Cyrus' Paradise

Cyropaedia 7.5.37–41 Cyrus decides to adopt kingship as a means of government, and devises a plan to ensure the assent of his peers.
Cyropaedia 7.5.42–47 Cyrus addresses his friends and outlines his proposed arrangements to them.
Cyropaedia 7.5.48–57 Cyrus’ friends (Artabazus at Cyropaedia 7.5.43-54; Chrysantas at Cyropaedia 7.5.55-7) respond to show their assent.
Cyropaedia 7.5.58­­–69 Cyrus then organises his court, establishing his personal bodyguard and the elite forces who will guard his palace in Babylon.
Cyropaedia 7.5.70–86 Cyrus acknowledges that the maintenance of his friends’ skills and virtue will be essential for the maintenance of his rule. He exhorts them to hard work and virtue.
This leads straight into Cyropaedia 8.1-5, a response to this speech by Cyrus’ Persian friend Chrysantas, and the remainder of chapter 8.1, which describes the administrative arrangements Cyrus puts in place to ensure the stability of his new empire.
 

This chapter marks a turning point in Cyrus’ biography, the end of conquest and the beginning of rule. Xenophon shows Cyrus’ awareness of this critical moment through his decision to take on a different form of leadership than the Persian-style generalship he has held up to this point. For those who read the Cyropaedia as a contrast between the republic and the empire as forms of government, this section marks the moment when Cyrus transitions between republican and imperial leadership, and becomes open to accusations that he has become a tyrant; see Nadon 1996:361-74, and Newell 1983:889-906 (see also the authors’ later books, Newell 2013 and Nadon 2001. An alternative analysis of Cyrus’ political progress is given in Breebaart 1983.

Xenophon here appears to step back from a strong endorsement of this model of kingship, although there is much dispute about this. Xenophon presents this view of kingship, as presented in this passage, as being that of his character Cyrus, focalised through his speech with occasional comments from the narrator. It is the character Cyrus’ decision to involve his friends in his exercise of power, and specification of the equipment that is suitable for a king, just as his friends’ response to Cyrus, when he appears in full regalia at his procession (ἐκπλαγέντεςτῇπαρασκευῇ, Cyropaedia 8.3.14), is their personal response to his appearance.

Both the substance of kingship (the practical arrangements for administration of an empire) and its ritual and performative elements (religious ceremonies, processions, special costume, court ceremony) will be established and explored in the following sections of the narrative.
In practice, as the remainder of this chapter explores, the question is one of removing Cyrus from everyday contact with his subjects. This royal distancing and seclusion is a key feature of oriental kingship for Greek authors, as seen in Herodotus’ account of the establishment of the empire of the Medes by Deioces (Herodotus Histories 1.95-102; see Asheri 2007 at Herodotus Histories 1.195-102 for detailed historical commentary). Persian royal iconography, as seen in the reliefs that decorated wall palaces, suggests that establishing distance and communicating it was important to kings such as Cyrus and his successors (see Root 1979); other sources include the Hebrew Bible (for example at Hebrew Bible Esther 5:2).
Although the historicity of this account of the Median empire has been questioned (for example Helm 1981), it functions within Herodotus’ text as a template for monarchy and the role of the founder king in establishing a secure state, against which other monarchs can be compared.
Principal features of this kind of kingship include the separation of monarch from subjects; elaborate court rituals that restrict access of subjects, even elite ones, to the monarch; surveillance of subjects by the monarch’s spies; justice and law becoming identified with the monarch (see Dewald 2003; Walter 2004; Ward 2008 for analyses of despotism, based on Herodotus’ model, but applicable to Xenophon). Xenophon incorporates these themes into his analysis of tyranny, as in his Hiero. Within the Cyropaedia itself, these topics will be explored through this final section, with enquiries into friendship, surveillance (the king’s eyes and ears, Cyropaedia 8.2.10-12), and the construction of court practices of separation (the topic of much of this chapter).
For Xenophon, however, kingship also requires the monarch to provide an example and template (paradeigma) of virtuous behaviour and superlative physical qualities for his courtiers and subjects (Cyropaedia 8.1.12). Again, this is reflected in numerous Near Eastern sources, including the Old Persian inscriptions. See, in particular, the text referred to as DNb (Darius I, Naqsh-e Rostam, Inscription b), in which Darius describes his qualities. This idealistic self-representation of the monarch has been called an ancient “Mirror of Princes.” See Kuhrt 2007:504-05.
Clearly, within the model as it stands, it is not possible for the vast majority of subjects, excluded from access to the king, to perceive him well enough to gain sufficient knowledge to imitate him. After Cyrus’ institution of kingship, the same becomes true of the peers themselves, when they are moved to obedience through emotional responses of wonder and fear (for example at Cyropaedia 8.3.14, when the peers are moved to perform proskynesis for the first time, because they are ἐκπλαγέντες, a term often used to describe extreme fear on the battlefield). Most of Cyrus’ subjects obey him without directly perceiving him (Cyropaedia 1.1.3; even those who know that they will never see him are willing to obey him).

