Chapter 3 - Work, Money, and the Gentleman in the Oeconomicus

Summary

Xenophon’s Oeconomicus examines how elite Athenians should manage their individual households and estates (oikoi) and makes the case that they should set aside aristocratic disdain for work and money-making and seek to become successful estate managers and entrepreneurs. This will benefit them personally in many ways and make them better citizens of the democracy, who will more effectively serve the city as hoplites and cavalrymen and perform other civic roles: the wealth they accrue will allow them to carry out liturgies for the city, and the managerial skills they develop will make them better leaders. Indeed, Xenophon portrays the oikos as a microcosm of the city in which members of the elite can hone the skills that they will need to lead the city effectively. Socrates figures prominently in the Oeconomicus, as in the Memorabilia, as a critic of destructive elite values and behaviors and a proponent of reconceptualizing what it means to be a “gentleman” in light of the good citizenship needed from the elite; his account of his conversation with Ischomachus offers elite Athenians a model for transforming themselves into “gentlemen” in the true sense of the word.