Strauss on Xenophon's Socrates Xenophon's Socratic Discourse: An ...

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THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER
tue is not in need of conventions" 13 (while its possessor "is as remote
from Barbarians, from barbarism, as possible" 160).
On Chapter Eleven
It is only in Chapter XI, it seems, that Socrates, putting "a stop to
Ischomachos's report about his wife's doings by asking him to tell
him of his own doings . . . turns . . . to the subject for the sake of
whose understanding he had approached Ischomachos in the first
place" (159). It seems, in other words, as if Chapter XI is devoted to
"the account of the perfect gentleman" (165). In fact, it is devoted to
"the profound difference" between Socrates and the perfect
gentleman (159), to "the serious difference between Ischomachos'
virtue or gentlemanship, which Socrates lacks-and whose lack he
does not even deplore-and Socrates' virtue or gentlemanship,
which both antedated and survived his conversation with
Ischomachos" (161), or to "the confrontation of the two incompatible
ways of life" (165). The reason may be that much has already
been revealed of Ischomachos's outlook-and of the reasons why
Socrates found it important to understand that outlook-through
Ischomachos ' s account of his education of his wife. The question
which this background prepares, and which despite clear indications
already given might still be thought to await a definitive
answer, is whether Socrates accepted Ischomachos's outlook (on the
noble) and the views associated with it. Such an answer is provided,
according to <strong>Strauss</strong>, in Chapter XI.
"The most massive difference between the two kinds of virtue
[that of Ischomachos and that of Socrates] is that the former presupposes
and the latter does not presuppose the possession of considerable
wealth" (161; cf. 159). This difference might have been
thought to be a trivial one if it were not elaborated on in the sequel.
(The elaboration serves also to indicate the connection between the
lesson which Socrates explicitly draws from his horse story-true
human virtue does not require wealth-and the lesson which <strong>Strauss</strong>
says that he draws- " true human virtue is not in need of conventions"
160.)
13. It is apparently in this light that <strong>Strauss</strong>'s interest in the two forms of virtue or
gentlemanship, or in the comparative "rank" of Ischomachos, Cyrus and Socrates, is to
be understood (144 and 161).