# Quotation from Xenophon **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005 "2017-08-18T21:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005/1 "2017-08-18T21:16:30Z")
I am looking for a quotation from Xenophon that I may be misremembering or inventing; searches on google and Xenophon’s work online haven’t revealed the answer. The gist of it is, “the strong will take from the weak; that’s what it means to be strong.” It is not the quote that begins “the strong will always oppress the weak; and compel them, etc.” What is stuck in my mind is a line about actually taking things from the weak. Any help available? For the quote, I mean, not medical advice, however well-intended or apparently necessary! ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005/2 "2017-08-18T22:06:50Z")
Are you sure it’s not something Callicles said in the Republic? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005/3 "2017-08-18T22:34:43Z")
It’s not from Xenophon. It’s from Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, the section called the Melian Dialogue. During the war, the city of Melos was more or less neutral. Athens demanded it pay tribute, and when they refused, sieged the city. Here’s part of Thucydiides > [@](#): > > For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005/4 "2017-08-19T00:36:38Z")
Thanks, both of you, but the Thucydides quote is not what I was (mis)remembering and it came up quickly on google when I started looking. What I think is the quote from Xenophon was a little pithier and had a sense of “the neat thing about being powerful is you take other people’s stuff” in language a little plainer than Thucydides. That quote does capture the essence of it, but is not what I’m recalling. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005/5 "2017-08-19T01:17:40Z")
If you’re sure it’s Xenophon, in the Anabasis, when he’s trying to convince the band to stay together, he warns them, “As long as you stay together united as today, you will command respect and procure provisions; for might certainly exercises a right over what belongs to the weaker. But once broken up, with your force split into bits, you will neither be able to get subsistence, nor indeed will you get off without paying dearly for it.” In his Memorabilia, he quotes Socrates as saying: " Do you not observe that the mighty oppress the weak, and use them as their slaves, after they have made them groan under the weight of oppression, and given them just cause to complain of their cruel usage, in a thousand instances, both general and particular? And if they find any who will not submit to the yoke, they ravage their countries, spoil their corn, cut down their trees, and attack them, in short, in such a manner that they are compelled to yield themselves up to slavery, rather than undergo so unequal a war? Among private men themselves, do not the stronger and more bold trample on the weaker?” Could either of those be it? ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quotation-from-xenophon/794005/6 "2017-08-19T01:37:27Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > If you’re sure it’s Xenophon, in the Anabasis, when he’s trying to convince the band to stay together, he warns them, > > “As long as you stay together united as today, you will command respect and procure provisions; for might certainly exercises a right over what belongs to the weaker. But once broken up, with your force split into bits, you will neither be able to get subsistence, nor indeed will you get off without paying dearly for it.” > > In his Memorabilia, he quotes Socrates as saying: > > " Do you not observe that the mighty oppress the weak, and use them as their slaves, after they have made them groan under the weight of oppression, and given them just cause to complain of their cruel usage, in a thousand instances, both general and particular? And if they find any who will not submit to the yoke, they ravage their countries, spoil their corn, cut down their trees, and attack them, in short, in such a manner that they are compelled to yield themselves up to slavery, rather than undergo so unequal a war? Among private men themselves, do not the stronger and more bold trample on the weaker?” > > Could either of those be it? The second one is it! Many thanks! I can get some sleep now and feel a little less worried about imminent senility! I was pretty sure it wasn’t in the Anabasis, and now, there it is. Thanks again.