Xenophon τακτικός? Remarks on his use of -ικός adjectives

Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 Xenophon τακτικός? Remarks on his use of -ικός adjectives ¿Jenofonte τακτικός? Observaciones sobre su uso de los adjetivos en -ικός Pierre Pontier1 Sorbonne Université, Paris (Francia) Recibido: 07-06-2024 Aceptado: 17-06-2024 Abstract Xenophon's interest in the art of command has never diminished. This article analyzes his ambivalent relationship with “tactics”, an art he sometimes dissociates himself from, because he considers it to take the place of a much more important knowledge that ultimately encompasses it. This is also demonstrated by his subtle use of -ikos adjectives in both the Memorabilia and the Hellenica. The list of terms, often attested for the first time, confirms that the suffix suggests a specialization and an approach to a limited body of knowledge, but above all demonstrates Xenophon's singular place in the transmission of military knowledge: he is both close to Aeneas the Tactician, as well as anxious to distinguish himself from these professionals of the military art. Keywords: Tactics, -ikos adjectives, knowledge, leadership, evaluation. 1 ([email protected]) Associate Professor of Greek language and literature at Sorbonne Université (Paris). His research interests include history of ideas, philosophy, historiography of the Classical period (Xenophon, Thucydides) and reception of history in the XIXth century. He is the author of Trouble et ordre chez Platon et Xénophon (Paris, Vrin, 2006), editor of Xénophon et la rhétorique (Paris, Presses Universitaires de Paris Sorbonne, 2014) and coeditor of Lectures du Panathénaïque d’Isocrate: de l’éloge à l’œuvre ouverte (Cahiers des études anciennes, 61, 2023). He published also many papers on Xenophon, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, George Grote, etc. Address for correspondence: Institut de Grec, Faculté des Lettres, Sorbonne Université, 1 rue Victor Cousin, 75005 Paris (France). 270 Pierre Pontier Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 Resumen El interés de Jenofonte por el arte del mando nunca ha disminuido. Este artículo analiza su ambivalente relación con la "táctica", un arte del que a veces se desvincula, porque considera que ocupa el lugar de un conocimiento mucho más importante que, en última instancia, lo engloba. Así lo demuestra también el sutil uso que hace de los adjetivos -ikos tanto en las Memorabilia como en las Helénicas. La lista de términos, a menudo atestiguados por primera vez, confirma que el sufijo sugiere una especialización y un acercamiento a un cuerpo limitado de conocimientos, pero sobre todo demuestra el lugar singular de Jenofonte en la transmisión del saber militar: Jenofonte se sitúa a la vez cerca de Eneas el Táctico, así como ansioso por distinguirse de estos profesionales del arte militar. Palabras-clave: Tácticas, adjetivos -ikos, conocimiento, liderazgo, evaluación. The art of leadership is essential in Xenophon’s work: whatever the subject, his reflections on this topic are consistent and often overlapping, from the Anabasis to the Cyropaedia, which often adopts a didactic tone through the character of Cyrus2. Xenophon also wrote two technical treatises, the Hipparchicus and De re equestri, which deal directly with the military art. There is also the Cynegeticus which deals with a relatively similar subject, since Xenophon often compares war to hunting. Diogenes Laërtius called him a τακτικός writer (2.56): the adjective seems to be aimed at the treatise of the Hipparchicus, in an accumulation of three terms where the first two adjectives relate rather to the other two treatises (φίλιππος καὶ φιλοκύνηγος καὶ τακτικός). Anyway, Xenophon has sometimes been considered a pioneer or inventor of the military manual3. But is Xenophon a τακτικός writer in the strict sense of the term, as we speak of Aeneas “the Tactician”? Our aim is to check and temper this opinion by first analyzing Xenophon’s relationship with the military tactics and science of warfare of his time, before examining his subtle stylistic use of adjectives in -ικός, particularly in the Hellenica and Memorabilia, which constitute linguistically tangible evidence of the evolution of the language of knowledge in the Classical period and its specialization4. 2 Secundary literature is particularly abundant on this subject. Cf. for example Luccioni 1954, Dillery 1995, Gray 2012, Sandridge 2012 about Cyropaedia, Flower 2012: 40-47 about Anabasis, and Buxton 2016. 3 Whately 2021: 17-38. 