Cyrus' Paradise

See Cyropaedia 1.1.6. Note that Xenophon makes very little reference to Cyrus’ lineage other than to say that it is royal (Cyrus is not the lowborn figure he is in Ctesias.)

Herodotus Histories says the Scythians, although being quite numerous, were unable come to any kind of unified organization (I think he says or implies the same thing about the Thracians), which is of course a suspenseful foil to the Greeks (will they, who are habitually at war with one another, be able to mount a unified resistance against the Persians, or just Medize piece by piece?

When we think about Xenophon’s attitude toward empire, we should keep in mind his attention to all the large nations who seemingly failed at this (admirable?) endeavor.

When you say ‘this’ are you asking a question about the role of fear in Cyrus’ leadership? If so, this is a most interesting one.  Ordinarily we associate fear with the tyrant’s leadership.  Xenophon, however, gives some indication that fear can be a good thing if not a necessary one.  He has Tigranes explain how the fear that Cyrus has instilled in the Armenian king has taught him self-restraint (sophrosune).  Aglaitadas, in his critique of comic laughter, also says that crying (presumably associated with fear) can teach young boys self-restraint.  When Cyrus becomes king of Babylon (which is described as most hostile), Xenophon says that he adopted a style of procession that would both delight his well-wishers but also intimidate any potential enemies. 

If we are being charitable to Cyrus’ behavior here, it would seem that Xenophon is taking a realist’s approach that no matter how benevolent the leader, some of the followers will be incorrigible and overcome only by force, which may sometimes translate into friendship as in the case of the Armenian king.  In a similar vein, Xenophon gives a lengthy list of all the reasons that the Medes follow Cyrus in his pursuit of the Assyrians (rather than hang back with Cyaxares), some of which are less noble than others (e.g., some just did it to get rich).

I also think that the very physical language here is striking.  Cyrus prostrates (καταπληξαι) his subjects so they do not raise their hands against him (επιχειρειν αυτω).  Free Greek men were very sensitive about physical violence as a threat to their status as free men (there is a good article on Spartiates striking free men with their staffs which I wish I could recall).

This is a very interesting question. I wonder how much the second term is Xenophon’s way of saying that he is on some level “filling in the gaps” of what he knows. Perhaps there is a parallel between this statement and Thucydides’ statement on speeches, that he is giving us what was likely to have been said.  There may be a whole theory of empire/leadership behind Xenophon’s explanation of Cyrus’ success that may be causing him to speculate regularly (rather than strictly fabricate or fictionalize). 

A way to start here would be to consider ἐδοκοῦμεν καταμεμαθηκέναι in Cyropaedia 1.1.1 and ἐδοκοῦμεν ὁρᾶν in Cyropaedia 1.1.2. Those versions of δοκέω don’t seem to be particularly speculative; they rather perhaps Xenophon’s self-awareness. A quick skim of other 1ppl usages of the verb elsewhere in Cyropaedia also suggests that δοκἐω is more focalizing than hedging–i.e. “we’re conscious of x-ing” rather than “we seem to be x-ing”. Cf. Gray’s work on source citations in Gray 2010 (Oxford Readings on Xenophon).

In this particular passage we do have a possible contrast with ἐπυθόμεθα, true enough, and, heaven knows, much of the Cyropaedia seems speculative enough. For that general issue see however C. Tuplin 1996 (“Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: Education and Fiction” in Sommerstein and Atherton, eds. Education in Greek Fiction, Nottingham); Tuplin suggests Xenophon would have regarded Cyropaedia as historical.

How much does Cyrus evolve as a character as a result of his various forms of education?

According to this passage, Xenophon would seem to be offering knowledge of proper leadership to his audience.  Hertlein vii cites several ancient authors (e.g., Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus) who see Xenophon’s Cyrus as a model for emulation.

See Carlier 1978 (in Gray 2010) for the argument that Xenophon may have been hoping to encourage and train a Greek leader to conquer Persia. Ultimately Carlier believes that Xenophon believed such imperial conquest was not worth the effort: “At the end of his life, Xenophon remains fascinated by the idea of an Asiatic conquest; but, after deep reflection he seems particularly sensitive to the political consequences of conquest: the establishment of an absolute monarchy, whose disagreeable aspects are not hidden–and especially to the fragility of a territorial empire. The Cyropaedia seems to be the work of a clear-eyed traditionalist, a man worried about the disruptions that the conquest of Asia would create for the Greeks.”

It’s interesting that Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. talk about monarchy as much as they do, given how little direct experience of it they have. They know about Homeric kingship from the epics, and would have thought of it as part of their past, but it was neither exclusive nor all that powerful, as the plight of Agamemnon in the Iliad makes clear. Spartan “kingship” is obviously a special case, as there were two of them  and their powers were pretty limited. The kings of the fourth century Greek world, such as the rulers of Syracuse, Evagoras on Cyprus, and Jason of Pherae, are all closer to tyrants than proper kings, having gained power recently and tending to be relatively short-lived phenomena. The contemporary examples of hereditary kingship other than Persia that Xenophon gives in Cyropaedia 1.1.4 – Scythia, Thrace, and Illyria – are all rather rough and disorganized barbarians, and clearly not models to emulate (intriguing that he doesn’t mention the Macedonians). Discussions of monarchy as one of several theoretical forms is, of course prevalent – Greeks liked to think about things theoretically. In an early example, Herodotus’s constitutional debate, the arguments for monarchy are not all that compelling, but monarchy has to win out, not because of the superiority of the arguments but because Darius did, in fact, become king. Against this context, one has to ask why Xenophon is so interested in kingship as a form (the best form?) of government, and whether his conception of it might be different from that of many of his Greek compatriots, in part, at least, because of his unusual knowledge of things Persian. A lot of my current work is in the area of comparative history/civilization of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean and ancient China. Whereas so much attention is given in classical political thought to forms of government, this is a non-issue in China, where monarchy as the best and only conceivable form of government is a given and is deeply validated by religious concepts (ancestor worship, Mandate of Heaven theory). In ancient China the political discussion is all about the character, conduct, and attitudes of the monarch, for herein lies the key to good government. The Cyropaedia seems to me to be infused with that approach to the problem – Cyrus comes off looking like a good Confucian king! I am not for a moment suggesting that there is any East Asian influence on Xenophon. But he seems to think about monarchy in the way that people who live under monarchy think, and that can, perhaps, best be explained by his unusual experience of and knowledge about Persia.Note that this is also the approach to justifying his rule taken by the Persian King Darius in his inscriptions. Aside from the constant reminders that Ahuramazda wants him to be king, he frequently advertises his character and his conduct as validations of his fitness to rule. Come to think of it, this is pretty much what Herodotus’s Darius claims as the justification for monarchy – if the best man is king, then that will be the best kind of government.

Plutarch Life of Alcibiades says that Alcibiades not only had designs on Sicily but Carthage and Libya. Isocrates Panegyricus, of course, famously advocates conquest of the Persians in order to bring about unity at home. Carlier 1978 (in Gray 2010) argues that Xenophon offered up the example of Cyrus as a template for how the Greeks might conquer a decadent Persia, ultimately with undesirable consequences.

Is Xenophon’s emphasis more on the willingness than the sheer size of Cyrus’ following? cf. ἑκόντων…ἑκόντων

The limited success of the Athenians and their allies in “liberating” lands from Xerxes and Artaxerxes I, and the failure of the Spartans and their allies to do the same after the revolt of Cyrus, would also have come to mind.  Xenophon describes several such attempts in the Hellenica and Anabasis including ones as small as his own dream of a colony on the Black Sea and the wars of Dercylidas and Clearchus against the European Thracians.  Even inside Greece, he saw a whole series of powers fail to maintain hegemony, let alone maintain it through voluntary consent.  Perhaps his own failures in this area, and those of leaders he admired such as Agesilaus, made him especially respectful of Cyrus the Elder?

Note that Herodotus Histories 1.6 has a similar account of the conquests of Croesus:

[2] οὗτος ὁ Κροῖσος βαρβάρων πρῶτος τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν τοὺς μὲν κατεστρέψατο Ἑλλήνων ἐς φόρου ἀπαγωγήν, τοὺς δὲ φίλους προσεποιήσατο. κατεστρέψατο μὲν Ἴωνάς τε καὶ Αἰολέας καὶ Δωριέας τοὺς ἐν τῇ Ἀσίῃ, φίλους δὲ προσεποιήσατο Λακεδαιμονίους. [3] πρὸ δὲ τῆς Κροίσου ἀρχῆς πάντες Ἕλληνες ἦσαν ἐλεύθεροι· τὸ γὰρ Κιμμερίων στράτευμα τὸ ἐπὶ τὴν Ἰωνίην ἀπικόμενον Κροίσου ἐὸν πρεσβύτερον οὐ καταστροφὴ ἐγένετο τῶν πολίων ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἐπιδρομῆς ἁρπαγή.

ἤθελον αὐτῷ ὑπακούειν: Is this synonymous with Κύρῳ … ἐθελήσαντας πείθεσθαι?

Ruling the willing and ruling the unwilling are the first way in which Plato distinguishes types of constitutions, e.g. at Plato Statesman 291e1-5. Ruling willing subjects marks someone as a king rather than a tyrant, so it’s an important distinction for Xenophon to make about his Cyrus and his type of rule.The vocabulary of persuasion here (and also the compulsion that we accept it) is rather reminiscent of Plato’s later political thought; persuasion through speech rather than compulsion through law underlies much of Plato Laws, for example. Again, this vocabulary here seems to me to be setting out a message to the reader to read this work as political theory, or at least as a politeia type text, rather than simply as a historical narrative.

At Cyropaedia 1.4.1 Cyrus wins over the fathers of his Medan contemporaries by showing favor for their sons and acting as an ambassador to Astyages. At Cyropaedia 1.4.2 Cyrus wins over his grandfather Astyages by attending to him in his illness. At Cyropaedia 1.4.4. Cyrus wins the affection of his Medan contemporaries for challenging them in contests that he knew he would not win (e.g., horseback riding). At Cyropaedia 1.4.5 Cyrus wins the friendship of the wine-pourer Sacas by enlisting his help in determining the right time to visit Astyages. At Cyropaedia 1.4.27 Cyrus is loved by a Mede (Artabazus) because of his beauty.  Artabazus later agrees to follow Cyrus against the Medes and help him enlist others ( Cyropaedia 4.1.22–24, Cyropaedia 5.1.24). At Cyropaedia 3.1.42-43 Cyrus wins the loyalty of Tigranes and his wife for sparing his father. At Cyropaedia 3.2.22 Cyrus wins the loyalty of the Armenians and Chaldaeans by arranging a treaty between the two of them of intermarriage and mutual land-sharing. At Cyropaedia 4.2.10 Xenophon gives a long list of reasons why the Medes agreed to follow Cyrus in his pursuit of the Assyrians: (1) they had been friends with him as a boy, (2) they like his character from their time with him on the hunt, (3) they were grateful to him for freeing them from danger in the recent battle with the Assyrians, (4) they expected him to be successful and great, (5) they felt gratitude toward him for the favors he had done for them in their youth, (6) they wanted to pay him back for the favors he had secured from his grandfather, (7) and they saw the opportunity to profit from the expedition. It is not clear to me whether the fear that Xenophon inspires in others (cf. Cyropaedia 1.1.5) counts as a type of “willing obedience”; or if it is something that translates in to willing obedience (as in the case of the Armenian king, Cyropaedia 3.1.23–25); or if it is an altogether different motive for following a leader.

Another way of asking this question is “How important is lineage for leadership according to Xenophon?”

Cicero notes that the Cyropaedia is very popular in his day and refers to it as Cyri Vita et Disciplina ( Cicero Brutus 29.112). Cicero Letter to Quintus 1.1.23 calls the work The Cyrus.  Bizos v cites Aulus Gellius 14.3 for the first use of title in Greek, Kurou paedeia.  The most straightforward way of understanding the title is that it is a reference to the education (paedia) that Cyrus receives in the Persian educational system (agôgê) and also perhaps at his grandfather’s court in Media and in dialogue with his father, Cambyses, all of which occur only in the first of eight books. To name a work after the events in the first book is not unprecedented for Xenophon, however.  The Anabasis refers strictly to the attempted “going up” of Cyrus the Younger to claim the Persian throne in Book One (Mather and Hewitt on Anabasis 1.1). Tatum 1989:90–91 argues that Plato Laws 694c–695b reference to Cyrus’ education is proof that the work was titled Kyrou paideia by Xenophon; and, agreeing with Higgins, he argues that Cyrus’ paideia is the focus of the entire work. Another way of saying this is that Xenophon seems minimally interested in Cyrus’ lineage (something he might have focused on if it were his intention to praise Cyrus, as he does with Agesilaus) or Cyrus’ destiny, but focuses rather on his nature and his education. It is also conceivable, though unlikely, that the title refers (1) to the education that Cyrus’ career can give any reader interested in leadership (cf. ἐκ τούτου δὴ ἠναγκαζόμεθα μετανοεῖν μὴ οὔτε τῶν ἀδυνάτων οὔτε τῶν χαλεπῶν ἔργων ᾖ τὸ ἀνθρώπων ἄρχειν, ἤν τις ἐπισταμένως τοῦτο πράττῃ, Cyropaedia 1.1.3) or (2) to the education that Cyrus gives to his followers in Book Eight as he sets up his palace in Babylon.  At any rate some form of education continues after Book One.

Xenophon may be reflecting on the past two hundred years of political life in Athens (Bizos on Cyropaedia 1.1.1). The city had witnessed the tyranny of Peisistratus and his son Hippias (561–514 BCE), the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes (508), and the radical democracy of Pericles (461–429), followed by the short-lived oligarchies of 400 and 5,000 (411). In 404 the Spartans imposed a tyranny of thirty members that was overthrown in 403 by democrats led by the general Theramenes. On the volatility of political life in Greece in the period covered in Xenophon’s Hellenica (411–362), see Dillery 1995:3–4. From a more theoretical vantage Xenophon may also be thinking of the treatment of governments devolving from the kallipolis in Plato Republic 546a–569c, i.e., from timocracy (an aristocracy of honor-lovers) to oligarchy to democracy to tyranny. Though neither author ever mentions the other (except once, Memorabilia 3.6.1), the correspondence between Plato and Xenophon is in many ways obvious. Both wrote Apologies of Socrates, both wrote Symposia, both wrote dialogues featuring Socrates (in Xenophon’s case, the four books of the Memorabilia), and both wrote about constitutions and the best forms of leadership, in Plato’s case in the Laws, Republic, and Statesman, and in Xenophon’s case in the Education of Cyrus, the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, and the encomium to the Spartan king Agesilaus. In the ancient world both Diogenes Laertius 3.24 and Aulus Gellius 14.3 mention a tradition of a rivalry between Xenophon and Plato. Gellius says that some thought the Education of Cyrus was Xenophon’s response to Plato’s Republic and that the Laws was Plato’s response to the Education of Cyrus (see Danzig 2003 on this tradition). Tatum 1989:91 sees the Cyropaedia also as a response to the Iliad and Herodotus’ Histories. From a literary or historiographical vantage Xenophon may also be thinking of the rise and fall of individual city-states that Herodotus Histories 1.5.4 describes. Similarly Cyrus’ father Cambyses treats the fall of city-states at the conclusion of Book One ( Cyropaedia 1.6.45). He gives several reasons why a city-state might bring about its collapse: (1) unwisely making war on another state, (2) elevating leaders and cities to a lofty place, (3) treating potential friends as slaves, (4) desiring to be lord over everything, and (5) being greedy. These instances all illustrate for Cambyses the limitation of human wisdom and the need to rely on the gods, who reward the pious. Both the Histories and the Education of Cyrus share an interest in the first king of the Persian Empire, and there is precedence for Xenophon to pick up from another famous work of literature. It is commonly assumed that Xenophon takes up the narrative thread of Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War in his Hellenica (cf. Gray 1991 and Dillery 1995:9–11). At the beginning of the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians he may also be reflecting on Thucydides’ observation that Sparta, though sparsely populated, was the most powerful and famous city in Greece ( Thucydides Histories 1.10). Perhaps in the Education of Cyrus he is also taking up the themes of unstable cities and Cyrus’ life from Herodotus. Throughout the work we find other correspondences to the narrative of Herodotus, most notably in Xenophon’s treatment of Cyrus and Croesus in Book Seven. In some instances it would seem that Xenophon is adopting Herodotus’ content and theme, but in others he seems to be drawing a sharp contrast. See, for example, Xenophon’s Cyrus at Cyropaedia 1.4, in the company of his Medan contemporaries, in contrast to Herodotus’ Cyrus in the same community ( Herodotus Histories 1.114). Even if we are to read a philosophical and literary influence into the introduction, as seems likely, the fact that Xenophon begins his reflection with the decline of democracy, which, he says, some find less desirable than any other constitution, suggests that he is trying to connect broadly with his Athenian audience and its legacy of democracy, for better and worse (see additional comments to this subsection).

Hirsch 1985:64–65 provides several examples to show that Xenophon may have been reflecting on recent revolts, coups, and secessions within the Persian empire itself.

Hertlein on Cyropaedia 1.1.1 cites Aeschines Against Timarchus 4–5:

“It is acknowledged, namely, that there are in the world three forms of government, autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy: autocracies and oligarchies are administered according to the tempers of their lords, but democratic states according to established laws. And be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards. Men, therefore, who administer an oligarchy, or any government based on inequality, must be on their guard against those who attempt revolution by the law of force; but you, who have a government based upon equality and law, must guard against those whose words violate the laws or whose lives have defied them; for then only will you be strong, when you cherish the laws, and when the revolutionary attempts of lawless men shall have ceased” (translation, Charles Darwin Adams).

The Constitutional Debate in Herodotus Histories 3.80-84 discusses the relative strengths and weaknesses of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy (on which, see Pelling 2002:123-58).  Isocrates Nicocles (or To the Cyprians) gives a multi-faceted defense of monarchy and criticizes democracy and oligarchy. Protagroas by contrast (in Plato Protagoras) defends democracy on the grounds that Zeus has instilled aidôs (a sense of shame, a conscience) and dike (a sense of right and wrong) in all humans. Angelos Chaniotis 2010 discusses the success of democracy as well as attitudes toward democracy (and illusions of democracy) in ancient Greece, especially the Hellenistic world. Xenophon seems somewhat anti-democratic here, with his observation that some prefer any other form of government to democracy. Moreover Cyrus is clearly a monarchical leader, who at times even works outside the laws. Many of the forms of leadership that Xenophon treats, including the general, the captain, the father, and the estate manager, are monarchical. Nevertheless there are features to Cyrus’ character and leadership that could be described as democratic (with Cyrus as a dêmotikos): Cyrus is educated publicly, he encourages open discussion, he seeks to build consensus, and he shows concern for the injured and needy. This is of course a far cry from saying that everyone under Cyrus has “equal rights”.

See Carlier 1978:333n16 (in Gray 2010) for the history of this debate.  Carlier notes that several commentators have thought that Xenophon prefers monarchy.

Raaflaub 2007:107-108 cites Pindar Pythian Odes 2.86-88 as the “earliest tesimony for the distinction between three different constitutions, based on the number and type of persons holding power.” Pindar says, “In every sphere, the just and well-spoken man wins respect, whether in a tyranny, or where the noisy crowd hold sway, or the wise keep watch” (transl. F. J. Nisetich).

For a helpful introduction to many facets of Athenian democracy, see Demos: Classical Athenian Democracy.

