Among Xenophon’s works, four stand out as sharing a common concern with recollection and
memorialization.* The Symposium announces it in its opening line: “But in my opinion, not only are the serious
deeds of kaloi kagathoi worth recalling, but so too their deeds done in times of play.” Apology of Socrates does
so as well: “And regarding Socrates, it is in my opinion also worth recalling how, when he was summoned to
court, he deliberated about his defense and the end of his life.” Again, we find it in the very title of the work we
know as the Memorabilia; and, whatever else may be the aim of the Anabasis, clearly at its core it is a memoire
of Xenophon’s exploits with the Ten Thousand. Explain the importance of the concern for memorialization and
the conceit of recollection for our understanding of these four works. Imagine that you are writing for an
audience of readers who know who Xenophon is, but don’t know that these four works share this feature. Your
task it to explain what’s interesting about this fact, to demonstrate on the basis of specific evidence from the
texts how Xenophon— variously—deploys this concern to memorialize and the claim of recollection, and to
argue for why it’s important to recognize this shared motive in these works.