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The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika

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I was surprised but delighted to see this new Landmark edition of Xenophon's "Hellenica" when it first appeared in bookstores about six weeks ago. I was surprised because I wouldn't have thought that a publisher would see the same value (and potential profit) in producing a costly Landmark edition of Xenophon's history that they would have in issuing their earlier editions of the better-known histories of Thucydides and Herodotus. But I was delighted because Xenophon was a vivid historian who covered an exceptionally interesting period of ancient history (411-362 B.C.), and the quality of the Landmark editions is simply exceptional. No scholar or serious student of the period will want to be without this book, and any university or public library that has room in its collections for somewhat more specialized and academic works should order it as well.

Xenophon's "Hellenica" covers the last phase (411-404 B.C.) of the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and the Spartan alliance, with its great naval battles between hundreds of triremes in the eastern Aegean and the Hellespont; the final defeat and fall of Athens; the short-lived but bloody tyranny in Athens of the group of Spartan-backed oligarchs known as the Thirty Tyrants (which includes a vivid set-piece, somewhat reminiscent of Plato's "Apology," of the trial and extra-judicial execution of their opponent Theramenes); the defeat of the Thirty Tyrants and the restoration of democracy to Athens; the campaigns of the Spartan king Agesilaus in western Asia Minor, as he tried to restore independence to the Greek cities the Spartans had earlier sold down the river in exchange for Persian support during their war against the Athenians; the Corinthian War of 394-386, when Corinth switched sides and joined the Athenians and Thebans in trying to curb Spartan power; and finally, the rise of Thebes and its short-lived hegemony between the Spartan defeat at the battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. and the inconclusive battle of Mantineia and the death of the Theban leader Epaminondas in 362.

As this summary indicates, this is a period full of dramatic military action and political intrigue. Xenophon, who lived from c. 430 to around 356 B.C., was well-placed to tell this story. A well-educated Athenian from a wealthy (and probably conservative) family, he was a friend and devoted follower of Socrates in his youth. Although he almost certainly fought for Athens during the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, he was also a great admirer of Sparta and became a friend and close associate of Agesilaus, who was one of its two kings throughout most of the period covered by the "Hellenica." He fought as a mercenary in a Persian civil war during the final years of the 5th century, and his account of that experience (the "Anabasis") has maintained its status as a great adventure story since it was first published 2400 years ago. Because of his Spartan sympathies, Xenophon spent much of his life in exile from Athens, but perhaps returned there in his final years.

Xenophon ranks lower as a historian than his predecessor Thucydides, mostly because his coverage is less systematic, more episodic and anecdotal, and because his animus against the Thebans who finally brought an end to Spartan power means that his treatment of them is extremely sketchy. His accounts of military encounters are less clear and specific than those of Thucydides; Thucydides clearly wrote with an eye towards instructing generals and admirals of the future, while you get the sense that Xenophon wants to give you some basic facts about what happened and then move the narrative along. His virtues are that he had a real feel for character, at least of those like Agesilaus whom he knew well, and he understood the value of revealing anecdotes and concrete details, as the excerpt quoted below demonstrates. While it has its flaws, his account is a vivid, dramatic, and pleasurable one to read.

That said, should you get the Landmark edition or the cheaper Penguin Classics paperback, which goes under the title "A History of My Times"? Scholars and serious students of ancient history will want the Landmark edition. Beyond the text itself, there are nearly 200 pages of appendices on various topics, a 40-page introduction, and copious maps, photographs, and illustrations. The appendices include 75 pages of excerpts from the later historian Diodorus Siculus and 12 from the Oxyrhnchus Historian covering the same periods, which help to make up for Xenophon's selectivity and omissions. Also, any place cited in the text carries a footnote which in turn directs you to a map showing its location. The footnotes also clarify textual references that would be opaque to all except an expert: for example, when Xenophon writes (in the excerpt below) that the Athenians feared suffering the fate they had previously meted out to the "Histiaians, Skionians, Toronaians, [and] Aeginetans," the Landmark edition footnotes each people cited with a short description of the earlier event and a cross-reference to where it is discussed in Thucydides' history. The Penguin edition, in contrast, simply gives the bare Thucydidean citations, with no explanatory text.

The Penguin paperback is a good value for the money, and certainly it has the advantage of greater portability. It also has a 40-page introduction and many footnotes, although these are less numerous, detailed, and explanatory than those in the Landmark edition. Also, the translator of the Penguin edition, Rex Warner, was not only a Classics scholar but also a novelist. My sense is that his translation places a greater emphasis on pacing and readability, whereas the Landmark translation (by John Marincola) seems to stick closer to the sense and feel of the original Greek, and is also very concerned with clearly spelling things out. I've provided an example of a single passage from each translation below (about the aftermath of the Athenian naval disaster at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.) so you can compare.