Xenophon seems to be attempting to elicit wonder (thauma) in his audience and thereby draw them into the investigation of Cyrus’ character as a leader. The repetition of quantitative adjectives, “so many” and “many”, contribute to this effect. Herodotus, too, grounds his investigation (historia) on the fact that the deeds of Greeks and barbarians are wonderful ( Herodotus Histories 1.1.1). This technique is practiced today by familiar, folksy commentators such as Andy Rooney and Frank DeFord. As in the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 1.1, Xenophon ironically undercuts his reflections at Cyropaedia 1.1.3, saying in effect, “I thought humans could not govern other humans…until I thought of Cyrus.”

As a very complex and key word ἔννοιά (in Plato and Aristotle too), it seems that in Xenophon it can refer to the concrete and un-concrete realities that have come into his mind and he conceived them through reason and then can write about them. Thus they have passed through the judgement of reason and thereby can make his first proposition in the first paragraph of his book.

Many ancient authors, prior to and contemporary with Xenophon, wrote about the Persians: Herodotus, Ctesias, Heracleides of Cyme, Antisthenes, Isocrates, Plato (on the tradition of Persica, see Llewellyn-Jones 2010:45-55). However we answer the question of Xenophon’s audience’s familiarity with Cyrus has strong implications for how we read the rest of the Cyropaedia. On the one hand, if we assume a strong familiarity, we may read the Cyropaedia as a “knowing” dialogue with the other sources and imagine such things as Xenophon critiquing and rewriting the Cyrus tradition according to what he believes to be the more accurate account (See Gera 1993). On the other hand, if we assume this familiarity we will have to account for things like the apparent pedantic tone that Xenophon takes in explaining very rudimentary things about Persian culture and education (already spelled out in Herodotus); or the striking divergence of Xenophon’s account of how Cyrus comes to be king of the Medes peacefully from all other accounts (including evidence from material culture) that have Cyrus taking Media through warfare; or the seeming invention of the character of Cyaxares, Cyrus’ Medan uncle and heir to the Medan throne.

To what extent do we see Xenophon (or others) addressing the ways in which Cyrus interacted with other cultures, e.g. by using their language or adopting/respecting their culture? The Cyrus Cylinder is of course a great example of this but it is not clear how consistent the portrait of Cyrus there is with Xenophon’s.

Perhaps somewhat akin are Isocrates’ views on Philip as a ruler of the Macedonians. Isocrates To Philip 107-108 makes the point that Philip’s monarchy is an acceptable form of government because his ancestors won rule over what Isocrates regards as a non-Greek people for whom kingly rule was appropriate (it isn’t for Greeks who live in poleis, of course). There’s some interesting discussion just before this in To Philip about Philip’s particular suitability to lead an expedition into Asia, which touches on the Anabasis and might shed some different light on the particular issues of ruling ἔθνη. Plato touches briefly on this at various points – Plato Republic 1 discussion with Thrasymachus distinguishes the rule of ethnê and poleis at several points, and considers tyranny over ethnê a specific topic (Plato Republic 336a5-7, where Xerxes is named, and the discussion around Plato Republic 351c6-9). There does seem to be an impressive overlap of imagery between Cyropaedia 1 and Plato Republic 1.

Cyrus himself orders Tigranes to forgive his father for executing his tutor out of envy because it was a “human” mistake (cf. ἀνθρώπινά μοι δοκεῖς ἁμαρτεῖν, Cyropaedia 3.1.40). Cyrus is respectful of the humanity of others and aware of his own human weaknesses. Humanity is the basis for forgiving the rashness of the Cadusian prince (cf. ἀνθρώπινον τὸ γεγενημένον• τὸ γὰρ ἁμαρτάνειν ἀνθρώπους ὄντας οὐδὲν οἴομαι θαυμαστόν ( Cyropaedia 5.4.19). Cyrus emphasizes a shared humanity with Croesus (cf. ἄνθρωποί γέ ἐσμεν ἀμφότεροι, Cyropaedia 7.2.10). Cyrus acknowledges his own human potential for greed ( Cyropaedia 8.2.20). Cyrus is aware of his vulnerability to overconfidence and excessive happiness (cf. φόβος δέ μοι συμπαρομαρτῶν μή τι ἐν τῷ ἐπιόντι χρόνῳ ἢ ἴδοιμι ἢ ἀκούσαιμι ἢ πάθοιμι χαλεπόν, οὐκ εἴα τελέως με μέγα φρονεῖν οὐδ’ εὐφραίνεσθαι ἐκπεπταμένως, Cyropaedia 8.7.7).

Doty on Cyropaedia 1.1.1 translates θαυμάζονται as “are admired,” as does Ambler on Cyropaedia 1.1.1. Bizos on Cyropaedia 1.1.1 has “sont admirés.” Miller on Cyropaedia 1.1.1 translates it as “are objects of wonder.” Nadon 2001:176 assumes that θαυμάζονται connotes admiration and uses this assumption to support an argument (also ascribed to Machiavelli) that the Cyropaedia “covertly instructs its more astute readers…in how to pursue their ambitions even, or especially, at the expense of republican government.” The interpretation of θαυμάζονται seems tied to our understanding of σοφοί and εὐτυχεῖς. Our best source for Xenophon’s views on tyranny is the Hieron, a dialogue between the tyrant of Syracuse and the poet Simonides. Simonides seems to suppose that Hieron has knowledge or wisdom (cf. Hieron 1.1.5) concerning the joys and sorrows of the tyrant, as opposed to those of a private citizen. He does not show interest in Hieron’s wisdom in maintaining power. Hieron 5.1, however, provides one way of understanding the adjective sophos in a tumultuous political atmosphere. Hieron says that a tyrant fears the sophoi in his community because they might contrive to plot against him (cf. μηχανήσωνται). It is instead the dikaioi whom the tyrant fears will seem more desirable leaders to the masses. Thus sophos in this context seems to mean “good at contrivances or plots.” In the case of tyrants, Xenophon may have had in mind the contrivances of those like the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus, who came to power on three separate occasions ( Herodotus Histories 1.59–64). On one of these occasions Peisistratus was escorted into the city by a tall woman disguised as the goddess Athena; Herodotus Histories 1.60 expresses amazement at the foolishness of the Athenian people for falling for this trick. Peisistratus is several times described with a verb of contriving (cf. μηχανῶνται, Histories 1.59.19, Histories 1.60.10, Histories 1.60.15 and his final attack on the fleeing Athenians is described as the “cleverest plan” (cf. βουλὴν…σοφωτάτην, Histories 1.63.8). εὐτυχεῖς: Xenophon seems concerned to make the point that it’s hard for human beings to rule others under any system of government (cf. Cyropaedia 1.1.3). The placement of tyrants at the end of a list of toppled governments seems to make the point in the extreme. Given the difficulty that tyrants face, if a tyrant succeeds at ruling at all, the implication seems to be that he was very “lucky”, as Hertlein on Cyropaedia 1.1.1 renders it—not “happy” or “prosperous,” as eutuchês may sometimes be translated. Since it does not seem logical to admire someone for being lucky, there seems little about the tyrant’s attempts to stay in power that is admirable or worthy of emulation so much as wondrous. I would translate this passage as, “Those attempting to rule as tyrants…are regarded as having been both wondrously clever and lucky men.”

Bizos on Cyropaedia 1.1.2 points out that Isocrates To Nicocles 12 discourages the Cyprian king from believing that only animals can be tamed and increase their worth. On the contrary, human beings can improve themselves, he says, by education (paideusis) and diligence (epimeleia). Norlin on Antidosis 209-214 notes a similar sentiment. There Isocrates makes the implicit a fortiori argument that if animals can be trained be, e.g., to be more gentle and intelligent, then humans ought similarly to be educable through diligence and training. With the analogy of animals, Xenophon seems to be casting Isocrates’ problem of educating humans as a problem of for governments (and leaders) to lead them.

For a comparison between the leader as herdsman metaphor in Plato and Xenophon see Carlier 1978:329n4 (in Gray 2010).

I suppose we must also throw Thrasymachus’ comparison from Plato Republic I into the mix (shepherds are interested in profiting from the meat and wool from sheep, not in the welfare of the sheep). This comparison is particularly pointed given that Xenophon explicitly notes that the sheep let their leaders make whatever use they’d like to of their “fruits”. But as the Iliad language makes clear, shepherds were often used as a positive comparison for leaders of men, rather than to imply that leaders exploit their followers as shepherds do sheep.Compare the ambiguity of the famous moschophoros illustrated here. On the one hand, we have the happy shepherd who, like many a pet owner, is coming to resemble his pet.  But he is presumably bringing that cute lamb to be slaughtered as a sacrifice a top the Acropolis.

Johannes Haubold 2000:17-35 with Appendix A1, Homer’s People, has a good discussion of the tradition of the herdsman (poimen) as leader in Homer. He cites Xenophon’s Socrates as explaining how this metaphor is supposed to work:

At another time he fell in with a man who had been chosen general and minister of war, and thus accosted him.

Socrates. Why did Homer, think you, designate Agamemnon “shepherd of the peoples”? Was it possibly to show that, even as a shepherd must care for his sheep and see that they are safe and have all things needful, and that the objects of their rearing be secured, so also must a general take care that his soldiers are safe and have their supplies, and attain the objects of their soldiering? Which last is that they may get the mastery of their enemies, and so add to their own good fortune and happiness; or tell me, what made him praise Agamemnon, saying–He is both a good king and a warrior bold?–Did he mean, perhaps, to imply that he would be a ‘warrior bold,’ not merely in standing alone and bravely battling against the foe, but as inspiring the whole of his host with like prowess; and by a ‘good king,’ not merely one who should stand forth gallantly to protect his own life, but who should be the source of happiness to all over whom he reigns? Since a man is not chosen king in order to take heed to himself, albeit nobly, but that those who chose him may attain to happiness through him. And why do men go soldiering except to ameliorate existence? and to this end they choose their generals that they may find in them guides to the goal in question. He, then, who undertakes that office is bound to procure for those who choose him the thing they seek for. And indeed it were not easy to find any nobler ambition than this, or aught ignobler than its opposite.

After such sort he handled the question, what is the virtue of a good leader? and by shredding off all superficial qualities, laid bare as the kernel of the matter that it is the function of every leader to make those happy whom he may be called upon to lead. ( Memorabilia 3.2, translation Dakyns)

Haubold 2000:20 notes a tension, however, in the way that herdsmen are regarded in early epic, on the one hand indispensable leaders but on the other outsiders (they do not own their flocks and are thus not strictly “masters” of them) who may be seen as lazy or incompetent: “The shepherd of bibilical narrative is a far more positive figure than the one we find in Homer, and it is he, rather than his hapless counterpart, who came to dominate the imagination of Europe and its cultural descendants.”

We might imagine that the objective prosperity of the followers would be more fundamental to successful leadership, but Xenophon seems to believe that everyone will figure out what is or is not in their benefit eventually that the will is central (cf. his extensive attention to “willing obedience”). Plato Republic characterizes the sophrosune of the polis as the condition in which the rulers and the ruled are in agreement about their respective roles.

It is interesting to note that Xenophon seems to assume that the will of the followers is the basis for a city’s stability and prosperity (since he explains the collapse, at least the internal collapse, of a city-state as due to the desire of one part refusing to be governed by another part), whereas we might imagine that a country today could be maintained for a long time without the will of the people (e.g., North Korea).  At the end of Book One, Xenophon explains how cities and leaders may ruin themselves with misguided invasions of other countries.

Note that the objections to all four forms of government tend to revolve around the character of the rulers, more so than some intrinsic form of rule. Another way of saying this may be that all forms could work if the leaders had the right character (sic Cyrus).

At the end of the Oeconomicus Ischomachus himself (the master of those slaves) admits that leadership is something very difficult (much more difficult than farming, which merely requires effort-epimeleia), so difficult that it is in some sense divine. You are of course right that elsewhere in the work Ischomachus gives plenty of apparently successful advice about how to manage slaves, so this remark is surprising even within the Oeconomicus.

See Xenophon Oeconomicus and Aristotle Politics.

The relationship between Plato Republic and Cyropaedia must of course be complex (starting with the question of whether Xenophon even knew the Republic in the form we know it, though I think that is likely). One interesting point of comparison (especially for those obsessed with the epilogue of the Cyropaedia, as I am) is the failure of succession in Cyrus’ case, and the corresponding stress on the difficulty of succession in the Republic (the business about the “birthing number”, which must be deliberately and even ridiculously obscure). That is, both Republic and Oeconomicus may concur that a paradisaical community is unlikely, given how rare individuals like Cyrus or like philosopher-kings are. But I’ll grant that this passage itself implies that leadership is easy, if one just knows how. The question is whether anyone other than the (fictional?) Cyrus has ever known how.  (Xenophon comes to mind, but his leadership of the 10,000, for all its glories, was hardly the success that Cyrus’ leadership is.)

Interesting. If this were somehow the context for Xenophon’s reflection here (see the similar question about context in the previous paragraph), how might we account for Xenophon becoming familiar with it?  What is he reading or what has he been exposed to to suggest this analogy?  If there is a true Persian source, it might make the final “reflection” in Cyropaedia 1.1.3 seem less spontaneous.

It may also be of significance that Ctesias F*8d3 says Cyrus was from a family of goatherds on his mother’s side.

One significant point is that later authors of fictionalized history (or even plain fiction) seem to have adopted “Xenophon” as a coded pen name, e.g. Xenophon of Ephesus, Xenophon of Antioch, and Xenophon of Cyprus; see Perry 1967:167 ff.

I was just reading a bit on Alexander the Great today, and I came across an interesting factoid. Onesicritus, a Cynic philosopher and Alexander’s chief helmsman, “consciously imitated Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and tried to turn his Alexander into a philosopher in arms” (Cartledge 2004:276). Onesicritus is one of just six eyewitness sources extant on Alexander. I think it would be valuable to compare his work to the Cyropaedia as well as to see how the Cyropaedian tradition of Onesicritus’ work has shaped subsequent narratives on Alexander. In antiquity, Onesicritus’ work apparently prompted Nearchus, one of Alexander’s admirals, to write an account amending Onesicritus’ tale.

Hirsch 1985:79-80 studies this passage in light of Cyropaedia 8.6.20-22, where Xenophon mentions Cyrus’ conquest of Egypt using the passive legetai, “it is said.”  Hirsch argues that Xenophon means to distinguish between historical fact and mere report or legend of Cyrus’ conquest (perhaps because Xenophon was aware of the discrepancy in Herodotus). legetai can certainly be used to disavow a personal belief in something, just as dokei/dokeo (“it seems”/”I seem”) can be used to distinguish reality from mere appearance (though see Gray 2011:100-105). Yet legetai appears throughout the Cyropaedia in places, such as conversations, where one would not expect a major debate about historicity (cf. Cyropaedia 1.3.15.5). If anything, a story-teller might use legetai not to distinguish fact from report but to say, in effect, “I’m not making this stuff up; people actually say this!”My sense is that if Xenophon meant to keep up more than a veneer of historical investigation in the Cyr. (cf. ἐσκεψάμεθα, ἐπυθόμεθα at Cyropaedia 1.1.6 and ὁμολογεῖται at Cyropaedia 1.2.1), he would have had to qualify just about everything he said with legetai or some such verb, and he probably would have done it for Egypt here especially at the outset of the work rather than near the very end. I am puzzled by the general question of whether Xenophon wanted or expected his readers to know very much in detail about Cyrus (and thus very much about Herodotus). Obviously there had been a lot of writing on Cyrus before Xenophon (most recently perhaps the two works by another pupil of Socrates, Antisthenes), but the pose of history and ethnography throughout Book One (esp. chapters 1-3) seem to me more like an introduction to these topics than revisiting contented historical ground. For comparison note how Xenophon’s contemporary Isocrates (who is of course not a historian) casually claims that Cyrus impiously murdered Astyages ( Isocrates Evagoras 39). Either Isocrates borrowed this from some unknown source or he made it up; in either case he does not seem concerned that anyone is going to call him out on it. Isocrates To Phillip 132 similarly claims that Cyrus was cast out into the street by his mother, also unattested anywhere else (to my knowledge).

Most of the other named in this list are ones familiar to educated Greeks (but see Lee Patterson’s note to Cyropaedia 2.4.1 for a comment on whether the Ἰνδοί are the ones in modern Pakistan or not).  This people does not appear to be listed in Brill’s New Pauly or Encyclopaedia Iranica.  The closest word in the TLG corpus is μάγαδις a Lydian musical instrument often mentioned by Athenaeus.

This is covered in the same expression in Cyropaedia 1.1.1 (number 15), but we should add it here, too. Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

Perhaps we ought to bring the verb καταπλῆξαι to bear here when trying to understand this variety of fear. A closer parallel passage then may be Cyropaedia 3.1.25 (which I stumbled over in LSJ).

The fear in Cyropaedia 8.7.7 instead followed alongside Cyrus throughout his days (συμπαρομαρτῶν) and prevented him from being completely at ease–until he died, at which point he seems to think, with Solon, that he can die a happy man.

The leading expert on the Greek way of war is ancient historian Victor Hansen. Read anything by him, especially his recent books, and you can see how a neo-conservatist uses Greek history to assess US foreign policy, especially when it comes to Israel.

These are all very interesting questions! Let me take a stab at one: Does Xenophon consider a successful monarch one who has a good military background? The short answer is a resounding “yes”, although there are plenty of ways to think about this question. On the one hand, military excellence, exhibited either in the role of a commander or (even better) a warrior, is often the basis even for the privilege to speak in a Homeric assembly. Traits of the good general can readily be transformed into good leadership elsewhere, esp. the military commander’s attentiveness (epimeleia; see Sandridge 2012:51-57) and attention to order (eutaxis; see Sandridge 2012:75-76). Check out Xenophon Economicus for a lively analogy between the king, the general, and the estate manager/farmer. Generally speaking, in as much as monarchs are expected to provide for the safety (soteria) of their communities, the ability to command an army is a must.

But I would add two qualifications to this rule. It is not always expected that the would-be monarch will risk himself in battle (see Sandridge 2012:107-110), and we might detect Cyrus taking more of a back-seat on campaign than other more “heroic” warriors (e.g., Abradatas). Secondly, as armies grow more expert/mercenary in the Greek world (esp. by the Hellenistic period) and as the empire/provenance of leadership expands to many people and many cultures (cf. Cyrus in Babylon by the end of the Cyropaedia), monarchs still cling to the image of a military commander, but this is more a pose than a reality (see Hunter 2003‘s commentary to Theocritus Encomium to Ptolemy Philadelphus).

Finally, while military command is often the basis for a monarch’s legitimacy to rule and while military command can be seen as honing the traits necessary for other kinds of leadership, we should remember that monarchs, as many Greeks conceived of them, needed to be much more versatile than your run-of-the-mill military leader. They needed to be, e.g., (literally or metaphorically speaking) physicians, gardeners, teachers, parents, providers, architects, and even philosophers. Hope this helps! You might also like Godfrey Hutchinson 2000 Xenophon and the Art of Command, esp. his chapter on the Ideal Commander.

I’d be interested to know where you see a bias against democracy?

This is a very good question that we will consider further in light of your points. Right now, there is a Comments section available on each of the Lectiones that we hope those processing/translating the text will use to ask questions and to share their own challenges and solutions (have you tried it? do you find it helpful?).
Your thinking is right in line with ours on the matter of the communal translation. It is definitely something we would like to build into the commentary down the line. We could thus allow anyone to comment on the translation just as we may comment on the Greek text. Such a medium would illustrate well how much is lost in translation and how our own interest in the text can govern what we decide to keep and leave out from the Greek.

These are, again, outstanding questions. Your question about Cyrus as an exception is very pertinent to the conclusion of the Cyropaedia, where Xenophon says that after Cyrus Persia began to decline, beginning with a neglect of piety. One may either explain this by saying Cyrus is so exceptional a leader that all others pale in comparison or by saying that Cyrus is somehow flawed as a leader because he could not ensure that Persia prospered after his death.

