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

STRAUSS ON XENOPHON
"Ischomachos's full account of his activity begins with his serving
the gods" (161-162). Among the aims of the activity begun in this
way, and the aim apparently making the biggest impression on
Socrates, is the noble increase of wealth: "Socrates, who is poor and
satisfied with being poor, is apparently struck most by
Ischomachos's concern with being wealthy and his willingness to
undergo the many troubles which accompany the possession of
wealth" (162). But to Ischomachos, wealth is pleasant: "wealth is
pleasant because it enables a man to honor the gods magnificently,
to assist his friends in their need, and to contribute toward the
adornment of the city. These purposes for which wealth is to be used
and which justify the concern with the acquisition of wealth are not
selfish; this is perhaps sufficient reason for Socrates to call them, not
indeed pleasant, but noble; to this extent the pupil Socrates has
become convinced by Ischomachos's defense of the perfect
gentleman's way of life" (162). But Socrates' deed did not accord
well with these words. We have already heard that his lacking
Ischomachos's virtue or gentlemanship is something "he does not
even deplore" (161). Now we hear that, "He certainly makes it clear
that he belongs to the many who are able to praise the perfect
gentleman's pursuit and use of wealth but unable to imitate them"
(163). In the light of the first statement, we are entitled to conclude
that the core of the inability referred to in the second, as far as
Socrates was concerned, was unwillingness. Either he did not regard
nobility and the pursuit of noble objects as the most important concern
and pursuit, or he did not regard the objects he had just called
noble as truly noble (see the "perhaps"), or he knew of things still
more noble, or he was moved by some combination of these reasons.
However that may be, if he did not deplore his failure to use wealth
as Ischomachos used it, he did not deplore his failure to honor the
gods magnificently, among other things. (In leaving us to draw this
conclusion here, <strong>Strauss</strong> does not refer to Xenophon's defense of
Socrates on this point in Memorabilia I.3.3-presumably because
that defense is not unanswerable.)
We heard earlier that the rule,"that one ought to begin every
work with appeasing the gods," belongs to Kritoboulos (125) and
Ischomachos (133) rather than to Socrates, at least the Socrates of
the Oeconomicus, "the most revealing . . . of Xenophon's Socratic
writings. It is the most revealing because in its central chapter
Socrates is directly contrasted with a perfect gentleman"
(Xenophon's Socrates, Preface). In the discussion of Chapter XI,
131