Cyrus’ adoption of this mode of kingship, in response to his military success, puzzles many modern readers, who see Xenophon’s hero apparently abandoning the positive republican political values of the earlier part of the book, and replacing the Persian republic with an autocratic empire. The imposition of a formalised and multi-layered hierarchy seems a complete reversal of the apparent egalitarianism of the Persian aristocracy, described as homotimoi, ‘the same in honour’, and Cyrus’ own earlier actions as a leader who is effectively first among equals. Cyrus’ previous modifications to this system introduced further levels; he armed the Persian commoners in the same way as the homotimoi (Cyropaedia 2.1.15-19), but then re-establishes a distinction for the homotimoi in retraining them as cavalry (Cyropaedia 4.3.1-23; see Johnson 2005).
Xenophon indicates some of the problems of this form of kingship by presenting distinctive sets of approaches to rule through descriptions of different societies, so that some aspects of Cyrus’ approach to rule in this section will remind readers both of his grandfather Astyages’ rule over Media (Cyropaedia 1.3.2-14), and the problems his mother Mandane raised about the differences between Persian and Median justice (Cyropaedia 1.3.18).

The form of kingship that Cyrus adopts rests on the approval of those whose situation as homotimoi is displaced by the elevation of the king and his separation from them. A similar process occurs in Herodotus’ accounts of the rise to kingship of Deioces and Darius. Deioces is elected as king by the Medes (after his friends have lobbied for this outcome, Herodotus Histories 1.97-98), while Darius persuades his fellow conspirators to adopt monarchy as a form of government, then wins the competition among them to be the monarch (Herodotus Histories 3.80-88). Even among apparently hereditary forms of monarchy in ancient cultures (including the created societies of Homer) there may be competition between potential heirs, especially in complex royal dynasties where half-brothers may compete to succeed their father.
While Deioces maintains separation because he fears that his former peers will recognise that he is not better than them and thus lacks authority to rule, Xenophon’s account of Cyrus presents him as superior in capability to the Persian homotimoi and others who make up his peer group.
However, friendship has a greater significance for kings as a means of controlling and managing relationships with powerful subjects. The relationship of friendship they perceived between the great king and powerful noble subordinates was a further object of fascination to Greek political theorists; Xenophon’s exploration of the theme here is expanded both by Plato and Aristotle, who each attempt to define different types of friendship to explain how rulers who are unequal to their subjects can (or cannot) be friends with them (Plato Laws 8.837a-838a, Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 8.7.1158b11-1159a12, within the discussion of friendship in books 8 and 9). Xenophon’s thought on friendship has been interpreted in different ways; for Vincent Azoulay, Xenophon’s exploration of friendship in the Cyropaedia tests the philosophical and metaphysical problem of friendship between non-equals, while for Vivienne Gray readers should resist reducing Xenophon’s depiction of political friendship to pure exploitation, and accept David Konstan’s more positive account of Xenophon’s model of friendship (Azoulay 2004; Gray 2011:291-329; Konstan 1997:53-92).

The crowd here represents the large number of subjects now under Cyrus’ control. But perhaps the idea of the mass (τὸπλῆθος) and the disorder created by the demand to meet Cyrus also suggests that direct relationship between the one ruler and the many ruled will be impossible, other than in a manner resembling conflict. Xenophon describes the crowd pushing (ὠθουμένων), a term used of hoplite encounters, and emphasises this link by describing the scene as a battle (μάχη). Cyrus will use the same language and imagery within his speech (Cyropaedia 7.5.39-45); after encouraging his friends to think that if they wait for him, there will be a time when they push aside the crowd together (ἕωςἂντὸνὄχλονδιωσώμεθα, 39); he describes those who hope to defeat his friends by pushing them aside (ὠθοῦντες, 45) to gain access to him.

Cyrus appears to be deceiving his friends here, with promises of attention from him that are not fulfilled (Cyropaedia 7.5.39-40); his friends wait all day for his attention but are dismissed at the end of the day without receiving it. This experience will make them more likely to submit to the new arrangements, although they may not, as Chrysantas hints, have much choice in the matter (Cyropaedia 8.1.4); choosing to serve under Cyrus will enable the friends to escape the slavery of being compelled to serve under him.

Readings of the Cyropaedia that emphasise Cyrus’ deceit use this episode to illustrate the trickery and the barely disguised force through which Cyrus achieves his goals (Nadon 2001; an extreme version of this perspective is Reisert 2009), who describes Cyrus as a ‘moral black hole’.

