Finding a New Sophist: On Polyphony and Xenophon's Cyropaedia

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I read Xenophon's Cyropaedia alongside one passage of his Cynegeticus. In doing so, I argue three things: first, the narrator of the Cyropaedia is a Sophist—at least according to the definition offered by the narrator of the Cynegeticus; second, the narrator of the Cynegeticus is not the same character as the narrator of the Cyropaedia; and third, the perspective of at least one of these narrators cannot represent Xenophon's own perspective. To mitigate the awkwardness of this anonymity, I refer to the narrator of the Cynegeticus as “the Hunter,” the narrator of the Cyropaedia as “the Historian,” and the narrator of the Memorabilia as “the Memoirist.”