In his Memorabilia (3.5), Xenophon presents an extended conversation between Socrates and Pericles the Younger, who has just been elected general, on the topic of how best to carry out his generalship. How we interpret this exchange has important implications for our understanding of Xenophon’s view of Pericles and his more famous father of the same name, Socrates, and Athens. This article advances a reading of the episode that emphasizes Xenophon’s generally positive portrayal of Pericles the Elder in the Memorabilia and his broader corpus; its deep engagement with Thucydides’ depiction of Pericles in his Histories, which has not been fully appreciated; and its deployment of this Thucydidean material to advance a distinctly Xenophontic perspective.
Matthew R. Christ (Wed,) studied this question.