The issue of jealousy (or envy) is a very complicated one. One of the most vexing questions of leadership is the extent to which the leader should be “like” his or her followers. The best leaders seem to vacillate between being just like everyone else (a “man/woman of the people”) and something rather extraordinary, even divine. On envy/phthonos, check out this blog post.

Xenophon does seem to believe that leadership is teachable, both from what he says here and elsewhere (see Gray 2011:20-22). Now, whether or not anyone can replicate Cyrus’ career seems to depend heavily on one’s nature (phusis; see Cyropaedia 1.2.1).  I suggest in my book that perhaps Cyrus’ style of leadership succeeds only because Cyrus’ nature is exceptional in so many ways and that if he were deficient in any way, his leadership might fail.

On Cyrus as putting an end to tribal warfare, see his treaty between the Armenians and Chaldaeans in Book Three. Such a treat seems to require a careful application of justice (see the Two Coats Story at the end of Cyropaedia 1.3) and matchmaking.

This is an important question to continue to think about, but I think that here Xenophon is focused not so much on humans as followers (somewhat analogous to domestic animals) but humans as leaders; and so while their is perhaps an implicit characterization of humans as flawed (e.g., lawless, wild animals), the focus seems to be more on the fact that humans as leaders have a harder time leading humans than domestic animals. The question for Xenophon, then, seems to be not “What’s wrong with humans as followers?” so much as “What is lacking in the human as leader?” (note his comment at Cyropaedia 1.1.3 that humans “by nature” (πεφυκότι) have a hard time ruling other humans).  The answer to this question for Xenophon seems to be, more or less, “Cyrus.”

Having said this, I wouldn’t discourage you from thinking further about how Xenophon regards humans more generally. I could be wrong, I don’t think he would say that that humans are naturally wild or lawless, so much as needing a more thorough system of education and more sophisticated leadership than is required of domestic animals. Xenophon is a big proponent of philanthropia (a “love” or “fondness” for humans), in his portraits of Cyrus, Agesilaus, and Socrates, and so I don’t think he would advocate such a concept if he didn’t think humans, for all their flaws, were on some level “lovable”.

I don’t think it helps him become a great leader but is rather a testament to his great leadership, it being hard enough to get those who speak the same language to be on the same page. This may also be a slight dig at Plato Republic, which proscribes a single, ideal city-state consisting of about 10,000 Greeks only.

Xenophon is praising Cyrus for his apparent ability to overcome language barriers, ethnic barriers, and distance barriers. Which modern American president was nicknamed “The Great Communicator” and praised for his ability to “steer” foreign nations toward American democratic ideals? Do you see any points of comparison between Cyrus as described here and this famous American leader?

Much of the rest of the Cyropaedia tells this story, though it is interesting to see how many ways Cyrus is able to bring other nations into his empire, some by conquest, to be sure, but more often by forging alliances that are at least on the surface mutually beneficial.

See Tuplin 2013:73-75 for a summary of potential Greek and other leaders and why they would not be sufficient for the scope of a work on ideal leadership. See also Sandridge 2012:Introduction: Interest in Xenophon’s Cyrus.

μέν . .. δέ need not ‘underscore’ any tension; cf. Cyropaedia 1.1.1 just above. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a real question here–how much Cyrus achieves by fear versus something more like ‘admiration’ (if not love). But the strange thing to me seems to be Xenophon’s not underscoring what strikes us (post Machiavelli?) as a fundamental distinction between modes of ruling.

I suspect that this highly rhetorical opening sentence – of course no-one would blame the gods for delivering them everything they had asked for – is setting up the next sentence, in which Cyrus appears to run the risk of blaming the gods, in offering to reject the eudaimonia of his new situation.

Cyropaedia 7.5.37–41 Cyrus decides to adopt kingship as a means of government, and devises a plan to ensure the assent of his peers.
Cyropaedia 7.5.42–47 Cyrus addresses his friends and outlines his proposed arrangements to them.
Cyropaedia 7.5.48–57 Cyrus’ friends (Artabazus at Cyropaedia 7.5.43-54; Chrysantas at Cyropaedia 7.5.55-7) respond to show their assent.
Cyropaedia 7.5.58­­–69 Cyrus then organises his court, establishing his personal bodyguard and the elite forces who will guard his palace in Babylon.
Cyropaedia 7.5.70–86 Cyrus acknowledges that the maintenance of his friends’ skills and virtue will be essential for the maintenance of his rule. He exhorts them to hard work and virtue.
This leads straight into Cyropaedia 8.1-5, a response to this speech by Cyrus’ Persian friend Chrysantas, and the remainder of chapter 8.1, which describes the administrative arrangements Cyrus puts in place to ensure the stability of his new empire.
 

This chapter marks a turning point in Cyrus’ biography, the end of conquest and the beginning of rule. Xenophon shows Cyrus’ awareness of this critical moment through his decision to take on a different form of leadership than the Persian-style generalship he has held up to this point. For those who read the Cyropaedia as a contrast between the republic and the empire as forms of government, this section marks the moment when Cyrus transitions between republican and imperial leadership, and becomes open to accusations that he has become a tyrant; see Nadon 1996:361-74, and Newell 1983:889-906 (see also the authors’ later books, Newell 2013 and Nadon 2001. An alternative analysis of Cyrus’ political progress is given in Breebaart 1983.

Xenophon here appears to step back from a strong endorsement of this model of kingship, although there is much dispute about this. Xenophon presents this view of kingship, as presented in this passage, as being that of his character Cyrus, focalised through his speech with occasional comments from the narrator. It is the character Cyrus’ decision to involve his friends in his exercise of power, and specification of the equipment that is suitable for a king, just as his friends’ response to Cyrus, when he appears in full regalia at his procession (ἐκπλαγέντεςτῇπαρασκευῇ, Cyropaedia 8.3.14), is their personal response to his appearance.

This chapter marks a turning point in Cyrus’ biography, the end of conquest and the beginning of rule. Xenophon shows Cyrus’ awareness of this critical moment through his decision to take on a different form of leadership than the Persian-style generalship he has held up to this point. For those who read the Cyropaedia as a contrast between the republic and the empire as forms of government, this section marks the moment when Cyrus transitions between republican and imperial leadership, and becomes open to accusations that he has become a tyrant; see Nadon 1996:361-74, and Newell 1983:889-906 (see also the authors’ later books, Newell 2013 and Nadon 2001. An alternative analysis of Cyrus’ political progress is given in Breebaart 1983.

Xenophon here appears to step back from a strong endorsement of this model of kingship, although there is much dispute about this. Xenophon presents this view of kingship, as presented in this passage, as being that of his character Cyrus, focalised through his speech with occasional comments from the narrator. It is the character Cyrus’ decision to involve his friends in his exercise of power, and specification of the equipment that is suitable for a king, just as his friends’ response to Cyrus, when he appears in full regalia at his procession (ἐκπλαγέντεςτῇπαρασκευῇ, Cyropaedia 8.3.14), is their personal response to his appearance.

Whether one can read a strong separation between the views of character and author on this matter is disputed; the extent to which Cyrus’ views of good government in this section are consistent with what we see elsewhere in Xenophon is a matter of interpretation.
However, some scholars take the distance between character and author even further and interpret Xenophon’s positive account of Cyrus’ rise to power as an ironic critique of despotic rule. By using the literary device of irony Xenophon can present his critique as apparent approval. Some scholars who adopt this reading of the work (such as Tatum, Nadon) draw on the work of Leo Strauss, whose interpretation of Xenophon’s political thought is particularly influential in the USA. Others outside the Straussian tradition also discern irony in this work (Pierre Carlier 1978, now in English as P. Carlier 2010; Too 2001); Carlier’s perspective differs from Straussian interpreters in placing Xenophon’s analysis within the tradition of Panhellenism.

Both the substance of kingship (the practical arrangements for administration of an empire) and its ritual and performative elements (religious ceremonies, processions, special costume, court ceremony) will be established and explored in the following sections of the narrative.
In practice, as the remainder of this chapter explores, the question is one of removing Cyrus from everyday contact with his subjects. This royal distancing and seclusion is a key feature of oriental kingship for Greek authors, as seen in Herodotus’ account of the establishment of the empire of the Medes by Deioces ( Herodotus Histories 1.95-102; see Asheri 2007 at Herodotus Histories 1.195-102 for detailed historical commentary). Persian royal iconography, as seen in the reliefs that decorated wall palaces, suggests that establishing distance and communicating it was important to kings such as Cyrus and his successors (see Root 1979); other sources include the Hebrew Bible (for example at Hebrew Bible Esther 5:2).
Although the historicity of this account of the Median empire has been questioned (for example Helm 1981), it functions within Herodotus’ text as a template for monarchy and the role of the founder king in establishing a secure state, against which other monarchs can be compared.
Principal features of this kind of kingship include the separation of monarch from subjects; elaborate court rituals that restrict access of subjects, even elite ones, to the monarch; surveillance of subjects by the monarch’s spies; justice and law becoming identified with the monarch (see Dewald 2003; Walter 2004; Ward 2008 for analyses of despotism, based on Herodotus’ model, but applicable to Xenophon). Xenophon incorporates these themes into his analysis of tyranny, as in his Hiero. Within the Cyropaedia itself, these topics will be explored through this final section, with enquiries into friendship, surveillance (the king’s eyes and ears, Cyropaedia 8.2.10-12), and the construction of court practices of separation (the topic of much of this chapter).
For Xenophon, however, kingship also requires the monarch to provide an example and template (paradeigma) of virtuous behaviour and superlative physical qualities for his courtiers and subjects ( Cyropaedia 8.1.12). Again, this is reflected in numerous Near Eastern sources, including the Old Persian inscriptions. See, in particular, the text referred to as DNb (Darius I, Naqsh-e Rostam, Inscription b), in which Darius describes his qualities. This idealistic self-representation of the monarch has been called an ancient “Mirror of Princes.” See Kuhrt 2007:504-05.
Clearly, within the model as it stands, it is not possible for the vast majority of subjects, excluded from access to the king, to perceive him well enough to gain sufficient knowledge to imitate him. After Cyrus’ institution of kingship, the same becomes true of the peers themselves, when they are moved to obedience through emotional responses of wonder and fear (for example at Cyropaedia 8.3.14, when the peers are moved to perform proskynesis for the first time, because they are ἐκπλαγέντες, a term often used to describe extreme fear on the battlefield). Most of Cyrus’ subjects obey him without directly perceiving him ( Cyropaedia 1.1.3; even those who know that they will never see him are willing to obey him).

Xenophon’s account of Cyrus’ kingship appears to have been influential, based on apparent references to it in other examinations of monarchy by Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle both draw on this account in their analysis of kingship and the foundation of regimes; Plato chooses Persia under Cyrus and his successors as his example of extreme monarchy ( Plato Laws 3.694a3-698a8), while Aristotle’s discussion of pambasileia (absolute kingship, Aristotle Politics 3.15-7) surveys many of the same themes common to both Herodotus’ and Xenophon’s analysis (see previous comment). A strong case can be made that Plato in the Laws responds to Xenophon’s account (Danzig 2003; Dorion 2003). The close relationship between Plato Laws and Aristotle Politics, as well as Aristotle’s emphasis on themes emphasised in the Cyropaedia, such as the role of friendship in political relationships, suggest that Aristotle too may be thinking of Cyrus when he describes the phenomenon of absolute monarchy (pambasileia).
Xenophon’s depiction of Cyrus was thought to have influenced Alexander the Great, via the historian Onesicretus (see comments on Cyrus Paradise at Cyropaedia 1.1.1).

Cyrus’ adoption of this mode of kingship, in response to his military success, puzzles many modern readers, who see Xenophon’s hero apparently abandoning the positive republican political values of the earlier part of the book, and replacing the Persian republic with an autocratic empire. The imposition of a formalised and multi-layered hierarchy seems a complete reversal of the apparent egalitarianism of the Persian aristocracy, described as homotimoi, ‘the same in honour’, and Cyrus’ own earlier actions as a leader who is effectively first among equals. Cyrus’ previous modifications to this system introduced further levels; he armed the Persian commoners in the same way as the homotimoi ( Cyropaedia 2.1.15-19), but then re-establishes a distinction for the homotimoi in retraining them as cavalry ( Cyropaedia 4.3.1-23; see Johnson 2005).
Xenophon indicates some of the problems of this form of kingship by presenting distinctive sets of approaches to rule through descriptions of different societies, so that some aspects of Cyrus’ approach to rule in this section will remind readers both of his grandfather Astyages’ rule over Media ( Cyropaedia 1.3.2-14), and the problems his mother Mandane raised about the differences between Persian and Median justice ( Cyropaedia 1.3.18).

Cyrus’ story illustrates the problem of one-man rule, which is that a consequence of such a form of rule is the elevation of one man to a status distinct from that of the citizens as a whole. While Cyrus’ exceptional qualities might provide some justification for him being elevated in such a fashion, and may even provide utilitarian grounds for treating him in such a way, it is nonetheless a difficulty within the polis ideology of a city of equal citizens (see Aristotle Politics 3.4, Aristotle Politics 3.14-18).
While the presence of a monarch was problematic for polis ideology with its emphasis on equality, the idea of monarchy as a means to the good life exerted a fascination for Greek political theorists (Atack 2014b; Lévy 2006; Mitchell 2013). Isocrates, most likely writing before Xenophon, identifies the idea that a king can provide a model of virtue for his subjects. His trio of connected speeches, the Isocrates Evagoras, Isocrates Nicocles and Isocrates To Nicocles, contribute to a model of the king as paradeigma of good behaviour; copying this behaviour enables his subjects to flourish (Alexiou 2010; Bloom 1955).
Xenophon treats this theme more expansively than Isocrates does in these works, investigating the problem of the powerful monarch both within the smaller-scale equal society, in his discussion of the relationship between Cyrus as king and his home ‘polis’ of Persia ( Cyropaedia 8.5.21-28), and across the larger empire that he creates. Cyrus chooses not to exert his full authority over Persia, leaving his troops at the border, and leaving the Persians to govern themselves in his absence (and Cambyses warns him to do so, Cyropaedia 8.5.24). The model of absent king of a larger empire as ruler over the self-governing but subsumed polis is also addressed in Isocrates’ later works ( Isocrates Panathenaicus), based on his analysis of Athens’ political situation, as conquest by Philip of Macedon and incorporation into his growing empire became more likely (see Atack 2014a; Masaracchia 1995). Both Xenophon and Isocrates can be seen to anticipate a model of rule that would become more common in the Hellenistic world, where the successors to Alexander the Great ruled kingdoms incorporating cities which still maintained many aspects of their pre-existing systems of internal governance (Farber 1979).

The form of kingship that Cyrus adopts rests on the approval of those whose situation as homotimoi is displaced by the elevation of the king and his separation from them. A similar process occurs in Herodotus’ accounts of the rise to kingship of Deioces and Darius. Deioces is elected as king by the Medes (after his friends have lobbied for this outcome, Herodotus Histories 1.97-98), while Darius persuades his fellow conspirators to adopt monarchy as a form of government, then wins the competition among them to be the monarch ( Herodotus Histories 3.80-88). Even among apparently hereditary forms of monarchy in ancient cultures (including the created societies of Homer) there may be competition between potential heirs, especially in complex royal dynasties where half-brothers may compete to succeed their father.
While Deioces maintains separation because he fears that his former peers will recognise that he is not better than them and thus lacks authority to rule, Xenophon’s account of Cyrus presents him as superior in capability to the Persian homotimoi and others who make up his peer group.
However, friendship has a greater significance for kings as a means of controlling and managing relationships with powerful subjects. The relationship of friendship they perceived between the great king and powerful noble subordinates was a further object of fascination to Greek political theorists; Xenophon’s exploration of the theme here is expanded both by Plato and Aristotle, who each attempt to define different types of friendship to explain how rulers who are unequal to their subjects can (or cannot) be friends with them ( Plato Laws 8.837a-838a, Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 8.7.1158b11-1159a12, within the discussion of friendship in books 8 and 9). Xenophon’s thought on friendship has been interpreted in different ways; for Vincent Azoulay, Xenophon’s exploration of friendship in the Cyropaedia tests the philosophical and metaphysical problem of friendship between non-equals, while for Vivienne Gray readers should resist reducing Xenophon’s depiction of political friendship to pure exploitation, and accept David Konstan’s more positive account of Xenophon’s model of friendship (Azoulay 2004; Gray 2011:291-329; Konstan 1997:53-92).

Cyrus’ use of cunning and apparent deceit in his consolidation of power disappoints modern readers such as Tatum (Tatum 1989:97-98, cf. Nadon 2001:6-10), who see these actions as evidence of negative character traits and behaviour that should be deplored. This episode follows several previous ones in which Cyrus secures his desired goals through actions that seem manipulative or even deceitful; the most important of these is the central episode by which Cyrus wins the loyalty of the Median troops and dislodges his uncle Cyaxares from their affections, enabling him to control the direction of the war and ultimately to secure his own position (see Danzig 2012 for a detailed reading of the debate between Cyrus and Cyaxares, Cyropaedia 5.5, alongside accounts more critical of Cyrus, Tatum 1989:126-33 and Nadon 2001:87-100).
However, the use of intelligence and clever trickery (mētis) to consolidate power has a long history and mythology for the Greeks, being thought to start with the gods early in the history of the cosmos in Hesiod’s Theogony; Zeus incorporates the personified Metis into himself before she can become the mother of Athene ( Hesiod Theogony 886-900). The Homeric Odysseus has plenty of tricks up his sleeves (as evidenced by his Homeric epithet polumētis) but this is neither entirely positive nor negative; his resourcefulness enables him to escape from the Cyclops ( Odyssey 9.315-460; his mētis is equated to trickery, πάντας δὲ δόλους καὶ μῆτιν ὕφαινον); Sophocles’ Odysseus is likewise presented as intellectually resourceful, as in the opening scene of the Ajax ( Sophcoles Ajax 1-8) where he is compared to a keen-nosed hunting hound in his pursuit of knowledge. The tradition of mētis in Greek thought is explored in Detienne and Vernant 1974.
Trickery is likewise a part of the process by which Herodotean kings secure power. Deioces does not actively engage in trickery, although his friends improperly influence the debates at which he is chosen as king ( Herodotus Histories 1.97-98). Darius does use trickery to secure victory over his fellow conspirators after they have agreed to a monarchy (Herodotus 3.82-87). Xenophon’s exploration of Cyrus’ use of trickery seems to draw on the broad tradition of rulers and mētis, with a particular nod to the Herodotean account of its role in the rise to power of other Persian rulers.
Cyrus’ use of trickery is not so much to gain power as to legitimate his friends’ (and hitherto equals as homotimoi) exclusion from it. In denying them access to him through this staged encounter, he persuades them to submit to the new court hierarchy in which the relationship between him and his friends can no longer be analysed in terms of strict equality. For some interpreters, this simply formalises a hierarchy that was implicit in the arrangements of Persia, which was not an egalitarian republic, rather than demoting the homotimoi to a lower status than that which they previously enjoyed.

The crowd here represents the large number of subjects now under Cyrus’ control. But perhaps the idea of the mass (τὸπλῆθος) and the disorder created by the demand to meet Cyrus also suggests that direct relationship between the one ruler and the many ruled will be impossible, other than in a manner resembling conflict. Xenophon describes the crowd pushing (ὠθουμένων), a term used of hoplite encounters, and emphasises this link by describing the scene as a battle (μάχη). Cyrus will use the same language and imagery within his speech ( Cyropaedia 7.5.39-45); after encouraging his friends to think that if they wait for him, there will be a time when they push aside the crowd together (ἕωςἂντὸνὄχλονδιωσώμεθα, 39); he describes those who hope to defeat his friends by pushing them aside (ὠθοῦντες, 45) to gain access to him.

