8, 8, 4

[Constantinus Philo]

οὗτοι ἦσαν οἱ τιμώμενοι:
what will be the difference if used without article? may be οἱ τιμώμενοι indicates a social class here?

[MattK]

Here's how I see it - with the article it means "these (i.e. those who did good, honourable service) were the ones who were honoured", the implication being that the others, the dishonourable, weren't (whereas now they are, as the passage goes on to explain).

If you took the article out, my understanding is that ἦσαν τιμώμενοι would be a periphrastic use of εἰμί plus participle, equivalent to the imperfect ἐτῑμῶντο, so simply "these were honoured". The implication, given that he's comparing past and present, could then be that nowadays they aren't honoured - like English "they used to be honoured" - which doesn't seem to be [Xenophon?]'s point; he's not saying that men who serve honourably don't get honoured anymore, but rather that the dishonourable are now honoured unduly. If that makes sense.

I put Xenophon in square brackets because if I recall correctly, the last time I had anything to do with the Cyropaedia this whole chapter was generally considered to be spurious - I don't know if that is still the case.