Read Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Xenophon
Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Penguin Classics) (19 page)
(Cynegeticus)
INTRODUCTION
Hunting to many of us today is not a sport, as defenders of ‘bloodsports’ maintain, nor an integral part of a complex modern food-producing regime, but merely an indulgence of unnecessary and unacceptable cruelty to wild creatures, chiefly foxes, deer and rabbits. That judgement would apply also with especial force to the ‘hunting’ of migratory birds with guns that is practised in many parts of southern Europe, including Greece. An alternative, almost metaphysical view (witness William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
) holds that at heart we humans are all hunters, a tribute perhaps to the huge percentage of the time span of
homo sapiens
that depended on his successfully being Man the Hunter. The ancient Greeks were not exercised by moral anxieties of this kind, although Euripides’
Bacchae
is a spectacularly vivid illustration of their concern with the metaphysics of the bestial in man. Not that hunting lacked opposition on any grounds, as we shall see; but Xenophon and his fellow devotees were untroubled by saboteurs from any ancient Greek League against Cruel Sports. Besides, hunting for them was not only a secular leisure pursuit. It was also an act of religious devotion performed under the sign of Artemis, a huntress herself (1.1, 6.13) and goddess of the wild margins. It was complementary to, not in competition with or opposition against, the Greeks’ fundamental ritual of animal blood-sacrifice, since the animals they typically sacrificed were domestic not wild (even if some aspects of the ritual may perhaps allude to the prehistoric palaeolithic era when humans depended for their livelihood on wild game, not agriculture). The charming autobiographical description in
The Persian Expedition
(5.3.7–13) of Xenophon’s estate at Scillous near Olympia makes hunting’s religious connotation explicit:
… he [Xenophon] used to take a tenth of the season’s produce from the land and make a sacrifice to the goddess [Artemis]. All the townspeople, and the men and women of the district used to take part in the festival, and the goddess provided those who camped out there with… a share both of the animals sacrificed from the sacred herds and also of the animals caught in hunting. There were plenty of them as Xenophon’s sons and the sons of other townspeople used to go hunting specially for the festival, and anybody else who liked joined them in the hunt. Pigs, antelopes and stags were caught…
On the other hand, the present treatise is by no means politically innocent. In a passably egalitarian age and within a democratic society, hunting, which required extensive wealth and leisure time, attracted the stigma of aristocratic self-indulgence. To that somewhat envious charge the author replied implicitly by urging young men to regard hunting as educational (1.18). Here, the author was able to exploit the imagery of hunting central to the transition-to-manhood myths and rituals that at Athens contributed to the eventual formalization of an ephebic training programme in the 330s (see
Chapter 2 note 1
). He stressed too, more controversially, that hunting was not only politically correct but even politically beneficial. Huntsmen, as he represented them, made brave, inventive and strong-willed soldiers, ready and able to fight on behalf of the community. Hunters, indeed, being noble, true and bold, were – it is claimed – morally superior to politicians, especially democratic ones, who as a breed were treacherous, cowardly and corrupt. The extended hunting metaphors that one finds in other Xenophontic works (e.g.
Memoirs of Socrates
3.11), as in Plato, served therefore not merely to illustrate but also to reinforce an elite style of life and code of morality.
The wild animals that typically found themselves on the wrong end of a hunter’s missile or spear were either hares (though whether the Greeks used their blood as an exfoliant in the manner of the elegant Roman ladies of Ovid’s day, we do not know) or wild boar. The hare formed an essential item in the repertoire of pederastic courtship among the Greek social elite. Its presentation by the would-be lover to his desired beloved symbolized both the element
of erotic chase necessarily involved in the transaction and the lover’s prowess as a hunter. The wild boar, however, weighing perhaps 100 kg. and with a hide so thick that today it can be pierced only by high-calibre bullets, was an altogether different proposition, strong meat not only as food but also as a gendered symbol: hunting a wild boar in Xenophon’s Greece carried something like the same masculine (or masculinist) overtones as does bullfighting in Spain (or rather, did – there are now female matadors).
