Memorabilia (Xenophon) - Structure and Contents

Structure and Contents

The Memorabilia contains 39 chapters broken into four books; Book I contains 7 chapters, Book II contains 10 chapters, Book III contains 14 chapters, and Book IV contains 8 chapters. The overall organization of the Memorabilia is not always easy to make out. After the direct defense of Socrates (I.1-I.2), the rest of Book I consists of an account of Socrates' piety and self-control. Books II and III are devoted largely to showing how Socrates benefitted his family, friends, and various Athenians who came to him for advice. Book IV turns to a more detailed account of how Socrates educated one particular student, Euthydemus. It includes an early example (possibly the earliest) of the Argument from Design (a.k.a. the Teleological Argument) (IV.3, anticipated already in I.4). Chapter 4 gives a related account of Natural Law.

In the lengthy first two chapters of the work, Xenophon argues that Socrates was innocent of the formal charges against him: failure to recognize the gods of Athens, introduction of new gods, and corruption of the youth. In addition to arguing that Socrates was most pious, and, as the most self-controlled of men, the least likely to corrupt the youth, Xenophon deals with informal political accusations not directly addressed in the Apology of Plato (or Xenophon's own Apology). Xenophon defends Socrates against the charge that he led the youth of Athens to despise democracy as a regime, and defends Socrates' association with Critias, the worst of the Thirty Tyrants who briefly ruled Athens in 404-403, and Alcibiades, the brilliant renegade democratic politician and general. It has often been argued that Xenophon is here responding not to charges in the air at time of the trial of Socrates in 399 BCE, but to charges made some years later by the Athenian sophist Polycrates in his Accusation of Socrates. But Polycrates' work is lost, and our sources for reconstructing it are late and unreliable. The assumption that Xenophon was responding to Polycrates point by point may be driven as much by the traditionally low esteem for Xenophon's literary powers as to any historical influence from Polycrates. The role of Polycrates is one item in the debate over whether Xenophon's treatment of Socrates reflects the historical Socrates, or is a largely fictional contribution to the literary debate about Socrates. This debate is in turn an important element in our understanding the Trial of Socrates, and in particular to the debate over whether the religious terms of the official accusation against Socrates (impiety) were a cover for political animosity against him.

Xenophon devotes the rest of the Memorabilia to demonstrating how Socrates benefited his friends and a wide range of other Athenians. It thus consists of episodes, mainly rather short and none more than a few pages in length, in which Socrates engages with a variety of persons: named and unnamed companions, rival teachers, famous and less famous Athenians. A few of the interlocutors appear several times. Typically Xenophon introduces the reason why he is writing about a particular conversation, and he will also occasionally interject a remark into the narrative, or at its conclusion.