American Political Science Review Vol. 109, No.

1 February 2015
doi:10.1017/S0003055414000550 
c American Political Science Association 2015

How to Rule the World: An Introduction to Xenophon’s The Education

of Cyrus
ROBERT C. BARTLETT Boston College

A
s a contribution to the study of empire and imperial ambition, the present study considers
the greatest analysis—Xenophon’s The Education of Cyrus—of one of the greatest empires of
antiquity—the Persian. Xenophon’s lively and engaging account permits us to watch Cyrus as
he builds a transnational empire, at once vast and stable. Yet Xenophon is ultimately highly critical of
Cyrus, because he lacks the self-knowledge requisite to happiness, and of the empire, whose stability
is purchased at the price of freedom. Cyrus finally appears as a kind of divinity who strives to supply
the reward for moral excellence that the gods evidently do not. Xenophon implies that any truly global
empire would have to present itself as a universal providential power capable of bestowing on human
beings a blessed happiness that as such transcends our very mortality.

rom the fact that the globe is no longer clearly promises to all who truly deserve it a blessed happiness

F divided among competing empires, it would be

reckless to assume that the longings or hopes that
once drove the great world empires have either van-
ished from the human soul or been safely diverted into
other channels—those supplied, for example, by inter-
national trade and commerce. As for this latter possi-
bility, scholars of globalization rightly remind us that
domination need not be overtly political but may take
other forms, among them the spread of an apparently
philanthropic technology (e.g., Hawkin 2004). This sug-
gests already the persistence in our time of great am-
bition. As for political ambition proper, prudence de-
mands that we try to understand it. It is with a view to
meeting this demand eventually that the present study
takes up the greatest analysis—Xenophon’s Education
of Cyrus—of one of the greatest empires of antiquity—
the Persian. That Cyrus the Great deserves considera-
tion can be established by recourse to authorities who
otherwise agree about little else: Niccolo Machiavelli
pays Cyrus the high compliment of including him in
his list of four “armed prophets,” in the company of
Moses himself; and the Hebrew Bible goes so far as
to call Cyrus the “anointed” one who, as liberator of
the Israelites from captivity in Babylon, carried out the
Lord’s task—“though you do not know me.”1
To be sure, Xenophon has reasons of his own to
consider Cyrus, and this essay cannot do more than
begin to elucidate them. Xenophon’s account of the
imperial project of Cyrus suggests this much: political
domination on a grand scale requires an appeal to the
moral seriousness of human beings that does not forget
the profound hopes attending it, among them that the
world be such as to foster and reward moral excel-
lence and, when necessary, to punish depravity; and
this in turn calls for a universal providential power that
Robert C. Bartlett is Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies,
Boston College (robert.bartlett@bc.edu).
The author wishes to dedicate this study to Robert K. Faulkner,
colleague and mentor, on the happy occasion of his eightieth
birthday.
1 Machiavelli, The Prince, Ch. 6 ( = Machiavelli 1998, 21–25); Isaiah
44:28 and 45:1–13. On Machiavelli’s complex relation to Xenophon,
consider Nadon 2001, 13–25, Rasmussen 2009, and Newell 2013, 228–
70.
that as such transcends death itself. It remains to be
seen whether a new form of empire may emerge in
modern times that somehow speaks powerfully to our
most prominent moral concerns, that promises to re-
ward (or punish) all according to merit, and that holds
out the prospect of conquering, in addition to all other
mundane evils, our very mortality.
∗∗∗
The Education of Cyrus is a wonderful book.2 Among
its many wonders are the immediacy and power with
which it still speaks especially to those young people
whose souls smolder or burn with grand ambition. In
it we witness the astounding rise of Cyrus of Persia,
from a boyhood that, though it promises much, cannot
quite foretell the greatness of the man: starting out
with a small army of Persians, Cyrus in short order
crushes the aggressive expansion of the Assyrian Em-
pire, establishes himself as King of the new empire, and
then reigns unchallenged over it in all its prosperity and
peace. He can accomplish these things not least because
he is always attentive to what he owes to gods and to
human beings, in compliance with the stern demands
of piety and justice. The Education of Cyrus also puts
before us the impressive sight of what martial courage
can accomplish when it is under the yoke of moderation
or self-restraint. And it holds out to readers, however
dismal their present circumstances, the possibility of a
community that fully meets the highest standards for
political life; it holds out even the possibility of a world
in which nobility and goodness are inseparable in the
sense that moral excellence there always receives its
due. These are among the accomplishments of Cyrus
the Great, and they account for no small part of the
allure of Xenophon’s book.
2 Translations are my own, although I have benefited from Wayne
Ambler’s fine edition of The Education of Cyrus (Xenophon 2001). I
have used the Teubner edition of the Greek text originally prepared
by W. Gemoll and revised by J. Peters: Xenophon 1968. Citations are
by book, chapter, section, and, where appropriate, line number, as
these appear in the edition cited. All references in the body of the
text are to works by Xenophon, unless indicated otherwise.

143
How to Rule the World
It is however more difficult than it might first seem to
identify the sort of book the Education of Cyrus is, and
Xenophon himself does not state the genre to which
it belongs (compare, e.g., Xenophon 1954 5:58; Gera
1993, 1–2). It cannot be accounted a political history
of the kind we are accustomed to or, for that matter,
of the kind the author of the Hellenica proved himself
capable of writing. For while making use of such famous
events of the past as the fall of Babylon, Xenophon
does not otherwise even pretend to historical accuracy:
he has his Persians swear by Greek gods, for example
(consider the glaring exception that proves the rule:
7.5.53), just as at one point he refers to the Assyrians
and their allies as “barbarians,” evidently to distinguish
them from the Persians (3.3.26–27; consider also 7.4.9);
he invents out of whole cloth private conversations to
which no one could have been privy (e.g., 1.6.2–46;
6.4.5–11); and he makes frequent use of the expression
“as was likely” or “as was only to be expected” (hōs
eikos), in this way noting or confessing that the “facts”
he thus records are only intelligent surmises.3 Let it
suffice to add that Xenophon has his aged Cyrus meet
a peaceful end in bed, surrounded by family and other
well-wishers; the historical record suggests that he died
violently in battle and in more or less his prime.4
The Education of Cyrus cannot be called a biog-
raphy either, even allowing for Xenophon’s freedom
from slavish adherence to the historical record. For
Xenophon suggests at the outset that his book was
prompted by a reflection he (“we”) once had concern-
ing the instability of all democracies, monarchies, oli-
garchies, and especially tyrannies. So fraught is the rule
of human beings by other human beings that the diffi-
culty of it extends even to households large or small, to
the subpolitical community. And this difficulty is only
heightened by the comparison Xenophon here makes
to herd animals that never unite against their rulers but,
quite to the contrary, willingly permit them to profit
from them. Reflection on these facts led Xenophon to
conclude that “it would be easier for a human being,
given his nature, to rule over all the other animals than
to rule over human beings” (1.1.3). This problem of the
instability of regimes is of course a political one, but it
is theoretical too inasmuch as it takes its bearings by
“nature”; and it is solely as a result of his reflection
on this problem so conceived that Xenophon first has
reason to mention Cyrus (see 1.1.3). Xenophon’s inter-
est in Cyrus, then, is rooted in a reflection on human
nature and on the resulting character of political life.
Only because Cyrus presents the solution to this grave
problem is he deserving of Xenophon’s attention.
3 “It has been noted by many and in detail that Xenophon’s ‘Cyrus’
is only loosely based on the life of Cyrus the Great, that Xenophon’s
‘Persia’ resembles Sparta more than Persia, and that the geography
of Asia is adjusted to suit dramatic or didactic necessity” (Ambler
2001, 3 n.1).
4 Consider Herodotus (1927) 1.214—if Herodotus can be considered
a part of the historical record—and Ctesias Persica 11.7 ( = Stronk
2010, 317). For helpful comparisons of the presentations of Cyrus
in Xenophon and Herodotus, see Due 1989, 117–35 and Faulkner
2007, 130–1. For the historical sources more generally, see Sancisi-
Weerdenburg 2010, 439–53.
