Résumé
Résumé de Les Mémorables
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love Socrates as a teacher of everyday conduct, and anyone curious about Athens and its habits of mind. These practical conversations explore self-control, friendship, work, leadership and justice.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Memorabilia is Xenophon's record of Socrates in conversation. Xenophon was an Athenian soldier and writer who knew Socrates as a young man. After Athens put Socrates to death in 399 BC, Xenophon wrote this work in four books to answer the charges against him and to show what the man was really like. The Greek title means recollections, and that is what the book offers: things Socrates said and did, as one friend remembered them.
This is not the Socrates of Plato's long and daring arguments. Xenophon gives short, practical talks on piety, self-control, friendship, money, work, leadership and justice. You meet Socrates advising an angry son, two quarrelling brothers, a poor man who needs a job, and a young man who wants to run the city before he knows how. Each scene carries a plain lesson. The first of them is Xenophon's answer to the charges that ended Socrates' life.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Socrates was devout, not a corrupterFree
- 2Self-control comes before everything else
- 3Family, friends and work deserve real effort
- 4Leaders must know the work they seek
- 5Justice is lawful conduct, and knowing yourself matters
- 6A different Socrates from Plato's
Point clé 1 sur 6
Socrates was devout, not a corrupter
Xenophon opens with the charges brought against Socrates. He was accused of not honouring the gods of the city, of bringing in new divine powers, and of corrupting the young. Xenophon answers each in turn. He says Socrates sacrificed openly at home and at the public altars, and that he used divination like everyone else. Anyone could see how he behaved.
The new divine power was his daimonion, a private sign or inner voice that warned him against certain actions. Xenophon argues this was no stranger than the omens other Athenians trusted. Socrates told his friends what the sign advised, and when events followed its warnings, they saw it was reliable. To Xenophon, this made him more religious than his accusers, not less.
The book then shows Socrates arguing for the care of the gods. In a talk with a man named Aristodemus, who scorned sacrifice, Socrates points to the design of living things. Eyes are soft and made to see, eyelids guard them, and the senses and the hands serve human needs. Such order, he says, suggests a maker who cares for people.
The lesson for a reader is that belief shows in conduct. Socrates did not lecture on the heavens, and Xenophon insists he never made the nature of the cosmos his topic. He asked instead what is pious, what is just, and what makes a good person. The defence rests on that focus on how to live.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Questions about Les Mémorables
What is The Memorabilia about?
It is Xenophon's collection of conversations and recollections of Socrates in four books. It defends him against the charges of impiety and corrupting the young, then shows his practical teaching on self-control, friendship, work, leadership and justice.
Is The Memorabilia a true account of Socrates?
It is a real portrait by a man who knew him, written after his death in 399 BC. Scholars treat it as a main source, but it is also a defence, so it stresses his virtues.
How is Xenophon's Socrates different from Plato's?
Xenophon's Socrates is practical and plainspoken, giving advice on daily conduct. Plato's Socrates pursues abstract questions about knowledge, the soul and ideal forms. Historians read both together to piece the real man.
What does the Greek title Apomnemoneumata mean?
It means recollections or things remembered. The Latin title Memorabilia, meaning things worth remembering, became the usual name in English. It signals that the book is a friend's memory of Socrates' words and deeds.
Is The Memorabilia hard to read?
No. The work is made of short, clear scenes, each with a plain lesson. You can read one conversation at a time. The arguments are easy to follow.