[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
The moral evaluation of Xenophon’s Cyrus has become a hotly debated topic. Is he a model or an anti-model or a mixed bag? What criteria should be used to evaluate him? Does Xenophon intentionally create ambiguity in his characterization? The essays in this volume all interact with these central questions from various perspectives. There are twenty-three contributions within the span of only 249 pages, making for an average of slightly over ten pages per chapter. So, on the one hand, the pieces are very short. The reader never gets bogged down in a drawn-out discussion. On the other hand, the pieces are very short. The reader never gets very deep into a single author’s perspective. Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading these contributions, which work well together as conversation partners. Despite the brevity, the authors manage to probe aspects of Cyrus’ character from a variety of different angles. The reader will come away with a solid impression of the contours of the debate.
Four chapters in Part I focus on genre and narratological concerns. David H. Thomas studies how “discontinuities, juxtapositions and surprising insertions” within Xenophon’s works force us to reevaluate what seemed at first to be straightforward stories. Xenophon’s purpose is less to teach us specific lessons than to force us to think about the issues presented. Luuk Huitink applies the idea of “intergeneric dialogue” to argue that the Cyropaedia does not “blend” different genres but rather moves between them in separate passages, making for “a mosaic of genres.” Huitink uses the battle exhortation of the Assyrian king to illustrate how Cyrus interacts with various types of discourse. Benjamin McCloskey argues that each of Xenophon’s works has a separate narrator, none of which is to be identified as the author “Xenophon” nor taken as authoritative. We should rather investigate carefully when the narrator’s narrative actually disproves the narrator’s arguments. McCloskey uses the invasion of Assyria as a testcase for this thesis within the Cyropaedia. Emily Baragwanath sees much of the same “narratorial divergences” that McCloskey sees but draws different conclusions. Baragwanath views such dissonance not as subversive but as examples of “an inclusive, flexible Xenophon,” interested in probing other worldviews.
The five contributions in Part II take specific aspects of Cyrus’ character as their points of departure. W. E. Higgins focuses on Cyrus’ philotimia as a destabilizing force in the characterization of the work’s hero. Since Cyrus’ only passion is “love of honor” and he is a consummate deceiver and manipulator, we should be wary of his showmanship and not get taken in by the “born charmer.” Milena Lozano Nembrot and Malena Sofía Battista have a more positive take on the theme of philotimia. Philotimia is a human distinctive human trait (Hiero 7.3–4) and points to Cyrus’ fundamental humanity. He is not a “cold” and passionless figure as some have supposed. Lorraine Smith Pangle provides an interpretative essay surveying the whole of the Cyropaedia. In this very dark take, Cyrus’ ability to create illusions to deceive everyone around him (his “magnetism”) is the driving force of the whole work. Rodrigo Illarraga and Marie-Hélène Trépanier focus on the two reasons that Cyrus’ dependents obey him: fear and love. They point out that in the ancient context there was “no contradiction between fear and generosity as political tools.” Cyrus fits the original, non-negative definition of a “tyrant.” He is a tyrant, but not a bad one. Joseph R. Reisert argues for a perspective similar to that advanced by Pangle. Although Cyrus’ followers may have joined willingly, the end of the work suggests that they did not remain that way. By attaining the pinnacle of power, Cyrus has made true friendship on a shared basis impossible. Willing obedience therefore disintegrates. Cyrus becomes a tyrant—a bad one.
Chapters in Part III center on the exegesis of particular passages. Dustin Gish takes up the young Cyrus’ desire to hunt in the wild rather than in the controlled environment of the “Persian paradise.” The dangerous and unpredictable nature of hunting “outside paradise” carries over into how Cyrus makes war. Facundo Bey focuses on how Cyrus transforms Persian society, using the creation of the “centaurs” (i.e., providing horses for the Persians to create a Persian cavalry force—Cyr. 4.3) as a controlling metaphor. By this reading Cyrus whimsically makes massive changes in Persian culture, creating “an unstable chimerical Persian-Median combination of values” that only he, Cyrus, can hold together. Melina Tamiolaki uses the Pantheia story to discuss the dangers of eros, which can lead to enslavement of the will. The vignette “invites the reader to ponder the distinction between mere obedience to the leader…and excessive display of gratitude.” Christopher J. Tuplin zeroes in on Cyrus’ claim to be a “sighted law” in book 8. Ultimately Tuplin concludes that the passage can be reconciled with either the positive or the negative reading of Cyrus, but that the former camp must emphasize that Cyrus can only get away with it because of his unbeatable virtue. Richard Fernando Buxton looks at the Persian commoner Pheraulas, who emerges as Cyrus’ master of ceremonies in Book 8. This character gets at important aspects of Cyrus’ “meritocratic ethics”: integrating talented outsiders, using humor to smooth over ruffled feathers about Cyrus’ innovations, deploying benevolent deception. Pheraulas and Cyrus emerge from this portrayal as ambivalent figures, “whose success demands rare moral tenacity.”