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February 2015
The terms in which Xenophon sets forth what is evi-
dently the problem of politics suggest that it is solvable
only if human rulers can somehow become indisputably
superior to those whom they rule. And he implies that
this would come to pass if the rulers were to stand to the
ruled as do herders to their herds. This state of affairs
in turn could arise either by making the ruled resemble
herd animals as closely as possible or by making the
rulers transcend the merely human in the direction of
a divine supremacy. With these possibilities in mind,
we ask: what constitutes the “education of Cyrus”
that permitted him to rule human beings on the basis
of knowledge (epistamenōs: 1.1.3) and so to achieve
the kind of stability that had seemed to Xenophon
impossible?
THE EDUCATIONS OF CYRUS
After describing briefly Cyrus’s lineage and the “na-
ture” of his bodily form as well as soul, Xenophon
turns to an account of the education Cyrus received.
The most striking fact about that education is the inter-
ruption that marks it. For having spent the first twelve
or so years in republican Persia, Cyrus then went with
Mandane, his mother, to neighboring Media at the
request of Astyages, his maternal grandfather; Cyrus
ended up living in Media for some four or five years
(consider 1.2.8, end; 1.3.1; 1.4.16; and 1.5.1). Astyages
was the king or rather “tyrant” of the place (consider
1.3.18 [14]), and he wished to see for himself what the
reports had suggested—that his grandson was “noble
and good.” To understand the education of Cyrus, then,
one must first understand the education on offer in each
country, and this in turn requires that one understand
the laws and customs (nomoi) at work there. For laws,
and the way of life they constitute, are one’s first educa-
tion: “Cyrus was educated in the laws of the Persians.”
According to Xenophon, the Persian laws, in their
care for “the common good” (1.2.2; see also 3.3.10,
end; 4.5.33 and 46), begin further back than do the
laws of most other cities. Whereas other laws permit
citizens to teach their children as they please and then
punish them as adults for the transgressions they all
too often commit, the laws of Persia take care to form
citizens disinclined from the outset to break them. The
laws shape the very souls of citizens, in other words,
from their earliest youth onward, such that their first
and indeed last thought is for the common good. And
to take one’s bearings always by the common good is to
prefer it always to one’s own, merely private good, to
say nothing of pleasure, whenever the two goods con-
flict: while it is not strictly speaking illegal for one of the
married youths to visit his wife and so to abandon his
age-mates who must as a matter of duty sleep outside
in the “free square,” the nomos nonetheless has it that
it is not “noble” for him to do so often (1.2.4, end). The
laws of Persia teach that goodness consists in nobility,
in one’s noble dedication to the common good and its
demands, a dedication that is choiceworthy for its own
sake and that may well come at some cost to oneself.
American Political Science Review
The principal traits of soul inculcated by the Per-
sian laws are moderation, obedience, and continence
or self-restraint (enkrateia) in matters of food and drink
(1.2.8). Citizens are thus habituated to shun the guid-
ance supplied by the individual or private body (and
indeed soul: 1.3.18 [11–12]) in favor of that supplied
by the judgment of the rulers. This education takes the
form of imitation of the actions of others and so relies
somewhat more on sight than hearing, to say nothing
of conversation (1.2.8 [18, 21, 24]; compare 1.6; 3.1.14–
30; 7.2.15–29). As for piety, it would be wrong to sup-
pose that it is not among the virtues prized (compare
Sandridge 2012, 70; Nadon 2001, 37), but it appears
there under the heading of gratitude. That is, it is illegal
among the Persians to be ungrateful, “for they suppose
that the ungrateful especially would be neglectful both
as regards gods and as regards parents and fatherland
and friends” (1.2.7). But at the center of the Persian
education is the training in justice that the boys receive
at a special school or schools, attendance at which is
the prerequisite to holding political office in later life
(1.2.15); as Xenophon notes, the Persian boys learn jus-
tice at school the way Greek boys learn letters (1.2.6).
(Do the Persian boys learn letters?) When Mandane
subsequently worries that Cyrus will fail to (continue
to) learn justice if he extends his initial stay in Media,
we discover more of the character of that education.
Cyrus tells his mother that he already knows “alto-
gether precisely” what justice is. For one day he was
asked to judge a dispute between two boys: a large boy
with a small tunic had taken the large tunic of a small
boy and given his own in exchange for it. Thus both
boys now had suitably fitting tunics, large and small.
Cyrus judged, on just this ground, that all was as it
should be. His teacher, however, beat him for his ruling,
because the teacher had asked Cyrus to judge, not the
fitting or suitable, but the just, and justice demands that
each boy have the property that is his by law. Persian
justice, then, is exhausted by the dictates of the law.
The Persian “education” to justice or the law includes
beatings; and by them Cyrus was prevented from pur-
suing his initial supposition that justice, whatever it is,
must be good for those who act justly or are treated
justly (1.3.16–18).
What then is the contribution of Media to the edu-
cation of Cyrus? Whereas in Persia a certain equality
is the law, in Media Astyages the tyrant “has made
himself master of everything” and “supposes that he
ought to have more than all [others]” (1.3.18). In Per-
sia Cyrus learned to sacrifice his own good so as to
be noble, and in Astyages’ Media he saw first-hand
the great delights of the pursuit of one’s own good,
including one’s own pleasure. As Cyrus puts it play-
fully to his mother, Astyages has “educated” everyone
there to have less than he himself has, and so Cyrus
too will learn that lesson (1.3.18, end)—but he surely
sees things more from the point of the “educator” than
from that of the “educated.” Persia stands to Media,
one may say provisionally, as the noble stands to the
good. And we cannot understand Cyrus without seeing
that he is deeply attracted to both—to virtue or nobility
(consider 1.3.3), which may well demand the sacrifice of
Vol. 109, No. 1
one’s own good, on the one hand, and to the attainment
of one’s own truest good or advantage, on the other,
which may well include one’s own pleasure (consider
1.3.3 [7–8]; compare 1.3.4). In accord with this, the first
political speech Cyrus delivers, now as a mature (“com-
plete”) man in Persia, raises explicitly a question that
would have previously seemed inappropriate to the
Persian Peers—the upper class that rules in Persia and
that is distinguished by its enthusiastically carrying out
“what the city lawfully holds [nomidzei] to be noble”
(1.5.7). For Cyrus notes in this speech that, while their
ancestors were not inferior to them in spending all their
time too practicing the things that are held to be the
deeds of virtue, Cyrus for his part cannot yet see “what
good they acquired by being such.” What benefit or
advantage did our ancestors themselves receive, each
of them, from their dutiful attention to virtue or their
noble service to the common good? If the Persians of
old were taught to ask only what they can do for Per-
sia, Cyrus now introduces, as a necessary and indeed
respectable consideration, also what Persia can do for
them; he holds out the prospect to them of the enjoy-
ment of “much wealth, much happiness, and great hon-
ors, both for them themselves and for the city” (1.5.9,
end). Not without reason, this speech has been singled
out for its “subversive and revolutionary character”
(Nadon 2001, 55) and even as an act of “corruption”
(Bruell 1987, 99 and 102; Strauss 2013, 181–2; compare
Tatum 1989, 83–4).
It would be wrong, then, to underestimate the change
that Cyrus thus seeks to effect. Still, the step Cyrus
here takes, while jarring, does receive some authoriza-
tion from the very standards of old Persia. For old
Persia promised its citizens that, in submitting to the
comprehensive education that the law conveys, they
would become not only noble but also good:
they would become kaloikagathoi or “gentlemen.”5
They would embody that excellence that is the pos-
session of what is good, guided or limited and elevated
by what is noble. To put the point more sharply: did old
Persia say that it was utterly indifferent to the welfare,
to the “happiness” (1.5.9), of its citizens? Did old Persia
mean to say that the citizens’ dedication to virtue would
render them—miserable? This is impossible, precisely
if “the common good” to which one is devoted is both
genuinely good and truly common. Accordingly, we
learn that the elders govern the boys so as to make
them “supremely good” or “best” (beltistoi), just as
the mature men govern the youths so as to make them
“supremely good” or “best” (1.2.5; consider also 1.2.15,
end). In keeping with this, the practice of the austere
virtues of old Persia was defended partly in terms of
the pleasure of the virtuous themselves, the pleasures
of food and drink included (see 1.2.11). Cyrus could
not have secured the ready agreement of the Persian
Peers to transform the Persian commoners into close-
range fighters—a privilege previously reserved for the
Peers alone—if the Peers’ attachment to virtue for its
5 For the phrase, see again 1.3.1 [7]; also 1.4.27; 1.5.11; 1.6.7; 2.1.15;
2.2.23; 2.3.5; 3.1.38; 3.3.6; 4.3.23; 5.1.6; 5.1.14; 5.3.29; 5.5.19; 7.1.49;
7.2.12; 7.2.17; 7.5.84; and 7.5.86.
