Does Pride Go before a Fall? Xenophon on Arrogant Pride

Abstract

The line between self-confident pride and hurtful arrogance can be very fine, but is very rarely explored by ancient authors. This chapter argues that Xenophon was more interested in, and troubled by, this ambiguity in Greek thought than most other ancient writers, and that his stance on the issue both ties in closely with the overall moral-didactic purpose of his writing and points towards his Hellenistic successors in the historiographical genre. It explores Xenophon?s use of words from the root phron - denoting a proud state of mind, often with corollaries of arrogance, overconfidence and, in a military context, contempt for the enemy. Keywords:arrogant pride; Greek thought; military context; self-confident pride; Xenophon

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 34 citations exist upstream.