be foolish or even base, not noble. And if it is virtue, then it must possess the greatest worth and, according to this view, lead him to make the greatest contribution. This is why Nicomachides believes that he deserves to be the general: he views the generalship not only as a reward but also as the occasion for the greatest exercise of the virtue that he believes himself to possess to a far greater degree than his rival.

This consideration explains the significance of Socrates' enumeration of the many tasks that a successful general must perform and that a household manager can perform no worse than a soldier. Socrates is justified in reducing the question of whether a household manager is qualified to be general to a consideration of the tasks of the two, and in denying that moral character possesses any intrinsic worth or desert beyond its capacity to perform these tasks, by a premise that Nicomachides accepts: the premise that virtue receives its worth from the worth to Athens of the services that it leads one to perform. And the enumeration of the general's tasks shows that Nicomachides' military virtue may be a part of the virtue that is required in order to be a good general, but it is not complete virtue, and by itself it does not qualify him to perform the great services to Athens that a general performs. Precisely if Nicomachides holds that his virtue receives its worth from the contribution that it makes to the safety of Athens, then he is wrong to ascribe the highest worth to the particular qualification that he holds to constitute his virtue.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Nicomachides also believes that his virtue possesses the highest worth and that he has been wronged by the Athenians who failed to acknowledge this. And this belief implies that he does not, after all, hold that the worth of his virtue is exhausted by the contribution that it leads him to make to the welfare of Athens. For if, as Nicomachides believes, virtue consists of the qualities of soul that lead him to willingly risk his life for Athens, and these qualities of soul render him superior in some way to anyone who does not possess them regardless of the actual contribution to Athens that these qualities lead him to make, then the contribution that Nicomachides makes to the safety of Athens is not the sole measure of his virtue, and his motive for running such great risks cannot be reduced to his concern with Athens. There is an additional element to his view of virtue, which gives his services to Athens intrinsic worth over and above their actual contribution to Athens. Nicomachides holds himself to a more demanding standard than merely doing good things for Athens. He requires of himself that he possess a certain kind of character as well, and his claim to be the better man rests ultimately not only on what he does but also on the kind of person that he is.

The problem with this position will be clear if we summarize the analysis that has brought it to light. Nicomachides exerts himself to the utmost in the service of Athens, and he claims to deserve the highest military office in return. But as Socrates' defense of Antisthenes and household management more generally shows, Nicomachides' claim that his services to Athens make him worthy of the highest honors cannot be justified solely by the value to Athens of the particular services to which this claim refers. Instead, his claim presupposes that the character of someone who serves Athens as he does possesses intrinsic moral desert and worth over and above the worth of the actual services to Athens that it leads him to perform. But his claim that his surpassing moral desert makes him worthy of the generalship in particular cannot be justified on the basis of the intrinsic worth of his virtuous character, unless that worth derives from the value to Athens of the actions that his character leads him to perform. In short, Nicomachides' position is incoherent. He holds himself to what he considers the highest standard of human excellence, and indeed this is his most impressive quality, but the standard to which he holds himself is circular and therefore no standard at all: he holds that his character is excellent because it leads him to perform the greatest services to Athens, and that his services to Athens are the greatest ones because of the excellence of character that they call for.

Moreover, it is not only Nicomachides' position that is incoherent in this way. The same analysis applies to the view that came to light in the conversation with the cavalry commander: the view that noble services to Athens are virtue and virtue is the greatest good. Like the view of Nicomachides, this view refers virtue to two criteria: to the end that virtue serves, namely, the public welfare, and to the manner in which one serves this end, namely, nobly. Since the virtue that satisfies these two criteria is the greatest good, anyone who cares about virtue will strive to exercise it to the highest degree and satisfy both criteria to the greatest extent. But the conversation with Nicomachides reveals that precisely at the peak of political virtue, the two criteria do not coincide, and the greatest actual contribution to the political community is not necessarily the product of the greatest and noblest devotion. Rather, someone who seeks to fulfill his longing for noble things through the practice of political virtue is deficient with respect to both criteria: his services to the political community fall short of the greatest ones because they look not only to what is best for the community but also to what is, from the perspective of the public welfare, an arbitrary standard of individual excellence; and his striving for the noble looks not only to the best pursuit for a human being but also to a political goal whose rationale, from this perspective, is unclear.