145
How to Rule the World
own sake were not “vulnerable to temptation” (Bruell
1987, 97 and 99).
If in this way Cyrus does receive from old Persia a sort
of permission to raise the question of the good of the
virtuous themselves, it is certainly true that he makes
the greatest possible use of it: he destroys the idea that
virtue must be practiced for its own sake alone. Those
who fail to see this calculation miss something impor-
tant about the man. Of the many examples one might
cite, this is perhaps the most important: When the Per-
sian allies capture Panthea, “the most beautiful woman
in Asia,” Cyrus, far from violating her as she assumes he
will, refuses even to see her. But what she understand-
ably regards as the most extraordinary virtue—piety,
moderation, and pity above all (6.1.47)—is better ex-
plained by his calculation that she could prove valuable
to them one day, as indeed she does. Her gratitude,
and especially that of her powerful husband, is more
useful to this “cold king” (8.4.22–23) than any fleeting
pleasure she might afford him could ever be (Faulkner
2007, 155). As a general rule, Cyrus eagerly forgoes a
little gain now—what to the world appears to be the
most remarkable moderation or self-restraint—for the
sake of the greatest possible gain later (see especially
4.2.43–44). “I too have an insatiable greed [aplēstos]
for money, as do the others,” but Cyrus invests that
money in gaining such “friendship” as permits him to
“harvest safety and glory” (8.2.20 and 22).
Yet this calculation of advantage does not exhaust
the concerns of the man or quite do justice to the phe-
nomena. Just as those who fail to see Cyrus’s calculating
nature misunderstand him, so too do those who see in
all his actions nothing but such calculation: “Cyrus’s
outlook cannot be reduced simply to the instrumen-
tal” (Faulkner 2007, 152). Cyrus is not an accountant,
let alone a gangster. At one point the common coun-
cil of Persia decides to send out an armed expedition
to aid Cyaxares, now the ruler of Media, in a strictly
defensive operation meant to push back the expansion
of the Assyrian Empire that threatens Persia too; and
Cyrus explains and defends this mission to his fellow
Peers in these terms: “Let us set forth boldly, since
the appearance of unjustly aiming at what belongs to
others is far from impeding us, for now our enemies are
coming, they who have begun the unjust deeds, whereas
our friends are summoning us as auxiliaries. What is
more just than defending ourselves or more noble than
aiding friends?” (1.5.13). In this way Cyrus indicates—
in the course of his very “corruption” speech—that
he takes seriously and wishes his men to take seriously
the knowledge that their deeds are both just and noble.
And once Cyrus and his soldiers have not only repulsed
the Assyrian forces but destroyed the Empire, Cyrus
insists that the gods will be with them (still), “for we
are not unjust, having plotted against others, but rather
being plotted against, we sought vengeance” (7.5.77).
Moreover, once Cyrus has installed himself as King,
he insists that his courtiers devote themselves to the
practice of “virtue” and that the children they raise
there be dedicated to “spending their day in noble and
good practices, not even seeing or hearing anything
shameful” (7.5.70 and context; 7.5.86).
146
February 2015
That Cyrus seeks to combine a clear-eyed calculation
of his advantage with the dedication to noble virtue
means that, as he insists to his men, it is precisely
virtue that is the greatest good for the virtuous them-
selves. Such was already the import of his “corruption”
speech. It is Cyrus’s hope that “all will say in the future
that nothing is more profitable than virtue” (7.1.18);
it is possible in principle for soldiers in war to possess
simultaneously “safety, justice, and happiness” (6.2.55;
consider also 3.3.8). When Cyrus exhorts his soldiers to
aid Gadatas, a man who has taken the dangerous step of
revolting from the Assyrian in favor of Cyrus, he states
that it is “noble” to aid their benefactor, “just” to pay
back the favors done them—and “advantageous for
ourselves” to do so: far from there being some tension
between the demands of what is just, what is noble,
and what is advantageous, they go together to form a
seamless whole (5.3.31). As Cyrus explains to Croesus
of Lydia, he is “happiest” who is “able to acquire the
most while keeping to what is just and to use the most
while keeping to what is noble” (8.2.23): justice must
strictly guide or limit acquisition, and nobility must
strictly guide or limit its use. But it is precisely in being
so “limited” that one reaps the greatest possible reward
or profit for oneself and one’s friends.
As others have suggested, the title of Xenophon’s
book may point, not to the excellence of the educa-
tion Cyrus received, but to its limits.6 We recall that,
in his youth, Cyrus had claimed to know justice alto-
gether precisely: justice is the law. Cyrus at that point
would have been as untroubled by Socrates’s question
“what is just?” (Memorabilia 1.1.16) as he was by Man-
dane’s observation that, since laws differ from place to
place, so too must justice: this suggests that there is
nothing just by nature or that justice is entirely con-
ventional. And, as Mandane adds, if Cyrus practices
Median justice in Persia, he will be beaten to death.
Perhaps because he was beaten for having attempted
to separate justice from the law, in the name of the
fitting or the good, Cyrus does not then take the first
step in wondering about justice, about what our hopes
for it really are and what it must be to meet them.
It is certainly true that, upon his return from Media,
Cyrus contends that the deeds of virtue, those of justice
included, must be good for the virtuous themselves,
and to this extent he restores the connection between
justice and the good. But that Cyrus has not thought
sufficiently about justice in its relation to the good is
suggested by the dramatic highpoint of his conversation
with his father (1.6). For there Cambyses contends that
precisely justice demands getting the advantage over
the enemy in everything, and it is impossible to say in
advance what this laudable goal may require: plotting,
dissembling, trickiness, cheating, stealing, rapacity, and
so on (1.6.27). Swearing for the only time “by Her-
acles,” Cyrus is astonished by this. For he had been
6 Bruell 1987, 102; Nadon 2001, 179; Strauss 1939, 526; com-
pare Tatum 1989, 90–91 and Bizos 1971, v. See also the helpful
remarks of Sandridge on the title and its possible mean-
ing or meanings: http://www.cyropaedia.org/book-1/chapter-1–1-the-
problem-of-ruling-men-and-the-solution-of-cyrus/.
American Political Science Review
taught that deception, for example, is always unjust; he
learns now that it may well be just, which means that it
is neither simply the one nor the other. This change in
the status of deception is due, not to a change in law, but
to the complex demands of serving the common good;
deception can be judged only by its contribution to
the end it properly serves, helping friends and harming
enemies. Cambyses tells Cyrus that this more adequate
education to justice had been attempted in Persia but
had had to be abandoned. For it proved to be only
a small step, at least for those with “good natures”
(1.6.32), from the thought that lying or cheating in the
name of the common good is acceptable, to the thought
that lying or cheating for my own good is acceptable
too; it is possible to glean from the dedication to the
common good an approval of the concern for one’s
own good, especially if the former can be shown to be
incapable of fulfilling its promise to supply the latter.
And so Persia reverted to the simple teaching—that
justice is the law and the law always prohibits deception
and the rest—a teaching whose principal merit is the
fostering of “gentler” or “tamer” citizens (1.6.33, end).
Cambyses’ teaching is not an amoral one, or still
less an immoral one, since its central concern is jus-
tice understood as the common good. It does however
demonstrate the inadequacy of any attempt to bind by
unalterable rules what the common good may require,
especially in war. Cyrus thus leaves Persia with much
less respect for the law and a greater appreciation for
the “flexibility” that precisely justice, in its promise to
give to each the fitting or good, demands. Accordingly,
Cyrus is all but silent about the law as he builds his
empire (3.3.52; 4.3.22) and, at its peak, presents himself
as a “seeing law” above any written law (8.1.22; also
7.5.73 [“eternal law”]; 8.2.27). That is, he by himself
does or seeks to do what the law wishes to do but, given
its generality and inflexibility, cannot: he sees that all,
friend or enemy, receive their due.