Xenophon adds a moment of low comedy here to the description of Cyrus’ friends, waiting to see him all day, then running off to attend to ‘all the necessities’. Delebecque comments that this remark is not in good taste (Delebecque 1978:75, n.3), and treats the ‘necessities’ as ‘besoins naturels’ (‘wants of nature’ in Miller’s translation). The necessities are not named, but may be the same as those similarly hinted at in Cyropaedia 1.6.36, bodily needs that should be attended to at the start of the day, or those mentioned a little less coyly at Cyropaedia 8.8.11 as the consequences of eating and drinking. Delebecque suggests that the πάντων may refer to both hunger and thirst, but presumably here the necessities are the same physical necessities as at Cyropaedia 8.8.11, hence the comedy of the peers running away quickly to attend to them in private.

Cyrus prevents the crowd from approaching him by surrounding himself with a circle of Persian lancers (ξυστοφόρων). This use of Persian soldiers as bodyguards prefigures the adoption of the 10,000 Persians as bodyguards and special forces, that Cyrus will implement soon as part of his new royal establishment (Cyropaedia 7.5.66-68).
The separation of ruler from ruled by special elite forces or bodyguards is a topos of Greek and other ancient thought on tyranny (such as Herodotus’ account of Deioces; Xenophon Hiero; Plato Republic 9). See Lewis 2006; McGlew 1993; Morgan 2003.

Cyrus suggests here that he has to pay a heavy price for his new role, in that the demands on him prevent him from enjoying the company of his peers as before. The cost of leadership to the leader is a Xenophontic theme that counters the view that power automatically confers happiness on the holder, expressed for example by sophists such as Thrasymachus and Callicles in Plato Republic and Plato Gorgias respectively. It is most fully expressed in the paradox of the Hiero, that the tyrant is unhappy in his tyranny, and in which Simonides proposes remedies for this unhappiness (Hiero 8-9) that resemble strategies adopted by Cyrus (for example instituting competitions among troops, creating obligation through gifts, and exhibiting charisma).

Cyrus presents the difficult situation in which his friends have found themselves as amusing. Humour and ridicule play an important role in Greek rhetoric and dialogue (Halliwell 1991). Humour of different kinds can denote inclusion within the membership of a group, or exclusion from it. Speakers hope not to appear ridiculous; in Platonic dialogue the stronger term katagelastos always denotes an unfavourable response, geloios a gentler and more inclusive form of humour (Vries 1985).
The gentle humour of Cyrus’ camp was noticed by Gobryas when he joined them (Cyropaedia 5.2.18, see Halliwell 1991:280 on the mixture of pleasure and play in Cyrus’ laughter); humour and the insult of hubris were kept separate. Cyrus now suggests that the situation in which he and his friends now find themselves is laughable, in this more gentle sense, but his suggestion of humour in the situation appears to work to distance him from responsibility for it.

Cyrus here distinguishes the form of leadership he formerly exercised, that of a general on campaign, from the form of leadership he must now exercise as ruler of an empire. He emphasises the distinction in terms of accessibility and visibility. While a good general must be accessible and visible in order to do his job, in order to know what is happening and continually reassess the situation and opportunities, this continuing presence will not, it seems, be as necessary for the rule of an empire. In practice, Xenophon will identify alternative means through which Cyrus maintains the flow of information and analysis that enables him to to act in accordance with opportunity (kairos). The king’s eyes and ears, a network of spies (Cyropaedia 8.2.10-12) perform this function and enable Cyrus to act as if he had witnessed events across the empire himself.  See Hirsch 1985: 101-39 for a detailed analysis of all sources on ‘spy’ networks in the Persian empire; the existence of the officer known as the  ‘king’s eye’ is doubtful (cf. Plutarch Artaxerxes 12.1, where Artasyras is identified as holding this office.

The idea of ponos as an aspect of virtue, or means by which individuals may both demonstrate and consolidate their virtue, is central to Xenophon’s thought, most fully expressed in the story of the Choice of Heracles (Memorabilia 2.1). Good leaders exemplify hard work in all their pursuits; but there is an ideological aspect to what was considered to be ponos by Xenophon and his contemporaries, as Steven Johnstone has shown (Johnstone 1994); aristocratic leisure pursuits such as hunting are identified as examples of ponos, rather than the physical labour of the ordinary worker (for example Cyropaedia 8.1.34-36, where Cyrus identifies hunting as an activity that habituates its practitioners to ponos).
Within the framework of this ideology of aristocratic ponos, a good leader demonstrates superior capacity to withstand hardship and to work in extreme circumstances; Norman Sandridge cites Xenophon himself chopping wood in the snow as an example (Anabasis 4.4.12) as an example of such capacity, and Cambyses’ argument that the ruler demonstrates his superiority through the possession of ponos (Sandridge 2012:60-63).
In transferring this epithet to war, Xenophon personifies it with an apparently positive characteristic. War loves toil, but has halted (ἀναπέπαυται), itself a verb that Xenophon uses for troops on campaign (Cyropaedia 2.4.3; Cyropaedia 7.1.4). If Cyrus’ opponent, war, has actually (νῦνδ᾽) taken a rest, he may now be justified in claiming leisure for himself.
Xenophon’s use of superlative forms of philo– compound adjectives is also notable, and marks important features of his ethical thought; see Cyropaedia 1.2.1, where Cyrus is described as φιλανθρωπότατος, φιλομαθέστατος, and φιλοτιμότατος.

