The Education Cyrus Missed

Abstract

This manuscript contributes to a growing body of scholarship aimed at understanding the intentions of Xenophon in portraying the founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great. While Xenophon initially suggests that Cyrus is wise, a close reading of the work as a whole reveals defects in Cyrus’ moral understanding. Xenophon’s Cyrus largely misses the Persian education in justice. This shapes his development by strengthening his initial instinct to equate justice with the beneficial, rather than with the legal. As he rises to power, he continually insists that justice is good, and he uses his power to try to ensure its goodness. But he never seriously considers the idea that justice might demand a sacrifice of one’s own good, and thus, he never full embraces the beauty of noble self-sacrifice, something that the work as a whole suggests Xenophon saw as an essential element in education.