THE PROBLEM OF VIRTUE
If we accept Cyrus’s principal contention to his subordi-
nates that nobility and profit go hand in hand, we must
conclude that the world in general and political life in
particular are altogether suited to human life, to life at
its best or finest. For there is then no tension, to repeat,
between the demands of nobility or virtue—“Persia”—
and our own good—“Media.” It hardly needs to be said
that this view of things is deeply attractive (e.g., Danzig
2012); much of modern political philosophy relies for
its efficacy on the attractions of “self-interest rightly
understood” or on the allure of the perfect coinci-
dence of duty and rights. Only a certain Aglaı̈tadas,
who represents old Persia at its most austere, voices
an objection to Cyrus’s new order; and even he is to
some extent “corrupted” by it, to the amusement of his
colleagues (see 2.2.11–16). But for this very reason it
is surprising that Cyrus himself proves to have reser-
vations concerning its truth. Of particular interest is a
private conversation Cyrus has with his closest confi-
dant, the Persian Peer Chrysantas, which takes place
Vol. 109, No. 1
just before the first great clash with the Assyrian forces.
In response to Chrysantas’ concern that Cyrus is giving
no exhortation to his men as the leader of the Assyrians
has just given to his, Cyrus assures him that no single
speech or argument (logos), uttered on a single day, is
sufficient to improve men’s souls, not even if it should
be “nobly spoken” (3.3.55, end). No such logos, that is,
could fill the men with the requisite respect or sense
of awe (aidōs) or keep them from ignoble acts, just as
it could not urge them to take upon themselves every
toil and every risk “for the sake of praise” (3.3.51). No
logos, moreover, could prompt the soldiers to “grasp
firmly, by means of the judgments [they form], that it
is more choiceworthy to die while fighting than to save
themselves by fleeing” (3.3.51). This last formulation is
especially striking, since Cyrus has never uttered and
will never utter such a thought, in such blunt terms, to
his men—that is, to prefer “death” (apothnēiskein) to
flight and to do so only for the good that is “praise”
(compare the immediately preceding remarks of the
Assyrian leader: 3.3.45 [apothnēiskousi]).7 Is this the
whole of the “profit” or “advantage,” including the
pleasure, that actions in accord with the peak of nobility
procure for one?
What is more, in order for these judgments to be
“inscribed” in human beings and remain fixed in them,
there must be, first, such “laws” as will secure for those
who are good a life characterized here and now by both
honor and freedom and, for the bad, a lifetime that is
miserable, painful, and indeed unlivable. But even laws
are not enough to secure this end. The soldiers, Cyrus
continues, must also have “teachers and rulers” over
them who will “correctly show and teach and habituate
them” so to act, until it is “inbred in them” (engenētai
autois) “to believe” or “hold” (nomidzein) that the
best and renowned “really are happiest” (3.3.53). This
conviction, then, of the supreme happiness of the best
so defined, requires not only teachers but also “rulers,”
not just an education but also “habituation”: the con-
viction concerning the supreme happiness of those who
prefer death to flight is not according to Cyrus a logos
that as such can be known but must be largely, and
merely, believed; one must come to feel it in one’s bones
rather than understand it.
That Cyrus never says as much to his troops is hardly
surprising. His general approach is indicated by the fol-
lowing example. After their victory in the first battle,
Cyrus tells his troops this: you “may always judge for
yourselves whether virtue saves lives more than does
flight, whether those who are willing to fight escape
more easily than do those who are not willing, and
what sort of pleasure victory supplies” (4.1.5). It is not
death to life, then, that the soldiers must understand
themselves to be choosing—even if they are making
that choice in fact—so much as the choice for victory
and, with it, safety, ease, and pleasure. Cyrus goes so
far, in his conversation with Chrysantas, as to call this
7 Cyrus uses the verb “to die,” as distinguished from “meeting one’s
end” or “passing away,” only in speaking of others, and especially of
the enemy (5.2.9; 5.2.32; 6.1.12), or, as here, in private conversation:
see also 7.1.19 (to Hystaspas: “none of us will die”).
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capacity to stick to the conviction indicated “the great-
est virtue” (3.3.54, end; consider also Plato 1902, Re-
public 429b8–d1). But such a virtue, whatever its other
merits, surely cannot always “save lives,” at least not
the lives of the virtuous themselves.
Cyrus is aware, then, that there may well be a discrep-
ancy between noble dedication and deserved reward.
One might suppose that this thought could prompt
Cyrus to return to the austere virtues of old Persia,
whose lingering effects he still relies on: let what is
noble regain its as it were natural ascendancy above
the good, or let sacrifice for the common good appear
in its splendor as what it is. But such a return seems
impossible. For, as we have suggested, the very laws of
Persia give at least tacit approval of Cyrus’s concern
for the good because they too do not so clearly or
consistently separate the noble from the good. It is to
Cyrus’s credit that he discerns within the dedication to
virtue its promise of happiness; Xenophon’s Socrates
too seems to hold to the identity of the noble and
the good or to the advantageous character of what
is noble (e.g., Memorabilia 3.8.5–6; Symposium 5.4–
7). Beyond that, the “common good” by which the
Persian laws take their bearings proves to be deeply
flawed, as Xenophon makes plain and Cyrus himself
indicates. Though by law a democracy whose political
offices are open to all citizens alike, Persia is in fact a
narrow oligarchy of the rich for the benefit of the rich;
if the makeup of the army is any indication, the many
poor may outnumber the few rich by a ratio of thirty to
one (see 1.5.5). Persia thus presents itself as something
other than it is in fact or practice. In fact it is based
on a fraud facilitated by the innocuous demand that all
rulers attend, in their youth, the all-important justice
school: having of necessity to work, the sons of the
poor are of course excluded from doing so, not by the
rich, but “by necessity” (consider 1.2.6 and 15; 2.1.15;
2.3.13–15). One can respect Cyrus’s dissatisfaction with
old Persia—but can the new project succeed?
THE PIETY OF CYRUS
Hardly more than a glance at the text is needed to see
the course that Cyrus follows in his pursuit of what is
noble and good: he begins every work with the gods and
always pays heed to their signs, both in the sacrifices
and in or from the heavens (consider, e.g., 2.1.1; 3.3.21;
6.4.12–7.1.3; also Memorabilia 1.1.7–9). For surely only
gods could bridge the gap that sometimes opens be-
tween our hopes and our fate—gods, that is, who exist
always and know all things past and present and what-
ever will result from each of these (1.6.46; consider also
Memorabilia 1.1.19 and Symposium 4.47–48). As Cyrus
learned from his father, it is only by remembering the
gods especially when we are faring well, rather than by
flattering them when we are in want, that we are likely
to have greater success in action. And it is on account of
just such care or diligence that Cyrus may approach the
gods with greater pleasure, when he intends to make a
request of them, just as it is his awareness of the fact
that he has never neglected the gods that gives him
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February 2015
greater hope of attaining what he needs or asks for
(1.6.3–4). The pleasure afforded by the anticipation of
attaining something good: this must be an integral part
of Cyrus’s piety.
Yet precisely the teaching of Cambyses, in what is the
longest and most complex conversation in the book
(1.6), suggests that the gods remain mysterious in a
matter of great importance to human beings. For both
the first and the last topic Cambyses takes up is the
gods, and to begin with he suggests only that the dif-
ficulty Cyrus faces is the manipulation to which the
interpretation of the divine signs is subject, it being a
matter of human art. This implies that there is a diffi-
culty, not with the signs themselves or with those who
send them, but with the all-too-human interpreters of
them, the prophets who may wish to deceive Cyrus
for their own ends: prophetic signs may be made to
serve altogether political purposes. And this problem
had already been solved, at the time of the conversa-
tion, because Cambyses had taken care to teach Cyrus
the art of prophecy (mantikē: 1.6.2, end).8 The graver
difficulty appears only when Cambyses returns to the
subject of the gods, at the end of the conversation and
hence just before Cyrus crosses into Median territory
(1.6.44–46). Cambyses now broaches what he himself
calls “the greatest” matters (1.6.44). All human action
is based on nothing more than guesswork, since human
beings “do not know from which [actions] the good
things will be theirs.” And they do not know this be-
cause “human wisdom no more knows how to choose
what is best than if somebody should cast lots and do
what the lot determines.” This assertion of the impo-
tence of human wisdom is in tension with Cambyses’
earlier account of the power of human prudence, which,
while it certainly needs to be supplemented by divine
prophecy, was quite capable in its realm (1.6.23 and
context). Still, one could well suppose that precisely
“the lot” is only another means the gods have to make
known their will, to those to whom they are propitious
(compare 6.3.35–36 with 7.1.15), and so the impotence
of human wisdom or prudence is fully compensated for.
