Abstract
Today hunting is a leisure pursuit, as it was for a good part of antiquity. In the Cynegeticus, however, Xenophon defends this pastime as a form of liberal education and other authors of the Classical period do the same. How does hunting constitute paideia or “education”? While scholars have generally taken Xenophon at his word and accepted that hunting provides natural training for the military, I apply pressure to this line of reasoning by examining those texts that depict hunting as a leisure pursuit and not an education at all. I raise the question: what is hunting? Is it an education or a leisure pursuit, paideia or paidia, and how can we tell the difference? I argue that Xenophon offers three criteria by which hunting as a paideia distinguishes itself from paidia (and so, by extension, how liberal education distinguishes itself from play more generally): by stressing the pastime’s laboriousness, tradition and usefulness.
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