4 See for example Peppler 1910 on Aristophanes, Ammann 1953 about Plato, and Noël 1997. 271 Xenophon τακτικός? Remarks on his use of -ικός adjectives Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 Xenophon and «tactics» or the praise of field experience Xenophon lived at a time when there was a flourishing of technical writings which, in the wake of medical treatises, were intended to convey a limited amount of knowledge on a specific subject5. He himself, who followed the conventions of this literary genre, did not hesitate to transpose this characteristic didactic style into other works. But he has a distant, even suspicious attitude towards an artificial and sophistical approach to the military art, and more specifically to “tactics”. Tactics refer specifically to the different ways of arranging an army in order of battle. This is demonstrated by the setting of the first dialogue in Book III of Memorabilia, when Socrates invites one of his disciples who wishes to obtain the office of general to follow the teachings of a sophist, Dionysodorus, who promises his listeners that he will teach them “generalship” (στρατηγεῖν, 3.1.1). Dionysodorus of Chios is the perfect example of the itinerant sophist whose teaching is paid for, as opposed to Socrates; he also appears in Plato’s Euthydemus. On the face of it, Socrates is in favor of specific instruction in strategy, since he sends one of his disciples to learn. However, the content of the technical instruction provided proves disappointing on two points: it is incomplete, as it is devoted exclusively to “tactics” (τὰ τακτικά), i.e. the art of putting an army in order. Indeed, Socrates points out, “this is only a tiny part (πολλοστὸν μέρος) of the art of command”6 (3.1.6), compared to the many tasks that fall to the army commander. Moreover, this art is purely theoretical, as it does not specify the occasions when this or that formation should be adopted; to Socrates’ question on this subject (“did he only teach you tactics, or did he also show you how and under what circumstances these formations (τῶν ταγμάτων) should be employed?”, 3.1.11), his pupil answers in the negative. Socrates advises him to go and see Dionysodorus again to ask for clarification, which amounts to unmasking his incompetence or dishonesty7. In this dialogue, Xenophon deliberately uses the adjective τακτικός as well as the noun τάγμα (“brigade, division”), two terms that belong to a relatively specialized vocabulary8; it is indeed in the Xenophontian corpus that we find the first occurrences of the adjective τακτικός. Socrates’ position with this apparently well-circumscribed knowledge is ambivalent: he is quite ready to admit that “it is also a good thing to be a specialist in tactics (καλὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ τακτικὸν εἶναι, 3.1.7)”, but above all he emphasizes the limits of an overly 5 On the development of technical treatises, see Xen. Cyn. 13.1-8 especially on the writings of the sophists and Thesleff 1966, 89-113, Demont 1993, Vela Tejada 2004: 144-146. On the language of Xeno’s treatises, see Blaineau 2014 and Gray 2018. 6 The translations of Greek texts are ours. 7 On this last point, we take up the excellent commentary of Dorion 2011: 274-275 n. 1. See also more generally the analysis of these two passages from the Cyropaedia and Memorabilia by Richter 1893: 114-120, Delatte 1933: 14-25 and Meißner 2017: 65-70. 8 Τάγμα is a hapax in the Xenophontian corpus. 272 Pierre Pontier Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 theoretical, pseudo-scientific knowledge, which can only make sense on the battlefield under specific conditions that Dionysodorus is careful not to define9. Xenophon re-expresses this position in an episode from the Cyropaedia (1.6), where we find the same distrust of paid teaching of deficient knowledge: in a reported dialogue, inserted within another dialogue dealing with the art of military leadership, Cyrus reminds his father Cambyses that he had once asked him for money to pay “the man who claimed to have taught him the profession of general” (1.6.12): when his father realized that this man had only taught him tactics, he laughed and said that tactics were useless if you didn’t care about obtaining the necessities of life, health, knowledge of the stratagems invented for war, and the obedience of your troops. The conclusion is word for word identical to Socrates’: “Tactics are only a small part of the art of generalship” (1.6.14). This inserted dialogue follows an initial discussion of men’s duties towards the gods, and then the need to