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WHAT THE RULERS WANT: XENOPHON ON CYRUS’ PSYCHOLOGY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2021

Rodrigo Illarraga
Rodrigo Illarraga*
Affiliation:
Bar Ilan University / University of Buenos Aires
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article presents an interpretation of Cyrus’ psychology in Xenophon's Cyropaedia. Its point is that Cyrus’ psychological structure is composed by a set of three desires (philotimía, philanthrōpía, philomátheia) given by nature and a set of virtues (sōphrosúnē and enkráteia) acquired by education. The paper will argue that Cyrus, as an enkratic ruler, does not long for any kind of honours, but is guided by true philotimía, that is, the desire for true honours—honours freely given by gratitude or admiration. philanthrōpía is the key to achieve these honours, since it naturally prompts a benevolent and generous behaviour. At the same time, philomátheia provides the desire of knowledge necessary to acquire the techniques in order to accomplish ambitious and philanthropic deeds. Therefore, confronting those who have posed negative interpretations of Cyrus, the article will argue that the uncommon combination of these psychological predispositions makes Cyrus a virtuous and effective ruler.

Keywords

CyropaediapsychologypoliticsXenophonSocratics
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 170 - 182
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

The first steps of this paper were undertaken in the Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts thanks to the support of the Elise und Annemarie Jacobi Stiftung; I thank all the staff there, especially Director Christof Schuler and Isabelle Mossong. I also acknowledge valuable comments on preliminary versions from Claudia Mársico, Gabriel Danzig, Daniel Rossi Nunes Lopes, CQ's anonymous referee and CQ's editor, Patrick Finglass. This article was written with support from the Israel Science Foundation.

References

1 See Tatum, J., Xenophon's Imperial Fiction. On The Education of Cyrus (Princeton, 1989), 3–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar and, especially for the eighteenth century, Ahn, D., ‘The politics of royal education: Xenophon's Education of Cyrus in early eighteenth-century Europe’, The Leadership Quarterly 19 (2008), 439–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Just to name some examples of this debate, in the negative side of the spectrum: Carlier, P., ‘The idea of imperial monarchy in Xenophon's Cyropaedia’, in Gray, V. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Xenophon (Oxford, 2010), 327–66Google Scholar; Newell, W.R., ‘Tyranny and the science of ruling in Xenophon's “Education of Cyrus”’, The Journal of Politics 45 (1983), 889–906CrossRefGoogle Scholar and id., Tyranny. A New Interpretation (Cambridge, 2013), 186–270; Johnson, D., ‘Persian as centaurs in Xenophon's “Cyropaedia”’, TAPhA 135 (2005), 177–207, at 204Google Scholar; Reisert, J., ‘Ambition and corruption in Xenophon's Education of Cyrus’, Polis 26 (2009), 296–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Field, L., ‘Xenophon's Cyropaedia: educating our political hopes’, The Journal of Politics 74 (2012), 723–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The positive side of the spectrum has more nuances: Tatum (n. 1); Due, B., The Cyropaedia. Xenophon's Aims and Methods (Aarhus, 1989)Google Scholar; Gera, D., Xenophon's Cyropaedia: Style, Genre, and Literary Technique (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar; Gray, V., Xenophon's Mirror of Princes. Reading the Reflections (Oxford, 2011), 246–90Google Scholar; Danzig, G., ‘The best of the Achaemenids: benevolence, self-interest and the “ironic” reading of Cyropaedia’, in Hobden, F. and Tuplin, C. (edd.), Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry (Leiden, 2012), 499–540CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sandridge, N., Loving Humanity, Learning, and Being Honored. The Foundations of Leadership in Xenophon's Education of Cyrus (Princeton, 2012)Google Scholar.