As noted in the introduction to
On Horsemanship,
a huntsman might ride to the hunting ground on horseback, but the actual hunting would be done on foot. Key to his success was the management of his hounds – the Greek for huntsman was literally a ‘driver of dogs’. If the present treatise is anything to go by, those hounds would normally or always be the females of the species. And indeed subspecies: one of the many marks of the author’s cynegetical expertise is his elaborate attention to breeds and breeding.
I have been careful so far in this introduction to speak vaguely of ‘the author’ – in manner (jerky style, loose grammar, awkward arrangement)
On Hunting
differs so greatly from works that are certainly Xenophon’s that many modern scholars have found it impossible to believe its attribution to him. (It should be said, however, that Arrian, the ‘new Xenophon’ of the Roman era, accepted the whole work as genuine when composing his own
Cynegeticus.
) The problem of authenticity is doubly vexed in that the concluding chapter not only is explicitly autobiographical – ‘I am just a layman…’ – but also delivers a sustained and passionate profession of pedagogical faith – ‘… but I know that the best place to look for instruction in goodness is one’s own nature, and that the second best course is to go to people who really know something good rather than to professional deceivers’ (13.4), that is the sophists, whom the author affected to despise no less than did the professional anti-sophists Isocrates and Plato. At least – and at most – we may fairly claim that Xenophon would have endorsed wholeheartedly sentiments of this sort, if not necessarily the manner of their expression.
Hunting with hounds was invented by the gods Apollo and Artemis.
1
[1] They presented it to Cheiron in recognition of his virtue, and he, delighted with the gift, put it to use. Now, his pupils, who came [2] to learn hunting and other noble pursuits from him,
2
were Cephalus, Asclepius, Meilanion, Nestor, Amphiaraus, Peleus, Telamon, Meleager, Theseus, Hippolytus, Palamedes, Menestheus, Odysseus, Diomedes, Castor, Polydeuces, Machaon, Podaleirius, Antilochus, Aeneas and Achilles, each of whom was honoured by the gods in his time. It should not occasion surprise that most of them [3] died, despite being favourites of the gods, because that is what it is to be human; in any case, they have become widely celebrated.
3
Nor should it be thought odd that they were not all contemporaries: Cheiron’s lifetime covered all of theirs, because he was in fact a half-brother of Zeus, since they had the same father, but different mothers – Rhea for Zeus, the nymph Naïs for Cheiron. And so, [4] although Cheiron was born before any of his pupils, he was the last to die, for he tutored Achilles.
As a result of their devotion to hounds and hunting, and of course [5] of the rest of their education, they gained heroic stature and became admired for their virtue. Cephalus was abducted by a goddess, but [6] Asclepius met with the even greater good fortune of raising the dead and curing the sick, and for this he has undying fame among men as a god.
4
Meilanion was so outstanding for his diligent determination [7] that although the best men of the time were his rivals for the prize of the greatest marriage of the time, it was he and he alone who gained Atalanta.
5
The excellence of Nestor has been brought to the attention of the Greeks already, so there is no need for me to speak of it.
6
[8] Amphiaraus won extraordinary acclaim in his campaign against Thebes,
7
and was then honoured by the immortal gods.
*
Even the gods were moved by Peleus to desire his marriage to [9] Thetis and to celebrate the wedding in Cheiron’s home. Telamon proved worthy to win from the most important state the woman he had resolved
*
to marry, Periboea the daughter of Alcathous, and when the foremost of the Greeks, Heracles the son of Zeus, was handing out the prizes for valour after his capture of Troy, he awarded Telamon [10] Hesione.
8
Meleager received conspicuous honours, and the misfortune that followed when his aged father forgot the goddess
9
was not his fault. Theseus singlehandedly killed the enemies of the whole of Greece, and is still admired even today for having vastly increased the [11] size of his city’s territory.
10
Hippolytus was honoured by Artemis and even spoke face to face with her; by the time of his death his self-restraint and piety had earned him general recognition as a blessed man.
11
Palamedes, during his lifetime, was by far the most intelligent person of his day,
*
and after his death – a death he did not deserve – the gods granted him the right to take revenge, to a degree never permitted any other human being. (One version of the story of his death is wrong, because it assigns responsibility to two men, one of whom was almost the greatest hero there has been, while the other was a match for anyone in bravery and virtue. No, the deed was done by bad men.)
