Xenophon

Then Xenophon, an Athenian, seeing him from the Greek army, approached so as to meet him and asked if he had any orders to give;

Xenophon replied that the watchword was now passing along for the second time.

And upon hearing this Cyrus said, Well, I accept it, and so let it be.

Xenophon says, that every animal knows a certain method of fighting without any other instructor than nature.

The city of Cotyora is said by Xenophon to have belonged to the people of Sinope.

Clearchus, in Xenophon, says, I have known some men, who partly through misrepresentation, and partly through suspicion, dreading one another, in order to prevent the supposed intentions of their adversaries, have committed the most enormous cruelties against those who neither designed, nor wished them any harm.

And Xenophon too, plainly calling pleasure a vice, says:

And Xenophon the Athenian says the like, in these words:

Again, when Stasinus had made, "Foolish is he who, slaying the father, leaves the sons," Xenophon says, "For I seem now to have done the like as if one, having slain a father, should spare his children.

but Xenophon was in exile on account of his campaign with Cyrus.

And I do not mention those brief Laconic matters—the Spartans enslaved to the Persians, and Dionysius at Corinth, and the condemnation of Socrates, and the exile of Xenophon, and the death of Pherecydes, and the wretchedness of Anaxarchus;

But Xenophon I, for my part, think alone of the ancients able to suffice a statesman:

Tell me, Xenophon, did you not suppose Critobulus to be a sober person, and by no means rash;

Thus, on hearing that Critobulus had kissed Alcibiades’ pretty boy, he put this question to Xenophon before Critobulus:

Nay, I advise you, Xenophon, as soon as you see a pretty face to take to your heels and fly:

for in the sayings which he reported as spoken by Socrates he makes Socrates argue that we ought not to inquire into the shape of god, and the same Socrates call both the sun and the soul a god, and speak now of one god, now of several — which fall into nearly the same mistakes as those we lay to Plato's charge.

For whence did man 'snatch' this, as Socrates says in Xenophon?

And so Africanus always had in his hands the Socratic Xenophon, in whom he chiefly praised this — that he said the same toils are not equally heavy to a general and to a soldier, because the honour itself made the general's toil the lighter.

The diet of the Persians is set forth by Xenophon, who says they apply nothing to their bread beyond cress.

And Xenophon the Athenian would himself also have written something expressly, bearing witness about the truth as Socrates did, had he not feared the poison of Socrates;

You would scarcely have the chance of a happier choice even if you were to seek out good men among the Platos and Xenophons and that whole crop of Socratic offspring, or if the age of Cato were put within your power—an age that bore many men worthy to be born in Cato's day, as well as many worse than at any other time, contrivers of the greatest crimes;

If I speak this falsely against the knowledge of the Greek world, I am in no way praising my hero;

For it would not be seemly that so good a man, just because of his perfection, should receive no tributes of praise, however inadequate.

Such, then, is the record of my hero’s deeds, so far as they were done before a crowd of witnesses.

More than this of course was said both by Socrates himself and by the friends who joined in his defence.

It seems to me fitting to hand down to memory, furthermore, how Socrates, on being indicted, deliberated on his defence and on his end.

And as for Socrates, by exalting himself before the court, he brought ill-will upon himself and made his conviction by the jury more certain.

To my mind it is worth while to relate not only the serious acts of great and good men but also what they do in their lighter moods.