3 Strauss, L., ‘The spirit of Sparta or the taste of Xenophon’, Social Research 6 (1939), 502–36Google Scholar; cf. L.-A. Dorion, ‘L'exégèse straussienne de Xénophon: le cas paradigmatique de Mémorables IV 4’, in M. Narcy and A. Laks (edd.), Figures de Socrate (Villeneuve-d'Ascq, 2001), 87–117 and Johnson, D., ‘Strauss on Xenophon’, in Hobden, F. and Tuplin, C. (edd.), Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry (Leiden, 2012), 123–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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5 Faulkner, R., The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and its Critics (New Haven, 2007)Google Scholar; Danzig (n. 2); Bartlett, R., ‘How to rule the world: an introduction to Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus’, American Political Science Review 109 (2015), 143–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pangle, L. Smith, ‘Xenophon on the psychology of supreme political ambition’, American Political Science Review 111 (2017), 308–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 In his well-known monograph, Sandridge (n. 2) has thoughtfully analysed these three virtues, which are presented as the basis of Cyrus’ leadership. Although I take here a different approach, I have benefited greatly from his detailed work.

7 Transl. W. Ambler, Xenophon. The Education of Cyrus (Ithaca, NY and London, 2001).

8 The extraordinary nature of Cyrus’ psychē is also recognized by some characters in Cyr. 4.2.14 and 4.4.11. See Faulkner (n. 5), 135.

9 G. Giannantoni, Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae (Naples, 1990). Cf. C. Mársico, Los filósofos socráticos, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires, 2013–14).

10 e.g. Hier. 1.23.

11 In Mem. 4.6.12–13 tyranny is distinguished from monarchy for two reasons: the tyrant rules without consent and he acts outside the law. The advice of Simonides seems to lead to a hybrid between tyranny and monarchy, where the ruler is above the law (Cyr. 1.3.18) or is the law (8.1.22), but some kind of consent also exists, with its origin in the good deeds of the ruler.

12 Illarraga, R., ‘Enkráteia y gobierno. El gobernante insensato de Aristipo y su aparición en Ciropedia’, Méthexis 30 (2018), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Reisert (n. 2), 300 suggests that Hiero ‘longs to be loved indiscriminately by the human beings in his city’. Rather, Hiero wants to be loved not indiscriminately but for his good deeds.

14 Due (n. 2), 182.

15 Cf. Tamiolaki, M., ‘Emotion and persuasion in Xenophon's Cyropaedia’, Phoenix 70 (2016), 40–63, at 58–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Cf. Hell. 6.1.6 for the characterization of Jason of Pherae as φιλόπονος (also 6.1.15–16).

17 Farber, J., ‘The Cyropaedia and Hellenistic kingship’, AJPh 100 (1979), 497–514, at 505Google Scholar has given excessive relevance to this passage, reading philotimía as an ambivalent trait. See also Schubart, W., ‘Das hellenistische Köningsideal nach Inschriften und Papyri’, APF 12 (1937), 1–27, at 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Proper leadership that can reorient false philotimía to transform it into a positive force also appears in Mem. 3.1.10 and Oec. 12.15.

19 Dorion, L.-A., Xénophon. Mémorables. Livre I (Paris, 2000), 87Google Scholar, my translation. For a different view, see N. Humble, ‘Sōphrosynē and the Spartans in Xenophon’, in A. Powell and S. Hodkinson (edd.), Sparta: New Perspectives (Swansea, 1999), 339–53.

20 Due (n. 2), 180.

21 Biondi, E., ‘Ciro pastore nella Ciropedia senofontea: I significati di un'immagine’, Mediterraneo antico 17 (2014), 609–32, at 623Google Scholar.

22 On the role of Aristippean philosophy here, see Johnson, D., ‘Aristippus at the crossroads: the politics of pleasure in Xenophon's Memorabilia’, Polis 26 (2009), 204–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Illarraga (n. 12).