provide the army essential resources. Above all, it has exactly the same narrative orientation as the passage from the Memorabilia, with two characters who are a Persian reflection of the Athenian couple formed by Socrates and his disciple, to whom an imposter teacher, another Dionysodorus, is added. It has even been thought that Xenophon was deliberately referring to the dialogue of the Memorabilia through this narrative device. But the effect of the reported dialogue is rather to highlight the fact that “tactics”, the art of disposing of troops, is what was being taught in the first place. And it is this hierarchy of knowledge that Xenophon challenges. The outcome of the two dialogues is slightly different: Cyrus defers to his father for further learning, but the latter refers him to consulting people who are considered “specialists in generalship” (τοῖς στρατηγικοῖς νομιζομένοις... ἀνδράσι, 1.6.14), without even mentioning Cyrus’s first teacher. From a lexical point of view, the specific use of the adjective στρατηγικός to evoke specialists clearly proves that Cyrus’ first teacher was devoid of the totality of the science in question and that he is far from having completed his pupil’s education10. The main difference between the two passages lies in the fact that Cambyses develops much more, almost in the manner of a treatise, the various points that the army commander must master. Moreover, this dialogical treatise is made more concrete by the later narrative, which dramatizes the military situations 9 Meißner 2017: 66, assumes that this sophistic instruction included some terminology, was based on learning rhetoric and practicing exercises or training in arms. 10 See Cyr. 1.6.12: τῷ φάσκοντι στρατηγεῖν με πεπαιδευκέναι; the imposture is finely underlined by the use of the perfect πεπαιδευκέναι, as if the education was complete. See other uses of the adjective στρατηγικός, Mem. 1.1.7-8, 2.6.16, 2.6.38, Cyr. 1.6.12, 1.6.14 and 8.4.7, Oec. 20.6, Ag. 1.17 and 10.1. The comparisons we make on this theme between the Memorabilia and the Cyropaedia are not exhaustive: we can also mention the image of the construction of the house, present in the Cyropaedia (6.3.25) as in the Memorabilia (3.1.7); it allows us to account for the most common military training, which consists of placing the best soldiers in the first and last ranks, while recalling the importance of “economic” science in the science of military command (Cyr. 1.6.12). 273 Xenophon τακτικός? Remarks on his use of -ικός adjectives Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 of Cyrus’s conquest; it is finally completed by a kind of synthesis that appears in the last pages of the Cyropaedia and reflects Cyrus’s thoughts: “He believed that tactics did not only consist in being able to extend the line of battle or to make it deep, or to move from column to line or, if the enemy unexpectedly broke through from the right, from the left, or from behind, to make a correct volte-face, but he still considered it tactical to disperse whenever necessary (ὁπότε δέοι), to place each subdivision where it would be most useful, and to force marches when it was necessary to get ahead (ὅπου φθάσαι δέοι)11 of the enemy” (Cyr. 8.5.15). It is indeed circumstances that impose changes to the army’s organization: as the verbs of obligation show, it is knowledge of these material circumstances (moment, balance of forces, geographical situation) that determines the choice of tactics. The teaching of tactics is therefore essential for every soldier: but in the Cyropaedia, it is Cyrus alone, according to Xenophon, who delivers it – free of charge! –, not a specific teacher12. The sequence of dialogue in the Cyropedia and the historical account helps to show that tactics only make sense in the field and under precise conditions that the army commander must take into account: his ability to judge, which enables him to decide on the right formation to adopt, is acquired only after long experience. Lastly, in a passage from the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, when Xenophon describes the various formations that the Spartan army is accustomed to taking, he emphasizes the simplicity and ease of this apprenticeship: “Most people believe that the Laconian battle order in arms (τὴν ἐν ὅπλοις Λακωνικὴν τάξιν) is most complex, but this is to suppose quite the opposite of the truth (11.5)”. He then describes the moves that are very easy for the Lacedaemonians to make, and that seem very difficult for “those who train in combat in arms” (τοῖς ὁπλομάχοις)13: he considers the four possible cases of confrontation, depending on where the enemy is coming from (from the front, from behind, from the right, from the left). This lengthy description corresponds closely to the passage from the Cyropaedia quoted above (8.5.15, see also 2.1.27). By 11 This use of the verb δεῖ corresponds to the προσήκει present in the Memorabilia (3.1.11). 