The responses to this speech represent two opposed responses to Cyrus, from his Persian supporters and his Median supporters, represented by Chrysantas (Persian) and Artabazus (Median), respectively. Artabazus, in speaking first, may be seen to have the less serious or important points to make; these will be made by Chrysantas in closing the debate. One might assume that a Median courtier such as Artabazus is already willing to accept a subservient role in the new royal hierarchy, whereas for Chrysantas, as an egalitarian Persian, such a role will require more change and be harder to accept.
Artabazus’ speech provides a summary of his involvement with Cyrus, reminding the reader of his participation to Cyrus’ rise to power, now to be rewarded with subordinate roles in the new empire.
 

Artabazus is a recurring minor character in the Cyropaedia, whose appearances provide comment on the effectiveness of Cyrus’ appearance and arguments, and also an element of humour, through his infatuation with Cyrus. At his first appearance (Cyropaedia 1.4.27-28) he provides proof Cyrus’ charisma and beauty, and also his youth and naiveté, by tricking him into a kiss. Throughout the work Artabazus reappears (Cyropaedia 4.1.22, Cyropaedia 5.1.24, Cyropaedia 6.1.9), with his speech here drawing all these episodes together, and, as Bodil Due points out, showing that the apparent humorous asides that featured Artabazus all contribute to an important theme, Cyrus’ charisma (Due 1989:62-66).
In this speech, Artabazus recaps the progress of Cyrus from Persian leader to king through his various military engagements, and underlines the support that Cyrus has received from a series of allies and friends and that has enabled him to succeed. He also outlines the difficulties that Cyrus’ friends have experienced in gaining access to him, the costs of doing so in disregarding personal comfort, and the jealousy that access to Cyrus inspires in others.
Artabazus’ support for Cyrus’ changed role could be predicted from his account of Cyrus’ charisma, which he compares to that of a king bee over the hive (Cyropaedia 5.1.24-25). Likewise, the good housewife should be both a queen bee (hegemōn melittōn, Oeconomicus 7.32-4 and a guardian of the law (nomophylax, Oeconomicus 9.15) in her relationship with the workers in her household (see Pomeroy 1984 for analysis of the gender implications of this comparison). Artabazus was the first character to respond to Cyrus in this way, even though the initial presentation of his response suggested that it should not be taken seriously.

Artabazus played a pivotal role at two points in the key central episode of the work, in which control of the Median army moves from Cyaxares to Cyrus. When Cyaxares challenges Cyrus to find volunteers to join him in pursuing the Assyrians, Cyrus selects Artabazus, recognising him as the man who had claimed to be his relative in order to kiss him (Cyropaedia 4.1.22-23, referring to Cyropaedia 1.4.27-28); Artabazus is willing to persuade other Medes to join him in following Cyrus.
After the raid, Artabazus volunteers to continue with Cyrus rather than to return to Cyaxares (Cyropaedia 5.1.24-25), and is therefore instrumental in persuading other Medes do the same. His reason for doing so is that Cyrus exudes a natural form of royalty, like the king bee in the hive; such bees command the others by generating a strange but powerful form of desire in them, δεινόςτιςἔρως.
While Artabazus’ support may be genuine, the Median soldiers may not know the history of his infatuation with Cyrus, and that he is not choosing to take further action on purely military or pragmatic grounds but because of his desire to be close to Cyrus. In this sense, Artabazus provides a deceptive element, possibly manipulated by Cyrus and certainly enabling Cyrus to manipulate others.
Artabazus’ support for Cyrus’ proposals here is also pointed. For Artabazus, the new regime proposed by Cyrus is sufficiently similar to the rule of Astyages, and the processes of the Median court, which it is not difficult for him to accept, in the way that it might be for the Persians, who are used to equality and frugality. Hirsch has suggested that Xenophon is, in books 4 and 5, describing a coup by Cyrus against Astyages, rather than a peaceful take-over (Hirsch 1985:81-82); this reading brings Xenophon’s account closer to other sources such as the Nabonidus Chronicle, which mentions Cyrus’ victory over Astyages due to a mutiny in the Median army, and parallels Herodotus’ account of the Median aristocracy supporting Cyrus in obtaining the kingship (Herodotus Histories 1.123). See also Diodorus 9.23, who reports on unrest in the Median camp at the time of Cyrus’ takeover.

Cyrus’ most recent allies, Gobryas and Gadatas, were gained in the course of his campaigns. Winning them over was a mark of his progress towards building his multinational empire, and also a sign that he was willing to expand his inner circle of friends beyond his close associates from his youth. Artabazus, as a Mede, was an early follower of Cyrus but still outside this Persian inner circle, unlike Chrysantas. The possibility of tension between Cyrus’ supporters adds an element of risk to the foundation of empire.

