The charlatan, the boaster, the fraud: Xenophon’s critique of alazoneia

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the conception of alazoneia in Xenophon. After comparing the two consistent accounts of the figure of the alazōn (Cyropaedia 2.2.12 and Memorabilia 1.7), I will address the following issues in order to highlight the distinctive features of Xenophon’s view: (i) the relationship between his critique of alazoneia and Socrates’ teachings about virtue; (ii) Xenophon’s handling of alazoneia as a charge against Socrates; (iii) the connection between alazoneia and Socrates’ alleged asebeia; (iv) the relationship between the critique of alazoneia and Socrates’ megalēgoria as depicted in the Apology; (v) the connection between the notions of alazoneia and eirōneia. The paper is organised into six main sections, following a chronological order: Before Xenophon: Aristophanes’ Clouds (2); Xenophon (3); Parallels: alazoneia in Plato (4); Eirōneia and alazoneia (5); After Xenophon: Aristotle and Philodemus (6). While some issues (i, iii, iv) can be tackled by focusing on Xenophon’s corpus, others (ii, v) require widening the analysis both to earlier texts – particularly Aristophanes’ Clouds (102–104, 449), Peace (1045, 1069, 1120–1121) and Birds (983) – and to later, non-Socratic works, notably Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (1108a19–23, 1127a13–1127b32) and Philodemus’ De vitiis (PHerc. 1008, col. 21). Through this diachronic approach, I aim to show what makes Xenophon’s view a distinctive one and in what respects his treatment of alazoneia differs from others – not only from earlier and later conceptions of the notion, but also from the parallel account by Plato.