The relationship between the peers and the crowd is ambiguous in this chapter. The problem that they have is that the presence of the crowd makes it impossible for them to access Cyrus. They cannot easily be discriminated from the crowd (and it is slaves who perform this task on behalf of Cyrus, οἱδὲὑπηρέται … διακρίναντες, Cyropaedia 7.5.39),and thus merge into it, losing their status as individuals with privileged access to Cyrus as his equal. Desire to meet Cyrus turns all individuals (οἱἄνθρωποι) into an undifferentiated mass (τὸπλῆθος), but one that is the site of conflict; one can only hope to emerge from it through scheming (μηχανή) and fighting (μάχη).

Cyrus appears to be deceiving his friends here, with promises of attention from him that are not fulfilled ( Cyropaedia 7.5.39-40); his friends wait all day for his attention but are dismissed at the end of the day without receiving it. This experience will make them more likely to submit to the new arrangements, although they may not, as Chrysantas hints, have much choice in the matter ( Cyropaedia 8.1.4); choosing to serve under Cyrus will enable the friends to escape the slavery of being compelled to serve under him.

Readings of the Cyropaedia that emphasise Cyrus’ deceit use this episode to illustrate the trickery and the barely disguised force through which Cyrus achieves his goals (Nadon 2001; an extreme version of this perspective is Reisert 2009), who describes Cyrus as a ‘moral black hole’.

Xenophon adds a moment of low comedy here to the description of Cyrus’ friends, waiting to see him all day, then running off to attend to ‘all the necessities’. Delebecque comments that this remark is not in good taste (Delebecque 1978:75, n.3), and treats the ‘necessities’ as ‘besoins naturels’ (‘wants of nature’ in Miller’s translation). The necessities are not named, but may be the same as those similarly hinted at in Cyropaedia 1.6.36, bodily needs that should be attended to at the start of the day, or those mentioned a little less coyly at Cyropaedia 8.8.11 as the consequences of eating and drinking. Delebecque suggests that the πάντων may refer to both hunger and thirst, but presumably here the necessities are the same physical necessities as at Cyropaedia 8.8.11, hence the comedy of the peers running away quickly to attend to them in private.

Cyrus prevents the crowd from approaching him by surrounding himself with a circle of Persian lancers (ξυστοφόρων). This use of Persian soldiers as bodyguards prefigures the adoption of the 10,000 Persians as bodyguards and special forces, that Cyrus will implement soon as part of his new royal establishment ( Cyropaedia 7.5.66-68).
The separation of ruler from ruled by special elite forces or bodyguards is a topos of Greek and other ancient thought on tyranny (such as Herodotus’ account of Deioces; Xenophon Hiero; Plato Republic 9). See Lewis 2006; McGlew 1993; Morgan 2003.

In this speech Cyrus attempts to justify the changed arrangements by which he will restrict access to himself, by interposing his friends between himself and the external world. Access to the king will be mediated through his friends, transformed into courtiers. Cyrus presents the new arrangements as a practical response to the unpleasant crowding that he and his friends have endured in Babylon, although the friends may not realise that this situation has largely been engineered by Cyrus to encourage them to accede to the new political order. A change of scale in Cyrus’ arrangements is made inevitable by the increased scale of his empire; the crowding may also reflect the status of Babylon as a major city.

Cyrus suggests here that he has to pay a heavy price for his new role, in that the demands on him prevent him from enjoying the company of his peers as before. The cost of leadership to the leader is a Xenophontic theme that counters the view that power automatically confers happiness on the holder, expressed for example by sophists such as Thrasymachus and Callicles in Plato Republic and Plato Gorgias respectively. It is most fully expressed in the paradox of the Hiero, that the tyrant is unhappy in his tyranny, and in which Simonides proposes remedies for this unhappiness ( Hiero 8-9) that resemble strategies adopted by Cyrus (for example instituting competitions among troops, creating obligation through gifts, and exhibiting charisma).

Cyrus expresses his regrets about the loss of leisure and the company of the peers using the language of parts and wholes (μέρος) and participation (μέτεσται). The verb λογίζομαι might suggest that Cyrus treats this change either as having a value which can be calculated (an interpretation that would support a utilitarian reading of Cyrus’ motivation) or as an exercise in philosophical enquiry. Xenophon may be invoking the language of Platonic metaphysics by using these technical terms, and demonstrating his engagement with Plato’s more abstract political ontology. (For more on Plato’s exploration of parts and wholes, see Harte 2002; for an introduction to Platonic metaphysics, see Harte 2008).

Cyrus presents the difficult situation in which his friends have found themselves as amusing. Humour and ridicule play an important role in Greek rhetoric and dialogue (Halliwell 1991). Humour of different kinds can denote inclusion within the membership of a group, or exclusion from it. Speakers hope not to appear ridiculous; in Platonic dialogue the stronger term katagelastos always denotes an unfavourable response, geloios a gentler and more inclusive form of humour (Vries 1985).
The gentle humour of Cyrus’ camp was noticed by Gobryas when he joined them ( Cyropaedia 5.2.18, see Halliwell 1991:280 on the mixture of pleasure and play in Cyrus’ laughter); humour and the insult of hubris were kept separate. Cyrus now suggests that the situation in which he and his friends now find themselves is laughable, in this more gentle sense, but his suggestion of humour in the situation appears to work to distance him from responsibility for it.

Cyrus here distinguishes the form of leadership he formerly exercised, that of a general on campaign, from the form of leadership he must now exercise as ruler of an empire. He emphasises the distinction in terms of accessibility and visibility. While a good general must be accessible and visible in order to do his job, in order to know what is happening and continually reassess the situation and opportunities, this continuing presence will not, it seems, be as necessary for the rule of an empire. In practice, Xenophon will identify alternative means through which Cyrus maintains the flow of information and analysis that enables him to to act in accordance with opportunity (kairos). The king’s eyes and ears, a network of spies ( Cyropaedia 8.2.10-12) perform this function and enable Cyrus to act as if he had witnessed events across the empire himself.  See Hirsch 1985: 101-39 for a detailed analysis of all sources on ‘spy’ networks in the Persian empire; the existence of the officer known as the  ‘king’s eye’ is doubtful (cf. Plutarch Artaxerxes 12.1, where Artasyras is identified as holding this office.

Xenophon identifies two respects in which the good general should not fall behind others, in gaining appropriate knowledge of his circumstances (τῷ εἰδεναι ἃ δεῖ) and in doing whatever is kairos (τῷ πράττειν ἃν καιρὸςῇ). Knowledge and the ability to make use of the kairos are closely connected.

The ability to spot an opportunity (kairos) and take decisive action to capitalise on it is identified as an important skill of generals and politicians, both by Xenophon in this work and by Plato (notably in Plato Statesman, where it is a key concept; see Lane 1997). For both writers, the ability to determine the kairos and to act in response to opportunity represents the specific form of knowledge that identifies its holder as a statesman or king. Plato’s Eleatic Stranger argues that “what is really kingship must not itself perform practical tasks but control those with the capacity to perform them, because it knows when it is the right time (enkairias) to begin and set in motion the most important things in cities, and when it is the wrong time (akairias); and the others must do what has been prescribed for them” ( Plato Statesman 305c10-d4; translation from Lane 1997:142).

While the concept of the kairos is important in several genres of Greek literature, notably rhetoric and historiography, this refinement of the concept by Plato and Xenophon will be significant for later political thought (Lane 2012). Earlier writers had both temporal and normative models of the kairos (see Guillamaud 1988; Race 1981; Trédé 1992 for detailed surveys of the concept of kairos across multiple genres).
One way in which Xenophon marks Cyrus’ development as a leader throughout the Cyropaedia is in showing his ability to identify and act upon opportunity; in particular, it marks the point where his skills and ability to execute surpass those of his uncle Cyaxares, and he takes leadership of the Medes from him (see sections Cyropaedia 4.1.11, Cyropaedia 5.1.29, Cyropaedia 5.5.43, Cyropaedia 5.5.45).

The idea of ponos as an aspect of virtue, or means by which individuals may both demonstrate and consolidate their virtue, is central to Xenophon’s thought, most fully expressed in the story of the Choice of Heracles ( Memorabilia 2.1). Good leaders exemplify hard work in all their pursuits; but there is an ideological aspect to what was considered to be ponos by Xenophon and his contemporaries, as Steven Johnstone has shown (Johnstone 1994); aristocratic leisure pursuits such as hunting are identified as examples of ponos, rather than the physical labour of the ordinary worker (for example Cyropaedia 8.1.34-36, where Cyrus identifies hunting as an activity that habituates its practitioners to ponos).
Within the framework of this ideology of aristocratic ponos, a good leader demonstrates superior capacity to withstand hardship and to work in extreme circumstances; Norman Sandridge cites Xenophon himself chopping wood in the snow as an example ( Anabasis 4.4.12) as an example of such capacity, and Cambyses’ argument that the ruler demonstrates his superiority through the possession of ponos (Sandridge 2012:60-63).
In transferring this epithet to war, Xenophon personifies it with an apparently positive characteristic. War loves toil, but has halted (ἀναπέπαυται), itself a verb that Xenophon uses for troops on campaign ( Cyropaedia 2.4.3; Cyropaedia 7.1.4). If Cyrus’ opponent, war, has actually (νῦνδ᾽) taken a rest, he may now be justified in claiming leisure for himself.
Xenophon’s use of superlative forms of philo- compound adjectives is also notable, and marks important features of his ethical thought; see Cyropaedia 1.2.1, where Cyrus is described as φιλανθρωπότατος, φιλομαθέστατος, and φιλοτιμότατος.

The responses to this speech represent two opposed responses to Cyrus, from his Persian supporters and his Median supporters, represented by Chrysantas (Persian) and Artabazus (Median), respectively. Artabazus, in speaking first, may be seen to have the less serious or important points to make; these will be made by Chrysantas in closing the debate. One might assume that a Median courtier such as Artabazus is already willing to accept a subservient role in the new royal hierarchy, whereas for Chrysantas, as an egalitarian Persian, such a role will require more change and be harder to accept.
Artabazus’ speech provides a summary of his involvement with Cyrus, reminding the reader of his participation to Cyrus’ rise to power, now to be rewarded with subordinate roles in the new empire.
 

Artabazus’ final request for a proper distribution of the specific good (Cyrus’ attention and favour) to the most rewarding links this speech back to a major concern of the Cyropaedia as a whole, distributive justice (see note on Cyropaedia 7.5.54). The Achaemenid royal inscriptions show that distributive justice was an important concern of the kings. Darius I states: ‘The man who cooperated with my house, him I rewarded well’ ( DB 63) and ‘The man who cooperates, according to his cooperative action, thus do I reward’ ( DNb 2c; see Kuhrt 2007:503-05 for text and analysis of royal ideology in this tomb inscription). Artaxerxes II gives valuable gifts to his loyal officers and soldiers in the aftermath of Cunaxa ( Plutarch Artaxerxes 14). Briant provides a good summary of the Achaemenid system of gift-giving, distributive justice, and the unequal exchange of gifts with strings attached (Briant 2002:302-23).

Artabazus is a recurring minor character in the Cyropaedia, whose appearances provide comment on the effectiveness of Cyrus’ appearance and arguments, and also an element of humour, through his infatuation with Cyrus. At his first appearance ( Cyropaedia 1.4.27-28) he provides proof Cyrus’ charisma and beauty, and also his youth and naiveté, by tricking him into a kiss. Throughout the work Artabazus reappears ( Cyropaedia 4.1.22, Cyropaedia 5.1.24, Cyropaedia 6.1.9), with his speech here drawing all these episodes together, and, as Bodil Due points out, showing that the apparent humorous asides that featured Artabazus all contribute to an important theme, Cyrus’ charisma (Due 1989:62-66).
In this speech, Artabazus recaps the progress of Cyrus from Persian leader to king through his various military engagements, and underlines the support that Cyrus has received from a series of allies and friends and that has enabled him to succeed. He also outlines the difficulties that Cyrus’ friends have experienced in gaining access to him, the costs of doing so in disregarding personal comfort, and the jealousy that access to Cyrus inspires in others.
Artabazus’ support for Cyrus’ changed role could be predicted from his account of Cyrus’ charisma, which he compares to that of a king bee over the hive ( Cyropaedia 5.1.24-25). Likewise, the good housewife should be both a queen bee (hegemōn melittōn, Oeconomicus 7.32-4 and a guardian of the law (nomophylax, Oeconomicus 9.15) in her relationship with the workers in her household (see Pomeroy 1984 for analysis of the gender implications of this comparison). Artabazus was the first character to respond to Cyrus in this way, even though the initial presentation of his response suggested that it should not be taken seriously.

Artabazus played a pivotal role at two points in the key central episode of the work, in which control of the Median army moves from Cyaxares to Cyrus. When Cyaxares challenges Cyrus to find volunteers to join him in pursuing the Assyrians, Cyrus selects Artabazus, recognising him as the man who had claimed to be his relative in order to kiss him ( Cyropaedia 4.1.22-23, referring to Cyropaedia 1.4.27-28); Artabazus is willing to persuade other Medes to join him in following Cyrus.
After the raid, Artabazus volunteers to continue with Cyrus rather than to return to Cyaxares ( Cyropaedia 5.1.24-25), and is therefore instrumental in persuading other Medes do the same. His reason for doing so is that Cyrus exudes a natural form of royalty, like the king bee in the hive; such bees command the others by generating a strange but powerful form of desire in them, δεινόςτιςἔρως.
While Artabazus’ support may be genuine, the Median soldiers may not know the history of his infatuation with Cyrus, and that he is not choosing to take further action on purely military or pragmatic grounds but because of his desire to be close to Cyrus. In this sense, Artabazus provides a deceptive element, possibly manipulated by Cyrus and certainly enabling Cyrus to manipulate others.
Artabazus’ support for Cyrus’ proposals here is also pointed. For Artabazus, the new regime proposed by Cyrus is sufficiently similar to the rule of Astyages, and the processes of the Median court, which it is not difficult for him to accept, in the way that it might be for the Persians, who are used to equality and frugality. Hirsch has suggested that Xenophon is, in books 4 and 5, describing a coup by Cyrus against Astyages, rather than a peaceful take-over (Hirsch 1985:81-82); this reading brings Xenophon’s account closer to other sources such as the Nabonidus Chronicle, which mentions Cyrus’ victory over Astyages due to a mutiny in the Median army, and parallels Herodotus’ account of the Median aristocracy supporting Cyrus in obtaining the kingship ( Herodotus Histories 1.123). See also Diodorus 9.23, who reports on unrest in the Median camp at the time of Cyrus’ takeover.

The historical Hyrcanians (OP Varkana, “People of the Wolf-Land”) were a people who lived east of the Caspian Sea ( Hecataeus FGrH 1 F 291) and north of the Parthians, on the north-eastern portion of the Iranian plateau, present-day Gorgan. In the Anabasis 7.8.15, Xenophon encounters some Hyrcanian cavalry who fight for the Persian king (see C. Tuplin 1996:134). Hyrcania is thought to have been annexed into the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, although it rebelled under Darius I ( DB 35); Hyrcanians fought in Xerxes’ expeditionary force to Greece ( Herodotus Histories 7.62) and were commanded by the satrap Phrataphernes along with the neighbouring Parthians at Gaugamela in 331 BC ( Arrian Anabasis 3.8.4). Simmering conflict between Hyrcanians and Parthians also features in the account of the Roman Empire in the east, Tacitus Annals. For more on Achaemenid Hyrcania, see Vogelsang 1988.
Hyrcania itself was a fertile agricultural region: Polybius 10.28.3 preserves details of royal rewards for villages maintaining irrigation systems. It was also famed for cavalry and hunting dogs ( Aelian De Natura Animalium 7.38, Aelian De Natura Animalium 16.1).

In Xenophon’s narrative the Hyrcanians were originally allied with the Assyrians, but defect to Cyrus’ side after his defeat of the old Assyrian king ( Cyropaedia 4.2.1-8). Their defection provided Cyrus with the information that he needed to consolidate his victory over the Assyrians. Although the Hyrcanian king provides further information and support ( Cyropaedia 5.2.23-25), he does not become one of the named leading characters of the Cyropaedia. Nonetheless, Hyrcanians are among those who choose to remain close to Cyrus and to be settled in estates around Babylon, when Cyrus distributes the Assyrian land to his followers ( Cyropaedia 8.4.28).

Cyrus’ most recent allies, Gobryas and Gadatas, were gained in the course of his campaigns. Winning them over was a mark of his progress towards building his multinational empire, and also a sign that he was willing to expand his inner circle of friends beyond his close associates from his youth. Artabazus, as a Mede, was an early follower of Cyrus but still outside this Persian inner circle, unlike Chrysantas. The possibility of tension between Cyrus’ supporters adds an element of risk to the foundation of empire.

Artabazus’ contrast between his own limited personal concerns and the pressing matters distracting Cyrus from paying him attention adds an element of humour, but also expresses the distance which Xenophon wishes to point out between the concerns of ordinary individuals and the serious responsibilities of the leader. Cyrus’ military concerns, the horses and chariots, are contrasted to Artabazus’ lack of responsibility. (There seems to be a similar contrast between Pheraulas and the Sacian solider, to whom he hands over all his possessions, namely there seem to be some who like the responsibility of leadership and some who are just happy to serve. See Cyropaedia 8.3.49-50, and Henderson 2012 for an analysis of the Pheraulas episode and its relation to Cyrus’ own story).

Artabazus’ infatuation with Cyrus has provided humour earlier in the book, as well as demonstrating Cyrus’ charisma, from his first appearance when he claims to be Cyrus’ kinsman to steal a kiss ( Cyropaedia 1.4.27-28) to subsequent references to this (such as Cyropaedia 4.1.22, when Cyrus makes use of Artabazus’ infatuation to secure his services). By reframing the narrative of the military expedition from the point of view of Artabazus, a different perspective is presented in which the jealousies and rivalries of Cyrus’ associates are introduced without being presented as a threat to his success.

This is the only mention of Mithras by name during the course of the work. While Cyrus’ piety is a major theme of Xenophon’s enquiry, the object of that piety is more usually ‘the gods’ in general or Zeus, for example when Cyrus is first shown consulting the gods before embarking on an expedition ( Cyropaedia 1.6.1). The importance of piety, and the possibility that Cyrus can be closer to the gods than his associates, is first introduced in his conversation with his father Cambyses ( Cyropaedia 1.6.44-6).
However, at Cyropaedia 8.3.11-12 a distinction is drawn between gods, shown in the bulls sacrificed to Zeus and the horses sacrificed to the sun-god. Helios the sun-god has been identified with Mithras, but this identification is problematic (Briant 2002:250-52). Further exploration of the religion of the historical Cyrus can be found in Boyce 1988 and Daryaee 2013.
However, as Deborah Gera notes, the religion in the Cyropaedia seems more related to Socratic concerns about the divine than to specific practices and cults, especially Persian and Achaemenid ones (Gera 1993:54-59). Tuplin 1990:27 points out that this oath represents ‘a genuinely Persian manner’, but in a ‘belated “token” gesture’, noting that Xenophon elsewhere attributes the same oath to Cyrus ( Oeconomicus 4.24).
Norman Sandridge identifies this Socratic concern with epimeleia, which he treats as the leadership quality of attentiveness (Sandridge 2012:51-57, Sandridge 2012:70-73), rather than any concern with the supernatural. In his historical works, Xenophon pays great attention to the religious activities of leaders, such as performing sacrifices before battle or crossing borders (for example Agesilaus sacrificing before leaving Sparta, Hellenica 3.4.3, compared with Cyrus at Cyropaedia 1.6.1), and using divination to determine the course of action.

