As Xenophon saw it

The Anabasis by Xenophon can be read in the original, with translations on alternating pages, as in the Loeb series. There are also interlinear translations available, such as this one: https://archive.org/details/anabasisofxenoph00xenoiala/page/...

I haven't read the article. I was stopped in my tracks by the picture of the Artemision jockey on his horse, in the leader. I grew up in Athens, just a short ride away from the Archeological museum and I visited often, when I was a child. The jockey and his horse was one of my favourites.

It was the horse that I was most taken with. You can see the attention to detail that went into it- the skin is wrinkling around the joints, the muscles ripple under it, the tendons and the veins bulge out - nothing was left to chance. It was more than a thousand years before the figure of a living thing was studied again with such detail and represented as faithfuly, in the Rennaissance, and later by the Dutch Masters.

We forget, I think, that art is a form of technology. Indeed, the word "technology" itself is a composite of the Greek words for art, "techne" and discourse, "logos". It may be more accurate then to say that technology itself is a form of art- the art of making things. We call our technological devices "artifacts" after all, don't we? That is - "works of art"!

Greek sculptural technology reached unprecedented heights during the Hellenistic period, where the jockey hails from, as well as that other masterpiece from the same, Artemision wreck, the Artemision Bronze [1]. Nothing comes close, noone had been able to create such works before, and then for a very long time after. This is no fluffy emotional judgement. Greek bronzes are now mostly lost, their metal recycled away, and they primarily survive as Roman era copies, in stone. But the Roman copies can always be distinguished by their "third leg"- a prop added to human figures to, well, prop them upright. You see, the Greeks knew how to make a sculpted human form (in bronze or stone, cast or carved) that could stand on its own, unaided. This skill was lost almost immediately after the Hellenistic time. The Romans didn't have it. So their statues needed props to stand.

In a very real sense then, making those sculptures required knowledge, technology. The knowledge to make beautiful things.

_________________________

[1] I could talk for hours about the Artemision Bronze and sound like a mushy old fool. But if you're ever in the Museum in Athens, take a look at the pose of its feet. The back foot has its heel raised, so that its toes are pushing down and twisting the leg around, to put the strength of the whole body behind the force of the throw. At the same time, the front leg is firmly planted- except for its toes, that are pulled back by the tension of its own muscles as they counter the back leg's motion. It is a depiction of momentum. That was the artist's target- to carve motion into the rigid metal. And it is a wisely chosen pose indeed. A split second when the body is moving of its own will; a few moments later, the man will have to rebalance himself in a way that only a living human can. But at that second, in that pose, it is not easy to tell the difference.

Key points:

- Xenophon began as a member of Cyrus' army who carried out an ill-fated assault on Artaxerxes II, king of Persia

- He survived, returned to Athens (took two years) and started writing on a wide variety of subjects, including the nature of leadership, and accounts of Socrates that are of a more personal nature than Plato's

- "Plato had a serious philosophical agenda of his own... Xenophon’s interests are at once more worldly and more realistic"

Have commented here before on the link between horsemanship (for which Xenophon's treatise is the philosophical foundation) and leadership, (Xenophon's key preoccupation according to the article.)

Officer classes were usually trained in horsemanship for very good reason. It's one of the few transformative experiences that can be taught and practised. Before cars, horses were probably one of the few sources of what we now call "peak experiences" available.

Today we can fly and jump out of planes, ride motorcycles, surf, and achieve the transcendent "self-actualization" required for leadership through a variety of other peak experiences, so horsemanship has become a kind of esoteric pursuit. But the underlying need for self-actualized leaders hasn't changed. Or maybe it has, but a few people still see the gap but don't have the words to describe it.

Looking forward to reading Anabasis.

The translation in the Loeb book is just delicious. While reading the original, I couldn't keep myself from reading the English text as well - it's too good. (Makes me think that studying foreign/ancient languages in order to read is not actually important in the least and might be better left to professional translators.)