Penguin/Warner: "It was at night that the [trireme] "Paralus" arrived at Athens. As the news of the disaster was told, one man passed it on to another, and a sound of wailing arose and extended first from Piraeus, then along the Long Walls until it reached the city. That night no one slept. They mourned for the lost, but more still for their own fate. They thought that they themselves would now be dealt with as they had dealt with others - with the Melians, colonists of Sparta, after they had besieged and conquered Melos, with the people of Histaea, of Scione, or Torone, of Aegina, and many other states. "

Landmark/Marincola: "The "Paralos" arrived at Athens during the night, bringing news of the disaster at Aigospotamoi, and a cry arose in the Peiraieus and ran up through the Long Walls and into the city itself as one man imparted the news to the next. As a result, no one slept that night as they mourned not only for the men destroyed but even more for themselves, thinking that they would suffer the same catastrophes they had inflicted on others - the Melians (colonists of the Spartans whom the Athenians had defeated by siege), Histiaians, Skionians, Toronaians, Aeginetans, and many other Greeks."

If you've struggled with Greek ancient history, this may be your salvation. I'm a neophyte in this area, since I've been discouraged so consistently before (even with Kagan's histories.) But this edition "makes it all possible." The maps are fantastic--meticulously referenced, and redundantly so, to avoid this exasperating process of thumbing back and forward to try to find where it was you saw that geographical name elsewhere. And the Appendices--yes, the APPENDICES--are absorbing, with biographical supplements, a fascinating discussion of Greek triremes, etc., etc. Dr. Strassler has got it just right. Imagine--reading 4th C BC Greek history just for fun!

This is by far the most accessible example of Xenophon's Hellenika that is available. Loving created and masterfully translated, this version is eminently readable. In fact, it is a pleasure. The book is copiously illustrated with dozens of aptly placed maps, as well as photographs.

For anyone who is fascinated by early Greek history, Hellenika is highly recommended.

Strassler's Xenophon has something to offer the beginner as well as more advanced reader. A very nice 50-page introduction places the text into historical and literary context. Maps every few pages indicate the location of every city or region mentioned in the text. Additionally, frequent footnotes at the bottom of each page (not inconveniently at the end of the text) provide important additional background information. Even better, 15 essays by various authors at the end of the text (each approximately two to six pages long) cover relevant topics: multiple short biographies, the Athenian government during the period of the Hellenica, as well as short essays on Persia and Sparta.

Despite everything bad written regarding the quality of Xenophon's text, it is still the most important primary source covering this period. We are frequently reminded of multiple omissions and inconsistencies. Strassler studiously compares the Hellenica with another existent text covering the same period by Diodorus Siculus and other sources to prove this point, but the Hellenica is still extremely impressive because it is a contemporaneous account written by a man who not only had high-level access to information but also played a large role himself.

For the more advanced reader, the referenced sections of Diodorus' text are provided at the end of the book. Some sections of Diodorus give more information on the topic at hand. Other sections give diverging information. Sometime Strassler sides with Xenophon's account. Other times, not. Additionally, sections of a fragmentary, more recently discovered third text on this period called the Oxyrhynicha papyrus fragments are also included at the end of the text and referenced from within the main text.

The text itself is plodding in some sections, though in others it moves along. Conveniently, every several paragraphs there is a 2 or 3 sentence summary in the outer margin of each page, making it easy to catch up on your train of thought each time you pick up the book again. The small summaries also make it easy to make sure you understand each paragraph or haven't missed something important in a difficult to understand section. Further, the summaries provide an easy way to skim through or easily reference the text.

Not being a scholar or expert in the material, it was more difficult for me personally to be dismayed by inaccuracies and omissions. There is no need to get hung up on this point because Strassler does a good job pointing them out and filling in the holes. There is still a lot to glean from the text, especially how the different city-states of ancient Greece were run, the complex politics, and the extreme amount of infighting that occurred among the Greeks after the Peloponnesian War.

You gain a much greater understanding that the Greek world went well beyond Athens and Sparta and Corinth and Thebes. The ancient Greek world comprised of many, many established city-states that don't get much recognition today that held sway back then. The sections on the fighting in the Ionic city-states and the involvement of Persia was also interesting.

Lastly, the translation is new and very readable. No antiquated text or other worries in this respect.

PS Next up for the Landmark series is Arrian and then Polybius.

The Landmark series has gotten rave reviews and I have to find that I mostly share in it. Since the other reviews dwell on the positive, I'm going to emphasize a few things that could be improved.

But first, I'd like to point out one thing that I don't think other reviews stress enough, namely, even if Thucydides and Xenophon had completely made up what they wrote, if they were a couple of potheads under an olive tree giggling, "Do you think people will fall for this @#$! in a hundred years?" -- even then, their works together are still great literature. Athens and Sparta, the tragically flawed embodiments of different styles of government and value systems, are fabulous in their brooding and mortal magnificence. The works together give us the rise and fall of each in turn and then a kind of rapprochement as their perpetual rivalry leads to a mutual respect (a recognition clarified by the desire for self-preservation). Good stuff. And of course, the editors are fastidious in pinpointing when Xenophon was biased or made mistakes.