Nicomachides seems unable to see beyond the narrow question of who deserves to be the general. If he took to heart the considerations that Socrates' discussion of this question raises and reflected on the reason why he wants so deeply to be the general, then he would realize that he, no less than Antisthenes, is an economist who is concerned with profit (III 9.4). And if he recognized how deeply he cares about his own happiness, then he would be led to wonder whether being a general is truly the happiness that he wants after all, and whether being a soldier is truly the way of life through which he will attain that happiness, whatever it may be. And finally, if this question arose for Nicomachides, then nothing would be more important and urgent for him than to investigate what virtue is. Such an investigation would be far more urgent than serving as general, for example, even if he received the opportunity to do so. His inability to take these considerations to heart explains why the prospect of such an investigation does not arise explicitly in this conversation, as it does not in any other conversation in this section of the Memorabilia.Footnote 24

Nevertheless, Socrates concludes the conversation with Nicomachides in a manner that presupposes or anticipates the result of the investigation of virtue. For his final remark in this conversation suggests that the dedication to the public welfare that this whole essay has been considering is not true virtue. The suggestion takes the form of one last comparison between household managers and generals:

Nicomachides, do not look down on men who are skilled economists. For caring for private affairs differs only in number from caring for public affairs. The greatest of the many great similarities [between the two] is that public affairs are not accomplished without human beings (anthrōpoi), or through other human beings than those through whom private affairs are accomplished. For those who take care of public affairs do not deal with any other human beings than the very same ones with whom they deal in their private economic affairs. And the ones who know how to handle these human beings well, fare well in both private and public affairs, but the ones who don't understand, strike false notes in both. (III 4.12)

According to Socrates, the greatest similarity between the private affairs of a businessman like Antisthenes and the public affairs in which a general is engaged is that both public and private affairs entail the leadership of the very same human beings. There is no difference between soldiers, on one hand, and women, children, and domestic servants, on the other hand, or between military leadership and the rule of a master over the members of his household.

This suggestion is at least as problematic as the earlier suggestion that a household manager is as useful in a fight as a soldier. But the suggestion appears to be serious in one particular respect, which pertains to the manner in which a leader makes his subordinates obey him. In the conversation with the cavalry commander, Socrates suggested that the cavalrymen might be persuaded to obey their commander by an appeal, not to the rewards and punishments with which children and slaves are persuaded to obey the heads of their households, but rather to different, higher motives. Socrates encouraged the cavalry commander to appeal in speech to his men's concern with virtue, to teach them that virtue itself is the greatest good and that the goodness of virtue outweighs the physical harm and even death that it may entail, and to persuade his men to transcend their slavish concern with these lesser goods and evils. But the thesis that there is no difference between the rule of a general over his soldiers and the rule of a master over his slaves contradicts the suggestion that arose in the conversation with the cavalry commander. The reason for the contradiction seems to be that the conversation with Nicomachides has shown that the implicit premise of Socrates' advice to the cavalry commander, namely, that the dedication to the public welfare is virtue, is at least questionable. At the very least, this premise could only be evaluated adequately by means of an investigation of virtue itself. And by suggesting that what solicits noble services to Athens is not speech, as the conversation with the cavalry commander suggested, but an appeal to precisely those passions that the concern with virtue aims to transcend, Socrates goes further and implies that the assumption in question is not only questionable but false, and that true virtue is not political virtue. According to this suggestion, even someone who cares most deeply for virtue could not be persuaded to neglect his own welfare for the sake of the public welfare by means of speech alone, without the support of coercion (or deception), because political virtue is not the great good that the most ambitious people believe virtue itself to be (see I 2.9–11).

Conclusion

These considerations raise a series of far-reaching political questions. If citizens can only be moved to serve their community by appealing to their slavish concern with private material gain, does this not impose strict limits on the efforts that a political community can expect from its members? Are not the prospects for rising to great political challenges, for improving or correcting or even preserving any political order, revealed by these considerations to be soberingly dim? On the other hand, is not political life full of phenomena that give the lie to Socrates' analysis, both contemporary and historical examples of heroic efforts and great achievements on the part of individuals and entire communities that suggest that Socrates does not do justice to the political view of virtue? These and other political implications of this analysis are explored in the last three chapters in this section of the Memorabilia, beginning with the conversation with the younger Pericles about the prospects for improving the dire situation in Athens at a late point in the Peloponnesian War (III 5).

