Oeconomicus (Xenophon)
Encyclopedia
The Oeconomicus by Xenophon
is a Socratic dialogue principally about household
management
and agriculture
. It is one of the earliest works on economics
in its original sense of household management, and a significant source for the social and intellectual history of classic Athens
. Beyond the emphasis on household economics, the dialogue treats such topics as the qualities and relationships of men and women, rural
vs. urban
life, slavery
, religion
, and education
. Joseph Epstein
states that the Oeconomicus can actually be seen as a treatise on success in leading both an army and a state.
Scholars lean towards a relatively late date in Xenophon's life for the composition of the Oeconomicus, perhaps after 362 BC. Cicero
translated the Oeconomicus into Latin
, and the work gained popularity during the Renaissance
in a number of translations.
. There Socrates discusses the meaning of wealth and identifies it with usefulness and well-being, not merely possessions. He links moderation
and hard work
to success in household management. The dramatic date of this part of the work can be no earlier than 401 BC, as the Battle of Cunaxa
is referred to at 4.18.
When Critoboulus asks about the practices involved in household management, Socrates pleads ignorance on the subject but relates what he heard of it from an Athenian gentleman
-farmer
(kaloskagathos) named Ischomachus. In the discussion related by Socrates, Ischomachus describes the methods he used to educate his wife in housekeeping
, their practices in ruling
and training
slaves, and the technology
involved in farming. Approximately two thirds of the dialogue concerns the discussion between Socrates and Ischomachus. There is no final reversion to further discussion with Critoboulos.
traditions. Leo Strauss
wrote a political-philosophical commentary on the dialogue. Foucault took Xenophon's depiction of the relationship between Ischomachus and his wife as a classical expression of the ancient Greek
ideology
of power
, according to which a man's control of his emotions was externally reflected in his control of his wife, his slaves, and his political subordinates. Strauss took the Oeconomicus as a more ironic
examination of the nature of the gentleman, virtue
, and domestic relationships.
Michel Foucault
devoted a chapter in his The History of Sexuality
(1976–1984) to "The House of Ischomachus", and, following Foucault, feminist scholars and social historians
have explored the Oeconomicus as a source for Greek attitudes on the relationship between men and women, but successive interpretations have differed. Some see Xenophon's attitude toward women as misogynist and patriarchal, while others maintain that he was a proto-feminist in certain ways.
The ironic line of interpretation has treated Ischomachus as a target of satire
rather than a stand-in for Xenophon. Many have suggested that the Ischomachus of the dialogue is the same man whose family became the subject of ridicule in Athenian political oratory. After this Ischomachus died, his widow moved in with her daughter and son-in-law Callias and soon became pregnant with the man's child, which eventually led to the daughter's suicide
attempt. Callias was frequently parodied in Athenian comedies for his sexual
excesses and pseudo-intellectualism.
Some have taken Xenophon's use of Ischomachus as a supposed expert in the education of a wife as an instance of anachronistic irony, a device used by Plato
in his Socratic dialogues. The import of such irony has also been the subject of much contention: are his wife's actions a sign of a bad education or just the inevitable result of the loss of the controlling influence in her life? How responsible was Ischomachus for his daughter's marriage to a man of such poor character
?
As for being informative historical sources about Socrates, Xenophon's works are regarded by some scholars today as practically worthless, while others like Leo Strauss continue to hold them in high regard.
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
is a Socratic dialogue principally about household
Household
The household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
and agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. It is one of the earliest works on economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
in its original sense of household management, and a significant source for the social and intellectual history of classic Athens
History of Athens
Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BCE and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BCE laid the foundations...
. Beyond the emphasis on household economics, the dialogue treats such topics as the qualities and relationships of men and women, rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
vs. urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
life, slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. Joseph Epstein
Joseph Epstein (writer)
Joseph Epstein is an essayist, short story writer, and editor, best known as a former editor of the Phi Beta Kappa Society's The American Scholar magazine and for his recent essay collection, Snobbery: The American Version. He was also a lecturer at Northwestern University from 1974 to 2002...
states that the Oeconomicus can actually be seen as a treatise on success in leading both an army and a state.