Yet Cambyses contends, in the words that constitute his
farewell to his son, that the omniscient gods may not,
because they need not, advise one what to do and what
not to do: “if they [the gods] are unwilling to give coun-
sel to all, that is nothing to be wondered at. For it is not
necessary [anangkē] for them to care for those whom
they do not wish to care for” (1.6.46; consider, even in
the earlier statement, the “likely” [eikotōs] at 1.6.3 [5]).
Cambyses does not indicate a way to ensure that one
be among those whom the gods favor. In other words,
the gods may remain silent even to those who observe
the most exacting piety (consider also Oeconomicus
8.16 and 11.8); the gods as such are above “necessity.”
Far from questioning this teaching or objecting to it—
let alone permitting it to deflate his ambitions—Cyrus
responds to it in deed: he crosses the border, praying
both before and after doing so (2.1.1).
8 If Cyrus later relies on the priestly class of the Magi, it is clear
enough that it is he who commands them (4.5.14; see also 4.5.51;
4.6.11; 5.3.4; 7.3.1; 7.5.35 and 57; 8.1.23; 8.3.11 and 24).
American Political Science Review
Yet if Cyrus took his father’s teaching to heart, he
must see that, the gods being under no necessity to aid
him, there can be no certainty that the just or virtuous
will receive what is in a sense theirs. Or is it not rather
the fact that Cyrus has received this education, an ed-
ucation that goes beyond what either Persia or Media
offers, that he knows of the discrepancy in question?
If this is so, then Cyrus must know that recourse to
the gods does not solve the problem of virtue in the
manner one would wish (hence, perhaps, the possibility
of blaming or reproaching gods: 7.1.11 and 7.5.42; also
5.2.12, end). Political events support this conclusion.
Astyages, for example, seems to have died peacefully
of old age, his “tyrannical” ways notwithstanding: evi-
dently no one succeeded in poisoning him (1.3.9, end).
We may consider in this regard also Cyrus’s encounter
with Gadatas, whom the present Assyrian King had had
seized and castrated when the King’s mistress had men-
tioned Gadatas’ nobility or beauty (5.2.28). Gadatas is
thus an enemy of the Assyrian but subjugated by him,
and when Cyrus appears, Gadatas understandably sees
him as a possible avenger of the grievous wrong done
him: “And I swear to you, Cyrus, by the gods who both
see all and hear all, that I have suffered even though
I have neither said nor done anything either unjust or
shameful” (5.4.31). Gadatas weeps bitterly at his for-
tune, as he says these things, and is so overcome that he
can no longer speak. Like Cambyses, then, Gadatas too
holds the gods to be all-knowing—at any rate, they see
and hear “all things” and therefore also his suffering—
and yet they have done nothing either to protect him
before the fact or to avenge him after it. Gadatas thus
vividly illustrates the problem sketched in outline by
Cambyses. As just and noble as Gadatas has been and
is, the gods have permitted his misery; they have looked
on in apparent indifference (consider also 6.1.3). As for
Cyrus’s own fastidious and ostentatious piety, perhaps
it is a product of a persistent hopefulness—that the
gods may, even if they need not, intervene for him
(consider also Oeconomicus 7.7 and 11.8–9).
It is true that Machiavelli compels us at least to con-
sider a rather different possibility, according to which
Cyrus’s piety is less the expression of a heartfelt and
hopeful duty than an infinitely useful device serving a
military or political purpose. After all, if the prophets
can manipulate the divine signs or their interpretation,
so can Cyrus. As we have noted, Machiavelli identifies
Cyrus—Xenophon’s Cyrus (Prince, Chap. 14)—as one
of four “armed prophets” and so places him, together
with Romulus and Theseus, in the company of Moses
as great founders: “and if their particular actions and
orders are considered, they will appear no different
from those of Moses, who had so great a teacher”
(Machiavelli 1998, 22–23). In other words, Moses spoke
to God as much as Cyrus did: not at all. Xenophon’s
Cyrus too can be called an “armed prophet” inasmuch
as he is both heavily armed and trained in the art of
prophecy. And although Xenophon is far more cau-
tious or reserved than Machiavelli on this score, he too
indicates occasionally the political or military utility of
pious observance: soldiers who are fearful of the divine
fear human beings less, for example (3.3.58; consider
Vol. 109, No. 1
also 3.3.40 and 42, end; 6.2.6; 8.1.23 and 25; 8.7.22).
Still, the fact that Cyrus sees in pious observance a
certain political utility does not by itself establish the
insincerity of his practice of it, as little as his conviction
of the utility of virtue means that his is a strictly low
or mercenary view of virtue. For the happiness Cyrus
seeks he wishes to deserve, and desert seems pegged
to compliance with a standard one regards as kalos,
as beautiful or noble or high. Cyrus would not be as
hopeful as he is, then, if he did not understand himself
to be complying with an extraordinarily demanding
standard that as such he admires.
THE PROVIDENTIAL RULE OF CYRUS
We have argued that Cyrus is dedicated to what is noble
or virtuous, even as he seeks in all things the good
or advantageous, and that he knows that the world
does not so simply support his genuine wish to see
moral excellence unfailingly attended by just reward:
such a view must be buttressed by laws and an alogon
habituation, since it is not reliably supported even by
omniscient gods. But we suggest now that what the
world or cosmos may not supply, Cyrus himself strives
to supply. Cyrus is intent, that is, on constructing a new
order that is in principle open to all who are good as
he understands goodness, regardless of their wealth or
status or nationality (consider 2.2.26), a truly universal
meritocracy that to a degree looks to nature (e.g., 2.1.15
and especially 2.3.7–10); and in that new order, through
the scrupulous attentions of Cyrus himself, merit will
always receive its earned recompense. Accordingly, im-
mediately after the first great triumph over the Assyr-
ian forces, Cyrus himself sees to it that Chrysantas,
who most distinguished himself in the battle, receives
the reward of a promotion (4.1.3). Cyrus is constantly
on the lookout for those deserving of reward, be it
money or praise or honor, and he directs his officers
to do the same (e.g., 3.3.6). It is solely through the
this-worldly deeds of Cyrus that Gadatas the eunuch is
finally permitted the vengeance he longs for: Gadatas
and Gobryas (whose son was murdered by the Assyr-
ian) are directly responsible for the execution of the
Assyrian King (7.5.30–31). And although Xenophon is
reluctant to mention it, Cyrus must also demote or pun-
ish, for the undeserving can never profit or be seen to
profit. When, for example, the disobedient Chaldaeans
(consider 3.2.7 and 25–26) begin to plunder, against
Cyrus’s direct order, they are saved from expulsion
in enemy territory only when they agree to give all
they have plundered to the good troops who as such
remained at their posts (7.2.5–8; also 2.2.25, end).
