Xenophon the Socratic Prince

The Argument of the Anabasis of Cyrus

E. Buzzetti

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349462162, 9781137333308
• eBook ISBN: 9781137325921
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism

An interpretation of Xenophon's Anabasis of Cyrus, paralleling the text to Machiavelli's The Prince, and focusing on the question: How did the Socratic education help Xenophon reconcile morality with effectiveness, the noble with the good, as a ruler?

PART I

THE KINGSHIP OF CYRUS

CHAPTER 1

“THE GODLIKE KING” (BOOK ONE OF THE ANABASIS)

The Anabasis of Cyrus bears an enigmatic title.¹ Even the casual reader can see that the “ascent” of Cyrus fills only the first of the seven books of the work. Cyrus is killed in the Battle for Babylon and plays no role afterward (1.8.21–29). Yet the entire work is named after him. Why? Xenophon apparently wishes to draw our attention to Cyrus. But let us be more precise. The Anabasis could have been more simply titled “The Expedition of Cyrus,” a phrase used twice in book one.² It is therefore to Cyrus’s ascent that our attention is being drawn. We must seek in the present chapter to understand the character of this ascent. But it will be a much longer time before we can understand why Xenophon chose to name his entire work after “the ascent of Cyrus.”

1. Rooting for the Noble and Good King

Book one of the Anabasis paints a favorable portrait of Cyrus. In fact, the portrait is so favorable that first-time readers invariably root for his success. “To Darius and Parysatis were born two sons,” the story begins, “the elder was Artaxerxes and the younger Cyrus” (1.1.1). When Darius fell ill and suspected that his death was near, he wished for both his sons to be by his side. Artaxerxes was already at court but Cyrus had to be recalled from Western Asia Minor where he ruled a satrapy and commanded a large body of troops. Cyrus obeyed the paternal summon and journeyed upland with Tissaphernēs, a neighboring satrap, whom he took along as a friend. Darius eventually died and Artaxerxes ascended the throne. No sooner had this occurred, however, than Cyrus was slandered by Tissaphernēs, who accused him of plotting against the new King. Cyrus was thrown in jail and barely escaped with his life when his mother interceded on his behalf. Sent back to his satrapy in dishonor and having been in danger, he resolved never to be in the power of his brother again but to become King in his place if he could. His mother Parysatis assisted him because she loved him more than King Artaxerxes.

Our sympathy for Cyrus, aroused by the sight of a wrong suffered, is strengthened by the array of virtues or qualities that Xenophon ascribes to him. The first two chapters sketch how Cyrus begins his second journey up-country after assembling in secret a force of Greek mercenaries. Cyrus is shown to be highly capable of acquiring accomplished and loyal friends. When Artaxerxes sends envoys to him, for example, he sends them back after making them better friends to himself than to the King. He also trains his subjects in the art of war and cultivates their goodwill (1.1.5). When Cyrus goes to war with Tissaphernēs, all the Greek cities of Ionia (with one exception) side with Cyrus because they trust him more. For, he had made it evident that he placed the greatest importance on never being false to his treaties, agreements, and promises. In keeping with this, Cyrus is visibly distressed, early in his campaign against the King, when he is unable to pay the wage he promised his Greek mercenaries (1.2.11). He also reacts with signal magnanimity when two important Greek generals abandon the campaign. He declares publicly that he shall not hunt down the two men, though he has the power to do so and knows where they are: “But let them go, in the knowledge that they are acting worse to us than we to them” (1.4.8).

Cyrus’s magnanimity and justice (among other qualities) make him an immediately attractive ruler. Of course, the portrait painted by Xenophon is not attractive in every respect. Most notably, Cyrus is shown to be willing and able to deceive. It is perhaps not surprising or entirely without justification that he deceives Artaxerxes. The King had jailed and almost killed him (1.1.8). Less easily justified are Cyrus’s repeated deceptions of his Greek troops and officers, some of whom, like the Boeotian Proxenos, were his guest-friends (e.g., 1.2.1, 1.3.20–21; 1.1.11). Indeed no Greek soldier or officer (except for Klearchos) is ever apprised of the goal of the expedition until after it is too late to turn around (3.1.10).³ If Cyrus places the greatest importance on being true to his word, he is hardly above deceiving even his friends. Yet despite this mendacity, Xenophon portrays him favorably. He even gives Cyrus a fulsome eulogy after his death: “Cyrus was agreed by all those who seemed to have had experience of him to be a most kingly man and one most worthy to rule among all the Persians who have been born since Cyrus the Elder” (1.9.1). The qualities ascribed to Cyrus include loyalty (1.9.10), manliness (1.9.11), justice in rewarding the good and punishing the bad (1.9.13–16), and care and generosity toward friends (1.9.24–28). Xenophon even asserts on the basis of what he hears about Cyrus that “no one among Greeks or barbarians was loved by more people” (1.9.28). Cyrus would appear to have been Xenophon’s model King.