12 Cf. Cyr. 2.1.20, διδάσκειν δὲ τὰ τακτικά. In this way, Xénophon clearly raises the question of who should teach this subject in any political regime. He shares this concern with Plato. In addition to the Euthydemus, which features Dionysodorus, and the Laches, which shows a preoccupation with the military arts, the philosopher quickly tackles the subject of teaching tactics and cavalry in the Laws, 813e: he indicates that the city must have masters it pays to teach these subjects. 13 The word ὁπλομάχος can refer to any man who fights in arms or to a military trainer. Casevitz 2008 chooses the first meaning; but see Pl. Lach. 183b and Theophr. Car. 5.10, where hoplomachoi are associated with sophists and musicians for display purposes; Dionysodorus, in the Euthydemus (271b-272a), is depicted in the same way. The meaning of the term in this passage from the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians seems to us to be close to that of these teachers by profession, and we therefore prefer the semantic orientation of Ollier 1934: 52, Lipka 2002: 198, followed by Gray 2007 and Humble 2021: 172. 274 Pierre Pontier Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 pointing out that the Lacedaemonians’ changes of formation are actually easy to make, provided obedience and practice, Xenophon again emphasizes how simple tactics are. In chapter 13, after showing that the Spartan king plays an essential role in deciding and indicating the tactics to be followed, he concludes by pointing out that the other peoples are mere improvisers compared to the Lacedaemonians: on the contrary, he calls the latter “professionals in the things of war” (τεχνίτας τῶν πολεμικῶν, 13.5) – a colorful expression that necessarily puts into perspective the words of those who present themselves as specialists in tactics. There is an expression very close to this qualifier τεχνίτης in the Hipparchicus, where Xenophon contrasts “trained specialists in the art of equestrian warfare” (ἀσκητὰς […] τῶν πολεμικῶν ἐν ἱππικῇ ἔργων) with “profanes” (ἰδιώτας, 8.1; see also Cyr. 1.5.11). In fact, these three passages dedicated to tactics, taken from three different works, show through their complementary aspects the position Xenophon occupies in relation to professional teachers: he is the bearer of undeniable knowledge and experience in the subject, he probably defines himself as a στρατηγικός, but he marks his disagreement with a restrictive teaching of tactics. It is only one element within a broader vision of the art of command; learning it is necessary, but it is not complex, and it must not overshadow the essential skills and knowledge that must first be acquired to command an army effectively: a science of “situations” (τὰ συμβαίνοντα, Cyr. 1.6.43). Tactical order follows directly from this, which is why Xenophon didn’t write a “tactics” manual as such. He displayed his technical knowledge as much as his personality in his two treatises on the horse and cavalry; he also narrated military situations in historical accounts, in which the maneuvres are described in sufficient detail for the informed reader to be able to judge their relevance and derive knowledge from them. Xenophon is not just τακτικός in the narrow sense of the term. A subtle use of -ικός terms: the qualities of the leader 1. Xenophon and Aeneas the Tactician There is therefore a fundamental debate about the deceptive place of tactics in the teaching of the art of commanding an army. This debate also concerns the form of teaching. Xenophon rejects the idea of paying for the teaching of knowledge that is presented as simple, easy to understand and acquire. He was also interested in how to transpose what had previously been oral knowledge into written form. Through his own literary endeavours, he followed in the footsteps of Aeneas the Tactician, a native of Stymphalus, whose work has unfortunately only been preserved in part, but who seemed to cover all the 275 Xenophon τακτικός? Remarks on his use of -ικός adjectives Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 subjects mentioned in both the Memorabilia and the Cyropaedia, and where “tactics” also constitute only a small part of the knowledge on