The military harangues in the Hellenika of Xenophon

Abstract

Military harangues, exhortation speeches before battles, became an integral part of the writing of ancient historiographical works, especially following the model created by Thucydides, who made with such speeches a way of elucidating the justifications and war tactics of the battles presented in the events narrated. In this sense, there is an intimate relationship between discourse (λόγοι) and actions (ἔργα), and the presence of this type of discourse shows, through relations of stability or instability, the interpretation that the historian gives to the event as a whole, justifying and explaining the victory or the defeat. Xenophon, in the Hellenika, makes little use of this narrative device, and this procedure seems to be anchored in his lack of belief in this artifice as an effective mechanism to establish courage and willingness in the troops, as presented in Cyropaedia. Thus, the purpose of this article is to analyze the military harangues in Xenophon, specifically in Hellenika, seeking to understand how they relate to the events narrated by the historian and how they can help to highlight aspects for the understanding of the scenes in which they are involved.