SOURCE: An introduction to The Character of Xenophon's "Hellenica," Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1989, pp. 1-9.

In her introduction, an excerpt from which follows, Gray states her desire to correct previous condemnations of Xenophon's text as a poor history, arguing that critics must acknowledge Xenophon as a philosophical writer with moral purposes before they can judge the text properly.

The attempt to understand the nature of Xenophon's Hellenica has a long history. Part of the problem is that Xenophon makes no prefatory statement of the programme of the history. It begins in medias res as a continuation of Thucydides' unfinished history of the Peloponnesian War and there is no indication in the text even of the identity of the author, let alone his intended theme, purpose or method. As it happens the identity of the author is no problem, but the theme and purpose and method remain unclear. The...