Artabazus’ contrast between his own limited personal concerns and the pressing matters distracting Cyrus from paying him attention adds an element of humour, but also expresses the distance which Xenophon wishes to point out between the concerns of ordinary individuals and the serious responsibilities of the leader. Cyrus’ military concerns, the horses and chariots, are contrasted to Artabazus’ lack of responsibility. (There seems to be a similar contrast between Pheraulas and the Sacian solider, to whom he hands over all his possessions, namely there seem to be some who like the responsibility of leadership and some who are just happy to serve. See Cyropaedia 8.3.49-50, and Henderson 2012 for an analysis of the Pheraulas episode and its relation to Cyrus’ own story).

Artabazus’ infatuation with Cyrus has provided humour earlier in the book, as well as demonstrating Cyrus’ charisma, from his first appearance when he claims to be Cyrus’ kinsman to steal a kiss (Cyropaedia 1.4.27-28) to subsequent references to this (such as Cyropaedia 4.1.22, when Cyrus makes use of Artabazus’ infatuation to secure his services). By reframing the narrative of the military expedition from the point of view of Artabazus, a different perspective is presented in which the jealousies and rivalries of Cyrus’ associates are introduced without being presented as a threat to his success.

Throughout the Cyropaedia the correct distribution of goods, one of the primary concerns of Greek political thought, has been a continuing theme. This concern extends back to the start of Greek literature, where the correct distribution of war booty in the form of female captives triggers the dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles that opens and drives the plot of the Iliad (see Donlan 1982 on reciprocity in the Iliad).  The goods to be distributed vary – booty (including both objects and captives), the rewards of battle, rewards for participating in military training (Cyropaedia 2.1.22-23), and here, attention from Cyrus himself. In requesting that Cyrus’ attention be distributed among the various claimants on the grounds of desert or merit, and indeed long service to Cyrus seems to count for much in this reckoning, Artabazus echoes earlier discussions of this theme even if the goods to be distributed are different. Cyrus’ understanding of distribution, and attention to practical results rather than maintaining existing distributions, is emphasised in the story of the two boys and their cloaks (Cyropaedia 1.3.16-17, see Danzig 2009 for an assessment of this episode’s contribution to Xenophon’s political thought).

Chrysantas acts throughout the Cyropaedia as a representative of the Persian aristocratic values of equality and frugality. He is therefore a foil to the Median values represented by Artabazus; by opposing the Persian and Median supporters of Cyrus, Xenophon can represent two positions from within Cyrus’ group of close supporters. Differences between Artabazus’ and Chrysantas’ responses to Cyrus’ proposals are therefore significant. But Chrysantas, as a Persian, also represents Cyrus’ more closely than other characters; he is presented as an intelligent and thoughtful man, qualities that counterbalance his short stature and lack of physical strength (Cyropaedia 2.3.5-6), which in turn demonstrate his inferiority to Cyrus, who is both intelligent and handsome.
Chrysantas first appeared among Cyrus’ Persian friends during his first campaign (Cyropaedia 2.2.17), and thereafter plays a significant role (Due 1989:70-73). Cyrus’ first discussion of distribution is with Chrysantas, after Chrysantas raises the question about whether the distribution of booty and other rewards should be made according to merit (Cyropaedia 2.2.18). In this discussion among the peers, Chrysantas opposes the idea that Cyrus should hold a more public discussion about this issue, and suggests that he should simply announce his intentions, as the army as a whole would not vote for an unequal distribution.
When such a discussion does take place (Cyropaedia 2.3.5) Chrysantas supports Cyrus’ plans. Chrysantas often performs the function of explaining or expanding Cyrus’ ideas, whether the plan to retrain the Persian peers as cavalry, or this present plan to set up a new form of government; Gera describes him as ‘the enthusiastic “seconder” of new proposals put forward by Cyrus’ (Gera 1993:184). It is Chrysantas who compares the Persians to centaurs (Cyropaedia 4.2.15-21), who encourages Cyrus to exhort his men before battle (Cyropaedia 3.3.49-53), and who also displays intelligence and initiative as a military leader.
 

The organisation of royal courts was a typical theme of Greek historiography, providing authors with the opportunity to describe a different political system from that of the Greek polis, and also to analyse its operations, strengths and weaknesses.
As with much of this section of the Cyropaedia, Herodotus’ account of the rise to power of the founder of the Median empire, Deioces (Herodotus Histories 1.97-102), serves as a template or a starting point (see Thomas 2012). Herodotus describes the initial building of a city and its citadel, and the invention of court protocols within that citadel. Xenophon follows the latter part of the model fairly closely, but with a significant difference; while Herodotus’ Deioces secludes himself to prevent his friends from seeing that he is not their superior (and therefore lacks authority to rule them), Xenophon has made Cyrus’ superiority to and distinction from his friends clear from the outset of the work; seclusion is not required to maintain his authority, and Xenophon, through the narrative of this chapter, provides a different justification or rationalisation for the practices of the Persian court.
Investigations into the historicity of Herodotus’ account of Deioces have concluded that Herodotus’ account of the Median empire is highly stylised (Brown 1988; Helm 1981; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1988; Wiesehöfer 2004). Xenophon’s account too may serve its programmatic and argumentative function more carefully than any descriptive function, although his continuing references to recent events and continuing practices suggest an intention to combine the two functions.
There is also an account of the Persian court in the Pseudo-Aristotelian De Mundo 398a.20-30, but this text probably is of a later date, most likely the first century CE.

