Xenophon - The Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus

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The Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus Xenophon – Cyropaedia: The Education of Cyrus is a novel by Xenophon. This metaphysical narrative is lightly based on the achievements of Cyrus the Great, and offers an exceptional portrait of political ambition and talent.Xenophon of Athens (circa 430 354 B.C.) was a Greek poet, historian, soldier and philosopher who lived at a time of momentous events in Ancient Greek history. Although he was recognized as a great writer and poet in his lifetime, Xenophons involvement with Spartan politics and fighting led to his exile from Athens, and his association with Socrates probably did not help. His short treatise on Spartas government is considered one of the first examples of political philosophy. Cyropaedia describes the education of the ideal ruler, trained to rule as a benevolent despot over his admiring and willing subjects. Xenophon is best remembered for his writing. In addition to writing about the philosophy of Socrates, he also wrote about the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, as well as the Persian expedition that formed the basis of his most famous work, Anabasis. In addition to his own works, he influenced the account of the Peloponnesian War written by the famous Greek historian Thucydides.

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(41) I say, therefore, that if you chose to act like this against human beings, you would soon have no enemies left to fight, or I am much mistaken. And even if, as well may be, the necessity should arise for you to do battle on equal terms in open field, even so, my son, there will still be power in those arts which you have studied so long and which teach you to out-villain villainy. And among them I include all that has served to train the bodies and fire the courage of your men, all that has made them adepts in every craft of war. One thing you must ever bear in mind: if you wish your men to follow you, remember that they expect you to plan for them.

(42) Hence you must never know a careless mood; if it be night, you must consider what your troops shall do when it is day; if day, how the night had best be spent.

(43) For the rest, you do not need me to tell you now how you should draw up your troops or conduct your march by day or night, along broad roads or narrow lanes, over hills or level ground, or how you should encamp and post your pickets, or advance into battle or retreat before the foe, or march past a hostile city, or attack a fortress or retire from it, or cross a river or pass through a defile, or guard against a charge of cavalry or an attack from lancers or archers, or what you should do if the enemy comes into sight when you are marching in column and how you are to take up position against him, or how deploy into action if you are in line and he takes you in flank or rear, and how you are to learn all you can about his movements, while keeping your own as secret as may be; these are matters on which you need no further word of mine; all that I know about them you have heard a hundred times, and I am sure you have not neglected any other authority on whom you thought you could rely. You know all their theories, and you must apply them now, I take it, according to circumstances and your need.

(44) But," he added, "there is one lesson that I would fain impress on you, and it is the greatest of them all. Observe the sacrifices and pay heed to the omens; when they are against you, never risk your army or yourself, for you must remember that men undertake enterprises on the strength of probability alone and without any real knowledge as to what will bring them happiness.

(45) You may learn this from all life and all history. How often have cities allowed themselves to be persuaded into war, and that by advisers who were thought the wisest of men, and then been utterly destroyed by those whom they attacked! How often have statesmen helped to raise a city or a leader to power, and then suffered the worst at the hands of those whom they exalted! And many who could have treated others as friends and equals, giving and receiving kindnesses, have chosen to use them as slaves, and then paid the penalty at their hands; and many, not content to enjoy their own share of good, have been swept on by the craving to master all, and thereby lost everything that they once possessed; and many have won the very wealth they prayed for and through it have found destruction.

(46) So little does human wisdom know how to choose the best, helpless as a man who could but draw lots to see what he should do. But the gods, my son, who live for ever, they know all things, the things that have been and the things that are and the things that are to be, and all that shall come from these; and to us mortals who ask their counsel and whom they love they will show signs, to tell us what we should do and what we should leave undone. Nor must we think it strange if the gods will not vouchsafe their wisdom to all men equally; no compulsion is laid on them to care for men, unless it be their will."