Yet the view of political virtue that Socrates expresses at the end of the conversation with Nicomachides cannot be evaluated adequately by means of any narrowly political investigation of the manner in which the public welfare may be served. Socrates' view can only be evaluated by means of an analysis of virtue itself. Moreover, this essay has discovered that the investigation of virtue is in a way more urgent than the investigation of what the public welfare demands. This is because precisely the deepest dedication to the public welfare bespeaks a concern not only with politics but also and especially with virtue itself, and these two concerns are not identical. Moreover, the concern with virtue, which is the greatest good, is the primary one (III 9.4). And because the requirements of virtue are not determined solely by reference to the public welfare, no investigation of narrowly political questions can answer the question, what is virtue? and determine how to satisfy this concern.

This essay inquired how the ambition that leads people to become actively involved in political life may lead them to suspend or abandon their political endeavors and to search for the knowledge at which Socratic political philosophy aims. The answer is that political ambition leads to political philosophy because the ambitious man is concerned not only or primarily with the welfare of his political community but also and especially with his own excellence or virtue. The drive for honor and distinction that moves an ambitious man to devote himself to the welfare of his political community and even to prefer its welfare to his safety, ultimately points beyond the concern with the public welfare to a notion of individual perfection and virtue. But the awareness that one's concern with virtue is distinct from one's concern with the public welfare first arises in the form of the awareness that one is ignorant of what virtue is. And if one cares more for virtue itself than for any particular goal that may be served by virtuous actions then one's only recourse is to investigate what virtue is. This concern with virtue is the unique qualification for political philosophy that ambitious people possess. Or rather, their unique qualification for political philosophy is the intensity of their concern with virtue, which they experience as the most fundamental human concern, which draws them out of their preoccupation with politics to a dimension of human endeavor and human nature that somehow goes beyond the service to even as worthy a goal as the welfare of their community. Perhaps the most surprising result of this investigation is that the concern with virtue is so rarely experienced as the fundamental concern that it is.

References

1 References in parentheses refer to the Memorabilia. I use the Greek text edited by Hude, Karl (Xenophontis Commentarii [Stuttgart, Germany: Teubner, 1934])Google Scholar, and the excellent English translation by Bonnette, Amy L. (Xenophon: Memorabilia [Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1994])Google Scholar.

2 Xenophon is agreed to be primarily responsible for the view that Socratic philosophy is moral and political philosophy. See Guthrie, W. K. C., Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pangle, Thomas L., “Socrates in the Context of Xenophon's Political Writings,” in The Socratic Movement, ed. Waerdt, Paul A. Vander (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1994), 127–50Google Scholar, at 129; Sallis, John, Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues, 3rd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 36–38Google Scholar; and Zuckert, Catherine, “The Socratic Turn,” History of Political Thought 25, no. 2 (2004): 189–90Google Scholar.

3 It is emphatically not the purpose of this essay to investigate Socrates' own motives for undertaking to investigate the human things, that is, the so-called Socratic Turn, which seems to have originated in Socrates' prior preoccupation with natural science. See Plato, Phaedo 96aff., as well as Christopher Bruell, “Xenophon,” in History of Political Philosophy, ed. Cropsey, Joseph and Strauss, Leo, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 108–11Google Scholar; Sallis, Being and Logos, 38–43; and Zuckert, “Socratic Turn,” 190ff.

4 See Strauss, Leo, Xenophon's Socrates (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 1998), 55Google Scholar, which calls attention to the importance of this stipulation by noting that such an introduction is unique in the Memorabilia.