The idea that tyrants required bodyguards is central to the ‘despotic template’ (Dewald 2003), and is established by Herodotus in his account of Deioces the founder of the Median Empire (Herodotus Histories 1.98.2). The unpopularity of tyrants, and their lack of authority, meant that they either were, or imagined themselves to be, under continuous threat of attack and assassination. Xenophon’s Hiero expresses this problem; a tyrant feels least safe at home, the place where everyone else feels most safe (Hiero 2.9-10). Hostility to him from both his own courtiers, as rivals to his rule, and the populace as a whole, mean that his security can never be guaranteed. Kings, ruling with consent and in the interests of the ruled, should not need bodyguards and their presence may be suggestive of tyranny.
The presence of a bodyguard emphasises the distance between ruler and ruled, and the possibility of violence and conflict between them. It makes visible the lack of trust and community that characterises tyranny as a deviant form of rule. For Athenians, the most familiar example would be Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens, who receives a bodyguard after using trickery to gain control of the city (Herodotus Histories 1.59).

Palace intrigue and dynastic conflict were thought to be an ever-present danger for monarchs, whether they were formally identified as kings or tyrants; Ctesias’ Persica documents such intrigues within the Achaemenid court. Xenophon lists occasions when the king is most at risk; readers might identify these with other examples, such as the murder of Agamemnon after he returned inside his palace, representing the risk to the king from within his own household and from aristocratic faction (Aeschylus Agamemnon 1343-97).
For ordinary citizens, the household represents a safe space distinct from the public space. But for kings and tyrants whose rule represents the conflation of royal household with the city or state, creating such truly private space is difficult.
The palace holds other dangers too. Cyrus’ earlier response to Astyages’ behaviour in his Median court (for example, Cyropaedia 1.3.10, when he expresses concern that Astyages’ drunkenness means that he has been poisoned), combined with the worries about drunkenness expressed in Cyropaedia 8.8, suggest that the dangers within the palace are both internal and external to the ruler himself.

For Greek historians the eunuchs of the Persian court were a barbarian phenomenon illustrative of tyranny and contempt for the individual as potential citizen, yet also the objects of orientalist fascination.
The utilitarian arguments that Xenophon gives to Cyrus for the employment of eunuchs as his personal bodyguard are unusual among Greek texts of this period, but he is attempting to explain a historical phenomenon that was in conflict with his and his readers’ values. Gera notes how Xenophon focalises the thought on eunuchs through Cyrus’ perspective, distancing the author from the opinions expressed by using a range of third-person verbs to express opinion (Gera 1993:287-88; in this section ἔγνω, ἡγήσατο, ἡγεῖτο). See also Azoulay 2000 for an analysis of Xenophon’s interpretation of the role of eunuchs in Cyrus’ courts.
Herodotus describes the way that barbarians trust eunuchs (Cyropaedia 8.105), within an anecdote in which the eunuch Hermotimus takes revenge on his captor and castrator by mutilating them in turn.
For Ctesias, eunuchs were a feature of the Persian court that he documents in detail, for example giving the names of the chief eunuchs of each new king; many such servants are named in the fragments of Ctesias Persica; see Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010, and Llewellyn-Jones 2013. Biblical accounts of Persia also discuss eunuchs; see Hebrew Bible Esther 2.8-18.

Xenophon suggests that eunuchs need a master as a patron, because they are held in such low esteem (ἄδοξοι) by others that they need the protection to prevent others from taking advantage of them. But, he goes on to say, eunuchs can be outstanding in their faithfulness to their masters. Although Xenophon does not expand upon these thoughts here, they resemble to some extent the arguments advanced by Aristotle in the Politics that some men are slaves by nature (Aristotle Politics 1.5.1254a17-1255a3) and the best life they can lead is that guided by a good master. Xenophon’s eunuchs, although not in a natural condition (since they are castrated), display the lack of full capacity that characterises Aristotle’s natural slaves. So although the eunuchs’ condition resembles the condition that Aristotle identifies as a natural predisposition to slavery, it is not a natural one.
Xenophon makes no comment on the processes by which the palace slaves, and those who serve other characters, became eunuchs; but in the case of the elite warrior Gadatas, castrated as a punishment at the behest of the young Assyrian king (Cyropaedia 5.2.28), his achievements and loyalty in supporting Cyrus against the Assyrians (beginning at Cyropaedia 5.3.15-19) earn him similar respect to Cyrus’ other elite friends, and he is treated differently from the palace slave eunuchs.
However, access to both the public and private parts of the court complex, and their role as servants and messengers for powerful royal women, gave some eunuchs unusual power within the court.