The depth of Cyrus’s attachment to virtue or no-
bility is perhaps clearest on those occasions when the
well-being of the virtuous is most exposed. In such
circumstances, one can even say, Cyrus takes on the
role of a providential god; he attempts to do here and
now what the gods evidently do not. Cyrus’s concern
for “the noble and the good,” for the union of “Persia”
and “Media,” compels him to go beyond the limits
of all ordinary politics in the direction of a universal
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providence. No wonder, then, that some men are even
of the view that Cyrus is descended from gods, that is,
is himself a god (see 4.2.24, end; 7.2.24; also 1.2.1). In
the confusion of the battle against the allied Assyrian
forces, Cyrus surveys the scene from atop one of the
moveable towers he has had built. From that vantage
point he catches sight of the Egyptians, his enemies,
who alone are standing their ground. But being in im-
possible circumstances, they simply form themselves
into a circle and sit down under such cover as their
shields provide. Here they begin to suffer “many ter-
rible things” (7.1.40). No longer able to fight, in other
words, the Egyptians submit to a slaughter. Cyrus’s re-
action to this sight is telling: he is filled with both admi-
ration and pity, “because they were perishing, despite
being good men” (7.1.41). Accordingly, Cyrus inter-
venes in an effort to save them, and he manages to do so
when he allays their sole concern—that their salvation
be somehow compatible with what is “noble” (7.1.42).
The Egyptians, then, show by deed that they prefer
a noble death to an ignoble salvation, just as Cyrus
shows his abiding concern that men of extraordinary
virtue not meet a harsh end: he intervenes to save the
stoutest of his enemies—the very ones, as the reader
knows but Cyrus does not, who are responsible for the
death of that man of the most outstanding nobility in
Cyrus’s army, Abradatas of Susa, husband of Panthea
(7.1.31–32).
The case of Abradatas and Panthea too is revealing.
Abradatas expresses in prayer his gratitude to Cyrus
for the treatment accorded his captured wife: “Greatest
Zeus, grant that I may come to light as a husband wor-
thy of Panthea, and a friend worthy of Cyrus” (6.4.9).
And it is Panthea who exhorts her husband to aid Cyrus
in an outstandingly noble way: she would prefer to be
under the earth with her husband than live on with him
in shame, should he fail to acquit himself well in battle
(6.4.6 and context). In addition to her misattribution
of Cyrus’ treatment of her to his selfless virtue, she still
labors under the false opinion that she is responsible
for the end of the friendship of Cyrus and Araspas,
a friendship that in fact survives but whose apparent
demise Cyrus uses to great advantage (6.1.45–51 and
6.4.8; compare 5.1.2–18; 6.1.31–44; 6.3.11–16). Panthea
and Abradatas together are exceedingly noble or beau-
tiful in every way: in bodily appearance, in adornment,
in character. So little do they seek their own advantage
or profit that the very arms and clothing Panthea has
had specially crafted for her husband are noteworthy
for their beauty as distinguished from their utility (con-
sider 6.4.2), just as his chariot would seem to be best for
driving straight into enemy lines, whereas the chariots
of Cyrus’s new design seem rather more maneuverable
and are themselves a lethal weapon merely by being in
motion (compare 6.1.51 and 6.4.2, beg., with 6.1.29–30
and 52; 6.2.17).
When Cyrus learns the news of the death of Abra-
datas in battle, he reacts in an unprecedented way.
Striking his thigh in vexation or grief, he rides imme-
diately to the corpse—thus seeing Panthea for the first
time—begins to weep and weep bitterly (7.3.6, 8 [15]
and 11 [7]; compare 1.4.26 and 5.5.10), and is reduced
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February 2015
for a time to silence. He does not know what to say.
Cyrus has cattle, horses, and many sheep brought along
so they may be slaughtered in sacrifice for Abradatas,
as befits a good man (7.3.11, end), and he attempts to
console Panthea with the thought that Abradatas has
received “the noblest end, for he has met his end while
being victorious” (7.3.11). Thus the noblest man has
received the end most fitting for him—although there
is no suggestion in the text that Abradatas died with
the knowledge that victory was theirs (compare, e.g.,
Thucydides 1942, 5.10.11). Cyrus also promises that a
great memorial mound will be raised for Abradatas.
Yet Panthea is consoled by none of this, and she makes
a remark that is as disturbing in its way as is the corpse
that lies in pieces beside her (7.3.8–10): “I know . . . that
[Abradatas] suffered these things on my account not
least, but perhaps [or equally] also on account of you,
Cyrus, no less. For I—the fool!—I uttered many exhor-
tations to him to act in this way, so that he would be a
worthy friend to you. And I myself know that he did not
reflect on whatever he would suffer, but rather on what
he might do in gratitude to you” (7.3.10). If Panthea re-
mains true to her earlier statement that she would pre-
fer a noble end with her husband to an ignoble life—she
immediately commits suicide, an act that leaves Cyrus
“dumbstruck” (7.4.15)—she does so with deep regret:
surely her statement here means that, were it possible
for her, she would in fact prefer the continuation of her
life with Abradatas, noble or not. She regards herself
now as a “fool.” This scene reveals simultaneously the
limits of Cyrus’s own power to reward the virtuous and
the limits of the noblest outlook taken on its own terms.
That the honors or rewards arranged by Cyrus fail
to satisfy Panthea is clear enough; Xenophon himself
refers to the memorial mound for Abradatas as “the
memorial mound of the eunuchs,” the eunuchs, that is,
who immediately imitate the suicide of their mistress:
were it not for the artful intervention of Xenophon, as
distinguished from that of Cyrus, the eunuchs would be
at least as well remembered as Abradatas and Panthea.
The noble dedication to virtue seems to call out for
immortality—Panthea had spoken of the possibility,
not indeed of death, but of her being together with her
husband in or under the earth, once he has shown him-
self to be a good man (6.4.6)—and this Cyrus cannot
supply. In attempting to jettison what is noble insofar
as it transcends the good, must not Cyrus jettison also
the hope undergirding Panthea’s words to Abradatas?
THE UNIVERSAL RULE OF CYRUS AND THE
PROBLEM OF REGIME STABILITY
We hope to have shown that Cyrus is both deeply at-
tractive9 and deeply flawed. He seeks to preserve some-
thing of the beauty of noble or moral action even as he
insists that such action is always good for those who so
act. Insofar as he sees that neither human beings nor
9 “One will not grasp the problem of a Cyrus if one does not grasp
his grandeur, that is, what makes him stand out from boyhood as
admirable and attractive as well as able and intimidating” (Faulkner
2007, 134–35).
American Political Science Review
gods always make this so, he himself enters the breach:
Cyrus takes upon himself the offices of a providential
despotēs or “master” (e.g., 4.6.2–3; 5.3.28; 7.2.9; 7.3.3;
consider also 7.5.61–62). At one point he assures the
Persian commoners that he, “together with the gods,”
will overcome a certain “necessity” (2.1.15): Cyrus ap-
pears in the company of gods, above necessity. Yet he
lacks the omniscience such providence would require.
If he can bestow on Chrysantas the requisite honor
because he himself saw him in battle, Cyrus must rely
on hearsay reports in distributing the other honors (see
again 4.1.2–3); he wishes to be, but cannot be, a “see-
ing law.” That there is a grave difficulty with Cyrus’s
enterprise is obvious no later than his accession to the
throne and the organization of his empire (7.5.37 and
following). There he attempts to make up for his lack of
knowledge by means of the so-called “Ears and Eyes of
the King”—that is, a clandestine network of informants
who report whatever it may be useful for him to know.
The result of this, which Stalin could approve of, is that
the people “are everywhere afraid to say what is not
advantageous to the King, just as if he himself were
listening, and to do whatever is not advantageous, just
as if he himself were present” (8.2.10–12). The distance
between omniscience and the native human capaci-
ties is compensated for by the judicious use of fear
(consider already 1.1.5 [23–25]) and perhaps also by
“technological” inventions or contrivances (consider,
e.g., 8.6.17–18). And this in the chapter devoted to ex-
plaining how Cyrus won over his “friends” (see 8.1.48,
end and 8.2.28)! Accordingly, Cyrus sees to it that the
first grand procession from the palace is both “most
noble” and “most frightening” (8.3.5). Cyrus knows
that it is not enough just to be better than his sub-
jects; he must also “beguile” or “bewitch” them—with
makeup, elevator shoes, elaborate dress—so as to im-
prove on “nature” (8.1.40–41). Because many enemies
surround him in Babylon, he must surround himself
with the only people he can now trust, a coterie of
eunuchs, who are of course themselves unnatural and
are without the natural attachments (7.5.58–65); those
who do not have (Gobryas) or cannot have issue (Ga-
datas) are especially dependent on Cyrus (consider also
the implication of the apparently inapt metaphor of
Cyrus the King Bee at 5.1.24). The crowning moment of
Cyrus’s first procession occurs when the vast audience,
partly spontaneously and partly by prior arrangement,
prostrates itself before him. And this means in turn
that, for the first time, the Commoners and Peers of
Persia—republican Persia—too abase themselves be-
fore the man, who hardly seems to be a mere man
any longer (8.3.14; see also 4.4.13; 5.3.18; and 7.5.32;
compare 2.4.19 and Anabasis of Cyrus 3.2.13).