Critics have charged, however, that this portrait of Cyrus is inaccurate and misleading. Xenophon turns a blind eye to the darker side of his hero, it is asserted, and fails to state the facts as he must have known them. For example, there is evidence that Cyrus was not slandered by Tissaphernēs or wronged by Artaxerxes at all. In fact, the opposite is the case. In his Life of Artaxerxes, Plutarch sketches the details of a plot hatched by Cyrus to murder his brother during his accession ceremony, a plot exposed in extremis by Tissaphernēs. The account of Plutarch would appear to be reliable since it is based on that of Ktēsias, a Greek physician at the Persian court who had personally witnessed the failed coup and described it in his (lost) Persika. Since Xenophon refers to the Persika twice in the Anabasis, he must have been familiar with this eyewitness account (1.8.26, §27). Nevertheless, he depicts Cyrus as a blameless victim, glazing over the evidence of his culpability. So, at least, the critics have charged.⁴

This accusation is weighty and must be answered. Let us consider the Hellenika for a moment. We find indicated in that work that Cyrus had trained his sights on the Persian throne even before the death of his father King Darius. Cyrus had put to death two of his cousins as they approached him without putting their hands into their sleeves, a gesture of submission that the Persians would do (Xenophon stresses) “only for the King.”⁵ That Cyrus murdered his two cousins even as King Darius was still alive left no doubt about his ultimate ambition. Moreover, it was for these hubristic acts that Darius recalled Cyrus, using his illness as a pretext.⁶ To say the least, the Hellenika does not disprove that Cyrus had been plotting against his brother and that Tissaphernēs was telling the truth.⁷

But this line of argument is open to an obvious objection: If Cyrus had been plotting against his brother the King, why not say so in the Anabasis? Isn’t the presentation of Cyrus in the Anabasis—where he comes to sight as the victim of a wrong—inconsistent with the presentation of him in the Hellenika? And given this inconsistency, shouldn’t we dismiss Hellenika 2.1.8–9 as an interpolation, as many scholars have done?⁸ In my view, we must answer these questions in the negative, and not merely because Hellenika 2.1.8–9 is found in all the MSS. For, if we go back to the Anabasis and consider the text carefully, we see that Cyrus’s innocence is more apparent than real. In the first place, Xenophon never actually says that Cyrus has been wronged by his brother or by Tissaphernēs. He writes only that after being freed from jail, Cyrus was sent back to his satrapy “having been dishonored and in danger” (1.1.4). He avoids saying that Cyrus had been “wronged” (ADIKESTHAI). A parallel passage of the Hellenika proves that, for Xenophon, “being dishonored” and “being wronged” are distinct considerations: one can be “dishonored” without being “wronged” at all (4.1.27). Even more tellingly, Cyrus never complains of any wrong done to him. In a speech to his Greek mercenaries before the Battle for Babylon, he has a golden opportunity to voice just such a complaint. The reader expects that he will justify himself by alluding to the justice of his cause. But he is silent about justice.⁹ He speaks only of his desire to be free (1.7.2–4). The meaning of this silence becomes clear if we contrast it with Cyrus’s vocal complaints, at the trial of the Persian traitor Orontēs, where Cyrus enumerates all the sins that the accused man committed against him: Cyrus was not one to suffer injustice in silence (1.6). Yet (it will be objected), doesn’t Xenophon say that Cyrus was “slandered” (DIABALLŌ) by Tissaphernēs (1.1.3)? Yes he does. But the Greek verb DIABALLŌ must sometimes be translated as “to accuse” without any implication of falsehood.¹⁰ Once this picture is completed by several additional pointers—for example, why does Cyrus visit his father’s deathbed with a retinue of three hundred Greek hoplites? (1.1.2)—a conclusion becomes inescapable: Cyrus had been plotting a coup. He was not wronged at all.¹¹

The genuine difficulty, then, is not to reconcile the Anabasis with the Hellenika since these works paint a consistent portrait of Cyrus. It is rather to explain why Xenophon chooses to “improve upon” Cyrus in the Anabasis: that is, why he makes him even more sympathetic and attractive by almost depicting him as the victim of a wrong, while intimating that he was not. This question will lead me, I believe, into the heart of Xenophon’s intention in the Anabasis. But instead of trying to answer it now, let me first examine the character of Cyrus’s rule. I must focus on the central issue of book one, which is also the central issue of the first stage of the logos of the Anabasis: Can the noble and the good be conjoined or reconciled in and through the rule of a Godlike King? I shall return to the question of Xenophon’s manner of writing at the end of the chapter.

2. Cyrus and His Friends: Klearchos, Menōn, Proxenos, Xennias, and Pasiōn

“And you [ . . . ] Hermogenēs, what do you glory in above all?” And he s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction The Political Life and the Socratic Education
• Part I The Kingship of Cyrus
• Part II The Kingship of Klearchos
• Part III The Kingship of Xenophon
• Conclusion The Argument of the Anabasis of Cyrus
• Appendix 1 Why Is Xenophon “Themistogenēs of Syracuse”?
• Appendix 2 On the Authenticity of the Division of the Anabasis into Seven Books and Fifty-One Chapters
• Appendix 3 How Many Is Ten Thousand?
• Works Cited
• Index