Digression 5, Meno and the Meno, Xenophon and the Meno

In Digression 2 and 4 I argued that Plato wrote the Meno in 402 B.C., before he learnt that Meno decided to take part in Cyrus’ expedition as a general in charge of mercenaries. On this dating, there is little doubt that Plato sent the dialogue to Meno as soon as he wrote it; he had great hopes in that young man, which marked his dynamic portrait of him in the dialogue. If so, then there are good reasons to believe that Meno read the dialogue before he decided to join Cyrus’ expedition, and that it played a role in his decision to do so.

Consider Meno after his return from Athens. He could have hardly refrained from talking about his conversations with Socrates and Plato. In the Meno, Meno is confident of his intellectual accomplishments, for he has appropriated Gorgias’ teaching, believing him to be the wisest man of his day. Socrates emphasizes this: ‘if you and Gorgias prove to have knowledge of virtue’ (an phanȇs su men eidȏs kai Gorgias, 71d7), ‘what Gorgias and you with him say virtue is’ (ti auto phȇsi Gorgias einai kai su met’ ekeinou, 73c7-8). And we learn from Meno’s mouth that he made abundant speeches on virtue on countless occasions to various people, ‘and made them very well’ (kai panu eu, 80b3). The opening section of the dialogue presents us with much that Meno could report to his listeners, and do it so as to excel. He could even talk without embarrassment of the difficulties in which Socrates involved him – thus highlighting his brilliant retort to Socrates when the latter wanted them to enquire jointly into the nature of virtue: ‘And how will you enquire (Kai tina tropon zȇtȇseis), Socrates (ȏ Sȏkrates), into that which you do not know at all what it is (touto ho mȇ oistha to parapan ho ti estin;)? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry (poion gar hȏn ouk oistha prothemenos zȇtȇseis;)? And if, at the best, you hit upon it (ȇ ei kai hoti malista entuchois autȏi), how will you ever know (pȏs eisȇi) that this is the thing (hoti touto estin) which you did not know (ho su ouk ȇidȇstha;)?’ (80c9-d8) In connection with it he could narrate to great advantage his likening Socrates to the flat torpedo fish both in his appearance and in other respects (80a).

But could he ever speak of the profound change he himself had undergone in the hands of Socrates? The change that Socrates initiated by skilfully interrogating one of Meno’s own slaves? How could he admit that he then practically turned his back on Gorgias? True, before the end of the dialogue there was still something which he professed to admire in him. When Socrates asked him whether he thought that the sophists, who promised to teach virtue, could really do it, he replied: ‘That is a point, Socrates, for which I admire Gorgias: you will never hear him promising this, and he ridicules the others when he hears them promising it. Skill in speaking is what he takes it to be their business to produce.’ (95c1-4, tr. W.R.M. Lamb). But even that admiration was proved to be hollow. For when at the very end of the dialogue Socrates painted a picture of a man who could teach political virtue, and thus ‘might fairly be said to be among the living what Homer says Teiresias was among the dead – “He alone has comprehension; the rest are fleeting shades.” In the same way he on earth, in respect of virtue, will be a real substance among shadows,’ Meno replied: ‘I think you put it excellently, Socrates.’ (100a2-b1, tr. Lamb).

Could Meno face any of his friends, enemies, any of those who ever had heard his speeches on virtue, afraid that they might have read the Meno? The possibility of joining Cyrus’ expedition must have appeared to him to be a godsend.

And what about Xenophon? František Novotný, the Czech translator of the dialogue, says in his ‘Introduction’: ‘Xenophon’s description of Meno is so negative that it raises a question, whether it does not stem from personal enmity.’ In the Anabasis Xenophon does not shy of speaking freely of his encounters with those he despised or those who were hostile to him. In the case of Meno he does not mention a single personal encounter with him. He was simply curious what this Meno, so brilliantly depicted by Plato, was truly like. He therefore avoided any personal encounter with him that might bias his opinion of him. He wanted to be as objective as possible.