23 Tamiolaki (n. 15), 58 has shown how the Cyropaedia and the Memorabilia shared the distinction between noble and depraved pleasures, where long-term pleasure, the consequence of virtue and toil are positive pleasures. We could associate false honours with depraved pleasures, and true honours with noble pleasures. Cf. Hell. 6.1.15, where Jason of Pherae teaches his soldiers how hard work brings indulgence.

24 The fact that sōphrosúnē governs philotimía undermines the argument of Whidden (n. 4), 564: ‘Persia's inability to satisfy Cyrus's indiscriminate, immoderate, and infinite desire for honor raises the question of whether the honors bestowed by any single regime short of a world-state could have satisfied him.’ If it is conceded that Cyrus learns sōphrosúnē and enkráteia in his youth, as Whidden (n. 4), 545 concedes, enkráteia must rule over any desire. Cyrus’ enkratic deeds make it inaccurate to talk about ‘indiscriminate, immoderate and infinite desires’.

25 Higgins, W., Xenophon the Athenian: The Problem of the Individual and the Society of the Polis (Albany, 1977), 54Google Scholar; Due (n. 2), 15; Illarraga, R., ‘El extraño reino de un jóven príncipe. Política, educación y justicia en la sociedad persa de la Ciropedia (1, 2, 2–16)’, QUCC 116 (2017), 81–102Google Scholar. Cf. Gera (n. 2), 50.

26 O. Gigon, Kommentar zum zweiten Buch von Xenophons Memorabilien (Basel, 1956), 90–1; cf. Cyr. 8.7.25.

27 Dorion (n. 19), 120 n. 173.

28 Due (n. 2), 167.

29 V. Gray, ‘Xenophon's eudaimonia’, in F. de Luise and A. Stavru (edd.), Studies on Socrates, the Socratics, and the Ancient Socratic Literature (Sankt Augustin, 2012), 56–67, at 64.

30 Sandridge (n. 2), 49.

31 This passage explains why Cyrus, in the last moments of his life, is concerned with matters concerning the future good of the Empire, rather than with metaphysical speculations; contra, Whidden (n. 4), 550.

32 Taking as his point of departure Araspas’ reflection on having ‘philosophized’ with Eros (6.1.41), Bartlett (n. 5), 153 holds that Cyrus, being a ‘cold king’ (8.4.22–3), has never experienced any erotic passion and therefore has never philosophized, and for that reason has not followed the Delphic–Socratic dictum ‘Know thyself’ (Mem. 4.2.24). See also Whidden (n. 4), 549. This argument is doubtful for at least three reasons. (a) These words are spoken by Araspas, a young man deeply in love who also wants to show Cyrus that he can carry out the mission entrusted. Although there is no reason to distrust him, neither is any reason to think he is right—Araspas is not a person characterized as particularly capable in philosophy. (b) Araspas does not say that there is philosophizing by Eros but with Eros. Therefore, the erotic impulse is not presented as a necessary condition for philosophizing. (c) Finally, Eros is characterized as ‘unjust’—so how could Araspas reach correct conclusions given that he philosophized with an unjust and powerful partner? Although it is never said that Cyrus philosophizes, the intimate link between philomátheia and philosophía as well as the repeated and proven philomathēs character of Cyrus mean that he is not an unthinking individual. See also Gray (n. 29), 60–1 for a Cyrus both eudaimonic and with knowledge of himself.

33 Sandridge (n. 2), 38–40, for example, has raised the possibilities of hierarchy between philotimía and philanthrōpía, opting for the priority of the latter. Our alternative allows us to maintain the fundamental weight of philanthrōpía at the same level of Cyrus’ paramount philotimía.

34 Azoulay, V., Xénophon et les grâces du pouvoir (Paris, 2004), 323 n. 229CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carlier (n. 2), 153; Barlett (n. 5), 146, 153.

35 Danzig (n. 2), 509.

36 Gray (n. 29). For the opposite position, see Faulkner (n. 5), 170–2.

37 Bartlett (n. 5), 153.

38 Johnson (n. 2), 303.