Xenophon conceives of a complicated hierarchy of humans and animals, in which some humans and some animals are valued more highly than others. The situation of the eunuchs of Cyrus’ court provides a problematic test case for this hierarchy of species, status and gender.
Xenophon uses animal comparisons to point out situations where an individual acts contrary to the human gender norms he identifies. For humans, there is a sharp division of labour by gender – women work inside the home, men outside it (Oeconomicus 7.22-32) – but some animals provide counter-examples for this. Female hunting hounds are as capable as male ones, if not more so, when it comes to following scents (for Xenophon the point is too obvious to make explicitly; in the Cynegeticus he always refers to hounds using feminine word forms, for example in describing the two kinds of hounds, Castorian and vulpine (Cynegeticus 3.1, αἱμὲνκαστόριαι, αἱδὲἀλωπεκίδες).
In the same way, the conventional wisdom regarding eunuchs that Xenophon identifies is that they lack the essential capacities of men, such as strength and courage (see Cyropaedia 7.5.64, Cyropaedia 65 below). Again, prestigious animals such as hounds and horses provide counter-examples; castrated animals are as serviceable as others, and their lack of extremes of temper is an advantage not a weakness. Xenophon’s accounts of animals contain a detailed hierarchy; see Louis L’Allier (L’Allier 2004). Patterns of gender in Greek discussions of animals are analysed by Christiana Franco (Franco 2014).
But this comparison with animals may seem to dehumanise or devalue the eunuchs (see Tamiolaki 2010:314). As slaves they are being treated as living tools, versions of the κτῆμά τι ἔμψυχον (Aristotle Politics 1.4.1253b32) and ὀργάνων… τὰ δὲ ἔμψυχα (Aristotle Politics 1.4.1253b28). Xenophon also analogises animals and slaves in other descriptions of Cyrus’ behaviour as king; slaves taken on hunting expeditions are fed and watered along with the beasts of burden, and do not participate in the deprivation through hunger and thirst that develops enkrateia in the free men whom Cyrus is training (Cyropaedia 8.1.43-44).

This passage appears to run against the depiction of eunuchs as located within the royal household, suggesting that they maintain a capability for masculine activities such as fighting on foot and on horseback. The only eunuch identified as participating in war in the Cyropaedia is the castrated prince Gadatas.

Xenophon here suggests that eunuchs display the same abilities in war and hunting shown by other men. This does not fit well with the division between free men and slaves as participants in hunting set up by Cyrus (Cyropaedia 8.1.43-44), but does fit the assessment of Gadatas as a heroic and capable individual despite his mutilated status (although, in being castrated as an adult, Gadatas had not been excluded from the education and training of an elite male). Xenophon may mean that slave eunuchs can perform the role of servants in hunting expeditions, but Cyrus’ prescription for official court hunting expeditions is that slaves are to be denied participation at a level that will develop their capacity for endurance and virtue. For Xenophon, enkrateia is a virtue suitable for the elite and specifically for rulers (see Memorabilia 2.1, and comment on Cyropaedia 7.5.47).

Service to the bodies of others is treated by Xenophon as servile in nature. He describes the eunuchs as θεραπευτῆρας to Cyrus; this links his court back to the arrangements of Astyages’ court, where the servants to whom Cyrus distributes food are identified as θεραπευταῖς (Cyropaedia 1.3.7), and one is identified as providing service (θεραπεύεις, Cyropaedia 1.3.7).

Cyrus clearly has enemies, although he has just defeated the major one, the king of the Assyrians. In the new palace framework, hostility to Cyrus may come from within the empire, whether from subjects outside the palace or courtiers within it. The suggestion here, that it is a large number who are hostile to him (τὸ πλῆθος τῶν δυσμενῶςἐχόντων), might suggest threats from subjects outside the palace, in which case a larger and more militarised bodyguard than that provided by the eunuchs might be necessary.
The idea that Cyrus is under constant threat of violence heightens the concern that his new rule is a form of tyranny.

The number of soldiers in Cyrus’ elite regiment, who provide a first line protection for the king, is given as 10,000 by both Xenophon and other sources including Herodotus; in his later procession (Cyropaedia 8.3.9, Cyropaedia 8.3.15-16) they are deployed in smaller groups. Herodotus also describes the 10,000 participating in Xerxes’ procession (Cyropaedia 7.41.1-2) but the relationship between the 10,000 and smaller groups of 1,000, such as those distinguished by gold decorative spear bases in the shape of apples, is unclear. Other historians also describe these adornments of the elite group of 1000 within the bodyguard (Heraclides of Cyme FGrH 689 F1, Aelian VH 9.3). These melophoroi, men of particularly high rank, were specifically charged with the personal protection of the king.
Herodotus also describes the process of constant replacement to ensure that the 10,000 were kept up to strength as the reason that they were called the ‘Immortals’ (Cyropaedia 7.8.3.1). Joseph Wiesehöfer notes some dispute as to whether this title was a Greek misinterpretation of the original Persian name (Wiesehöfer 1996:91-92, plus bibliographical note Wiesehöfer 1996:272).

