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The World's First Classical Communtary

The Future of Reading Ancient Literature

1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 How to Enjoy This Communtary…

2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Cyrus’ Paradise is the world’s first comprehensive, online, communal commentary or “communtary” for a Classical text: Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus (Cyropaedia). Cyrus’ Paradise incorporates contributions from all generations and communities, from high school and college students to advanced professors to amateur enthusiasts. Contributions take the form of multimedia (pictures, audio, video), grammatical and syntactical instruction, and discussion in the form of questions, comments, and blog posts. Because it is always growing, the communtary is designed to produce new readings of the text with every new participant. It may be used as a tool for scholarly research at any stage, from a prospectus to a polished article. It may also be used as an intermediate or upper-level Greek text. Sample syllabuses are provided here. Our approach has been to provide students with every conceivable resource for understanding and interpreting the text (e.g., grammatical/syntactical aid, parsing, tree-banking, vocabulary, video instruction, audio recordings), while at the same time developing every conceivable way to assess student mastery.

3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 How to Enjoy This Communtary…

4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 The Education of Cyrus (c. 365 BCE) is a narrative composed by Xenophon the Athenian, treating the life of the first king of the Persian Empire, Cyrus “the Great” (c. 600-530 BCE), from his youth in the Persian educational system (agôgê) to his conquest of Babylon and establishment of one of the ancient world’s first large empires. Over time many have been interested in the Education of Cyrus, including the Roman general Scipio Africanus, Machiavelli, and Thomas Jefferson, as well as modern political scientists. In the past thirty years the work has seen a resurgence of scholarly interest, whether it is read as a handbook on leadership, a proto-novel, a relic of Achaemenid (early Persian) culture and Iranian folklore, a quasi-biography or history, a military treatise, an exploration of the emotions (e.g., love, envy), or a philosophical engagement with many of the questions of childhood education, human psychology, justice, and the ideal society that were familiar to Athenians of the early fourth century, especially from the works of Plato and Isocrates as well as other works of Xenophon.

5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 How to Enjoy This Communtary…

6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 As the descriptor “communtary” suggests, many people have been involved in bringing this site into being, and the numbers are only growing; you can read more about them here, and could even see your own name added to the list! We welcome any questions and informed comments to any part of the site, though we reserve the right to remove any comments without notification, in order to maintain quality, clarity, and professionalism. If you are interested in getting involved with the project in a more official capacity, please e-mail us.

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Source: http://www.cyropaedia.org/?req=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyropaedia.org%2Fauthor%2Faromano%2F