Throughout the Cyropaedia the correct distribution of goods, one of the primary concerns of Greek political thought, has been a continuing theme. This concern extends back to the start of Greek literature, where the correct distribution of war booty in the form of female captives triggers the dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles that opens and drives the plot of the Iliad (see Donlan 1982 on reciprocity in the Iliad).  The goods to be distributed vary – booty (including both objects and captives), the rewards of battle, rewards for participating in military training ( Cyropaedia 2.1.22-23), and here, attention from Cyrus himself. In requesting that Cyrus’ attention be distributed among the various claimants on the grounds of desert or merit, and indeed long service to Cyrus seems to count for much in this reckoning, Artabazus echoes earlier discussions of this theme even if the goods to be distributed are different. Cyrus’ understanding of distribution, and attention to practical results rather than maintaining existing distributions, is emphasised in the story of the two boys and their cloaks ( Cyropaedia 1.3.16-17, see Danzig 2009 for an assessment of this episode’s contribution to Xenophon’s political thought).

Chrysantas acts throughout the Cyropaedia as a representative of the Persian aristocratic values of equality and frugality. He is therefore a foil to the Median values represented by Artabazus; by opposing the Persian and Median supporters of Cyrus, Xenophon can represent two positions from within Cyrus’ group of close supporters. Differences between Artabazus’ and Chrysantas’ responses to Cyrus’ proposals are therefore significant. But Chrysantas, as a Persian, also represents Cyrus’ more closely than other characters; he is presented as an intelligent and thoughtful man, qualities that counterbalance his short stature and lack of physical strength ( Cyropaedia 2.3.5-6), which in turn demonstrate his inferiority to Cyrus, who is both intelligent and handsome.
Chrysantas first appeared among Cyrus’ Persian friends during his first campaign ( Cyropaedia 2.2.17), and thereafter plays a significant role (Due 1989:70-73). Cyrus’ first discussion of distribution is with Chrysantas, after Chrysantas raises the question about whether the distribution of booty and other rewards should be made according to merit ( Cyropaedia 2.2.18). In this discussion among the peers, Chrysantas opposes the idea that Cyrus should hold a more public discussion about this issue, and suggests that he should simply announce his intentions, as the army as a whole would not vote for an unequal distribution.
When such a discussion does take place ( Cyropaedia 2.3.5) Chrysantas supports Cyrus’ plans. Chrysantas often performs the function of explaining or expanding Cyrus’ ideas, whether the plan to retrain the Persian peers as cavalry, or this present plan to set up a new form of government; Gera describes him as ‘the enthusiastic “seconder” of new proposals put forward by Cyrus’ (Gera 1993:184). It is Chrysantas who compares the Persians to centaurs ( Cyropaedia 4.2.15-21), who encourages Cyrus to exhort his men before battle ( Cyropaedia 3.3.49-53), and who also displays intelligence and initiative as a military leader.
 

Cyrus’ move into a palace reflects the change in his status marked by his desire to present himself as a king. It therefore takes on a symbolic importance as well as causing practical changes in the way in which Cyrus will interact with the former homotimoi. Palace building projects featured in the works of several Achaemenid kings, including Darius I at Persepolis, and Artaxerxes II at Susa.

Apart from his stay with his grandfather Astyages in Media ( Cyropaedia 1.3-4), Cyrus has not lived in a large-scale royal court. In Persia as a boy he was trained with the other boys, and the simple Persian lifestyle was not that of the luxurious Median or Assyrian court. For much of the narrative of the Cyropaedia Cyrus has been on campaign, living in temporary encampments.
By showing Cyrus adopting a permanent home (albeit one from which he will travel frequently as part of the annual royal progress), Xenophon signals the significant change in Cyrus’ objectives and methods, from campaigning and conquest to maintaining rule over those already subjected to it. Cyrus’ aims and desires may not have changed since the start of his campaign, but in separating the period of conquest and the period of rule Xenophon is making a typically Greek distinction between gaining rule and preserving it (cf. Aristotle Politics books 5-6). All the changes underscore the change in Cyrus’ mode of rule.

By sacrificing to Hestia, goddess of the hearth, before other gods, Cyrus may be indicating that this is his permanent home; likewise, Zeus as the god of hospitality may be being invoked. However, when these gods are paired in the sacrifices that precede Cyrus’ first departure from Persia on campaign ( Cyropaedia 1.6.1), they are both described as patroos, ancestral gods. So it is much more likely that Xenophon is using the Greek names to refer to non-Greek gods, as implied by their ancestral status.
The identification of Hestia with Atar (Fire, in Zoroastrianism at once both a freestanding divinity and a symbol of Ahuramazda) is made by several scholars; see Boyce 1982:40, Boyce 1982:209-15, Jong 1997:346.

The organisation of royal courts was a typical theme of Greek historiography, providing authors with the opportunity to describe a different political system from that of the Greek polis, and also to analyse its operations, strengths and weaknesses.
As with much of this section of the Cyropaedia, Herodotus’ account of the rise to power of the founder of the Median empire, Deioces ( Herodotus Histories 1.97-102), serves as a template or a starting point (see Thomas 2012). Herodotus describes the initial building of a city and its citadel, and the invention of court protocols within that citadel. Xenophon follows the latter part of the model fairly closely, but with a significant difference; while Herodotus’ Deioces secludes himself to prevent his friends from seeing that he is not their superior (and therefore lacks authority to rule them), Xenophon has made Cyrus’ superiority to and distinction from his friends clear from the outset of the work; seclusion is not required to maintain his authority, and Xenophon, through the narrative of this chapter, provides a different justification or rationalisation for the practices of the Persian court.
Investigations into the historicity of Herodotus’ account of Deioces have concluded that Herodotus’ account of the Median empire is highly stylised (Brown 1988; Helm 1981; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1988; Wiesehöfer 2004). Xenophon’s account too may serve its programmatic and argumentative function more carefully than any descriptive function, although his continuing references to recent events and continuing practices suggest an intention to combine the two functions.
There is also an account of the Persian court in the Pseudo-Aristotelian De Mundo 398a.20-30, but this text probably is of a later date, most likely the first century CE.

While the broad strokes of depiction the institutions and practices of Cyrus’ empire ( Cyropaedia 7.5.37-8.6.23) match Xenophon’s other accounts of Achaemenid rule, including the Anabasis and the account of Persian government in the Oeconomicus, there is a great deal of detail omitted that is known from other contemporary accounts, documentary sources and material evidence, as noted by Christopher Tuplin (Tuplin 1990, Tuplin 1996; see also Tuplin 2004). Apart from omissions, there may also be some anachronism in the account, with Xenophon’s description of Cyrus’ acts of foundation conflating the actions and practices of several later kings.
Xenophon wavers between documenting practices and constructing a didactic paradigm; it may not always be possible to identify which process is uppermost in any single example, especially when symbolic practices such as the establishment of bodyguards are being described. Tuplin 1990 and Tuplin 2013 argue that Xenophon is aware of but does not understand some of the details, such as the use of eunuchs, but is nonetheless particularly interested in the phenomenon of kingship. Concern over the accuracy of detail, or the omission of details of Cyrus’ administration, should not divert attention from Xenophon’s construction of a model of kingship.

The idea that tyrants required bodyguards is central to the ‘despotic template’ (Dewald 2003), and is established by Herodotus in his account of Deioces the founder of the Median Empire ( Herodotus Histories 1.98.2). The unpopularity of tyrants, and their lack of authority, meant that they either were, or imagined themselves to be, under continuous threat of attack and assassination. Xenophon’s Hiero expresses this problem; a tyrant feels least safe at home, the place where everyone else feels most safe ( Hiero 2.9-10). Hostility to him from both his own courtiers, as rivals to his rule, and the populace as a whole, mean that his security can never be guaranteed. Kings, ruling with consent and in the interests of the ruled, should not need bodyguards and their presence may be suggestive of tyranny.
The presence of a bodyguard emphasises the distance between ruler and ruled, and the possibility of violence and conflict between them. It makes visible the lack of trust and community that characterises tyranny as a deviant form of rule. For Athenians, the most familiar example would be Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens, who receives a bodyguard after using trickery to gain control of the city ( Herodotus Histories 1.59).

Palace intrigue and dynastic conflict were thought to be an ever-present danger for monarchs, whether they were formally identified as kings or tyrants; Ctesias’ Persica documents such intrigues within the Achaemenid court. Xenophon lists occasions when the king is most at risk; readers might identify these with other examples, such as the murder of Agamemnon after he returned inside his palace, representing the risk to the king from within his own household and from aristocratic faction ( Aeschylus Agamemnon 1343-97).
For ordinary citizens, the household represents a safe space distinct from the public space. But for kings and tyrants whose rule represents the conflation of royal household with the city or state, creating such truly private space is difficult.
The palace holds other dangers too. Cyrus’ earlier response to Astyages’ behaviour in his Median court (for example, Cyropaedia 1.3.10, when he expresses concern that Astyages’ drunkenness means that he has been poisoned), combined with the worries about drunkenness expressed in Cyropaedia 8.8, suggest that the dangers within the palace are both internal and external to the ruler himself.

For Greek historians the eunuchs of the Persian court were a barbarian phenomenon illustrative of tyranny and contempt for the individual as potential citizen, yet also the objects of orientalist fascination.
The utilitarian arguments that Xenophon gives to Cyrus for the employment of eunuchs as his personal bodyguard are unusual among Greek texts of this period, but he is attempting to explain a historical phenomenon that was in conflict with his and his readers’ values. Gera notes how Xenophon focalises the thought on eunuchs through Cyrus’ perspective, distancing the author from the opinions expressed by using a range of third-person verbs to express opinion (Gera 1993:287-88; in this section ἔγνω, ἡγήσατο, ἡγεῖτο). See also Azoulay 2000 for an analysis of Xenophon’s interpretation of the role of eunuchs in Cyrus’ courts.
Herodotus describes the way that barbarians trust eunuchs ( Cyropaedia 8.105), within an anecdote in which the eunuch Hermotimus takes revenge on his captor and castrator by mutilating them in turn.
For Ctesias, eunuchs were a feature of the Persian court that he documents in detail, for example giving the names of the chief eunuchs of each new king; many such servants are named in the fragments of Ctesias Persica; see Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010, and Llewellyn-Jones 2013. Biblical accounts of Persia also discuss eunuchs; see Hebrew Bible Esther 2.8-18.

The question of whether the eunuchs of the Persian court were castrated or not has divided historians, in a continuing debate which throws into question orientalist assumptions attributed to both ancient and modern historians.
One question, raised by Pierre Briant, is whether the Persian word translated by Greek historians as eunuch actually meant castrato, or whether two separate terms, one indicating the castrated slaves, the other the title of a powerful role at court, were conflated by the Greeks. Briant doubts that all the individuals referred to as “eunuchs” in the classical literature were, in fact, emasculated. According to him, the abundance of so-called “eunuchs” reflects a misunderstanding of a Mesopotamian court title sa reshi shari, “he who is stationed at the head of the king” (Briant 2002:268-77).
Other historians point to the wide range of ancient sources that describe eunuchs as part of the royal court in a range of ancient cultures; see Llewellyn-Jones 2013, for both a selection of sources and assessment of the continuing historiographical debate on this issue.
This question becomes significant because of the powerful status attributed to some eunuchs in the court hierarchy. He also questions questions whether the typical origins of eunuchs, captured as boys, castrated and sold to the court, would fit them to take on the powerful roles held by some eunuch courtiers – such as Gadatas, as Cyrus’ most trusted personal servant and organiser of his household. He argues that the figure of the powerful but dangerous eunuch courtier is one imagined by Greek historians (Briant 2002:168-71), such as the story of Bagoas ( Diodorus Siculus 17.5.3-5), Artapanus and Spamitres ( Ctesias F13) and the eunuchs who support and foment palace conspiracies in Plutarch’s accounts of Persia (for example Plutarch Artaxerxes 28-30).

Xenophon suggests that eunuchs need a master as a patron, because they are held in such low esteem (ἄδοξοι) by others that they need the protection to prevent others from taking advantage of them. But, he goes on to say, eunuchs can be outstanding in their faithfulness to their masters. Although Xenophon does not expand upon these thoughts here, they resemble to some extent the arguments advanced by Aristotle in the Politics that some men are slaves by nature ( Aristotle Politics 1.5.1254a17-1255a3) and the best life they can lead is that guided by a good master. Xenophon’s eunuchs, although not in a natural condition (since they are castrated), display the lack of full capacity that characterises Aristotle’s natural slaves. So although the eunuchs’ condition resembles the condition that Aristotle identifies as a natural predisposition to slavery, it is not a natural one.
Xenophon makes no comment on the processes by which the palace slaves, and those who serve other characters, became eunuchs; but in the case of the elite warrior Gadatas, castrated as a punishment at the behest of the young Assyrian king ( Cyropaedia 5.2.28), his achievements and loyalty in supporting Cyrus against the Assyrians (beginning at Cyropaedia 5.3.15-19) earn him similar respect to Cyrus’ other elite friends, and he is treated differently from the palace slave eunuchs.
However, access to both the public and private parts of the court complex, and their role as servants and messengers for powerful royal women, gave some eunuchs unusual power within the court.

Xenophon conceives of a complicated hierarchy of humans and animals, in which some humans and some animals are valued more highly than others. The situation of the eunuchs of Cyrus’ court provides a problematic test case for this hierarchy of species, status and gender.
Xenophon uses animal comparisons to point out situations where an individual acts contrary to the human gender norms he identifies. For humans, there is a sharp division of labour by gender – women work inside the home, men outside it ( Oeconomicus 7.22-32) – but some animals provide counter-examples for this. Female hunting hounds are as capable as male ones, if not more so, when it comes to following scents (for Xenophon the point is too obvious to make explicitly; in the Cynegeticus he always refers to hounds using feminine word forms, for example in describing the two kinds of hounds, Castorian and vulpine ( Cynegeticus 3.1, αἱμὲνκαστόριαι, αἱδὲἀλωπεκίδες).
In the same way, the conventional wisdom regarding eunuchs that Xenophon identifies is that they lack the essential capacities of men, such as strength and courage (see Cyropaedia 7.5.64, Cyropaedia 65 below). Again, prestigious animals such as hounds and horses provide counter-examples; castrated animals are as serviceable as others, and their lack of extremes of temper is an advantage not a weakness. Xenophon’s accounts of animals contain a detailed hierarchy; see Louis L’Allier (L’Allier 2004). Patterns of gender in Greek discussions of animals are analysed by Christiana Franco (Franco 2014).
But this comparison with animals may seem to dehumanise or devalue the eunuchs (see Tamiolaki 2010:314). As slaves they are being treated as living tools, versions of the κτῆμά τι ἔμψυχον ( Aristotle Politics 1.4.1253b32) and ὀργάνων… τὰ δὲ ἔμψυχα ( Aristotle Politics 1.4.1253b28). Xenophon also analogises animals and slaves in other descriptions of Cyrus’ behaviour as king; slaves taken on hunting expeditions are fed and watered along with the beasts of burden, and do not participate in the deprivation through hunger and thirst that develops enkrateia in the free men whom Cyrus is training ( Cyropaedia 8.1.43-44).

This passage appears to run against the depiction of eunuchs as located within the royal household, suggesting that they maintain a capability for masculine activities such as fighting on foot and on horseback. The only eunuch identified as participating in war in the Cyropaedia is the castrated prince Gadatas.

Xenophon here suggests that eunuchs display the same abilities in war and hunting shown by other men. This does not fit well with the division between free men and slaves as participants in hunting set up by Cyrus ( Cyropaedia 8.1.43-44), but does fit the assessment of Gadatas as a heroic and capable individual despite his mutilated status (although, in being castrated as an adult, Gadatas had not been excluded from the education and training of an elite male). Xenophon may mean that slave eunuchs can perform the role of servants in hunting expeditions, but Cyrus’ prescription for official court hunting expeditions is that slaves are to be denied participation at a level that will develop their capacity for endurance and virtue. For Xenophon, enkrateia is a virtue suitable for the elite and specifically for rulers (see Memorabilia 2.1, and comment on Cyropaedia 7.5.47).

Service to the bodies of others is treated by Xenophon as servile in nature. He describes the eunuchs as θεραπευτῆρας to Cyrus; this links his court back to the arrangements of Astyages’ court, where the servants to whom Cyrus distributes food are identified as θεραπευταῖς ( Cyropaedia 1.3.7), and one is identified as providing service (θεραπεύεις, Cyropaedia 1.3.7).

Cyrus clearly has enemies, although he has just defeated the major one, the king of the Assyrians. In the new palace framework, hostility to Cyrus may come from within the empire, whether from subjects outside the palace or courtiers within it. The suggestion here, that it is a large number who are hostile to him (τὸ πλῆθος τῶν δυσμενῶςἐχόντων), might suggest threats from subjects outside the palace, in which case a larger and more militarised bodyguard than that provided by the eunuchs might be necessary.
The idea that Cyrus is under constant threat of violence heightens the concern that his new rule is a form of tyranny.

The number of soldiers in Cyrus’ elite regiment, who provide a first line protection for the king, is given as 10,000 by both Xenophon and other sources including Herodotus; in his later procession ( Cyropaedia 8.3.9, Cyropaedia 8.3.15-16) they are deployed in smaller groups. Herodotus also describes the 10,000 participating in Xerxes’ procession ( Cyropaedia 7.41.1-2) but the relationship between the 10,000 and smaller groups of 1,000, such as those distinguished by gold decorative spear bases in the shape of apples, is unclear. Other historians also describe these adornments of the elite group of 1000 within the bodyguard ( Heraclides of Cyme FGrH 689 F1, Aelian VH 9.3). These melophoroi, men of particularly high rank, were specifically charged with the personal protection of the king.
Herodotus also describes the process of constant replacement to ensure that the 10,000 were kept up to strength as the reason that they were called the ‘Immortals’ ( Cyropaedia 7.8.3.1). Joseph Wiesehöfer notes some dispute as to whether this title was a Greek misinterpretation of the original Persian name (Wiesehöfer 1996:91-92, plus bibliographical note Wiesehöfer 1996:272).

The guard of the 10,000 helps to maintain order and protect Cyrus in two ways. Firstly, it provides physical protection for him, both at home and abroad; soldiers surround him wherever he goes. Secondly, the cost of maintaining the guard falls to the citizens of Babylon, and thus impoverishes them into submission.
The deliberate impoverishment of Babylon by the Achaemenid kings is alluded to in other sources. In his controversial tax register of Darius I’s satrapies, Herodotus Histories 3.92 has the Babylonians pay the unusually heavy annual assessment of a thousand talents of silver and five hundred boy-eunuchs. In addition, Babylon had to provide for the royal court fourth months of the year. In another passage ( Herodotus Histories 1.192), Herodotus mentions the great burden placed on the people of Babylonia in providing for the satrap Tritantaechmes. For the interpretation of this data as evidence of ‘ruinous taxation,’ see Olmstead 1948:293. It should also be noted that on the Achaemenid tomb reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam, the representatives of all the subject lands, except for Babylonia, are shown bearing arms. The right to bear arms in the presence of the king was a sign of honor and trust, ‘so that the unarmed Babylonian represents an act of deliberate humiliation,’ perhaps reflecting the resentment of Darius I and Xerxes I toward the Babylonians for revolting on several occasions between 522 BCE and 482 BCE. See von Gall 2009.

