A significant body of work on how Xenophon's Oeconomicus is a response to Aristophanes' Clouds has been written in recent decades, starting with the enigmatic book by Leo Strauss on dialogue. And while great consideration has been given to the marked relationship between these two works, as well as its relationship to the treatises on the arts of Xenophon and his Hiero, the fertile Oeconomicus has much more fruit to offer us in regards to a greater understanding of the coherence of the dialogue with the thought of Xenophon. Xenophon presents much of his thought in a way that requires readers to constantly keep Plato's thought in mind but also to strive diligently to discern Xenophon's voice. We can easily recognize the relationship between Xenophon's Apology of Socrates and Plato's Jury and Apology of Socrates and Xenophon's Symposium with Plato's Symposium, and it has recently been proposed that Xenophon's Education of Cyrus is a direct response to Plato's Republic which explores the serious difficulties Xenophon has with the best regime.1 We can therefore deduce that, in a certain sense, the works of Xenophon are derivatives. Declaring a derivative work is often synonymous with a sign of inferiority, of mere replication. However, the public must seriously consider that a derivative may not simply reappropriate but attempt to respond to a master the imitator deems worthy of study. The imitator, if he takes the master seriously and is not simply subservient to him, requires a mastery of the boundaries of the original so that he can create his own work. We must therefore consider with great seriousness the reading of Xenophon as a commentator on Plato, willing to bring the shadows to light. One study of Xenophon that has not been brought to light is that... half of the paper.... ...is done while standing because it is a detail not mentioned but also because it is such a short conversation. Ischomachus, however, is already seated in the colonnade when he and the young Socrates begin their discussion, suggesting the possibility of greater entertainment for their long conversation (Oec. 7.1). Meanwhile, no setting is provided for Socrates' public discussion with Critobolus, but this does not seem important to Xenophon. The importance of the setting is that Xenophon and the others are present and can each engage for a long uninterrupted period. This forces us once again to take the position quite seriously, and also since the stoa was built on a specific date in memory of a crucial event and is a unique place for the corpus of Plato and Xenophon, we must consider the possibility that we be some meaning in the dramatic date of each dialogue.