Here we may return to the opening of the Ed-
ucation of Cyrus and recall—what becomes easy to
forget—that the book presents itself as a high praise of
Cyrus. Yet Xenophon’s praise of Cyrus rests on a single
ground: that Cyrus solved, on the basis of knowledge,
the problem of political instability. It gradually be-
comes clear that he solved this problem, for so long as
he solved it, by destroying politics in favor of something
on the model of the family. That is, Cyrus the King is
Vol. 109, No. 1
routinely called “father” by his subjects—which means
that they, both slaves and “the best,” are themselves
akin to children (8.1.1 and 44; 8.2.9; 8.8.1, end) and
come to prefer him to their own brothers, fathers, and
children (8.2.9). Or, since “familial” rule too can be
difficult (recall 1.1.1 [8–13]), Cyrus also calls himself
“shepherd,” which means that his subjects are akin
to sheep (8.2.14). A saying of Cyrus is remembered:
“as the shepherd ought to use his flocks while making
them happy—in the happiness of sheep of course—so
a king ought similarly to use cities and human beings
while making them happy.” Cyrus fails to add: “in the
happiness of human beings of course.” It is striking
how frequently Cyrus takes his bearings, in dealing
with his soldiers and subjects, by observation of herd
or pack animals (e.g., 2.1.28–29; 7.5.62; 8.1.9 and 44;
8.2.4); the significance of Xenophon’s early juxtaposi-
tion of human beings and herd animals is now apparent
(recall 1.1.2). In accord with all of this, Cyrus replaces
political rule or judgment or deliberation (e.g., 1.5.5;
5.5.43) by “management,” “household management”
(e.g., 7.5.58; 8.1.14 and 15).
Cyrus distinguishes between those in his circle and
those whom he is “preparing for slavery,” and in the
former especially he instills piety, justice, respect or
awe, obedience, moderation, and continence (8.1.23–
33; compare 1.2.8). Yet the line between the two begins
to blur. As Chrysantas has it, the distinction between
free and slave is that the free are willingly, slaves un-
willingly, obedient (8.1.4; on “freedom,” consider also
3.1.10, end; 8.3.21): everyone must always be eager to
dance a Persian jig before Cyrus (see 8.4.12 and con-
text). The “education of Cyrus” informed him that a
great many human beings will obey if such obedience
brings with it “the good things” and their preservation
(8.1.3; the speaker is Chrysantas: compare 1.6.19 [13–
14] and 8.4.12 [17–20]). First among those goods are
the pleasures of food and drink (8.2.2) and clothing
and adornments (8.2.8), on the one hand, and bodily
health on the other. Accordingly, Cyrus encourages the
more-than-Median refinement that goes together with
the division of labor, whose products he alone con-
trols (8.2.5), and he maintains a monopoly on access
to “health care” (8.2.24–25). Much of life in the new
empire, then, is taken up with procuring and enjoying
the bodily pleasures or their close cousins—a “sheep-
like” happiness. Insofar as Cyrus’s providential rule
seeks to preserve mere life and to supply comforts—
comfortable self-preservation—these must be accord-
ing to Xenophon important motives bringing the peo-
ple to the adulation of Cyrus; awareness of the fragility
of life and of its attendant pleasures may be sufficient
to bring some human beings to the worship of beings
who present themselves as providential.
The emptiness of the life Cyrus creates at the peak
of empire becomes clear in his attempts to answer
the question of what the empire, with all its striving
and strife and hardship, is for. In his first speech af-
ter becoming king, Cyrus contends, before the Peers
and those who have proved themselves best, that if so
great a success as the empire renders it impossible “to
have leisure either for oneself or to enjoy oneself with
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friends, I bid farewell to this happiness” (7.5.42; com-
pare 8.7.12, end and context). The practice of virtue,
we can now say, is for the sake of empire, which is
for the sake of leisure, for oneself and with one’s
friends. Everything rests, then, on Cyrus’s conception
of the concern or activity that properly fills that leisure.
Artabazus, the Mede who from youth has been in love
with Cyrus, suggests that such leisure be given over to a
kind of private life shared by Cyrus’s friends from the
beginning—Artabazus has in mind a love affair with
Cyrus—but Cyrus regards this suggestion as risible: he
openly laughs at it (7.5.48–55; for a different reading of
this passage, see Nadon 2001, 112). Instead, since the
empire must be not only maintained but also expanded,
Cyrus indicates that his men “must not slacken in their
practice of virtue”: virtue is for the sake of empire,
which is for the sake of leisure, which is for the sake
of the practice of virtue, which in turn maintains the
empire that is for the sake of . . . leisure? Given the cir-
cularity of this, Cyrus is compelled to raise the following
question: “If someone is reflecting on such things as
these—‘so what profit is there for us to have accom-
plished the things we desired, if it will still be obliga-
tory for us to practice endurance while being hungry
and thirsty and while laboring and being diligent?’—
he must understand that one enjoys the goods things
more insofar as one labors first before proceeding to
them” (7.5.80). As this suggests, the only clear answer
Cyrus can give to his question is enjoyment or “plea-
sure,” which he mentions six times in the context. But
this answer is problematic. For these promised plea-
sures always lie just around the corner, and the austere
pleasures subsequent to hunger and thirst must lose
their allure amid the Babylonian splendor, eventually
if not immediately (consider 8.8). And to the extent
that Cyrus hesitates to make an avowed hedonism the
core of the self-understanding of the Persians, at least,
he is compelled to “repeat” old Persia at the peak of
the new (see 7.5.85). Cyrus, that is, must also encourage
something akin to virtue’s being practiced for its own
sake alone, after having done so much to destroy it:
“those whom I see making a regular practice of the
noble things and the good things, these I will honor”
(7.5.85, end; the formulation is compatible with the
separation of the noble from the good).
If Cyrus did indeed solve the problem of regime
stability, at least during his lifetime (8.8, with all
the MSS; also 1.2.16; compare Agesilaos 1.4, end), and
if the empire needed to solve it becomes more repellent
the more we see of it, then political stability must be
judged the floor rather than the ceiling of healthy po-
litical life. Xenophon is able to praise Cyrus as he does
only by lowering the standard by which he judges polit-
ical life: Xenophon must cease to judge political life by
its highest aspiration, to secure for all citizens the good
or best way life, if he is to praise Cyrus. Such stability
may be the necessary condition of happiness, at least
of the community (compare Apology of Socrates to the
Jury 18); it is not its sufficient condition. One is led to
wonder, in other words, whether Cyrus’s solution to the
problem of political stability, which is indeed possible
and includes the destruction of politics together with
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a freedom worthy of the name, is not worse than the
problem itself.
CONCLUSION
The Education of Cyrus can easily lay claim to being
among the most political of Xenophon’s writings, and
Cyrus is surely the greatest political figure in them. By
the end of the Education of Cyrus, however, we are
possessed by the thought that the political life even at
its greatest is defective according to Xenophon. And in
this altogether political book, the private life scarcely
appears. This is especially the case with what Xenophon
must regard as the peak of the private life, the philo-
sophic life (consider Memorabilia 4.8.11). We hear, it
is true, of a book of wise sayings of (or owned by) Go-
bryas, a book in which Cyrus shows no interest (8.4.16
and 25; compare 7.4.12). And when Cyrus is reunited
in Armenia with his boyhood acquaintance Tigranes,
he recalls that Tigranes once had a wise teacher whom
Tigranes admired greatly. But Tigranes’ father had had
that noble and good teacher killed on the grounds that
he was “corrupting” Tigranes—in fact, as Tigranes’ fa-
ther now admits, he envied the respect the son showed
the teacher. The execution of a wise teacher on a charge
of corrupting the young that stemmed from the envy
of the fathers: Xenophon thus alludes to the fate of
his own teacher, Socrates (consider also 1.6.31). The
education of Tigranes (Xenophon) is apparent not only
in the skillful speech he gives that probably saves his
father’s life, but also in the reserve he shows in his
esteem for Cyrus: “Tigranes,” able rhetorician and ex-
cellent soldier, has another center of gravity (consider
3.1.41; 5.1.27; and 8.4.1).
