Xenophon, History and Order

Between the so-called King’s Peace of 387/6 and the peace of 362/1, no fewer than three and possibly four general peaces were arranged among the Greek states, in addition to numerous bilateral and multilateral treaties. This profusion of settlements eloquently underscores the fact that in the first half of the fourth century the Greeks were almost continually at war with one another. Xenophon realized that 362/1 was not a watershed in the history of Greece. Writing the bulk of the Hellenica sometime in the 350s, he concluded his account with an appraisal of the military action that helped to precipitate the peace of 362/1. There is one more example of the destabilization of a temporal boundary that was designed to set the limits of a significant historical period. A glance at four separate military actions recounted in Book 4 of the Hellenica will show how Xenophon associated military discipline with military success.

Economics · Order (exchange) · Classical Antiquity Studies · History