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

STRAUSS ON XENOPHON 103
On the Title and the Opening
The reader has seen that, in <strong>Strauss</strong>'s view, the Oeconomicus
teaches the art of the manager of the household (oikonomos) (87).
Why should Xenophon devote his Socratic discourse par excellence
to "`Socrates' teaching the art of managing the household?" To this
question, which <strong>Strauss</strong> raises himself, he claims to have given a
"provisional answer" (89). According to this answer, the reason
must be traced to the high rank Socrates accorded to the art of
household management (it hardly differs from "the political or royal
art" and "is not inferior to the art of generalship" 87) but perhaps
even more to Xenophon's wish to indicate that Socrates preferred
teaching this peaceful art to teaching the warlike art of generalship,
which he could also have taught. This is in accord with Xenophon's
downplaying of Socrates' military exploits and with his tacit denial
that Socrates possessed the virtue of manliness (88-89). If, in
Xenophon's presentation, Socrates transcends justice, it is not
because he is manly as well as just.
While the "provisional answer" may explain why Socrates preferred
teaching household management to generalship, it fails to explain
why he taught this or any art at all. One might easily find that
the answer to his question is conveyed by <strong>Strauss</strong>'s treatment of the
opening of the work. On the basis partly of a look at related portions
of the Memorabilia, <strong>Strauss</strong> urges us to "keep in mind the question
whether there is a connection between the themes `management of
the household' and `friendship' " (91). Among other things, it turns
out that Kritoboulos, to whom Socrates teaches the art of household
management in the Oeconomicus, was the son of Socrates' friend
Kriton. Socrates' teaching of that art here could well be an act of
friendship (cf. 101). Moreover, this would supply as well the solution
to our earlier and graver difficulty, for an act of friendship
would as such "transcend justice" by going beyond anything
Socrates may have owed to Kritoboulos or his father. And <strong>Strauss</strong>
refers in this context to "the profound difference between the
Memorabilia, the work devoted to Socrates' justice" and the
Oeconomicus (90), a difference which, as we recall from <strong>Strauss</strong>'s
earlier remark, implied according to him that Socrates "transcends
justice." But if it is simply in the direction of friendship that Socrates
"transcends justice," why would Xenophon have been anxious, as
<strong>Strauss</strong> also emphasizes here, to "conceal" the profound difference
between the two works (and therewith what this difference