display. So, in addition to the preserved book on poliorcetics, Aeneas would also have written a book devoted to preparation, another to financial means, another to encampment, one dedicated to harangues, and finally one devoted to tactics. This treatise or treatises would have been written in the 350s, shortly after the Hipparchicus. Little is known about the author: he may be alluded to in a passage of the Hellenica, or he may be a homonym (Hell. 7.3.1)14. Xenophon and Aeneas may have had a more or less formal personal relationship, or even exchanged ideas15. In any case, Aeneas’s treatise is an undeniable major witness to the evolution of prose, thanks to its variety of vocabulary, which the demands of the genre partially impose. The interpretation of this stylistic peculiarity remains debated, however16. Xenophon’s lexical wealth and the different uses he makes of this vocabulary according to each work have also been recognized17: as far as military facts are concerned, he develops lengthy descriptions of military strategies and troops in order to deliver practical knowledge in this field18. Word lists have been compiled from Aeneas the Tactician’s treatise, to show its stylistic peculiarities. The suffixation processes we associate with technical vocabulary, for example, action nouns in -μα, -σις, -σία, -μός, agent nouns in -τήρ or -τωρ, diminutives and adjectives in -ικός or -τός, are decisive in the appearance of a large number of hapax. Most of the vocabulary used is similar to that of “other authors close to the common language” (Xenophon, Polybius, Aristotle, etc.) and a table shows the terms that first appear in Xenophon and Aeneas19. Those terms include two -ικός adjectives, παρασκευαστικός and ποριστικός. It is worthwhile to understand why the two authors have these two new terms in common, and, subsequently, to see what brings Xenophon closer to or distinguishes him from Aeneas in his use of adjectives in -ικός. As Chantraine explains, the suffix -ικός “expresses belonging to a category and thus plays a classificatory role”: the suffix was of great help in building a philosophical and technical vocabulary20. As early as the 420s, Aristophanes 14 See the overviews by Lane Fox 2018 and Shipley 2018. 15 See Whitehead 2002: 36 and Shipley 2018: 58. 16 See the reasonable conclusion of Groningen 1938: 329. Vela Tejada 2018 has a different view of Aeneas as a precursor of koinè. 17 See Gautier 1912: 150-152 and Dillery 2016: 249: “Xenophon likes technical terms that he employs very rarely or even one time only”. 18 See Anderson 1970, Riedinger 1991 (l’“interprétation militaire” des Helléniques, 207-243) and Pontier 2006: 253-283. 19 Vela Tejada 1991: 289-291. He explicitly repeats tables established by L.W. Hunter and S.A Handford, Aἰνείου Πολιορκητικά, Aeneas on Siegecraft, Oxford, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1927 (non vidi). 20 Chantraine 1956, 128. 276 Pierre Pontier Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 was forging new words with this suffix to mock what he perceived as a linguistic fad associated with youth and sophistry, both in the Knights (1378-1381) and in the Clouds (483, 728, etc.). The specialization of knowledge and the writing of technical treatises led to a multiplication of these new words21. Aeneas uses five -ικός terms not attested before him or Xénophon: παρασκευαστικός (7.4, 8.5, 16.22, 21.1, 40.8), ποριστικός (14.2), ἐνεδρευτικός (1.2), δηλωτικῶς (14.2), προνοητικῶς (18.11). 2. The use of -ικός adjectives in the Hellenica Xenophon himself uses a large number of adjectives of this type, with a certain disparity between works: there are far fewer in the Hellenica and Anabasis than in the Memorabilia, which can also be explained by the subject matter of the works and by the greater stylistic sobriety of the literary genre. A fortiori, the presence of such adjectives in these historical works is all the more significant. But not all these terms are of comparable interest. For example, place names or adjectives can lead to a competitive use of adjectives in -ικός: Chantraine cites three identical examples in the Hellenica where the term Λακωνικός is used to refer to the Lacedaemonian garrison (2.4.4; 2.4.10; 4.8.35). It is difficult to explain why Xenophon preferred (or not) the adjective in -ικός rather than a simple toponym. From the list we have made of terms not derived from an ethnic or place name, we have selected some terms that Xenophon is the first to use in the Hellenica. 