The Cyropaedia

Socrates - his life, ideas, and techniques of argument - is an indirect presence in the work, and the Socratic tenor of several of the dialogues in it is the subject of one chapter. The lovely Panthea, the fairest woman in Asia, is Xenophon's most colourful heroine and her story, along with the dramatic tales of the eunuch Gadatas, bereaved Gobyras, and defeated Crosesus, are the focus of another section; special attention is paid to the question of Xenophon's originality in fashioning these tales. The symposia of the Cyropaedia, with their intricate blend of Greek and Persian elements, are also investigated at length.

Cyrus, a great Persian leader, was so widely and memorably respected that a hundred years later, Xenophon of Athens wrote this admiring book about the greatest leader of his era. Larry Hedrick's Introduction describes Cyrus and his times. Among his many achievements, this great leader of wisdom and virtue founded and extended the Persian Empire; conquered Babylon; freed 40,000 Jews from captivity; wrote mankind's first human rights charter; and ruled over those he had conquered with respect and benevolence. According to historian Will Durant, Cyrus the Great's military enemies knew that he was lenient, and they did not fight him with that desperate courage which men show when their only choice is "to kill or die." As a result the Iranians regarded him as "The Father," the Babylonians as "The Liberator," the Greeks as the "Law-Giver," and the Jews as the "Anointed of the Lord." By freshening the voice, style and diction of Cyrus, Larry Hedrick has created a more contemporary Cyrus. A new generation of readers, including business executives and managers, military officers, and government officials, can now learn about and benefit from Cyrus the Great's extraordinary achievements, which exceeded all other leaders' throughout antiquity.

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.

Xenophon's masterpiece The Education of Cyrus—a work admired by Machiavelli for its lessons on leadership—is at last available in a new English translation for a new century. Also known as the Cyropaedia, this philosophical novel is loosely based on the accomplishments of Cyrus the Great, founder of the vast Persian Empire that later became the archrival of the Greeks in the classical age. It offers an extraordinary portrait of political ambition, talent, and their ultimate limits. The writings of Xenophon are increasingly recognized as important works of political philosophy. In The Education of Cyrus, Xenophon confronts the vexing problem of political instability by exploring the character and behavior of the ruler. Impressive though his successes are, however, Cyrus is also examined in the larger human context, in which love, honor, greed, revenge, folly, piety, and the search for wisdom all have important parts to play. Wayne Ambler's prose captures the charm and drama of the work while also achieving great accuracy. His introduction, annotations, and glossary help the reader to appreciate both the engaging story itself and the volume's contributions to philosophy.

For over two millennia, the Cyropaedia, an imaginative biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great, was Xenophon's most popular work and considered his masterpiece. This study contributes to the recent rediscovery of the Cyropaedia and Xenophon, making intelligible the high esteem in which writers of the stature of Machiavelli held Xenophon's works and the importance of his place among classical authors. The ending of the Cyropaedia has presented a notoriously difficult puzzle for scholars. The bulk of the work seems to idealize the career of Cyrus, but the final chapter documents the swift and disastrous degeneration of the empire he founded. This conclusion seems to call his achievements into question. Nadon resolves this long-standing interpretive difficulty and demonstrates for the first time the overall coherence and unity of the Cyropaedia. He elucidates the Xenophontic critique of Cyrus contained within the whole of the work and unearths its analysis of the limitations of both republican and imperial politics. This provocative and original treatment of the Cyropaedia will be a definitive step in restoring the status of this important work. Nadon's lively, insightful study draws upon his deep knowledge and understanding of classical political theory and reveals in the Cyropaedia a subtlety and sophistication overlooked until now.

"If you inquire into the origins of the novel long enough," writes James Tatum in the preface to this work, ". . . you will come to the fourth century before our era and Xenophon's Education of Cyrus, or the Cyropaedia." The Cyrus in question is Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian empire celebrated in the Book of Ezra as the liberator of Israel, and the Cyropaedia, written to instruct future rulers by his example, became not only an inspiration to poets and novelists but a profoundly influential political work. With Alexander as its earliest student, and Elizabeth I of England one of its later pupils, it was the founding text for the tradition of "mirrors for princes" in the West, including Machiavelli's Prince. Xenophon's masterpiece has been overlooked in recent years: Tatum's goal is to make it fully meaningful for the twentieth-century reader. To accomplish this aim, he uses reception study, philological and historical criticism, and an intertextual and structural analysis of the narrative. Engaging the fictional and the political in a single reading, he explains how the form of the work allowed Xenophon to transcend the limitations of historical writing, although in the end the historian's passion for truth forced him to subvert the work in a controversial epilogue. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.