The late David Konstan’s chapter introduces a new theme, the passing down of wisdom from father to son. There is only one truly positive example: Cyrus himself, who receives sterling instruction from his father. A close second is the royal son, Tigranes, who benefits from a certain unnamed philosopher (probably a stand-in for Socrates) despite his father’s uselessness. The fates of other royal sons are unedifying. Tragically, Cyrus himself is unable to pass on wisdom to his sons. Thomas L. Pangle provides us with a suggestive discussion of the deathbed scene in Book 8. In this portrait, Cyrus is flailing about for some way to secure his legacy, advancing insincere arguments about the immortality of the soul, the afterlife, etc. Similar to Konstan’s, Pangle’s Cyrus is simply not equipped to face the issue of the succession. Gregory A. McBrayer proposes that the decline and decadence of the Persian empire after the death of Cyrus was no tragic error but part of Cyrus’ deliberate strategy. Cyrus, “a ruler acutely disturbed,” systematically undermines the morals and character of his subjects in order to foment their destruction after he is gone. This is as dark as it gets.
The contributions in Part IV are more explicitly intertextual than the other pieces. Frances Pownall is the only author to delve seriously into parallels with the Hellenica. She takes the portrayal of Jason and Euphron and brings to light some interesting parallels with the career of Cyrus. Another point of comparison is the Hiero. Pownall points out that Cyrus scores well on Simonides’ rubric for a reformed tyrant, relying on willing obedience rather than fear.
Pownall points out several techniques recommended by Simonides that Cyrus adopts with success. Claudia Marsico paints a moving portrait of the “tragedy” of the Cyropaedia within Xenophon’s rather bleak view of the “powerful hostile forces” that resist human excellence. The failure of the empire after Cyrus’ death was not due to a particular tragic flaw of the hero but was simply an expected consequence of “the intrinsic instability of human affairs” (225). Fiorenza Bevilacqua in a similar vein argues that Cyrus was no more responsible for his sons’ failure than Socrates was for his students’. Cyrus lines up pretty well with Ischomachus’ ideal ruler in Oeconomicus 21. William H. F. Altman takes as his starting point Glaucon’s description of the perfectly unjust man in Plato’s Republic, Book 2. Altman argues that Xenophon noticed that Plato had provided a portrait only of the just man, and Xenophon himself set about to supply the portrait of the unjust man. Hence Cyrus. Gabriel Danzig traces out the “tragic sentiment” in the Cyropaedia, that is, “the conflict between human hopes and aspirations and the malignant divine or natural forces that destroy them” (251). Xenophon sidesteps this pessimistic view of life. Danzig’s Xenophon emerges as an optimist about the role of the gods in human affairs and about the possibilities of human achievement. Jane Grogan investigates the differing appropriations of Xenophontic themes in sixteenth century England, especially in the works of Sidney, Spenser, and Marlowe.
Even such a very quick overview should suggest how unified the thematic material is—each article is in a way responding to all the others. Yet the authors usually only state their own positions and defend them, rarely arguing explicitly against another contributor’s evidence. Hence the volume has relatively little entrenched scholarly warfare over particular passages. It is rather a sort of kaleidoscope of various ways of approaching the Cyropaedia. The diversity of approaches makes for an agreeable viewing.
Authors and Titles
Part I: Techniques
- David H. Thomas, “Xenophon’s Expository Techniques and their Application to Cyropaedia”
- Luuk Huitink, “An Empire of Discourse: The Paraklētikos Logos at Cyropaedia3.43–45 as an Intergeneric Dialogue”
- Benjamin McCloskey, “The Narrator of the Cyropaedia: Making Cyrus Ideal”
- Emily Baragwanath, “The Different World of the Cyropaedia”
Part II: Themes
- E. Higgins, “Cyrus and the Ambiguities of Power”
- Milena Lozano Nembrot and Malena Sofía Battista, “The Power of Love or the Love for Power: Thoughts on Cyrus’ Humanity”
- Lorraine Smith Pangle, “Cyrus’ Magnetism”
- Rodrigo Illarraga and Marie-Hélène Trépanier, “Is Cyrus Really a Terrifying Tyrant?”
- Joseph R. Reisert, “Cyrus’ Manufactured Consent”
Part III: Passages
- Dustin Gish, “Xenophon’s Cyrus and Hunting in Paradise”
- Facundo Bey, “Cyrus among the Centaurs, or Why Not to Neglect the Ethico-Political Consequences of Technological Transformation”
- Melina Tamiolaki, “Rereading the Pantheia Story: Erōs and Politics in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia”
- Christopher J. Tuplin “Blepōn nomos (Cyropaedia 1.21–22)”
- Richard Fernando Buxton, “What’s Funny About Pheraulas?”
- David Konstan, “Fathers, Sons and Philosophy”
- Thomas L. Pangle, “The Last Days and Deathbed Speech of Xenophon’s Cyrus (Education of Cyrus7)”
- Gregory A. McBrayer, “Honoured Above All Others: Cyrus’ Deliberate Destruction of the Persian Empire in the Cyropaedia”
Part IV: Comparisons
- Frances Pownall, “Xenophon and Tyranny in the Cyropaedia: A Comparative View”
- Claudia Marsico, “How to and Why Not: Xenophon’s’ View on Leadership and Excellence of Stock”
- Fiorenza Bevilacqua, “Xenophon’s Cyrus and the End of the Oeconomicus (21.10–12)”
- William H. F. Altman, “Xenophon’s Cyrus as Glaucon’s Perfectly Unjust Man”
- Gabriel Danzig, “Tragedy and the Cyropaedia”
- Jane Grogan, “‘An absolute heroicall poem’: Epic and Empire in Early Modern English Readings of the Cyropaedia”