Scholars lean towards a relatively late date in Xenophon's life for the composition of the Oeconomicus, perhaps after 362 BC. Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
translated the Oeconomicus into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, and the work gained popularity during the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
in a number of translations.
Summary
The opening framing dialogue is between Socrates and Critoboulus, the son of CritoCrito of Alopece
Crito of Alopece was a faithful, probably lifelong companion of Socrates. The two had evidently grown up together as friends, being from the same deme and of roughly the same age...
. There Socrates discusses the meaning of wealth and identifies it with usefulness and well-being, not merely possessions. He links moderation
Moderation
Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted...
and hard work
Manual labour
Manual labour , manual or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals...
to success in household management. The dramatic date of this part of the work can be no earlier than 401 BC, as the Battle of Cunaxa
Battle of Cunaxa
The Battle of Cunaxa was fought in 401 BC between Cyrus the Younger and his elder brother Arsaces, who had inherited the Persian throne as Artaxerxes II in 404 BC. The great battle of the revolt of Cyrus took place 70 km north of Babylon, at Cunaxa , on the left bank of the Euphrates River...
is referred to at 4.18.
When Critoboulus asks about the practices involved in household management, Socrates pleads ignorance on the subject but relates what he heard of it from an Athenian gentleman
Gentleman
The term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...
-farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
(kaloskagathos) named Ischomachus. In the discussion related by Socrates, Ischomachus describes the methods he used to educate his wife in housekeeping
Housekeeping
Housekeeping is the act of cleaning the rooms and furnishings of a home. It is one of the many chores included in the term housework. Housecleaning includes activities such as disposing of rubbish, cleaning dirty surfaces, dusting and vacuuming. It may also involve some outdoor chores, such as...
, their practices in ruling
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
and training
Training
The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of...
slaves, and the technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
involved in farming. Approximately two thirds of the dialogue concerns the discussion between Socrates and Ischomachus. There is no final reversion to further discussion with Critoboulos.
Commentary and interpretation
Recently the dialogue has received much attention from disparate intellectualIntellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
traditions. Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...
wrote a political-philosophical commentary on the dialogue. Foucault took Xenophon's depiction of the relationship between Ischomachus and his wife as a classical expression of the ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
of power
Political power
Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...
, according to which a man's control of his emotions was externally reflected in his control of his wife, his slaves, and his political subordinates. Strauss took the Oeconomicus as a more ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
examination of the nature of the gentleman, virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
, and domestic relationships.
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
devoted a chapter in his The History of Sexuality
The History of Sexuality
The History of Sexuality is a three-volume series of books by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault written between 1976 and 1984...
(1976–1984) to "The House of Ischomachus", and, following Foucault, feminist scholars and social historians
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
have explored the Oeconomicus as a source for Greek attitudes on the relationship between men and women, but successive interpretations have differed. Some see Xenophon's attitude toward women as misogynist and patriarchal, while others maintain that he was a proto-feminist in certain ways.
The ironic line of interpretation has treated Ischomachus as a target of satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
rather than a stand-in for Xenophon. Many have suggested that the Ischomachus of the dialogue is the same man whose family became the subject of ridicule in Athenian political oratory. After this Ischomachus died, his widow moved in with her daughter and son-in-law Callias and soon became pregnant with the man's child, which eventually led to the daughter's suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
attempt. Callias was frequently parodied in Athenian comedies for his sexual
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
excesses and pseudo-intellectualism.
Some have taken Xenophon's use of Ischomachus as a supposed expert in the education of a wife as an instance of anachronistic irony, a device used by Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
in his Socratic dialogues. The import of such irony has also been the subject of much contention: are his wife's actions a sign of a bad education or just the inevitable result of the loss of the controlling influence in her life? How responsible was Ischomachus for his daughter's marriage to a man of such poor character
Moral character
Moral character or character is an evaluation of a particular individual's durable moral qualities. The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits...
?
As for being informative historical sources about Socrates, Xenophon's works are regarded by some scholars today as practically worthless, while others like Leo Strauss continue to hold them in high regard.
External links
- Translation of the Oeconomicus by H.G. Dakyns at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- Review of a recent edition of the Oeconomicus
- Note on the ironic interpretation of the Oeconomicus