Anabasis Quotes

“As a political leader, Xenophon was forced to adapt himself to this situation and to induce those he led to do so. Among the most impressive passages in the Anabasis are the speeches in which he instructs his fellow Greeks on the necessity of compliance with certain Spartan demands that are far from just or reasonable and, in general, on the necessity of accommodating themselves to “those who now rule Greece.” [123] Readers who are at all sensitive to how harsh political necessity can occasionally be may also find in Xenophon the writer, in his treatment of the Spartans, a model of how to proceed under like circumstances. He applauded and thus encouraged what was good, while pointing out without rancor or bitterness what was bad, to the extent that it was prudent and useful to do so. To return to what distinguished him from the elder and younger Cyruses, the high qualities which in the case of the two Persians (that is, barbarians) could be prevented from doing political harm only by being suppressed, or excised from the soul, could safely thrive in Xenophon, who had had the benefit of a Socratic education, an education that those qualities among others fitted him to receive.

[123] Anabasis VI 6.8–16 and VII 1.25–31; compare III 2.37 and VI 1.26–28.”
― Leo Strauss, History of Political Philosophy

“But whereas Cyrus wanted his praises to be sung by all human beings, Xenophon was concerned primarily with honor from his friends.[125] Unlike Cyrus, he was not as eager for praise from incompetent judges as from competent ones. This difference helps us to understand his equanimity in the face of the most varied political fortunes: for example, the dignity and wit with which he defended himself when confronted with ingratitude and baseless hostility on the part of the very men whose lives he had saved.[126] It helps us also to understand his ability to leave political life to return to a private life. [...] Country retirement, while lacking the immediate challenges to heart and mind presented by politics at their peak, would have appealed to him as allowing more leisure for contemplation and writing—especially since that contemplation might embrace, as we know from the Anabasis that it did, his own political experiences among other things. For a man like Xenophon, the contemplative reliving of experiences was sure to be a deepening of them. It could thus have been looked forward to as promising a more profound enjoyment than the original experiences themselves, and one less mixed with pain.

[125]Cyropaedia III 2.31; Anabasis VI 1.20. 126.
[126]Anabasis VII 6.11 ff.; compare V 7.5 ff. and 8.2 ff.”
― Leo Strauss, History of Political Philosophy

“Maslow emphasized the “heights”, but to get to the heights you must have the Dark Night of the soul, and make your trip to the Chapel Perilous. Katabasis means a going-down, a descent. It’s used to describe journeys to the underworld. Anabasis is its opposite, a going-up. You can only reach the spiritual heights if you have also known the spiritual depths.”
― Rob Armstrong, Homo Roboticus: The Inner Human Robot Revealed By Sleepwalking and Hypnosis