Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.
 
  • Locked thread
Sleep of Bronze
Feb 9, 2013

If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.
The Meno is one of Plato's most infuriating dialogues, to me at least, and I've probably blanked out large portions of it in my head since I last read it. (Approaching the title of 'most infuriating Platonic dialogue' is a hell of a feat, given the competition). Still, I would relate that step in the dialogue more to Socrates-Plato's obsession with the truth of things, and the concept of ideals. Knowledge is such an important concept throughout Plato's oeuvre that the possibility of ignorance in regards to virtue would necessarily be raised in this case. The Protagoras trod similar ground concerning ignorance of the good when discussing if anyone did evil willingly.

Although I don't think that the point was raised because of Meno, it's possible that Meno was included because of this point. When writing up a dialogue on this subject, Plato might have settled on Meno as good candidate for the recipient, since he managed to both be a pupil of Gorgias and the various sophists, and also was apparently known as this nasty piece of work. Give a bit of extra bite to the message.

I've read the Anabasis in English already, but I'm going to set myself the challenge to read it only in the Greek this time. If there are weird translations going on or whatever, I can be on call to try to sort that out by checking the original.

* # ¿ Feb 5, 2016 20:04
  • Quote
Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 10:40
  • Quote
Sleep of Bronze
Feb 9, 2013

If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Edit: yeah for purposes of reading for fun skipping everything before the first battle is probably legit.
That misses the parade at Tyriaeion, which is hilarious.

Something I thought was curious about that: the non-Greeks parade past Cyrus, but he drives past the Greeks in their stationary blocks (until he unleashes them to cause havoc.) Why? Do the barbarians look more impressive in motion? Are they less capable of holding nice ranks in a still formation? Is singling out the Greeks a good idea as a commander (or does Xenophon think it is)? While it's theoretically a good thing for the Greeks to be able to scatter an army, should he not be more concerned that it's his?

* # ¿ Feb 11, 2016 16:53
  • Quote
  • Locked thread
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.