Two Socratic works by the Athenian soldier and writer Xenophon. The Memorabilia reports Socrates’ rule for siting a house to the sun; the Oeconomicus, a dialogue on running an estate, describes the Persian royal garden, the paradeisos, planted by Cyrus the Younger in straight rows.
Xenophon (c. 430–354 BC) was a pupil of Socrates, a commander of the Greek mercenaries who marched with Cyrus the Younger into Mesopotamia in 401 BC, and afterwards a country gentleman in exile. He knew both the houses of Greece and the courts of Persia at first hand.
In the Memorabilia (III.8) Socrates argues that a house is beautiful when it is useful: pleasant to live in summer and winter, and a safe store for what is in it. In a house facing south, he says, the winter sun reaches into the porticoes, while in summer it passes over the roofs and gives shade; so the south side should be built higher to catch the winter sun and the north side lower against the cold winds. Temples and altars, he adds, belong on a site that is conspicuous and little trodden, where people may pray at the sight of them and approach them in purity.
In the Oeconomicus (IV) Socrates tells how the Spartan Lysander visited Cyrus the Younger at Sardis and admired his paradise: the trees planted at even intervals in straight rows, every angle true, the air full of scent. Cyrus replied that he had measured and arranged it all himself, and planted some of the trees with his own hands. The passage is the classic Greek description of the Persian walled garden that gave us the word paradise.
The book, part by part
I Memorabilia III.8.8–10: the house and the temple
Face the house south, high on the south and low on the north, so that its porticoes take the winter sun and are shaded in summer; set temples on conspicuous, untrodden sites.
II Oeconomicus IV.13–25: the king’s paradises
The Persian king keeps paradises wherever he resides; Cyrus the Younger’s garden at Sardis, laid out by his own measure in straight, regular rows.