5 Almost no scholarly attention has been paid to this section of the Memorabilia. I have not been able to find a single interpretation of this part of the Memorabilia that was ever published in a scholarly journal. The only in-depth consideration is Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates, 55–73. In addition, brief summaries of this section appear in Christopher Bruell, “Introduction: Xenophon and his Socrates,” in Xenophon: Memorabilia, ed. Bonnette, xix–xx; Gray, Vivienne, The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Interpretation of Xenophon's Memorabilia (Stuttgart, Germany: F. Steiner, 1998), 138–41Google Scholar; and Buzzetti, Eric, “Introduction: The Political Life and the Socratic Education,” in Xenophon: The Anabasis of Cyrus, trans. Ambler, Wayne (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2008), 31–32Google Scholar. I discuss these interpretations in the corresponding parts of my argument. My view that these conversations deserve more serious scholarly attention than they have previously received is the result of my attention to Xenophon's manner of writing, that is, to the dramatic action of the conversations as well as the information that Socrates conveys to his interlocutors. This manner of interpreting Xenophon's Socratic writings remains controversial: see, for example, the recent criticism of this interpretive approach by Gray, Vivienne, “A Short Response to David M. Johnson, ‘Xenophon's Socrates on Law and Justice,’” Ancient Philosophy 24, no. 2 (2004): 442–46Google Scholar, as well as the persuasive response by Johnson, David, “Reply to Vivienne Gray,” Ancient Philosophy 24, no. 2 (2004): 446–48Google Scholar. This essay follows most closely the interpretive approach of the essays on Xenophon's shorter Socratic writings in Bartlett, Robert C., ed., Xenophon's Shorter Socratic Writings (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996)Google Scholar, which are models of how to study Xenophon's Socratic writings and whose example I have tried to apply to the study of the Memorabilia. The classic example of this approach is Strauss, Leo, On Tyranny (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

6 Compare Anabasis III 1.4–7. For the superiority of Charmides, see especially III 6.1, 7.3 and 7.7. The observation that Charmides is the only person whom Xenophon's Socrates encourages to enter public life is Strauss's (Xenophon's Socrates, 72).

7 Strauss (Xenophon's Socrates, 74) supports this view by suggesting that Xenophon might have presented a conversation in this section of the Memorabilia with a more philosophically inclined interlocutor than Charmides, but that he fails to do so. As for the reason why Socrates does not advise Charmides to turn to political philosophy, see Nicholas Starr, “Tyranny and Nobility” (MA thesis, Boston College, 2007), 21–41.

8 According to Xenophon, as a rule Socrates' conversations take place in public (I 1.10). The only unequivocal exception to this rule in the Memorabilia is the first conversation between Socrates and Euthydemus (IV 2.8).

9 I follow Buzzetti (“Introduction,” 31–32 and 260n68), who refers to these conversations in the course of arguing that Xenophon's leadership in the Anabasis is based on his Socratic education. Buzzetti maintains that the central problem in the Socratic investigation of virtue is how “to reconcile … the often conflicting demands of the noble and the good,” and refers the reader to this section of the Memorabilia for an exposition of the problem.

10 Whether or not the interlocutors benefited from this guidance, as Xenophon claims that the men who long for noble things did, is more difficult to determine (III 1.1). Of the four named interlocutors, nothing more is known of Nicomachides; Pericles is executed, but Socrates concludes the conversation in a way that suggests that this fate cannot be avoided (III 5.28; Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates, 68); and as far as we know Glaucon stays out of politics as Socrates intends, but it is unclear whether he is benefited by this (III 6.1; Nails, Debra, The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics [Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002], 154–56Google Scholar). The most difficult case is Charmides (see the thoughtful discussion by Starr, “Tyranny and Nobility,” 21–41). Finally, Strauss (Xenophon's Socrates, 59–60) invites the reader to consider the possibility that the cavalry commander is Xenophon himself (but see n. 18 below); if this is the case, the benefit that is conferred on him is the one that this essay aims to describe.

11 Irwin, Terence, “Review of Xenophon's Socrates by Leo Strauss,” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 3 (1974): 412CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Even the initial analogy between generals and shepherds suggests that a general should be more selfless than a shepherd actually is, because a shepherd cares for the sheep for the sake of the shepherd and not for the sake of the sheep. See Eric Buzzetti, “The ‘Middle Road’ of Socratic Political Philosophy: Xenophon's Presentation of Socrates' View of Virtue in the Memorabilia” (PhD diss., Boston College, 1998), 161, and Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates, 59, as well as Xenophon Cyropaideia VII 2.14 and Plato Republic 343a–b.

13 Buzzetti, “Middle Road,” 158–59; Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates, 59.

14 The subdued manner in which Xenophon refers to the personal sacrifices that political and military leadership can entail is consistent with the rhetorical preference for speaking of “good things rather than bad ones,” which according to Strauss (On Tyranny, 185) is a key feature of Xenophon's manner of writing (see Anabasis V 8.20).