NOTES

(This work concludes the translation of Xenophon undertaken by Mr. Dakyns. ("The Works of Xenophon," with maps, introductions, and notes, Vols. I.-III., Macmillan.) From references in the earlier vols. (e.g. Vol. I. pp. lvii., lxx., xc., cxiii., cxxxi.; Vol. III. Part I. pp. v.-vii.) it is plain the translator considered that the historical romance of the Cyropaedia was written in Xenophon's old age (completed circa 365 B.C.) embodying many of his own experiences and his maturest thoughts on education, on government, on the type of man,—a rare type, alone fitted for leadership. The figure of his hero, Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian empire, known to him by story and legend, is modelled on the Spartan king Agesilaus, whom he loved and admired, and under whom he served in Persia and in Greece (op. cit. Vol. II., see under Agesilaus , Index, and Hellenica , Bks. III.-V. Agesilaus , an Encomium , passim). Certain traits are also taken from the younger Cyrus, whom Xenophon followed in his famous march against his brother, the Persian king, up from the coast of Asia Minor into the heart of Babylonia (see the Anabasis , Bk. I., especially c. ix.; op. cit. Vol. I. p. 109). Clearly, moreover, many of the customs and institutions described in the work as Persian are really Dorian, and were still in vogue among Xenophon's Spartan friends (vide e.g. Hellenica , Bk. IV., i. S28; op. cit. Vol. II. p. 44).)

C2.4. Qy. Were these tribal customs of the Persians, as doubtless of the Dorians, or is it all a Dorian idealisation?

C2.13. Good specimen of the "annotative" style with a parenthetic comment. The passage in brackets might be a gloss, but is it?

C3.3. When did Xenophon himself first learn to ride? Surely this is a boyish reminiscence, full of sympathy with boy-nature.

C3.12. Beautiful description of a child subject to his parents, growing in stature and favour with God and man.

C4.2. Perhaps his own grandson, Xenophon the son of Grylus, is the prototype, and Xenophon himself a sort of ancient Victor Hugo in this matter of fondness for children.

C4.3. Contrast Autolycus in the Symposium , who had, however, reached the more silent age (e.g. Symp ., c. iii., fin. tr. Works, Vol. III. Part I. p. 309).

C4.4. The touch about the puppy an instance of Xenophon's {katharotes} (clear simplicity of style).

C4.8. Reads like a biographical incident in some hunt of Xenophon, boy or father.

C4.9-10. The rapidity, one topic introducing and taken up by another, wave upon wave, {anerithmon lelasma} ("the multitudinous laughter of the sea").

C4.12. The truth of this due to sympathy (cf. Archidamus and his father Agesilaus, Hell ., V. c. iv.; tr. Works, Vol. II. p. 126).

C4.22. Cyaxares recalls John Gilpin.

C4.24. An Hellenic trait; madness of battle-rage, {menis}. Something of the fierceness of the Iliad here.

C5.7. Cyrus. His first speech as a general; a fine one; a spirit of athleticism breathes through it. Cf. Memorabilia for a similar rationalisation of virtuous self-restraint (e.g. Mem ., Bk. I. c. 5, 6; Bk. III. c. 8). Paleyan somewhat, perhaps Socratic, not devoid of common sense. What is the end and aim of our training? Not only for an earthly aim, but for a high spiritual reward, all this toil.

C5.10. This is Dakyns.

C5.11. "Up, Guards, and at 'em!"

C6. This chapter might have been a separate work appended to the Memorabilia on Polemics or Archics ("Science of War" and "Science of Rule").

C6.3-6. Sounds like some Socratic counsel; the righteous man's conception of prayer and the part he must himself play.

C6.7. Personal virtue and domestic economy a sufficiently hard task, let alone that still graver task, the art of grinding masses of men into virtue.

C6.8, fin. The false theory of ruling in vogue in Media: the plus of ease instead of the plus of foresight and danger-loving endurance. Cf. Walt Whitman.

C6.30. Is like the logical remark of a disputant in a Socratic dialogue of the Alcibiades type, and §§ 31-33 a Socratic mythos to escape from the dilemma; the breakdown of this ideal plus and minus righteousness due to the hardness of men's hearts and their feeble intellects.

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