The Memorabilia falls into two parts. The first presents a direct defense against the charges against Socrates (Book 1, chapters 1 and 2). In this section of the Memorabilia, Xenophon not only discusses matters immediately relevant to the formal charges against Socrates, which were broadly religious in nature, but also addresses the political charges against Socrates. These include the charge that Socrates corrupted the future Athenian statesmen and scoundrels Alcibiades and Critias and the charge that he led the youth to despise democracy. These charges are not directly addressed in the Apology of Plato (or Xenophon's own Apology). It has often been argued that Xenophon is here responding not to charges in the air at time of the trial of Socrates in 399, but to charges made some years later by the Athenian sophist Polycrates in his Accusation of Socrates. But Polycrates' work is lost, and our sources for reconstructing it are late and unreliable. The assumption that Xenophon was responding to Polycrates point by point may be driven as much by the traditional low esteem for Xenophon's literary powers as to any historical influence from Polycrates. The role of Polycrates is one item in the debate over whether Xenophon's treatment of Socrates reflects the historical Socrates, or is a largely ficitional contribution to the literary debate about Socrates.

The rest of the work (chapters 3-8 of book 1, and all of books 2-4) consists of short episodes of Socrates conversing with friends, rival teachers, and notable Greeks, with a few narrative remarks on Socrates' teachings. This section of the Memorabilia is meant to showcase Socrates' usefullness to a wide range of interlocutors. Readers of Plato often find this part of the work commonplace, lacking in philosophical substance or literary charm. But Xenophon's goal was not to present Socrates as an original philosopher (or to attribute to him his own original philosophy, as Plato was eventually to do), but to show that Socrates was a successful, upright, and wise teacher.

Among the most philosophically important sections of the work are two chapters (1.4 and 4.3) which outline the first known example of the argument from design (a.k.a. the Teleological argument). A related chapter gives a rudimentary account of Natural law (4.4), though as it also contains considerable praise of positive law, its interpretation is contested. As neither intelligent design nor natural law is normally associated with the Socrates presented in Plato's early dialogues, there is considerable debate about whether or not the historical Socrates held these views. It is clear, however, that the Stoics made considerable use of Xenophon's version of the argument from design, and their account of natural law also owed something to Socrates, if not necessarily to Xenophon's Socrates.

Translations

• Xenophon, Memorabilia, trans. Amy L. Bonnette, introd. by Christopher Bruell, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, The Agora Editions, 1994.
  
• Xenophon, Conversations of Socrates, translated by Hugh Tredennick and Robin Waterfield, edited with new material by Robin Waterfield. Penguin, 1990. [Contains all the Socratic works. Less painstakingly literal than the Bonette/Bruell combo; includes full introductions sympathetic to Xenophon.]
  
  

References

• DeFilippo, J. and P. Mitsis. "Socrates and Stoic Natural Law." 252-271 in Vander Waerdt 1994 (see below).
  
• Gray, Vivienne J. The Framing of Socrates: The Literary Interpretation of Xenophon's Memorabilia. Hermes Einzelschriften 79. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998.
  
• Johnson, David. "Xenophon's Socrates on Justice and the Law." Ancient Philosophy 23 (2003) 255-281. [Counters Morrison, below.]
  
• Livingstone, Niall. A Commentary on Isocrates' Busiris. Brill, 2001. [Rejects the view that Polycrates was Xenophon's source.]
  
• McPherran, Mark. The Religion of Socrates. The Penn State University Press, 1996. [Includes a defense of Xenophon's account of Socratic religion.]
  
• Morrison, Donald. "Xenophon's Socrates on the Just and the Lawful." Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995) 329-347. [Argues that Xenophon's Socrates is a legal positivist.]
  
• Strauss, Leo, Xenophon's Socrates, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972.
  
• Vander-Waerdt, Paul, ed. The Socratic Movement, Cornell University Press, 1994. [Fine collection of essays from a variety of perspectives, many on Xenophon's Socrates.]

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