15 The fact that Xenophon's Socrates holds that nobility entails this concern with others illuminates one of the key ongoing debates over the interpretation of the Memorabilia. The debate pertains to the utilitarian view of the noble that Xenophon's Socrates often advances (most clearly in III 8 and Symposium 5): the view that noble things, and moral actions in particular, “necessarily benefit us, where benefit is understood, for Xenophon, in fairly commonsensical terms” (Johnson, David M., “Xenophon's Socrates on Law and Justice,” Ancient Philosophy 23, no. 2 [2003]: 270CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Scholars differ over whether Socrates holds that this view is correct. Some, including Johnson, hold that this is indeed the case. Others hold that this view is only one aspect of a more complex outlook that Xenophon's Socrates holds, and that to mistake the so-called “commonsensical” utilitarian view for the entire Socratic position is to distort that position. See, for example, Morrison, Donald R., “On Professor Vlastos' Xenophon,” Ancient Philosophy 7 (1987): 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which argues that the utilitarian moral view is intended to be understood as a paradox. See also the discussion of Socrates' utilitarian or “mercenary” view of friendship (which is called noble at II 5.4 and II 10.4–5) in Bruell, “Introduction,” xi–xii. Bruell notes that Xenophon himself calls this view vulgar (Hellenica VII 3.14), and suggests that Xenophon attributes it to Socrates in order to “offend” and “provoke” his “better readers.” My interpretation of this chapter, according to which Socrates holds the noble dimension of politics to consist specifically in the services that one performs for others regardless of the consequences of those services for oneself, supports the views of Morrison and Bruell. Nor is this view called into question by the argument of the next chapter, which shows that one's attachment to the noble is bound up with one's concern with one's own happiness. For even though the men who long for noble things will prove to hope to find happiness in their noble pursuits, insofar as they truly long for the noble they could not be deterred from a pursuit that they deem noble by the consideration that it is not good in any particular way, commonsensical or otherwise; they could only be deterred by the discovery that it is not noble.

16 Gray (Framing, 140) notes that the cavalry commander has “failed to think through even the most basic duties of the office which [he] sought,” and claims further (but does not show) that this is a characteristic error of the ambitious men with whom Socrates converses.

17 For an explanation of euandria, see Smith, Josiah Renick, ed., Xenophon: Memorabilia (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 141Google Scholar: “the handsomest men were chosen to lead the procession” of the festival delegation to Delos, and “at the Panathenaic festival, the bearers of the sacred olive branch were chosen from among the finest-looking old men.”

18 Strauss (Xenophon's Socrates, 60–61) refers to the moral deficiency of the cavalry commander by noting that the failure of the cavalry commander to find praise and honor to be sufficiently attractive compensations for military service (rather than his inadequate knowledge of his other responsibilities) calls into question his qualifications for his job.

19 My interpretation of the relation between the noble willingness to suffer harm and the belief that the noble is good follows Bruell, Christopher, On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 27–30Google Scholar.

20 According to this interpretation, the conversation with the cavalry commander is a preeminent example of the “Socratic moral advice” that, according to Donald R. Morrison, “Xenophon's Socrates gives in passage after passage throughout the Memorabilia and elsewhere … with all the emphasis on care of the soul and disdain for material well-being that one has learned to expect from Plato's Socrates” (“Xenophon's Socrates as Teacher,” in The Socratic Movement, ed. Vander Waerdt, 191).

21 Military examples provide particularly vivid illustrations of the necessity to choose between one's own welfare and the welfare of others, but they are by no means the only examples (see Plato Republic 343e1–6). Indeed, the only example in this section of the Memorabilia of an interlocutor who is actually harmed by his ambition for military office is the younger Pericles, and he is not harmed in combat but rather in a court of law (Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates, 68; Xenophon, Hellenica I 7).

22 Compare Plutarch, Coriolanus §14. Smith (Memorabilia, 142) ignores this qualification and comments instead, “Nicomachides bases his claim … simply on his long service as private, captain and colonel.”

23 Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates, 63–64.

24 I follow Strauss (Xenophon's Socrates, 63–64 and 77), who holds that the account of moral life in these conversations seems to deny that such an investigation is necessary, but not that Socrates holds that this account of moral life is adequate. See especially Strauss's (admittedly enigmatic) reference to the “neglected side of the noble” as well as n. 15 above.