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"Work with the god" : military divination and rational battle-planning in Xenophon

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Date
16/07/2021
Author
Anderson, Ralph Thomas
Keywords
Divination
Greek warfare
Greek religion
Xenophon
Herodotus
Socrates
Relational reasoning
David Zeitlyn
Martin Holbraad
Rosalind Shaw
Religious studies
History
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Abstract
Xenophon opens his 'Cavalry Commander' with an injunction to the prospective commander first to seek the help of the gods (before he even procures, let alone trains, either horses or men) and closes it with an explanation of why he has laced his deeply practical advice with exhortations to "work with the god." Modern interpreters have stumbled over this blending of piety and practicality. Some, like Delbrück and, more recently, J. K. Anderson, have seen the blend as impossible, and decided that the rational strategos must have been skilled in circumventing the superstitious impediments placed in his path by irrational soothsayers. Omens, according to them, might be useful in bolstering the morale of the uneducated and superstitious rank and file, but could play no part in serious military planning. Scholarship over the last 40 years or so has been more sympathetic to military divination, and has granted it a significant role in Greek military planning. However, emphasis is often placed on the conflict between the demands of the tactical situation and the dictates of religion. This tendency manifests itself in the form of remarks upon the piety of the Greeks in withdrawing from apparently successful advances simply because of unfavourable omens. This paper offers readings of selected passages in Xenophon that suggest that, on the contrary, divination did not stand in opposition to rational battle-planning, but in fact facilitated it by providing a means of synthesising features of the tactical setting, including not only known elements but also those merely suspected or feared.
Citation
Anderson , R T 2021 , "Work with the god" : military divination and rational battle-planning in Xenophon . in C Addey (ed.) , Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity . Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies , Routledge , pp. 84-108 , Colloquium: Ritual Dynamics in Late Antiquity , 3/06/15 . https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315449487-3-4
 
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Publication
Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315449487-3-4
Type
Conference item
Rights
Copyright © 2021 Publisher / the Author. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97813154494873-4/
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315449487
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315449487-3-4/
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/26756

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