NEW Slow Reading Pathway: Xenophon’s “Memorabilia“

Starting Date: Sunday, July 2nd, 8 pm ET | 7 pm CT | 6 pm MT | 5 pm PT

Instructors: Jason Happel and Reynaldo Miranda

Duration: Weekly meetings, for 1 Quarter (July, August, September 2023)

For first time participants, first seminar is free! Select “Introductory Offer” on the subscriptions page (click here).

Register Now! 

The Design of the Pathway

This program is designed to help participants to make the most of classic texts by slow reading and conversing.

Understanding happens through the practices of reading and thoughtful discussion, and by letting the author speak for himself.

Why Xenophon?

Xenophon was a man of action – a general, a statesman, and finally an historian. Most notably he was commander of the Ten Thousand that marched on Babylon in 410 B.C. His notable works include: 

• Hellenica
• Anabasis
• Education of Cyrus
• Memorabilia
• Symposium
• Oeconomicus
• Hiero 
• Apology 
• Agesilaus
• the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians

Why “The Memorabilia”?

Xenophon’s Memorabilia are pleasant recollections of Socrates’s words and deeds, of his way of life. There we encounter the contemporary characters of Socrates’s world — Alcibiades, Euthyphro, Aspaisa, and many others — in vignettes that show why Xenophon held Socrates to have lived a philosophic life. The writing warms us up to the appeal of Socrates in a pleasant manner, just as the rhetoricians use all their devices to charm a wider audience.  It is especially interesting to note how the variety of characters and topics of discussion corresponds to Socrates’s own temperaments. Nietzsche noted that the Memorabilia give “a really true picture, that is just as spiritually rich as was the model for the picture,” and he suggested that the book not only points to happiness, but gives the reader who knows how to read it, happiness.  Rather than one dialogue that concentrates on one Socratic interaction, the Memorabilia offers a wider scope for the imagination.  

From the pages of The “Memorabilia”:

It is only for those to employ force who possess strength without judgment; but the well advised will have recourse to other means. Besides, he who pretends to carry his point by force hath need of many associates; but the man who can persuade knows that he is himself sufficient for the purpose; neither can such a one be supposed forward to shed blood; for, who is there would choose to destroy a fellow citizen rather than make a friend of him by mildness and persuasion? Bk. 1, ch. 2,

Please join us if you are curious to see for yourself what one of the most famous political philosophers of all time has to say about our world.

Click here to register for this pathway!