Cyrus' Paradise

Which parts of a work become commonplaces is an important point.  More people contact a famous book second-hand or third-hand than directly, and the parts which people often quote and allude to are not always the most prominent in the original (consider Adam Smith‘s metaphor of the invisible hand, Plato’s fable of Atlantis, or the bit of Leviticus about not blending linen and wool).  But I think that most of us have started impressive programs of glossing which petered out after a few dozen pages!

I wonder if there is something like a handbook of renaissance antiquarianism, discussing the sources which most influenced 16th century people’s view of different aspects of the ancient world.

Using the index and the frequency of references in the margins, is there a way to tell (roughly) which books/chapters of the Cyropaedia were of greatest interest to this reader? Was it mostly Book One or were all of the books of equal importance? Similarly (and this is probably much harder to tell), were there some passages of the Cyropaedia that were more frequently read and recommended in the Renaissance than others? Given that the book is long (too long for some), I wonder how many people read it in its entirety.

Great question. I forgot to specify here that the 1552[?] edition which this reader was using contains only Books 1-6; in 1567 a new edition appeared with all eight Books and epilogue, now titled The VIII. Bookes of Xenophon … only then admitting to the odd cut-off point of the previous text. But yes, what’s wonderful (and relatively unusual) about this annotator is that he (almost certainly a he) reads and comments all the way through to the end. And when he gets to the end of Book 6, he adds further comments, almost in bullet-points, summarizing what happens next! That includes details from Herodotus – and Tomyris is the first to be mentioned. So yes, this reader seems to have the whole thing, as well as a strong sense of other writings on Cyrus, ancient and early modern. But I agree that many readers may not have made it beyond Book 1, especially as it fulfilled the expectations of the title and, apparently, much of the teachings of the text.

Early modern readers seem not to have been bothered as much at all about the change of tone in the final chapter/epilogue (what should I be calling it?); in fact, it fits very neatly with the well-established ‘fall of princes’ arc inherited and modified from late medieval culture and prevalent in various different genres at the time. Does it moralize, if you like, the preceding material, then? I would think so, but not to the same degree or in the same way that we would expect, given the familiarity of the story arc and genre implications, as it were.

Thanks for the reference to contemporary views of the final chapter.

Yes, indeed, Barker seems to have translated Appian Histories, which might indeed add further to your comment about Holland. (He also translated a racy Italian novella, and published a book of the inscriptions on tombs etc that he had copied out from his Italian travels – very vogueish, apparently, and something I’d love to know more about, if anyone has any suggestions?

But for the early moderns, ‘history’ was the usual term for ‘story’, so although humanists developed fully-fledged historiographical theory, they read their history for much more than simply an account of what happened. To learn usable models and guidelines from what happened in philosophical and political ways is, arguably, of much greater concern to them. As for Cicero’s comment on Xenophon, it was very well-known indeed, particularly as Sidney Defence of Poesy translated it (composed 1580s), as you note, that Xenophon has succeeded in producing not a history (as, interestingly, he thinks Justin Epitome of Pompus Trogus’s work has done), but ‘“effigiem iusti imperii”, the portrait of a just empire’.

I like this idea of considering the translations within the wider purview of histories; it situates Xenophon more broadly within its moment, especially the increasing availability of and interest in historiography in the later sixteenth century.

On the question of Cyrus’ alleged imperial ambition in contemporary scholarship cf. Sandridge 2012:7 and Sandridge 2012:7n13. Compared to the portraits of Ctesias and Herodotus, Xenophon’s Cyrus seems to arrive at an empire much more accidentally (or defensively), and with greater attention to the well being of all (not merely himself or the Persians). This activity might still be construed as imperial (and thus worthy of criticism), but it seems to be of a different kind than other ancient examples.

These are all very fascinating questions. It might be helpful to know more about what the notion of obedience entailed in the Renaissance. Did the term cover any act of following a leader (even out of personal gain) or only acts of following done out of intimidation or misdirection? What were the ideal conditions under which a follower was expected to carry out the will of the leader–and how far short was Xenophon’s Cyrus seen to be? I think one of the persistent questions that modern readers have had about Xenophon’s Cyrus is the extent to which fear of punishment is implicit in decisions to follow him (for some discussion see the comments on Cyropaedia 1.1.5). One could argue that Xenophon sees a lot of different motives as to why people follow (or obey) his Cyrus (cf. Cyropaedia 4.2.10).

This may seem like an odd question, but I am curious as to whether the owner of this book seems to have finished reading the Cyropaedia or to have paid as much attention to the conclusion as to the beginning (my impression is that a lot of readers would have focused only on the first book and have seen the subsequent books as repetitive; or they might not have had enough time in school to read all of them). For example, did he seem to realize that Xenophon’s Cyrus meets quite a different (and happier) ending than Herodotus’? Does he have anything to say about this? Similarly, does he (and others at the time) seem to have accepted the final chapter (Cyropaedia 8.8) as legitimately Xenophon’s, and, if so, does it reflect poorly on Cyrus? For contemporary views on the legitimacy of the final chapter, see Steven Hirsch’s (and others) discussion here.

Did Barker translate any other Greek or Latin literature? Does the fact that Holland translated several historians suggest that he believed the Cyropaedia to be historical rather than the fiction of a philosopher or novelist? Were they unaware of Cicero’s pronouncement that Xenophon had composed not history but a “model of just command” (Cicero Letter to Quintus 1.23, Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non ad historiae fidem scriptus, sed ad effigiem iusti imperii; cuius summa gravitas ab illo philosopho cum singulari comitate coniungitur). I find it interesting to see what company Xenophon’s Cyrus when authors mention him, e.g., Alexander and Caesar in Montaigne (Essay Seven) or Aeneas in Philip Sidney (Defense of Poesy), who was aware of Cicero’s understanding of the work (17).