1. πελταστικός There are four -ικός adjectives which are often used to designate categories of the army, very widely attested in the Hellenica: τὸ ναυτικόν22 for the navy (1.1.32, 1.5.10, 1.5.18, etc.: 43 occurrences in all in the Hellenica out of the 55 found in the Xenophontian corpus), τὸ ὁπλιτικόν for infantry (7 occurrences out of 13 in all, a term also found in Thucydides), τὸ ἱππικόν for cavalry (30 out of 111, a term also found in Thucydides), and above all τὸ πελταστικόν for light infantry (4 out of 9 occurrences in the Hellenica). Unlike the other three mentioned, the term πελταστικός actually appears in the 4th century, in Xenophon’s works. Thucydides uses the term πελταστής but not the adjective. This lexical appearance testifies to the importance of peltasts in the conflicts of the time, and to Xenophon’s interest in this mode of combat. The term is used in the maneuvers that led to the disaster of the Amyclaean battalion, which was cut to pieces by the peltasts led by Iphicrates in 390. 21 Peppler 1910 about Aristophanes, Lane Fox 2018, 45, Vela Tejada 1991: 306-308, Vela Tejada 2018: 115. 22 The term is already attested in Herodotus (3.17, 3.19, etc.). 277 Xenophon τακτικός? Remarks on his use of -ικός adjectives Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. Tercer cuatrimestre de 2024. Pp. 269-286. ISSN 1575-6823 e-ISSN 2340-2199 https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2024.i57.13 Oἱ δ’ ἐκ τῶν Κορινθίων ἄστεως, Καλλίας τε ὁ Ἱππονίκου, τῶν Ἀθηναίων ὁπλιτῶν στρατηγῶν, καὶ Ἰφικράτης, τῶν πελταστῶν ἄρχων, καθορῶντες αὐτοὺς καὶ οὐ πολλοὺς ὄντας καὶ ἐρήμους καὶ πελταστῶν καὶ ἱππέων, ἐνόμισαν ἀσφαλὲς εἶναι ἐπιθέσθαι αὐτοῖς τῷ πελταστικῷ. As for the others, from the city of Corinth, whether Callias son of Hipponicos, who commanded the Athenian hoplites, or Iphicrates, who commanded the peltasts, as they saw them to be few in number, devoid of peltasts and horsemen, they considered it safe to attack them with the peltastic category (4.5.13). The adjective is within the indirect discourse introduced by ἐνόμισαν, which reproduces the reasoning of Callias and Iphicrates in relation to the given situation. The chiefs’ internalized choice is for the safest and most effective category of soldiers according to the battle to be fought: those occupying Corinth can hurl projectiles at the army presenting its uncovered front if it advances towards them, and peltasts can easily evade the hoplites because they are lighter. Nor do they run any risks, thanks to the absence of the threat of the riders. This intellectual process of strategic selection of an army corps is perfectly expressed by the use of the adjective πελταστικός23: in the narrative, the course of the battle is exactly as planned. Xenophon thus uses the adjective in -ικός to provide elements of reflection on the use of a very specific category of soldiers: for this purpose, he borrows the point of view of the army leaders, Callias and Iphicrates. He proceeds in exactly the same way for the three other uses of the term in the Hellenica: in 5.4.43, he takes Phoibidas’s (mistaken) point of view as his starting point; in 6.1.9, he takes up the words of Jason of Pherae, who envisages the superiority of the Thessalian army over the peoples around him. Finally, in 6.1.19, the historian himself assesses Jason’s imposing military forces. The analysis confirms that the use of the adjective in -ικός is strictly reserved for passages that foresee, reflect on and contemplate the advantages of an armed force. 2. μηχανητικός The three other rare -ικός terms present in the Hellenica have a precise function: they all characterize an army leader. Xenophon is thus the first in preserved Greek literature to use the adjective μηχανητικός24, in order to depict 23 The term is little attested elsewhere, as confirmed by the explanation of a scholiast in a technical passage of Plato’s Laws, which recommends the teaching and practice of war techniques (scholia to Leg. 813d5). 24 Current editions of the Hellenica, which are quite old (Marchant at Oxford, 1906, Hatzfeld in the CUF at Les Belles Lettres, 1936), prefer to edit μηχανητικός rather than μηχανικός, i.e. a hapax found only in this passage of the Hellenica and in the Hipparchicus (5.2). We retain this logic, but the critical apparatus of this passage from the Hellenica in Hatzfeld’s edition indicates the varia lectio μηχανικός in two manuscripts C and V. It could seem preferable to follow it: indeed, the form μηχανικός, for its 284 Pierre Pontier Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales, año 26, nº 57. 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