the expedition
of the younger Cyrus and of the retreat of the Greeks. His return into
Greece was in the year of the death of Socrates, B.C. 399, but his
association was now with the Spartans, with whom he fought, B.C. 394, at
Coroneia. Afterwards he settled, and lived for about twenty years, at
Scillus in Eleia with his wife and children. At Scillus he wrote
probably his "Anabasis" and some other of his books. At last he was
driven out by the Eleans. In the battle of Mantineia the Spartans and
Athenians fought as allies, and Xenophon's two sons were in the battle;
he had sent them to Athens as fellow-combatants from Sparta. His
banishment from Athens was repealed by change of times, but it does not
appear that he returned to Athens. He is said to have lived, and perhaps
died, at Corinth, after he had been driven from his home at Scillus.

Xenophon was a philosophic man of action. He could make his value felt
in a council of war, take part in battle--one of his books is on the
duties of a commander of cavalry--and show himself good sportsman in the
hunting-field. He wrote a book upon the horse; a treatise also upon dogs
and hunting. He believed in God, thought earnestly about social and
political duties, and preferred Spartan institutions to those of Athens.
He wrote a life of his friend Agesilaus II., King of Sparta. He found
exercise for his energetic mind in writing many books. In writing he was
clear and to the point; his practical mind made his work interesting. His
"Anabasis" is a true story as delightful as a fiction; his "Cyropaedia"
is a fiction full of truths. He wrote "Hellenica," that carried on the
history of Greece from the point at which Thucydides closed his history
until the battle of Mantineia. He wrote a dialogue between Hiero and
Simonides upon the position of a king, and dealt with the administration
of the little realm of a man's household in his "OEconomicus," a dialogue
between Socrates and Critobulus, which includes the praise of
agriculture. He wrote also, like Plato, a symposium, in which
philosophers over their wine reason of love and friendship, and he paints
the character of Socrates.

But his best memorial of his old guide, philosopher, and friend is this
work, in which Xenophon brought together in simple and direct form the
views of life that had been made clear to himself by the teaching of
Socrates. Xenophon is throughout opposing a plain tale to the false
accusations