12
[12] As a result of his devotion to hunting, Menestheus became so outstanding for his diligent determination that, by general agreement, none of the leading Greeks came close to him in military prowess, except Nestor, who, however, is said merely to rival him, not to [13] surpass him. Odysseus and Diomedes never failed on any occasion to cover themselves with glory; in short, the fall of Troy may be attributed to them. Castor and Polydeuces became so famous for what they achieved in Greece on the basis of Cheiron’s education that they are [14] now immortal.
13
As a result of this same education, Machaon and Podaleirius became skilled craftsmen, speakers and warriors.
14
Antilochus is so famous for his splendid death in defence of his father that he is the only one to whom the Greeks have given the name ‘the [15] devoted son’.
15
By rescuing not just the gods of his father’s and
mother’s families, but his actual father, Aeneas gained such a reputation for piety that his enemies went so far as to allow him alone of all those they conquered in Troy not to be stripped of his armour. Achilles has [16] bequeathed to posterity such admirable and impressive memorials of what he gained from this education that no one tires of telling his tales or hearing them.
Such was the calibre of these men (who
*
even today are loved by [17] all good men and envied by the bad) as a result of their studies with Cheiron that whenever a state or a king within Greece was threatened with disaster, it was they who removed the threat, and whenever there was conflict or war between Greece as a whole and all foreign peoples, it was they who won victory for the Greeks and so made Greece invincible.
16
So I would advise young men not to despise [18] hunting and education in general,
17
since they are the way for them to become good at warfare and at everything else which is a sure route to excellence in thought, speech and action.
Hunting, then, is the first activity a young man just out of childhood
1
[1] should take up, before turning also to other subjects which will enhance his reputation.
*
He should consider his means and pursue it, if he can afford to, in a manner commensurate with the benefit
**
he will gain from it; if he is less well off, he can at least commit his enthusiasm to the pursuit and so not fall short of his own capacity.
I shall now describe what and what kind of equipment he needs in [2] order to take up hunting. As well as listing each item, I will also explain it, to enable a potential hunter to understand the business before setting his hand to it. I would not have anyone belittle these details: they are the prerequisites of achievement.
The net-keeper must be wholehearted about his job and speak [3] Greek.
2
He should be about twenty years old, physically light but strong, and mentally competent, so that he can use these qualities to master the physically demanding aspects of his job and to enjoy it.
[4] Short nets should be made out of fine Phasian or Carthaginian flax,
3
and so should road-nets and game-nets. A short net should be nine-threaded, in three strands, with each strand consisting of three threads; its total length ought to be five hand-spans, with its meshes two palms wide; the surround of a short net must be free of knots, to avoid snags.
4
[5] Road-nets should be twelve-threaded, and game-nets sixteen-threaded. The length of a road-net should be two, three, four or five fathoms, and of a game-net ten, twenty or thirty fathoms – no more, or it becomes unwieldy. Both road-nets and game-nets should be [6] thirty-knotted, with the same size mesh as that of a short net. At the corners, a road-net should have eyelets and a game-net rings; the surround of both kinds is best made out of twisted cord.
[7] The stakes for a short net should be ten palms long, but there should also be some shorter ones. Stakes of different lengths are to be used on sloping ground, to keep the net an even height off the ground, while stakes of the same length are to be used on level terrain. Stakes must be smoothed down at their tips so that they are easy to disengage from the net. The stakes for a road-net must be double the height of those for short nets,
*
while those for game-nets should be five hand-spans long, with short tines (i.e. shallow notches). The stakes for every kind of net should be sturdy, of a thickness that is commensurate with [8] their height. A greater or lesser number of stakes may be used with a game-net; if the net has been set up at a very tight stretch, fewer stakes [9] are needed than if it is slack. Another important piece of equipment is a calfskin sack in which to keep the short nets, road-nets and game-nets for the hunt,
*
and also the sickles which will be needed so that undergrowth can be cut down and used to block up gaps where necessary.