Xenophon’s clearest pointer in the direction of the
private life is the subtheme of erotic love that appears
early on and throughout (1.4.27–28; 2.2.28–31; 3.1.36
and 41; 5.1.18 and context; 6.1.47 and context; 7.2.28;
8.4.24). If such love is first treated as the stuff of com-
edy, it becomes, in the story of Araspas’ illicit love of
Panthea, much more serious than that and, in the case
of Panthea and Abradatas, something approaching the
tragic. Cyrus himself is not a lover in any ordinary
sense—being a “cold king” (8.4.22–23), his contention
that he runs a great risk in looking upon the beau-
tiful Panthea should probably be taken with a grain
of salt10 —and when he eventually marries it is for a
strictly political reason.11 It is true that he is attracted
to beauty. But he is attracted especially to those things
whose allure is much enhanced for him by their death
(consider 1.4.11 [11–12] and 1.4. 24). Only once does
Xenophon speak of an erotic desire of Cyrus: for the
10 5.1.8; also Nadon 2001, 152 and 155 (but compare 159 top); Mem-
orabilia 3.11.1–18. Consider also Strauss 2013, 203: “Xenophon’s
Cyrus is a cold and unerotic nature. That is to say, the ruler is not
motivated by true or Socratic eros because he does not know what a
well ordered soul is . . . . The ruler is in fact dominated by love based
on need in the common meaning of need, or by mercenary love.”
11 Xenophon tells us that some writers wrongly report the marriage
of Cyrus and his aunt, who would have been quite elderly at the
time (8.5.28); he tells us this because, though erroneous, the report
is entirely plausible.
American Political Science Review
practice of horsemanship and hunting, the latter espe-
cially being a training for warfare (1.4.5).
Xenophon also indicates the price Cyrus pays for his
“coldness.” For after Araspas has recovered from his
disastrous love of Panthea, he is prompted to reflect
on his own soul more seriously than he ever has. It is
the experience of eros that brings home to him how
little he knows his own soul and so prompts him to
“philosophize”— the only appearance of “philosophy”
in the Education of Cyrus. It is here, then, that these
two parts of the private life converge (6.1.41). What-
ever one may think of Araspas’ doctrine of the two
souls, he has greater self-knowledge than before; he
knows, for example, that the love in whose grip he was,
cannot be said to be voluntary. And as is made clear
by Croesus, now defeated and dethroned, progress in
self-knowledge—in fulfilling the Delphic-Socratic dic-
tum, “Know Thyself” (Memorabilia 4.2.24)—leads to
a clearer understanding of the true demands of hap-
piness. In Croesus’s case, at least, that understanding
leads to his eager embrace of a private life akin to that
led by his wife, an eagerness Cyrus cannot quite fathom
or credit (7.2.28–29). Tigranes too evidently returns,
and happily, to the private life (8.4.24 and 28; consider
3.1.36). Cyrus the “cold king,” then, never having phi-
losophized, must be said to lack self-knowledge. This
amounts to saying that he does not quite know what it
is that he longs for. He appears from the beginning to
have fixed on praise, the praise of “all human beings,”
as the end that justifies all striving (1.2.1, end; 3.2.31);
on his deathbed he seems more anxious to secure the
reputation for happiness than he is to have had the thing
itself (8.7.6 and 9 beginning). But the grand procession
from the palace indicates that it is impossible for “all
human beings” to know who one is, and so they must
praise or revere a figment of their imagination. Those
who are truly serious about praise or honor “seek to be
honored by the prudent, and by those to whom they are
known, and for their virtue” (Aristotle, Nicomachean
Ethics 1095b26–29). As for Cyrus’s famous “philan-
thropy,” or his fondness for human beings as such, it
prompts him to benefit others so as to win their friend-
ship or praise (consider 1.2.1; 1.4.1; 7.5.73; and 8.7.25
in the light of 8.2.1 and 8.4.7–8; compare Sandridge
2012 and Danzig 2012, 509–11). Though perhaps not
much of a boaster in other respects (7.1.17), in this
Cyrus was very much a boaster: he thought he knew
the truly good things or the best life. Or, to put this
another way, Cambyses regards it as “sufficient” for
a man to be able to exercise such diligence that he
himself become genuinely (dokimōs) noble and good,
while also providing for his family and leading others
to be such as they ought to be; Cyrus replies that he
agrees—and that it seems to him an “extraordinarily
great task to rule nobly”: Cambyses had not spoken of
“rule” at all (compare prostateuein at 1.6.7), and the
youthful Cyrus assumes that he already is a noble and
good man (1.6.7–8).
With his customary light touch, Xenophon suggests
what it is that Cyrus fails to see about himself and
others, or at any rate what he fails to take seriously
enough. We learn that Cyrus would honor some by
Vol. 109, No. 1
having them seated next to him at dinner, the some-
what less honored on his right (and less vulnerable)
side, the more honored on Cyrus’s (more vulnerable)
left; Xenophon notes however that such an honor was
not “immortal” (athanaton: 8.4.5), the only time this
term appears in the book (compare aenaōteron [“more
everlasting” or “more ever-flowing”] at 4.2.44). A little
later, when Artabazus sees Cyrus kiss Chrysantas and
Cyrus tells Artabazus that he may have to wait thirty
years for his own kiss, Artabazus—still very much in
love with Cyrus—replies: “I will be waiting and I will
not die” (8.4.27). “I will not die”: do not some human
beings, dissatisfied with or disgusted by the “sheep-
like” happiness that comes with a full belly and petty
baubles, long for precisely what is immortal? Cyrus
himself demonstrates such a concern, at least inasmuch
he believes he has a just claim to be remembered “for
all time” as happy (8.7.9): at the moment when it may
matter most, Cyrus states that he wishes to be praised,
not just by “all,” but also forever. Yet in the course
of that very deathbed speech, Cyrus makes clear that
he does not know—he does not seem to have thought
much about—whether his own soul is mortal or im-
mortal (compare 8.7.18–20 with 22). Xenophon can
praise Cyrus as he does at the book’s beginning not
only because he “forgets” every political good higher
than stability, as we noted, but also because he abstracts
from the concern for eternity. It is as if Cyrus, in found-
ing a stable empire for a few decades, has accomplished
everything one could possibly wish for.
Yet is not this concern or this longing so powerful
and so deeply rooted in us that it leads some to wor-
ship at the feet of Cyrus or look to him as to a god,
in order that the world come to sight as what they
wish it to be? And must not any god-like ruler speak
to the highest aspiration of the human soul, as this is
expressed in love, for example, and in the dedication
to noble action? We suggest that Xenophon’s depic-
tion of grand empire contains his analysis of a moral
seriousness that looks for its completion to a divine
providential order. In that depiction, in other words,
one begins to see what it is according to Xenophon
that leads human beings to seek to worship—and what
it is that those who long for a truly universal rule
must become: (armed) prophets. The disappointment
with Cyrus’ empire, which Xenophon induces in his
readers, invites them to reflect, with Croesus, on the
political life and on the hopes that fuel it. Such dis-
appointment could then constitute the beginning of
the education that Cyrus himself did not receive but
that Xenophon, a man at once thoroughly political
and altogether philosophical, most emphatically did
receive. Xenophon thus prepares us to encounter his
own teacher, Socrates, in the four writings he devoted
to him.
∗∗∗
The Education of Cyrus has been called a “historical
romance” (Grant 1883, 124). More cautiously one can
say that it is an act of philosophical poēsis: like Plato
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in his portrait of Socrates, Xenophon in his portrait of
Cyrus presents the life of an extraordinary individual in
such a way as to permit his readers to learn a universal
truth or truths from it—retail fabrication in the service
of wholesale truth-telling. The “education” of the title
may include not only the education that Cyrus received
but also the education that he makes possible for us,
thanks to the artfulness of Xenophon.
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