Cyrus reflects that his forces are outnumbered by those whom they must keep in subjection. However, in a broad application of the principles of geometric equality, in which distributions are made by proportionately with amount of a quality possessed (whether wealth or a character virtue), a few excellent men can dominate the less virtuous many through having greater strength in total.
It is the possession of virtue of pre-eminent quality and quantity that both entitles the king to rule and ensures that he is able to do so effectively.
For a detailed account of the workings of ‘geometric equality’, see Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 5.3, on geometric equality and distributive justice. Further detailed analysis of the principles and mechanisms of geometric and arithmetic (retributive justice, in Aristotle’s model) in Greek thought, is to be found in Harvey 1965, Harvey 1966 and, with specific reference to Xenophon, Lévy 2006.
In practical terms, excellence in the skills of ruling, as well as possession of practical virtues, will be necessary to govern effectively, and these practical skills and capabilities are encompassed by the term aretē. See Nadon 2001:120-30.

The idea of virtue or excellence is central to Xenophon’s political and ethical thought without its precise nature being fully explored. In some contexts Xenophon’s virtue appears to be a particular practical capability, while it also has an ethical component. It is distinct from Plato’s exploration of virtue as knowledge.
Virtue is a capacity to perform actions well that is enhanced and preserved through use. In this respect, it is developed through habituation just as much as Aristotle’s character virtues are. While Aristotle speaks of habit (ēthos) and habituation, Xenophon tends to refer to virtue as requiring and being gained through practice (askēsis). What this practice of virtue might be and how an individual might participate in it is a theme that appears frequently in the Memorabilia (for example at Memorabilia 1.2.19-23, Memorabilia 2.1.20, Memorabilia 2.1.28; Memorabilia 3.3.6, Memorabilia 3.5.14, Memorabilia 3.9.1-3). Virtue and its practice and maintenance are particularly important in book III of the Memorabilia, which explores the qualities needed to compete for leadership roles within Athens.
Xenophon’s conception of virtue as a largely practical ability, and as the means to achieving the desired end, whether stable government or individual fulfilment, has been criticised by many commentators as evidence of a utilitarian ethical philosophy. But the centrality of virtue to Xenophon’s thought makes it difficult to align him with modern utilitarianism; perhaps it would be more useful to use Xenophon’s ethics to reconsider the nature of ancient virtue ethics, and whether they are compatible with or related to utilitarian approaches to ethics, in a way that the opposed modern ethical systems of utilitarianism and virtue ethics are not.

Much of Xenophon’s writing on virtue is to be found in his Socratic works, which Xenophon represents as a record of Socrates’ thought and conversation. Thus readers of Xenophon Symposium and Memorabilia encounter many ethical ideas attributed to Socrates, as well as some, such as hedonistic and individualistic ideas expressed by characters such as Aristippus ( Memorabilia 2.1), that Socrates argues against (see Dorion 2008).
Whether Xenophon’s Socratic writings capture the authentic thought of the historical Socrates has been much debated; the differing interests of and dissimilarities between ideas expressed by Plato’s character Socrates and Xenophon’s character Socrates led Xenophon’s depiction of Socrates to be dismissed or valued less highly than Plato’s (Joël 1893; Vlastos 1983). However, more recent revaluations have shown the sophistication of Xenophon’s depiction of Socrates’ thought and of the intellectual world of the Socratics (Dorion 2006, Dorion 2013; Morrison 1987).

On his military campaigns Cyrus has made many speeches to the peers, or to select groups of leaders. In a sense, the cultural policies that Cyrus wants to institute represent a continuing campaign, and the peers will play their part in delivering it. There is also historical evidence that the Persian aristocracy played an important role in the administration of the empire, and that the king was reliant on their participation: see Briant 2002:302-54.
The problem of maintaining virtue in the new society is very much one for the elite, those who interact with Cyrus and deliver his rule across the empire. For the vast majority of subjects, the achievement of virtue is not as important as that of the obedience generated by wonder and fear of the great king. But Cyrus here argues that for those who have a share in implementing his rule and governing his empire, continuing devotion to the practice of virtue will be important. The final section of the Cyropaedia, documenting the failure of Persian values and of virtue in the Persian elite and Cyrus’ heirs, emphasises this. Cyrus’ emphasis on virtue in addressing the peers foreshadows the threat of decline that will be realised in Cyropaedia 8.8.

The final section of this chapter contains a long policy speech by Cyrus, addressing the issue of the maintenance of his rule and empire through the exercise of virtue by Cyrus himself and those for whom he sets the example. It serves as an introduction to the more detailed exploration of the imperial institutions and practices established by Cyrus that will form the bulk of the remainder of the work (see Mueller-Goldingen 1995:218 for an analysis of the structure of the speech).
This speech is answered by one from Chrysantas ( Cyropaedia 8.1.1-5), in which Chrysantas praises Cyrus as a father to his people and encourages his other friends to support his new regime. Bodil Due (Due 1989:96-100) observes that these two speeches provide a mirror scene to the policy discussion between Cyrus and Cambyses in Cyropaedia 1.6.2-46; however, the dialogic structure of that earlier encounter is not replicated. We do not see Chrysantas learning through dialogue as Cyrus himself did; he simply accepts the arguments made by Cyrus and encourages others to do likewise.

Cyrus claims that it is an established universal and eternal nomos that both persons and property captured in war belong to their captors as property, and could be disposed of at will. There is a strong connection between war and slavery in Greek literature, such as the concerns expressed by Homer’s Hector about the fate of his wife Andromache if he is killed ( Iliad 6.440-465), dramatised in Euripides’ Trojan Women where the captured Trojan women lament their future as slaves.
The idea that those conquered in battle became the property of the conquerors was well established in Greek culture, though rarely the subject of explicit discussion (Ducrey 1968). It becomes more pressing in Greek sources when the conquered are themselves Greek, although Thucydides notes that the Athenians and some others of those defeated at Syracuse were treated differently from other captives, who were sold ( Thucydides Histories 7.87.4), possibly by being ransomed rather than sold (Hornblower 2008:743).

Cyrus appears to reject the trappings of the luxurious lifestyle associated with the “despotic template.” Xenophon has made much use of the contrast between the “hard” lifestyle of the Persians and the “soft” life of the Medes, partly to illustrate the political and ethical differences he gives to the two cultures. In living a hard, Persian life, Cyrus escapes from being easily categorised as an oriental despot.
Herodotus’ Cyrus makes similar claims at the close of the Histories ( Herodotus Histories 9.122), encouraging the Persians to maintain the traditional “hard” values that enable them to conquer other peoples. The “soft” life carries the risk of defeat and subjugation (see note in Cyrus’ Paradise on Cyropaedia 7.5.67, and Gorman and Gorman 2014; Rood 2015).

The analogy between virtue and craft (technē) was a feature of ancient ethical thought, particularly apparent in Plato’s Socratic works, and also in Xenophon’s own Socratic writings; although the analogy appears in many of Plato’s works, there is a particularly full exploration in Plato Gorgias, which uses the analogy to explore the way in which sophists display skills and teach them. Xenophon uses the analogy extensively; at Memorabilia 4.2.6, Socrates contrasts recognition of the practice required to excel in productive crafts with the assumption that politics and administration are skills that do not require training and practice.
By conceptualising abstract qualities (such as virtue or knowledge) as a craft (typical crafts invoked in this context are medicine, navigation and expertise in physical training) a model of its possible development within the individual, and a process by which it could be passed from individual to individual, could be developed and explored. See Irwin 1977, and Roochnik 1998 for two interpretations of Plato’s use of the craft analogy.
Both Xenophon and Plato conceptualise kingship itself as a craft in their Socratic writings (see Dorion 2004 for an exploration of the different ways that they do this, and the way in which the craft of kingship is related to other crafts), but in both the Cyropaedia and Plato Statesman each writer moves away from the exploration of the royal craft (basilikē technē) to a closer investigation of the personal qualities of the ruler.
Here, Cyrus identifies the typical Xenophontic virtues of sōphrosunē and enkrateia, along with physical strength, as attributes that, like a craft, require practice and attention to maintain (see Sandridge 2012:63-4; Dorion 2013:103-05).

Cyrus claims that it will be harder to maintain his new empire than it was to win it. While creating a new empire involves processes of change, maintaining an empire requires resistance to change. While there are several different Greek views of political change (particularly whether it is a linear or a cyclical process), most historians and philosophers think that change is inevitable, and will usually be for the worst. From Hesiod’s myth of the ages ( Hesiod Works and Days 106-201) comes the view that there is a long-term process of decline, in which the current age (the Age of Iron) is one of particular conflict among humans. From Herodotus comes the idea (drawing on Presocratic ideas of change) that history is marked by constant change, in which cities alternate between periods of expansion and decline ( Herodotus Histories 1.5).
In Herodotus’ histories, kings who inherit rather than conquer their kingdoms fear being seen as potentially weak: Xerxes, as heir to the great king Darius, makes the need to expand rather than simply manage explicit in announcing his reasons for the expedition against the Greeks ( Herodotus Histories 7.8.a1-2), and a similar concern is expressed to Cambyses (Herodotus Histories 3.34.4). Plutarch’s Alexander also expresses the thought that he would rather inherit a less established regime from his father and have more opportunities for successful expansion himself ( Plutarch Alexander 5).
Further claims about the problems of maintaining empire appear in Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens struggles to maintain its empire of tribute-paying poleis. Pericles’ final speech to the Athenians examines this issue ( Thucydides Histories 2.60-64), considering the benefits of fighting to maintain the freedom and power that Athens enjoys, and the risks of losing them.

The idea that virtue is an action or set of actions that can be practised is central to Xenophon’s ethical thought, and related to Aristotle’s idea of virtue as achieved or acquired and developed through habituation. For Xenophon, specific tasks are particularly effective at developing and maintaining virtue within the individual; Xenophon connects physical and intellectual virtues. The paradigmatic activity for practising virtue is hunting, which combines physical exercise, craft skills, and endurance, to develop the prime virtues of sōphrosunē and enkrateia, respectively mental and physical virtues (see Due 1989:170-81; Sandridge 2012:63).
Participation in military training is another route to practising virtue. It involves obedience, exertion, and the experience of being placed in an order.

It seems axiomatic for Cyrus that the worse should accede to rule by the better. This theory is part of the virtue model of kingship, but also fits into broader structures in Greek thought in which ruling was thought to be the province of the better (as in the idealisation of aristocracy as a form of government, the rule by the best men).
Political authority and political legitimation were not highly developed concepts in Greek political thought (unlike the Romans’ auctoritas). Authority might be based on class (as in aristocracy) or simply the exertion of power and force (as in tyranny). The priesthoods included in some roles, such as the kingship of Sparta, might also confer authority on their holders.

Plato Laws 3.690a-e analyses claims to political authority (axiōmata), part of a text which engages with the Cyropaedia in its exploration of Persian history and politics. The Athenian Stranger lists seven claims to political authority; he acknowledges that the rule of the stronger over the weaker is the most common claim to authority, but argues that the rule of the wiser over the more ignorant provides a better claim. Age and class also provide grounds for differentiating ruler from ruled, but at no point does the Athenian Stranger make a claim for superiority in respect of unspecified virtue as a claim to political authority; for Plato’s character, knowledge is the relevant virtue here, rather than the ethical or behavioural quality that Xenophon identifies. This is an important difference in their respective political thought

Cyrus argues that, while he and his immediate subordinates should share in the hard work and the hardships of campaign that they expect from those who serve them in war, they should not share scientific knowledge of military expertise with them, as well as limiting their access to arms. Again, this expresses the realpolitik aspects of Cyrus’ thought; by maintaining themselves in armed readiness, but restricting others’ access to arms, the homotimoi can easily maintain their rule by force (Nadon 2001:57). It is also similar to the restrictions on participation in hunting for slaves ( Cyropaedia 7.5.64).
This section has a Spartan flavour, in that the participation of non-Spartiates in warfare, and the problematic balance between the need for auxiliary troops and the risks of arming and training non-Spartiates was a continuing difficulty for Sparta. However, the point expressed here is more a general and philosophical one than a specific comment on Spartan arrangements (see Tuplin 1994 for a detailed investigation of the Spartan flavour of the Cyropaedia).

Cyrus acknowledges that the possession of military skill and equipment provides the means to achieving freedom and self-fulfilment, and that they are gifts of the gods.
But his desire to limit access to both the tools and the knowledge of war, as instruments for gaining freedom and happiness, also provides evidence that the cascade of virtue from Cyrus as paradeigma to his subjects (or at least campaign forces, to whom as general he should have some visibility) is limited. Cyrus’ subsidiary forces and subjects in this new vision must exist without full knowledge and with limited access to arms; they are in this respect the opposite of the Greek hoplite as arms-bearing citizen with the right to participate in citizen assemblies and political decision-making.
That eudaimonia can cascade down from the ruler to those excluded from knowledge and war is suggested by the acceptance of Croesus to his new situation after his defeat by Cyrus ( Cyropaedia 7.2.26-28). Croesus, forbidden to participate in war, expresses the view that he will be happy, in that he will have the life identified by others as most happy (μακαριωτάτηνβιοτήν, Cyropaedia 7.2.27). He will be in the same position that his wife once enjoyed ( Cyropaedia 7.2.28), of benefitting from the efforts of others. Thus the subjugated warrior king is effectively feminised, but at the cost of losing his identity as a male participating in political life on an equal basis.

The interpretation of this passage has been controversial. Is the question of restricting access to weapons and military expertise raised here by Cyrus specifically related to this context of the subjugation of the Medes, a broader philosophical point, or does it relate to other historical contexts such as the distinction within Sparta between Spartiate soldiers and subjugated peoples?
Peter Hunt suggests that even if the workers (ἐργάτας) mentioned here are not explicitly slaves, slaves are included a fortiori in the exclusion (Hunt 1998:147-49; Melina Tamiolaki suggests that the word implies agricultural labourers, Tamiolaki 2010:196 n.207). However, Hunt goes on to observe that the “military exclusivity” implied by this passage is at odds with Xenophon’s experience of war, particularly the Spartan use of Helots and the non-citizen Neodameis in warfare (for example, the use of Helots in 370/69 to defend Sparta against invasion, Hellenica 6.5.28-29, Hunt 1998:170-75), and his proposal that Athens should use slave soldiers to defend Attica ( Poroi 4.42, Hunt 1998:175-77). The use of slaves to crew the Athenian ships at Arginusae in 406 BCE is another example ( Hellenica 1.6.24; Hunt 1998:89-95; Tamiolaki 2010:265-68). But this military deployment of non-citizens was deeply problematic for the citizen-soldier ideology of the Greek polis (see Cartledge 1987:40).

For Xenophon, ponos is an important means by which virtue can developed and maintained. Undertaking ponos is the particular concern of the gentleman. Much of the work identified as ponos is discretionary, leisure activities involving physical activity and training, rather than agricultural labour required for the maintenance of life.
However, the leisure activities identified as ponos do have a practical purpose in training for war, which Xenophon personifies as ‘the most loving of ponos’ ( Cyropaedia 7.5.47). Ponos prepares the gentleman to display excellence in war, whether in his own physical activity on the battlefield or in coordinating and commanding the efforts of others. The good leader displays capability in ponos in enduring the hardships of war, leading from the front and engaging in hard work, a recurrent theme in Xenophon Anabasis (see Hunt 1998:149-53).
Physical toil for subsistence does not seem to count as ponos in Xenophon’s categorisation; while aristocratic leisure hunting is valorised as ponos (throughout the Cyropaedia, and in the treatise on hunting, the Cynegeticus), trapping animals for food does not count as ponos in that it does not develop virtue in the same way. 
See Johnstone 1994 and Sandridge 2012:60-63 for more on the ideology and practice of ponos. Xenophon’s views on ponos can be linked to the thought of later Cynic philosophers, and the role of Antisthenes, fore-runner of the Cynics, in his Socratic works suggests his sympathy with the views that would become those of the Cynics (see Tsouna-McKirahan 1994 for an investigation of the links between Socratic thinkers, the Cynics and the Cyrenaics).

Cyrus suggests here ( Cyropaedia 7.5.80-81) that there is a benefit to enduring hunger and thirst. Deprivation from food and drink is an important feature of the endurance training that is part of the military training that contributes to the development of personal virtue; both as boys and as young soldiers, the young Persians are encouraged to go without food or with limited food ( Cyropaedia 1.2.8, Cyropaedia 1.2.10). Such training encourages the development of enkrateia, physical self-restraint, and through it its mental counterpart sōphrosunē.
The ability to endure hunger and thirst also provides an opposite to the excessive satisfaction of those desires represented by the luxurious life-style that was a feature of the court of Astyages ( Cyropaedia 1.3.4-5) and will now be a feature of Cyrus’ court ( Cyropaedia 8.2.4-6, where the preparation of delicacies is presented as evidence for the proper use of the principle of specialisation in Cyrus’ court). Voluntary deprivation of food, in continued exercise and the maintenance of character virtues, will, Cyrus hopes, counteract the psychological and physical effects of living the luxurious life.
Training in endurance of hunger and thirst is part of the regime Cyrus institutes (for example on hunting expeditions, Cyropaedia 8.1.43-44), but a training that is only available to the free; slaves may not participate in developing the qualities that are valued in free men. See Hunt 1998:149-53; Tamiolaki 2010:197-201.

Andragathia is an abstract quality or virtue that encompasses all the characteristics or virtues that a man described as kalos kagathos would possess or embody (see Nadon 2001:122), but it is a more explicitly gendered term. Cyrus has mentioned this specific quality before, as one that requires both education and the presence of examples, supported by exhortation, to be developed; it cannot be achieved without the mixture of both, as Cyrus says to Chrysantas when they discuss the value of speeches from the leader in exhorting troops on the battlefield to display excellence in fighting ( Cyropaedia 3.3.55).

Xenophon links virtue closely to eudaimonia, human flourishing or good fortune. Human flourishing is not possible without virtue. In part, this is because of the obvious falsity of the opposite claim, explored here; becoming less virtuous than before should not permit the maintenance of rule, nor should there be any link between vice and eudaimonia.
Again, the relationship between virtue and eudaimonia will be explored in greater detail by Aristotle in his ethical works; Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1.8.1098b30-31 is broadly in agreement with the identification of the two, but cautions both that some consideration should be given to the role of fortune, and also to exploring the nature of virtue as a whole and its constituent character virtues, and the way in which the development of character virtues can contribute to living the good life and achieving the human goal of eudaimonia.

The claim that ruler should be better than the subject (in terms of character virtues and of specific capabilities) underlies the virtue theory of kingship that Xenophon explores throughout the Cyropaedia. This speech contains one of its stronger statements in the work; the discussion of exhortation on the battlefield and its role in developing the virtue of the soldiers ( Cyropaedia 3.3.49-55) is another related one. But just as everything else from Cyrus’ campaigning days is changed in the new regime, the way in which virtue is developed needs to be reconsidered.
In this virtue theory, kings create and encourage virtue in their subjects by providing them with an example (paradeigma) for imitation (mimesis). In some versions of the theory, the subjects’ imitation of the king’s virtue can never reach the same quality or quantity, because the king’s excellence is of an extreme kind or possessed in an extreme quantity, so that the rational choice for the citizens in seeking eudaimonia (the happiness of the good life) is to subject themselves to the virtuous king in order to maximise their own eudaimonia. This version of the virtue kingship theory (named by Aristotle as pambasileia or complete kingship) is put forward by Aristotle Politics 3.14-18 as a hypothetical alternative to the polis route to good judgement and flourishing, the achievement of good decision making through the wisdom of the multitude. While Xenophon does not identify Cyrus with the Aristotelian terminology of the pambasileus, he does present him as an individual with extraordinary capabilities that clearly mark him out from other men, whether his Persian peers, the kings and leaders that he encounters, or other examples of empire-founders from historical sources.