The basic idea of the Landmark series, as far as I can tell, is to make an ultimate translation, to make Antiquity graphic with lots of maps and to provide enough explanation on the periphery (introductions, notes, appendices) as to be completely thorough -- and to do all of this with such a crisp layout as to make the text and the experience of reading it as pleasurable as possible. Indeed, ten years from now, the publisher's biggest competition will likely be used copies of their own works, not translations by other publishers. And they seem to be trying to pre-empt this issue by making new copies such a bargain. So reading this edition is essentially a no-brainer.

That said, I found the logic of the footnotes a bit irritating. First, many of them are references to where a particular place can be found on a map. Given that a new map appears whenever the location changes or a bunch of new places are mentioned, this is unnecessary and cluttering. In one case in particular, on the left hand page, in the text there's a list of cities, each one with a footnote noted after the name, and the right hand page is a map. I bet it's much faster to just scan the entire map then to find the footnote which says which quadrant of the map to look at. Second, looking at footnotes is slowed down by having them relettered for each numbered section of the text (usually 2-3 sentences). This means that you often have three footnotes named `a' on the same page.

Third, the footnotes are written as if a person is reading just that chapter and doesn't remember anything from the earlier chapters' footnotes. This means that, for instance, `peltast' and `hoplite' have the same word-for-word description in a footnote in each chapter. As someone reading from cover to cover, this repetitious footnotes become clutter and you start to feel like a sucker for looking. Usually the only people who read individual chapters in isolation are college students who are assigned them by a professor who doesn't think they have the time or need to read the whole work. Since a lot of times copyright fees aren't paid (depending on the campus), it doesn't make sense to make it easier for them at the expense of the rest of us.

Furthermore, the maps are really just excerpts from these really grand maps in the back of the book. The in-text maps don't have the kind of detail that you often see in military history maps, with arrows describing troop movements and giving a sequence of events. I'm not sure that Xenophon gives enough detail to consistently allow troop formations, arrow and all that with any certainty, but where it's possible, it'd be nice. That said, my understanding of Greek geography is better after having read this than when I was taking Greek in college.

And to give an overall sense of how aghast I am these problems that I'm pointing out, Arrian is now on my wishlist and I'll likely buy the Landmark Thucydides this week. I almost never buy hard covers, but for future Landmarks, I'll strongly consider it. They seem like keepers.

Im quite partial to Xenophon, with "Anabasis" being my all time favorite piece of literature. "Hellenika" is a fascinating tome of ancient wisdom, military tactics, political strife, epic battles, true heroes, and dire villans, and its all non-fiction. I prefer Xenophon's stoical tone over his contemporary, Thucydides, although I would encourage anyone interested in Greek History to read both. The maps and images throughout this edition are wonderful guides, and a newcomer will find him or herself quickly familiarized with all of the locations, topographies, geography, and political hubs of the 5th and 4th centuries BC/BCE.

Hellenica by Xenophon picks up where the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides left off in 411 BC and takes the reader all the way to 362 BC. Xenophon tells us the story of the triumph of Sparta over Athens in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Victory for Sparta is bittersweet, due to various commitments in the Aegean that cause it to become overstretched. Athens is able to recover and the previously unremarkable city-state of Thebes challenges Spartan power. The last part of the narrative focuses on the wars between Thebes and Sparta.

With dozens of maps, appendices and explanations of difficult parts of the text, it is surprisingly difficult to get lost in this text. The translation of Xenophon's text by John Marincola is highly readable as well. This product deserves a full 5 star rating.

Feel somewhat frustrated that Thucidides leaves one hanging before the end of the Peloponnesian War? Want some good follow-up? This volume is the cure for what ails your curiosity.

As with Strassler's other Landmark editions, his Xenophon's Hellenika is both an excellent translation (as a text, easily on a par with any other translation I am familiar with) and a valuable resource for those of us lacking the benefit of a thorough classical education who may have trouble keeping our Agesilaos and Agesipolis straight, or have difficulty placing Xenophon's colourful and engrossing (yet selective and biased) account in the context of contemporary Greek society and events. The appendices are extremely informative and are complemented by the plentiful and clear footnotes and maps, which are well placed to keep the reader oriented to the action. The only quibbles I have with the latter are the slightly excessive simplicity - while it is easy to identify key locations, the lack of any terrain features or relief or any other explanatory graphics are a bit frustrating. The only other negative is the observation that my paperback edition seems fine for the casual reader, however seems a bit flimsy for use by a serious student.

For the reader interested in classical literature, but who may feel a bit intimidated by more conventional translations - or the reader seeking more depth and background - I would thoroughly recommend any of Strassler's Landmark editions. If you are new to classical Greek literature, however, you may be better off tackling Strassler's Herodotus or Thucydides before Xenophon.

The failure of many books on ancient history is assuming too much of their readers or not enough. The Landmark series contain compelling narratives and as much background available as you could want. I have read the Landmark Theucidides and enjoyed the straight read and many of the accompanying foot notes and asides. It's great to have edges of history filled in completely.