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thesophist Prodicus of how Heracles chose the sober joys of virtue in preference to the meretricious attractions of vice (2.1). He discusses the role of a general with a series of interlocutors (3.1–5), helps a friend in financial difficulties by persuading him to put the womenfolk of his large household to work making clothes (2.7), and gives advice on the importance of physical fitness (3.12) and on table manners (3.14). This is not to say that the work has no philosophical content. We find Socrates using methods of argument familiar from Plato, such as inductive arguments to establish a conclusion from an array of similar cases (e.g. 2.3), frequently derived from the practice of practical crafts, and there are instances of cross-examination with a view to showing that the person examined lacks the appropriate knowledge (notably 3.6 and 4.2, where the examinations of the respective pretensions to political leadership of Glaucon, Plato’s elder brother, and of a young associate named Euthydemus, recall the similar examinations of Alcibiades in Aeschines’ Alcibiades and the pseudo-Platonic First Alcibiades ). Two chapters, 3.9 and 4.6, are devoted to philosophical topics familiar from the Platonic dialogues; the former begins with discussion of whether courage is a natural gift or acquired by teaching, a specific instance of the question which begins Meno and is prominent in Protagoras , and in the course of the chapter (sections 4–5) Xenophon reports that Socrates identified wisdom first with self-control and then with justice and the rest of virtue. That too links this chapter with Meno and Protagoras , in both of which Socrates defends the thesis that virtue is knowledge. In 4.6 the topic is definition; as in several Platonic dialogues Socrates identifies the question ‘What is such-and-such?’ (e.g. ‘What is justice?) as the primary philosophical question, illustrating the general point by the examples of piety (discussed in Euthyphro ) and courage (discussed in Laches ). In section 6 he asserts the ‘Socratic paradox’ familiar from Meno , Gorgias , and Protagoras that no one knows what he should do but fails to do it, and in section 11 he makes the related claim that those who know how to deal properly with danger are courageous and those who make mistakes cowardly, a thesis which Socrates argues for at Protagoras 359–60.
    We can sum up by saying that while philosophy takes second place in the Memorabilia to piety, morality, and practical advice, the philosophy which the work does contain is recognizably common to other Socratic writings, especially those of Plato. This raises the question whether we should treat Xenophon as an independent source for those elements of philosophical doctrine and method, thus strengthening the case for their attribution to the historical Socrates, or whether we should conclude that Xenophon’s source is those very Socratic writings, above all Plato’s. We have to tread cautiously. There are indeed some indications in Xenophon’s writings of dependence on Plato. Symposium 8.32 contains a pretty clear reference to the speeches of Pausanias and Phaedrus in Plato’s Symposium , and it is at least likely that the many earlier writings on the trial of Socrates, whom Xenophon refers to in Apology 1, include Plato’s Apology . 4 There is nothing in the Memorabilia which so clearly points to a specific Platonic reference, and we are not justified in concluding that any similarity of subject-matter must be explained by Xenophon’s dependence on Plato, rather than influence in the reverse direction, or reliance on a common source, including memory of the historical Socrates. (We have very little information about the dates of composition of the works of either Plato or Xenophon.) On the other hand, Xenophon left Athens two years before Socrates’ death and did not return for more than thirty years. The bulk of his Socratic writings were written during this period of exile, in