Végétation et cultures du Proche-Orient dans l'Anabase

Abstract

Picking examples all along the Anabasis, the author presents and analyzes the main cultivated and wild plants and the vegetal settings met by the Ten Thousand on their road. This analysis shows that Xenophon is mainly interested in the useful plants and their uses. Xenophon is gifted with a real sense of observation which could have allowed him, in an other time, to be a good specialist in naturalism.

Xenophon the Socratic Prince

“…56 Observe also that the adjective "Delphic" and the noun "d olphin" can have identical spellings (DELPHIS) and Xenophon uses the noun "dolphin" twice in the same breath with which he mentions the "treasury of 53 Symposium 2.1-6. 54 Amigues (1995) is puzzled by the bread's unexplained "conservation exceptionnelle," probably due in part, she surmises amusingly, "à la qualit é de la farine" (p. 73). Masqueray (1930) thinks that the bread is a kind of "biscuit des soldats."…”