Cyrus hopes that the Persian culture in which he was educated can be transplanted to the new environment of his court at Babylon. This includes the system of paideia in which his education began, and which forms the basis of his character.
The suspicion that Persian paideia may not survive transplantation to Babylon, and that Cyrus may no longer embody its principles, is perhaps suggested by Cyrus’ call to the Persians that he and they should mutually monitor each others’ behaviour for signs of deterioration. The failure of Persian paideia is identified by Plato as the cause of the decline of the Persian empire and the failure of Cyrus’ sons to live up to the example of their father ( Plato Laws 3.694a3-696b).
The preservation of Persian values in governing the empire was a frequent theme of Greek commentary on Persia; the courts of satraps were expected to maintain the same values (see Briant 2002:347). Isocrates Panegyricus 152 refers to this: ‘Therefore, those of them who go down to the seashore and whom they call satraps do not appear unworthy of the education of their country and keep the same customs.’. Evidence that the Persian educational system may have influenced local aristocrats may be gleaned from the epitaph of the fourth century BCE Lycian dynast Arbinas, who professes to have been able “to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth.” According to Herodotus Histories 1.136, these were the hallmarks of the Persian educational system. Also note the emphasis that Darius I places on the Persian educational system in his tomb inscription ( DNb).

The closing section of this speech points to the problem of succession and inheritance. This was broadly recognised by Greek historiographers as a problem for monarchies (as with the good king, bad successor pairs in Herodotus’ histories, such as Cyrus and Cambyses). But within the context of the Cyropaedia it will be a specific problem, as Cyrus seeks to ensure the continuity of his empire and peace between his two sons, only one of whom can be the ruler.
Plato’s Athenian Stranger argues that Cyrus’ failure to educate his sons within Persian culture causes the failure of his empire ( Plato Laws 3.694a-696b). It seems most likely that this passage, part of a wider argument which contrasts Persian monarchy and Athenian democracy as extreme (and unstable) forms of government with the more stable mixed constitution exemplified by Sparta, is a response to Xenophon’s description of Cyrus’ regime in this part of the Cyropaedia. On this see Danzig 2003; Hirsch 1985:97-100, Hirsch 1985:40-47.

Achaemenid sources reflect a great deal of concern about taking care of future generations, and providing them with advice on how to behave. In the Bisitun Inscription, Darius I admonishes his successors and future generations (see, e.g., Behistun Inscription 64-69). Similarly, Xerxes admonishes ‘you who shall be hereafter’ to abide by Ahuramazda’s law in his Daiva inscription XPh. For similar concern for youth as a recurring trope in the Iranian epics, see Sancisi-Weerdenberg 1985.

In Herodotus Histories Cyrus’ father is Cambyses. In Ctesias F8d*3 he is Atradates. See Drews 1974 for the folk tradition of the “king from humble origins” dating back to Sargon of Akkad.

Note the frequency in the later biographical tradition (e.g. Plutarch or Suetonius) of answering that sort of question. In the “historical fiction” of Dares the Phrygian 12ff., the details of the physical appearance of the various Greek heroes are invented, partly because there seems to have been an interest in this question, and partly to give credibility to the claim that this is an “eyewitness” account.

Kuhrt 2007:247n1: “Several Persian kings appear in classical writers as exceptionally handsome, tall and just.  This seems to reflect the typical attributes ascribed to kings, also found in royal inscriptions and echoed by classical writers.” As examples she gives Herodotus Histories 7.187.2 on Xerxes as well as (at Kuhrt 2007:508) Strabo 15.3.21 on Darius, Cornelius Nepos Artaxerxes Lives of the Great Generals 21, and Plutarch Life of Alexander 21.6 on the wife of Darius III.

Plutarch says that Cyrus was hawk-nosed: “The Persians affect such as are hawk-nosed and think them most beautiful, because Cyrus, the most beloved of their kings, had a nose of that shape” (Πέρσαι τῶν γρυπῶν ἐρῶσι καὶ καλλίστους ὑπολαμβάνουσι διὰ τὸ Κῦρον ἀγαπηθέντα μάλιστα τῶν βασιλέων γεγονέναι γρυπὸν τὸ εἶδος, Plutarch Moralia, Remarkable Sayings of Kings and Great Commanders 172E4-6, translation Goodwin; cf. also Πέρσαι δ’, ὅτιγρυπὸς ἦν ὁ Κῦρος, ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐρῶσι τῶν γρυπῶν καὶ καλλίστους ὑπολαμβάνουσιν, Plutarch Moralia, Political Precepts 821F1-2). Perhaps coincidentally, Cyrus himself describes Chrysantas as having this type of nose (the only such mention of a hook-nose in all of Xenophon), offering to pair him with a snub-nosed woman so that they complement one another ( Cyropaedia 8.4.21; cf. Plutarch Moralia 633B11-C1, What, as Xenophon Intimates, are the most agreeable questions and most pleasant raillery at entertainment?).

On this see now Norman’s own Sandridge 2012.

Is the character of Zal in the Shahnameh (p. 68 in Dick Davis’ translation) a possible cognate with Cyrus as a leader who loves to learn?

Note that Ctesias’ Cyrus ( Ctesias F8d*1–7) has something of an “aptitude for learning” in that he progresses from gardener to lamp-bearer to Astyages’ personal cup-bearer.

This reminds us of the Alexander tradition, in which he is always the first over the wall, or the tale about him emptying his canteen (citation?) when his men have no water…is this simply part of a cultural definition of leaderly behavior, or could there be a definite line of influence/imitation here?

Cyrus gives a similar formulation of how the love of praise can lead to great toil and risk-taking in a speech to his Persian peers as they set out to join the Medan campaign against the Assyrians (cf. ἐπαινούμενοι γὰρ μᾶλλον ἢ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασι χαίρετε. τοὺς δ᾽ ἐπαίνου ἐραστὰς ἀνάγκη διὰ τοῦτο πάντα μὲν πόνον, πάντα δὲ κίνδυνον ἡδέως ὑποδύεσθαι, Cyropaedia 1.5.12). Thus loving praise is not only a desirable quality in leaders but also followers.

Xenophon’s treatment of the Persian educational system (agoge) has long been thought to be based on the Spartan system.  Xenophon describes this system in the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians.

Xenophon discusses this educational system also at Anabasis 1.9.3–4.

Herodotus Histories 1.136: the Persians were taught to use a bow, ride a horse, and speak the truth. Plutarch Life of Artaxerxes 3.3: Artaxerxes II learned piety from the Magi.

In Cyropaedia 1.6 Cambyses explains that youths are sheltered from education in matters of sex and warfare (particularly in using trickery to defeat an enemy).

Herodotus Histories 1.152–153 has Cyrus express disdain for the Greek system of marketplaces.

It’s also worth looking at what Aristotle Politics VII-VIII does with these ideas in his own ideal polis, which draws from the Cyropaedia as well as from Plato Laws. It’s my view that very little of ancient Greek political thinking, especially before Aristotle, is directly related to the political reality they confronted, but rethinks issues and problems in largely idealised settings; here Xenophon seems to be responding to the deficiencies of his idealised Sparta in his Lacedaemonian Politeia.

Bizos (ad loc.) sees a criticism of the Spartan system of education whereby youths are encouraged to steal for their food and then punished for being caught ( Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 2.6.8).

Are they at all related to the many groups of 12 that occur elsewhere in Greek historiography? And which are perhaps pointedly different from the 10 tribes of democratic Athens. The 12 villages of Athens founded by Cecrops and synoecised by Theseus ( Marmor Parium 20, Philochorus FGrH 328 F2, F94) the 12 kings of Egypt subsumed back under a united monarchy by Psammetichus ( Herodotus Histories 2.147-53), and the 12 cities of Ionia ( Herodotus Histories 1.143, Herodotus Histories 145). Fehling 1989 (Fehling, D. (1989) Herodotus and his ‘Sources’: citation, invention and narrative art, trans. J.G. Howie (Liverpool: Cairns) is good on the use of ‘typical numbers’, although I wouldn’t agree with his argument and very negative response to the use of typical numbers in historiography (ie I don’t take it as a sign of ‘lying’ but see it as a way of marking important structures). There are also 12 tribes in Plato’s Magnesia ( Plato Laws 5.745de).

Herodotus Histories 1.125 lists ten: the Pasargadae, Maraphiani, and Maspiani who were noble; the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, and Germanii who were farmers; and the Daii, Mardians, Dropici, and Sagartians who were herdsmen. I agree with Carol that twelve is a good mnemonic number (medieval memory theory suggested that any number from 2 to 12 could be used), and that the Persians are just as likely to have decided to think about twelve tribes because that was a good number as the Greeks are to have tidied a larger list to ten or twelve.

Is Xenophon taking up the chicken-egg question of which comes first the good leader or the good society (as Plato Republic does)?

Since a great part of Cyrus’ leadership consists of doing favors for others, it would seem to be necessary for his followers to know how to show gratitude, which perhaps explains the importance of this virtue in the Persian educational system (cf. Cyropaedia 1.2.7).

Here is a Corinthian Kothon from the Louvre.

See Davidson’s Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens for lots on the meaning of ὄψον.

See Dillery 1995 (Xenophon and the History of His Times).

kardamon is mentioned on Linear B tablets.

According to Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1995:289–291 kardamon “quite clearly belonged to the staple foods of the Near East.” It is a cress with seeds that can be made into a mustard. It is to be identified with Babylonian sahlu (Assyrian kuddimmu and perh. zali on the Persian Fortification Texts).  Sancisi-Weerdenburg notes that Hesychios claims that cardamon serves to keep moisture in the body (cf. Aristophanes Themophoriazousai 616) and that the Persians ate it to help them refrain from spitting, urinating, or wiping their noses in public.

Some websites on the supposed health benefits of cardamom seeds and leaves may be found here and here.

Cf. Xenophon Symposium 1.9 and Isocrates Evagoras 22.  One assumption seems to be that beautiful leaders inspire their followers with a feeling of eros, and an attendant desire to please the leader, which may be seen as a good thing; but that eros can compel a follower to flatter or otherwise corrupt a leader, who thus needs self-restraint (sophrosune) as a safeguard.

At Cyropaedia 1.4.27–28 a Medan man, later identified as Artabazus, falls in love with Cyrus.  At Cyropaedia 4.1.22-23 Artabazus affirms his devotion to Cyrus and vows to help him enlist other Medes in the continuing campaign against the Assyrians. At Cyropaedia 3.1.41 Tigranes is envious of Cyrus’ beauty, fearing that he may have caught the attention of Tigranes’ new wife.

See Athenaeus 14.633d–e and Strabo 15.3.18.

I think it is important to Xenophon’s case for Cyrus’ worthiness as a leader to show that Cyrus participated in, and excelled at, the same sorts of moral, physical, and martial trials as his Persian and then Medan comrades.  The type of leader he seems to be arguing against is the privileged king who did not have to face the same rigors as his followers.  Nevertheless it may be the case that Xenophon had no real material to work with for Cyrus’ youth before he goes to Media.  The same seems true for both Ctesias and Herodotus.  Herodotus tells only of Cyrus’ birth and rescue by herdsmen and Ctesias tells of Cyrus’ ascent (starting as a slave) through Astyages’ court.  Perhaps the reason for this imbalance in sources (to say nothing of true history) is that there were competing accounts of how Cyrus came to rule the Medes, either as a liberator of the Persians or a charming and legitimate grandson, as Xenophon presents him. But  perhaps there was no record, or no need for a record of Cyrus in the Persian educational system.

A few reasons: (1) The system is interesting in its own right; Xenophon is participating in a long, Herodotean tradition of giving time and attention to foreign nomoi even when they appear “superfluous” to the main narrative. (2) Cyrus’s only partial participation in the curriculum wouldn’t stand out as much if we hadn’t been introduced to the abstraction first. (3) I’m not sure whether it’s problematic, but Cyrus’s unorthodox movement through the curriculum certainly creates a lot of suspense: can he transcend the disruption? What will be the effect on his character? The gap between Cyrus’s particular education and what his education should or could have been seems to me emblematic (especially with reference to the work’s title) of an underlying concern of the text, i.e., the relationship between abstraction — political philosophy, ethnographic description — and biography, the history of a particular life. How does a writer grapple with these different genres of writing, and how does a reader evaluate the data they provide? If we want to emulate Cyrus, do we have to adopt the Persian educational system? If we adopt this system, how much can we deviate from it? In this sense, it doesn’t make sense to speak of a philosophical “frame” around a biographical “story” as I did in my comment on Cyropaedia 1.1. We see here how the intertwining and interdependence of different generic elements is what’s really interesting.  

Most traditions claim that Cyrus was of “mixed race,” half Persian (father’s side) and half Mede (mother’s side).   And he seems to employ both Persians and Medes pretty evenhandedly as generals, administrators etc.  My sense is that Cyrus’s takeover of the Median Empire was not so much a conquest of one people by another as an adjustment of power relations between two relatively closely related Iranian groups (from a Greek perspective they looked similar enough that the terms Persian and Mede could be used interchangeably, although I don’t doubt that Persians and Medes were more acutely aware of the differences).  Indeed, the Cyropaedia represents it as a quiet coup against Cyaxares, rather than the battle with Astyages found in Herodotus.  One interpretation of the later coup of Darius and the six other elite Persian conspirators, as known from the Behistun inscription and Herodotus Histories,  is that it was an assertion of the dominance of the Persians within the Persian-Mede partnership – note that, according to Herodotus, the conspirators targeted the median Magi.  Darius as king tends to appoint Persians to high positions and military  commands.  Xenophon is, then, portraying Cyrus as both Persian and Mede, and he is educated within both systems.  Here, as so often, Xenophon appears to be aware of something about the Persians not so well known to most Greeks.

Is the gratitude (charis) described here more of a Greek or Persian value?

This phrase is used later of customs ( Cyropaedia 1.3.2 of Persian clothing, Cyropaedia 1.4.27 of the custom of kissing on the lips, Cyropaedia 1.6.33 on a ῥήτρα passed which requires teaching boys to tell the truth), but this first usage of the phrase in the work seems to require that sense that something that is done “still even now” is a law or custom or ordinance. It may be then that the practice of speech and song about Cyrus is performed like a custom and Xenophon is being hyperbolic. Or, perhaps, Xenophon here reflects the fact that praise of Cyrus was regularly given at certain types of commemorative events.

Though “moderation” or “self-control” is very familiar as a Greek value, it has an important resonance in the customary praise of kings. It is important here that the two values Xenophon highlights as part of describing Cyrus’ early education are justice and good sense. Justice (δικαιοσύνη, above in section 6) has an obvious role in kingship  (e.g. in Hesiod Theogony). The importance of “good-sense” in rule may be equally conventional. To take two tragic examples, Menelaus in Sophocles Ajax 1073-6 wants his armies to behave “moderately”. Sophocles Phaedra fr. 683 Radt similarly refers to good sense as a mark of civic good order. See in general Rademaker 2005:165 (Sophrosyne and the Rhetoric of Self-Restraint, Brill) on justice and moderation; North 1966:32ff. (Sophrosyne: Self Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature, Ithaca, Cornell University Press) on political uses of the term. This section seems work in two ways at once. Against the paradigm of good order in the city, justice and good-sense are appropriate to citizens. They are thus values which continue Xenophon’s focus, from earlier in the work, on what makes a good and orderly authority. But it is also entirely conventional praise for a king, in part because his justice and self-control are models and guarantors of such attributes in the people he rules.

One way of tackling this question would be to ask what scenarios Xenophon describes in which sôphrosunê is of value. It would be interesting to know more about what Xenophon means when he says in Cyropaedia 1.2.9 that the boys spend the night in the royal precinct in order to learn sôphrosunê (is this like a high-stakes sleepover?). At Anabasis 1.9.3–4, too, Xenophon notes that young boys learn sôphrosunê by observing and hearing about how men are honored and dishonored by the king. In several places elsewhere in the Cyropaedia Xenophon illustrates how kings and princes without sôphrosunê can harm themselves and their people. The prince of the Cadusians impulsively pursues the fleeing Assyrians on horseback (“wishing to do something brilliant”), only to get himself and his comrades killed ( Cyropaedia 5.4.15–16). Croesus, the king of the Lydians, admits too late that he had been spoiled by his wealth and then convinced by the bribes and flattery of others to make a reckless war on Cyrus ( Cyropaedia 7.2.23). Out of envy, the king of the Assyrians impulsively kills the son of Gobryas on a hunt; later he has the Assyrian nobleman, Gadatas, made into a eunuch because one of his harem women had taken an interest in Gadatas ( Cyropaedia 4.6.4, Cyropaedia 5.2.28). Cyrus seems to show restraint against a range of impulses, e.g., the impulse to pity his friend, the Armenian prince, Tigranes ( Cyropaedia 3.1.8). Perhaps most importantly, Cyrus shows sôphrosunê against erotic love when his Medan comrade, Araspas, tries to make him gaze upon the noblewoman from Susa, Pantheia ( Cyropaedia 5.1.8). It is important to note that in this instance Cyrus shows sôphrosunê against his very real impulse to fall in love with beautiful women. He acknowledges a similar impulse toward greed, but, as he explains to Croesus, he does his best to curb this impulse by sharing his wealth with his friends ( Cyropaedia 8.2.20). (By contrast, Plato’s Philosopher King is expected to love wisdom to such a degree that all other typical inducements to lust or greed are completely eradicated from the soul ( Plato Republic 485d–487a). At the end of his life, Cyrus explains that he had an abiding fear of misfortune which kept him from “excessively proud thoughts” or “reckless delight” ( Cyropaedia 8.7.7).
The significance of sôphrosunê for a leader may have to do with how the leadership role is conceived. If, for example, the leader is primarily the leader of a roving band of pillagers on horseback, it would seem that sôphrosunê is of less value. You want the leader to lead the charge and take the greatest risks; if he dies, then he may be easily replaced by the next courageous leader. Hence the case of the Hyrcanian king, who is presented in tragic, but heroic light; the same might be said for Abradatas who rushes headlong into the Egyptians on chariot ( Cyropaedia 7.1.29–32). Even Cyrus shows a seemingly admirable (if concerning) impulsiveness on the hunt and later in battle (cf. Cyropaedia 1.4.8, Cyropaedia 1.4.22, Cyropaedia 3.3.62). Yet when such a leader is also expected to govern, i.e., serve as a judge, law-giver, diplomat, or figurehead, you probably want that leader to check the impulses to heed the encouraging speeches of anyone and everyone, to rush recklessly into battle, to rape the captive women, or to take reckless delight in victory. Hence you see Isocrates trying to caution Philip of Macedon against pursuing an “unseasonable philotîmia,” rather than lead the Macedonians in every charge (Cf. φιλοτιμίας ἀκαίρου, Isocrates To Philip 9.1–2. Isocrates’ hope, of course, is that Philip will take a more long-term view of his role as leader of Greece by undertaking a large-scale campaign against the Persians. It is interesting to note that Xenophon has several discussions of how someone comes to possess sôphrosunê. In the Persian educational system, youths learn sôphrosunê by observing their elders behave moderately (and, somehow, by sleeping in the royal precincts). The Persian peer, Aglaïtadas, argues that fathers teach their sons sôphrosunê by making them cry ( Cyropaedia 2.2.14). Tigranes argues that his father has learned sôphrosunê by being defeated by Cyrus in battle ( Cyropaedia 3.1.18). As we noted above, Cyrus seems to possess his restraint as a function of his attentiveness, or fear of misfortune; he is, generally speaking, the kind of leader who is aware of the consequences of his actions.  This awareness may itself be something innate. Or it may be a function of Cyrus’ love of being honored (philotîmia); because he loves being honored so much, he is able to focus on how to win the highest honors (cf. Ischomachus’ explanation to Socrates on how he trains his slaves to pay attention, Oeconomicus 12.16).

