{"id":16808,"date":"2012-10-27T06:30:37","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T17:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=16808"},"modified":"2012-10-26T20:33:59","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T07:33:59","slug":"just-arrived-the-landmark-xenophons-hellenika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/10\/27\/just-arrived-the-landmark-xenophons-hellenika\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Arrived: The Landmark “Xenophon’s Hellenika”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I really love history, both historical non fiction as well as the fiction, but there is nothing more satisfying than reading primary sources, i.e. the material that was written by the people of the actual time. (I mean, how cool is that?)<\/p>\n

Of course, for that to happen, first you have to have a literary society—both to write the words then<\/em>, and read them again now<\/em>. I’m fairly sure that most of 5th Century BC Greek society (yes, even the male part) was non literate, but fortunately the elite were very literate indeed and hence we can still delve into first hand—if subjective—accounts such as Xenophon’s Anabasis-<\/em>–and as of today (in my case), the Hellenika<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Xenophon\u2019s Hellenika<\/em> is one of the—if not “the”—primary sources for the events of the final seven years and aftermath of the Peloponnesian War (between the two 5th century BC Greek states, Athens and Sparta.)<\/p>\n

Hellenika<\/em> was written by Xenophon, an Athenian nobleman who served first with Athens, then later (after Athens was finally defeated by Sparta) participated in the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against Cyrus\u2019 brother, the Persian King Artaxerces II. (The account of the withdrawal of the Greek troops from Persia, after the death of Cyrus the Younger, is told in the Anabasis.<\/em>)\u00a0 Later Xenophon joined the Spartan army and so was exiled from Athens.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Hellenika, <\/em>a number of Xenophon’s\u00a0 essays have survived, including one on his memories of his teacher, Socrates.<\/p>\n

According to the cover blurb: “Hellenika covers the years of the Peloponnesian wars between 411 and 362 B.C.E., a particularly dramatic period during which the alliances among the Greek city states Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and the Persian empire, were in constant flux. Together with the volumes of Herodotus and Thucydides, it completes an ancient narrative of the military and political history of classical Greece.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The book itself is beautiful and I’m delighted to finally have a copy to peruse—although given it’s detail, which includes both the actual words of Xenophon, but also scholarly introductions, notes and appendices, perusal in full may take some time.<\/p>\n

In the meantime. here’s what The New Yorker<\/em> had to say about it when published in 2011:<\/p>\n

“The mostly densely annotated, richly illustrated, and user-friendly edition of his<\/em> [Xenophon’s] Histories ever to appear.”<\/em><\/p>\n

From a first look through, check to both “densely annotated” <\/em>and “richly illustrated<\/em>“—user-friendly remains to be seen on reading. But what a privilege, to be able to read the accounts first penned by a man who lived 2,500 years ago.<\/p>\n

Just sayin’…<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really love history, both historical non fiction as well as the fiction, but there is nothing more satisfying than reading primary sources, i.e. the material that was written by the people of the actual time. (I mean, how cool is that?) Of course, for that to happen, first you have to have a literary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justarrived"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16808"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16825,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16808\/revisions\/16825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}