Respecting the personal history of Xenophon himself, we possess but little information: nor do we know the year either of his birth or death. His Hellenica concludes with the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.C. But he makes incidental mention in that work of an event five years later--the assassination of Alexander, despot of Pheræ, which took place in 357 B.C.[3]--and his language seems to imply that the event was described shortly after it took place. His pamphlet De Vectigalibus appears to have been composed still later--not before 355 B.C. In the year 400 B.C., when Xenophon joined the Grecian military force assembled at Sardis to accompany Cyrus the younger in his march to Babylon, he must have been still a young man: yet he had even then established an intimacy with Sokrates at Athens: and he was old enough to call himself the "ancient guest" of the Boeotian Proxenus, who engaged him to come and take service with Cyrus.[4] We may suppose him to have been then about thirty years of age; and thus to have been born about 430 B.C.--two or three years earlier than Plato. Respecting his early life, we have no facts before us: but we may confidently affirm (as I have already observed about[5] Plato), that as he became liable to military service in 412 B.C., the severe pressure of the war upon Athens must have occasioned him to be largely employed, among other citizens, for the defence of his native city, until its capture in 405 B.C. He seems to have belonged to an equestrian family in the census, and therefore to have served on horseback. More than one of his compositions evinces both intelligent interest in horsemanship, and great familiarity with horses. [Footnote 3: Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 37. [Greek: tô=n de\ tau=ta praxa/ntôn] (_i.e._ of the brothers of Thêbê, which brothers had assassinated Alexander) [Greek: a)/chri ou)= o(de o( lo/gos e)gra/pheto, Tisi/phonos, presbu/tatos ô(=n tô=n a)delphô=n, tê\n a)rchê\n ei)=che.]] [Footnote 4: That he was still a young man appears from his language, Anabas. iii. 1, 25. His intimacy with Sokrates, whose advice he asked about the propriety of accepting the invitation of Proxenus to go to Asia, is shown iii. 1, 5. Proxenus was his [Greek: xe/nos a)rchai=os], iii. 1, 4. The story mentioned by Strabo (ix. 403) that Xenophon served in the Athenian cavalry at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.), and that his life was saved by Sokrates, I consider to be not less inconsistent with any reasonable chronology, than the analogous anecdote--that Plato distinguished himself at the battle of Delium. See below, ch. v.] [Footnote 5: See ch. v.] [Side-note: His personal history--He consults Sokrates--takes the opinion of the Delphian oracle.]