It seems to me that a publicly funded hunt signifies the importance of the act in Persian society, as much as any group activity is for any society. How the collective operates in a hunt, as a simulation of war, is (apparently) central to Persian culture. Cyropaedia 1.2.12 also describes other group contests as well–  a side note: I find it intriguing that Xenophon doesn’t mention anything like Athenian theater, music, or poetry (as far as we have read, anyway). Is this an indication that Xenophon didn’t know about any such traditions, that they weren’t well-known, or that he simply didn’t find them relevant to his argument?

Anyway, I think it is vital to have a sense of community in any nation to ensure cohesion– a feeling of shared history tends to help this. If each segment of an armed population (in particular restless young men) gets a chance to gain personal and national glory, revolution is less likely to occur. I think there have been studies on the phenomenon of young men becoming disenchanted when they are unemployed and unengaged in great numbers and taking to rebellion on a large scale. At any rate, with 12 (or however many there actually were) distinct tribes, who likely identified themselves as distinct, a collaborative effort was probably critical to maintaining unity.

See Cyrus’ remarks on the proper nutrition for a long campaign on Cyropaedia 6.2.25-29.  Cyropaedia 6.2.28 contains the only other mention of maza in Xenophon.

Herodotus Histories 1.200 describes a Babylonian custom of preparing fish either in cake form (maza) or bread form (artos): καὶ ὃς μὲν ἂν βούληται αὐτῶν ἅτε μᾶζαν μαξάμενος ἔδει, ὁ δὲ ἄρτου τρόπον ὀπτήσας.

This is the only occurrence of andrikos in the Cyropaedia. At Oeconomicus 5.13.3 it refers to the kind of education that farmers receive, which (like hunting in the Cyropaedia) can prepare people for warfare (καὶ σφοδρῶς καὶ ἀνδρικῶς παιδευόμενοι). This would suggest that Xenophon means to highlight physical toughness or hardiness, though elsewhere the term points to courage (cf. Plato Theaetetus 177b3).

See A. Bovon 1963, D. Head 1992:39-44, and N. Sekunda:18-19.

I think there’s at least an allusion to Plato Republic 7.537-541 and the discussion of the training of leaders in dialectic which suggests that some candidates will fail the various stages of the training and not progress to the next level of knowledge and ruling.

Sekunda 1992:5 suggests that there could be the number of nobles or the number of soldiers of all classes.  Tuplin 1990 argues that it is simply the twelve tribes of Cyropaedia 1.2.5 times “countless.” 

That should be “Perseidai from Perseus” sorry (although I think the Persai/Perseus connection is attested elsewhere).  While this etymology is obvious, Scott Noegel has pointed out that the idea that similar words are fundamentally linked is first attested in Bronze Age Southwest Asia.

My sense from reviewing the use of this term in the Cyropaedia is that sophrosune (perhaps not surprisingly) is something like “the ability to check (though not necessarily eliminate) irrational/destructive/antisocial/immoral impulses by a careful or thorough consideration of the consequences,” the most common of these impulses being fear, greed, love, excessive joy, enthusiasm (especially in battle), anger, and pity.  To the extent that words like “moderation”, “self-restraint”, or “sobriety”, capture this meaning, I think they are fine translations, but it’s probably best to think about such an important word in context whenever it comes up. Xenophon seems most interested in sophrosune as a virtue that checks the impulses of young people (as here and in Cyropaedia 2.2.14, where he has the Persian Aglaitadas explain that fathers teach their children sophrosune by making them cry). It can also be a check against the impulse to rebel from one’s master (cf. the question of whether the Armenian king can learn sophrosune after rebelling from the Medes, Cyropaedia 3.1.16ff.). In this context sophrosune could easily be associated with wisdom (sophia), attentiveness (epimeleia), or a “healthy fear”. Compare Cyrus’ admission at the end of his life that he always had a fear of misfortune that prevented him from committing hubris or being excessively joyous in his success ( Cyropaedia 8.7.7). Dover has a sporadic discussion of sophrosune, with further bibliography, that fleshes out many of the uses of the term (and of the adjective sophron) in the fourth century (Dover 1974:57 GPM, and Dover 1974:59, Dover 1974:66-69, Dover 1974:103, Dover 1974:116, Dover 1974:119, Dover 1974:225).

The context of the passage in Zonaras clearly demonstrates that he is reading the Cyropaedia (and he alludes to Xenophon). The rest of the passage is a fairly faithful summary or translation, but he does not seem to have made much of an effort to capture κάλλιστος…φιλανθρωπότατος… φιλομαθέστατος…φιλοτιμότατος.

And a follow-up: If Cyrus receives a Persian education (rather than a Greek education), what might he have learned about the hero Perseus?

Xenophon says in Cyropaedia 1.2.15 that the Persians do have to succeed at each level in order to make it to the next stage; failure to do so means being kicked out of the school. The Persians also seem to keep track of who is best in the various excellences (cf. Cyropaedia 1.2.12, Cyropaedia 1.5.1, and Anabasis 1.9 on Cyrus the Younger).

I’m not sure if we can answer your other two questions; perhaps someone with greater expertise in Achaemenid Persia than I. Unfortunately Xenophon is one of our primary sources for the Persian education (see Kuhrt 2007:629-632‘s wonderful book, The Persian Empire, for other sources, including Strabo XV, 3.18-19). It is often thought that Xenophon was heavily influenced by his understanding of the Spartan educational system. Cf. Plutarch Customs of the Spartans and Plutarch Lycurgus and Xenophon Constitution of the Lacedaemonians.

The authenticity of this chapter, the so-called epilogue, has long been the subject of scholarly dispute.  I wrote about this in The Friendship of the Barbarians, Hirsch 1985:91-96, and I must say that, upon rereading it after a long time away from this material, my argument still seems persuasive to me, but then what do you expect! While most 19th-century scholars denied that it could have been written by Xenophon, the majority of 20th century scholars accepted its authenticity. I felt strongly that it could not have been part of the original text. It blatantly contradicts many of Xenophon’s assertions earlier in the text, most particularly those places where Xenophon claimed that some Persian practice was still being maintained in his time (eti kai nun…), and virtually all the loci that contradict material elsewhere in the work are clustered in the epilogue.  Some scholars claim that the style of the epilogue is consistent with that of Xenophon.  “Style” is, of course, a slippery beast, prone to much subjectivity.  Perhaps someone skilled in computer analysis will be able to pose a set of concrete questions about countable linguistic phenomena and compare it to other patches of Xenophon. In any case, the tone of the epilogue – “sarcastic, abusive, sometimes even vulgar” – does not feel like Xenophon to me.  Finally, I argued that if, as many believe, Plato Laws book 3 is reacting to Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, then his text of the Cyropaedia did not contain the epilogue, for it would have already done his work for him in showing how far Persia had declined from the virtues of the past.I have not been working on this material or keeping up with the scholarship for quite a while, so I would be glad to hear from others about more recent discussions of this problem.

This is a fascinating question. On the issue of style, and as you point out in the book (Hirsch 1985:94), stylistic assertions about this passage are often subjective and short on specific features that we might use to gauge authenticity. One potential line of investigation here is to use computer analysis. I wonder whether others know of any analysis along these lines already? In the interest of getting more specific data on this question, I had before run some data mining tests on Xenophon’s corpus against various non-Xenophon sets. (There are a number of limitations here– an incomplete corpus of prose, certain omissions; I mention this here only as an initial foray into this question.)  A lot of what you get back is an artifact of the small corpus size and overfits the content of the material. That is, even though the statistical test will pick up all types of information and, in cases where sociolinguistic patterns are quantifiable (e.g. male vs. female speech, high status vs. low status speech) will be quite revealing about important markers of differences in language, for the Xenophon vs. not Xenophon test I am so far finding that it is not much better than noise. For what it is worth though, this section ( Cyropaedia 8.8) has some of the markers of “Xenophon” and very few of the markers that I’m getting for “Not Xenophon”. I don’t think that proves anything, as one needs more data and I offer this only as a quick and dirty result of some initial tests, but I suspect it reflects the problem and maybe a restatement of the question. How would we know whether it is Xenophon or not? Or, rather, would you imagine that anyone reading this in antiquity would have difficulty imagining in is authentic Xenophon? More if I can find anything that is not noise in these sorts of statistical tests…

Section outline and overview:

Cyropaedia 8.8.1 Restatement of Cyrus’ great achievements and accomplishments as a leader.

Cyropaedia 8.8.2-7 Xenophon claims that after Cyrus’ death everything in Persia turned for the worse. Xenophon espouses a new project to illustrate these changes and offers initial exempla showing the evaporation of Persian justice and trustworthiness.

Cyropaedia 8.8.8-19 The old Persian education has been corrupted. The Persians have lost their training in self-mastery over their bodies. Instead they have become effeminate, lazy, and gluttonous. This change has resulted in the decline of military training.

Cyropaedia 8.8.20-26 Xenophon illustrates Persian decline in military affairs.

Cyropaedia 8.8.27 Concluding statement that Xenophon has accomplished his purpose: to show that his contemporary Persians are in every way worse than those in Cyrus’ day.

The epilogue seemingly does an about-face from the rest of the Cyropaedia. It moves from celebrating Cyrus as an ideal leader and Persia as a great empire to anti-Persian propaganda. Hirsch 1985:94 calls the epilogue’s tone “sarcastic, abusive and sometimes even vulgar” (see also Gray 2011:255). And if Persian power and education dissolve so quickly after Cyrus’ death, the epilogue at least begs the question of whether Cyrus was truly a great leader, or in some way the harbinger of Persian political and moral decay. Furthermore, Cyropaedia 8.8 mocks Xenophon’s contemporary Persians as weak and effeminate, and so adopts an Orientalizing posture not present (or at least far less explicit) in the main body of Cyropaedia. On Orientalism in Cyropaedia 8.8, see my comments on Cyropaedia 8.8.15.

Cyropaedia 8.8 is an example of a “palinode,” in that the section appears to retract or reverse the views and sentiments expressed earlier in the work (Tuplin 2004:326; Flower 2012:291). The palinode, which originated as a poetic device, dates back at least to Steisichorus (7th century B.C.), whose Palinode retracted the poet’s earlier aspersions cast on Helen as the cause of the Trojan War. On the genre of the palinode and several later examples in Horace, see Cairns 1978. Noreen Humble 2004 reads Respublica Lacedaemoniorum 14 as a palinode, which, like Cyropaedia 8.8, juxtaposes the past and the present. On the similarities between the palinodes of Cyropaedia and Respublica Lacedaemoniorum, see also Tuplin 1994.

Because of its perceived shift in tone from the rest of Cyropaedia, Cyropaedia 8.8 has prompted at least two major interrelated questions in its modern scholarly reception: 1) Is the chapter authentic, or a spurious later addition? 2) Is the chapter coherent with, or inimical to, Xenophon’s treatment of Cyrus and depictions of Persia throughout the main body of Cyropaedia?

Over the past several centuries, numerous scholars have doubted the authenticity of Cyropaedia 8.8. Sage 1995 traces these doubts about Cyropaedia 8.8’s authenticity to Valckenaer 1766. The view that Cyropaedia 8.8 must be spurious was especially prominent in nineteenth century scholarship. See, for example, Holden 1890:196-97 and Goodwin 1879:165-66. In more contemporary scholarship, Steven W. Hirsch 1985 similarly casts aspersions on the authenticity of Cyropaedia 8.8, especially because its anti-Persian sentiment appears inconsistent with the rest of Cyropaedia.

Against Hirsch’s view, Eichler 1880 argues “for Xenophon’s authorship of 8.8 on linguistic and stylistic grounds” (see Sage 1995:161n3). More recent defenders of the authenticity of Cyropaedia 8.8 include Field 2012, Johnson 2005, Müller-Goldingen 1995, Sage 1995, Due 1989, Tatum 1989, and Delebecque 1957. Christesen 2006:56 accepts that, despite the controversy surrounding its authenticity, Cyropaedia 8.8 “is now generally taken to be an integral part of the work.”

Those who doubt the authenticity of Cyropaedia 8.8 very consistently point to the epilogue’s inconsistency with the rest of Cyropaedia. For instance, Hirsch 1985:93 points to the fact that:

“Flagrant contradictions between the epilogue and the main body of the text are to be found. It is hard to believe that these are mere oversights, the more so since no such striking internal contradictions surface within the body of the work… The contradictions are there, they are glaring, and they are unparalleled elsewhere in the work. They cannot be glossed over.”

Belief that the epilogue is not Xenophon’s own original conclusion to Cyropaedia uniformly goes hand in hand with the opinion that the apparent change in tone and the inconsistencies of 8.8 (often involving ἔτι καὶ νῦν constructions) are irreconcilable with Cyropaedia’s main body of text. Similarly, critics of the epilogue’s authenticity argue that Cyropaedia 8.7 provides a natural conclusion to Cyropaedia and that the tone of the epilogue is atypical of Xenophon’s writing in other works (Hirsch 1985:94).

Those who defend the authenticity of Cyropaedia 8.8 are divided over whether the epilogue is consistent with the rest of Cyropaedia’s portrayal of Cyrus and construction of Persia. Delebecque 1957:405, for example, reads Cyropaedia 8.8 as disharmonious with the rest of Cyropaedia. Others who defend the Cyropaedia’s positive view of Cyrus, yet accept Cyropaedia 8.8 as authentic include Due 1989:16-22; Müeller-Goldingen 1995:262-71; Tatum 1989:215-39. Sage 1995:161 invokes the authority of the manuscript tradition in her defense of the epilogue’s authenticity. Sage 1995:162 argues that Cyropaedia 8.8 “is appropriate both rhetorically and thematically, and enriches, rather than undercuts” the main body of the Cyropaedia. In this interpretation, Xenophon’s conclusion confirms Cyropaedia’s introductory statements about the difficulty of ruling men, while reaffirming the exceptional greatness of Cyrus by contrast with his successors. See also Tuplin 2004:326: “Cyrus is a necessarily flawed hero, but still a hero, and the quasi-mystic quality to his end (whatever it owes to Iranian story-telling) reflects this, just as the palinode both assures us that praise of a Persian is not to be taken wholly outside the context of fourth-century Greek reactions to the empire and underlines that the fourth-century empire is a squalid remnant of a grand, if intrinsically flawed, experiment.”

Others, however, argue that the epilogue is in keeping with what comes before it in Cyropaedia. Johnson 2005:180-81 reads the whole of Cyropaedia as unfavorable towards Cyrus and takes Cyropaedia 8.8 as consistent with Xenophon’s larger program: “The decline in the Persian character begins not after Cyrus’ death, or even with his organization of his empire, but with Cyrus’ initial transformation of the Persians into an army of conquest, a transformation that corrupts the pristine Persia of Cyrus’ youth.” Johnson argues that “Cyrus’ transformed Persians are inherently unstable.” In this view, the epilogue invites us to reread Cyropaedia more critically. Johnson 2005:204-05 argues that Xenophon’s ancient audience “would have been less surprised than we by the epilogue.” Johnson situates Cyropaedia in a Socratic tradition, which challenged readers to think through issues by themselves: “Xenophon would… have his readers recognize the perilous attractions of empire, for both rulers and subjects, by falling prey to those attractions themselves.” Laura Field 2012:724-25‘s reading is similar: “the bleak finale casts a shadow back over the rest of the text… and acts as a deliberate invitation to consider the book and its protagonist anew…. Xenophon’s work is at bottom so seriously critical of Cyrus’ rule that the ending of the book must be considered a wholly fitting one.”

Gera 1993:300 is unconvinced by those who doubt the authenticity of the epilogue, and she observes that “while many modern readers would perhaps prefer another ending to the Cyropaedia, none of the ancients ever objected to the epilogue. Nevertheless, Gera does concede that the epilogue features numerous inconsistencies with the main body of Cyropaedia. These discrepancies revolve around practices which Cyropaedia 8.8 claims have been discontinued, but which Xenophon has earlier claimed continue into his present day (ἔτι καὶ νῦν). Gera 1993:299n77 advises us to compare Cyropaedia 8.8.8 vs. Cyropaedia 1.2.16 (on exercise); Cyropaedia 8.8.12 vs. Cyropaedia 8.1.34-36 (on hunting); Cyropaedia 8.8.13, Cyropaedia 19 vs. Cyropaedia 4.3.23 (on horsemanship); Cyropaedia 8.8.9 vs. Cyropaedia 1.2.11 (on the number of daily meals); Cyropaedia 8.8.10, Cyropaedia 12 vs. Cyropaedia 5.2.17 (on temperance). Whereas Hirsch 1985 finds it unlikely that these inconsistencies are mere oversights, Gera is willing to presume “a combination of carelessness and inconsistency on Xenophon’s part.”

Gray 2011:75 looks beyond Cyropaedia to connect the tone of Cyropaedia 8.8 with the epilogue of Xenophon Respublica Lacedaemoniorum, since both contrast “the good character they [Spartans and Persians] showed while still under the good influence of Lycurgus’ laws and Cyrus’ rulership respectively with the perverse character they revealed once freed of those good influences.” Gray 2011:255-56 attributes much of the epilogue’s inconsistency with its rhetorical (rather than historical) purpose (see also Gray 2011:259, quoted in a comment on Cyropaedia 8.8.11). I say rhetorical rather than historical, since, as I suggest throughout my comments, many of the Epilogue’s slanders do not appear to represent Persian reality and would likely never have been understood to do so.

Erich Gruen 2011:64-65 makes a particularly creative attempt to integrate Cyropaedia 8.8 with the main body of Cyropaedia. Gruen argues that Xenophon lauded Cyrus and the Persians at a cultural moment with leanings towards jingoism and Orientalism. As I note in my comments on Cyropaedia 8.8.15, Gruen suggests that Xenophon parodies Greek stereotypes of Persia. In so doing, “the historian stole a march on potential critics. He discredited the clichés by exaggerating them with parody and reducing them to absurdity.”

As Gray 2011: 256n14 notes, the approach of James O’Hara 2006 to inconsistency in ancient poetry may well apply here. It is more productive to interpret rather than remove (for instance by striking them from the text is inauthentic) or explain away inconsistency (for instance Gera’s assumption of sloppiness on the part of the author; Gera 1993:299-300). O’Hara 2006:3 posits a willingness on the part of ancient authors to make use of inconsistency. O’Hara 2006:2 argues of Virgil’s Aeneid that contradictions might serve to deceive readers, or at least offer conflicting paths of interpretation (a suggestion evocative of Johnson’s dark, Socratic reading of Cyropaedia). In the case of Xenophon, the demands of rhetoric and the element of surprise may account for dissonance between much of Cyropaedia 8.8 and the Cyropaedia’s main body of text. Tatum 1989:224 suggests that, “for Xenophon, the gap between the political and historical world he lived in and the romantically successful but fictional world of the Cyropaedia finally outweighed his authorial desire to preserve the integrity of the text he had created.”

This is not to say, however, that the inconsistences and contradictions of 8.8 can be easily dismissed, and Gera 1993:299 is too quick to brush these contradictions aside on the grounds that they concern “unimportant” matters. That said, I do not believe the mere existence of inconsistencies between Cyropaedia’s epilogue and main body warrants dismissing Cyropaedia 8.8 as inauthentic. The Epilogue may be a later addition and of spurious authorship, but this is by no means the only possible explanation for the contradictions of Cyropaedia 8.8.

In a sense, how to approach the inconsistencies of Cyropaedia 8.8 may hinge on whether one brings an author-centered or reader-centered hermeneutic to bear on the text. For Hirsch 1985 and 19th century philologists who earlier questioned the authenticity of Cyropaedia 8.8, “Who wrote the epilogue and why?” are essential questions. However, a reader-centered approach will note that the manuscript tradition suggests that audiences were reading Cyropaedia 8.8 as the conclusion to Cyropaedia from an early date and that the ancients seem to have accepted it as part of the text. In this view, the authorship (or not) of Xenophon becomes secondary to the role that the epilogue plays in the text as Cyropaedia’s readers have received it for more than two millennia.