The guard of the 10,000 helps to maintain order and protect Cyrus in two ways. Firstly, it provides physical protection for him, both at home and abroad; soldiers surround him wherever he goes. Secondly, the cost of maintaining the guard falls to the citizens of Babylon, and thus impoverishes them into submission.
The deliberate impoverishment of Babylon by the Achaemenid kings is alluded to in other sources. In his controversial tax register of Darius I’s satrapies, Herodotus Histories 3.92 has the Babylonians pay the unusually heavy annual assessment of a thousand talents of silver and five hundred boy-eunuchs. In addition, Babylon had to provide for the royal court fourth months of the year. In another passage (Herodotus Histories 1.192), Herodotus mentions the great burden placed on the people of Babylonia in providing for the satrap Tritantaechmes. For the interpretation of this data as evidence of ‘ruinous taxation,’ see Olmstead 1948:293. It should also be noted that on the Achaemenid tomb reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam, the representatives of all the subject lands, except for Babylonia, are shown bearing arms. The right to bear arms in the presence of the king was a sign of honor and trust, ‘so that the unarmed Babylonian represents an act of deliberate humiliation,’ perhaps reflecting the resentment of Darius I and Xerxes I toward the Babylonians for revolting on several occasions between 522 BCE and 482 BCE. See von Gall 2009.

On his military campaigns Cyrus has made many speeches to the peers, or to select groups of leaders. In a sense, the cultural policies that Cyrus wants to institute represent a continuing campaign, and the peers will play their part in delivering it. There is also historical evidence that the Persian aristocracy played an important role in the administration of the empire, and that the king was reliant on their participation: see Briant 2002:302-54.
The problem of maintaining virtue in the new society is very much one for the elite, those who interact with Cyrus and deliver his rule across the empire. For the vast majority of subjects, the achievement of virtue is not as important as that of the obedience generated by wonder and fear of the great king. But Cyrus here argues that for those who have a share in implementing his rule and governing his empire, continuing devotion to the practice of virtue will be important. The final section of the Cyropaedia, documenting the failure of Persian values and of virtue in the Persian elite and Cyrus’ heirs, emphasises this. Cyrus’ emphasis on virtue in addressing the peers foreshadows the threat of decline that will be realised in Cyropaedia 8.8.

Cyrus claims that it is an established universal and eternal nomos that both persons and property captured in war belong to their captors as property, and could be disposed of at will. There is a strong connection between war and slavery in Greek literature, such as the concerns expressed by Homer’s Hector about the fate of his wife Andromache if he is killed (Iliad 6.440-465), dramatised in Euripides’ Trojan Women where the captured Trojan women lament their future as slaves.
The idea that those conquered in battle became the property of the conquerors was well established in Greek culture, though rarely the subject of explicit discussion (Ducrey 1968). It becomes more pressing in Greek sources when the conquered are themselves Greek, although Thucydides notes that the Athenians and some others of those defeated at Syracuse were treated differently from other captives, who were sold (Thucydides Histories 7.87.4), possibly by being ransomed rather than sold (Hornblower 2008:743).

Cyrus appears to reject the trappings of the luxurious lifestyle associated with the “despotic template.” Xenophon has made much use of the contrast between the “hard” lifestyle of the Persians and the “soft” life of the Medes, partly to illustrate the political and ethical differences he gives to the two cultures. In living a hard, Persian life, Cyrus escapes from being easily categorised as an oriental despot.
Herodotus’ Cyrus makes similar claims at the close of the Histories (Herodotus Histories 9.122), encouraging the Persians to maintain the traditional “hard” values that enable them to conquer other peoples. The “soft” life carries the risk of defeat and subjugation (see note in Cyrus’ Paradise on Cyropaedia 7.5.67, and Gorman and Gorman 2014; Rood 2015).

The analogy between virtue and craft (technē) was a feature of ancient ethical thought, particularly apparent in Plato’s Socratic works, and also in Xenophon’s own Socratic writings; although the analogy appears in many of Plato’s works, there is a particularly full exploration in Plato Gorgias, which uses the analogy to explore the way in which sophists display skills and teach them. Xenophon uses the analogy extensively; at Memorabilia 4.2.6, Socrates contrasts recognition of the practice required to excel in productive crafts with the assumption that politics and administration are skills that do not require training and practice.
By conceptualising abstract qualities (such as virtue or knowledge) as a craft (typical crafts invoked in this context are medicine, navigation and expertise in physical training) a model of its possible development within the individual, and a process by which it could be passed from individual to individual, could be developed and explored. See Irwin 1977, and Roochnik 1998 for two interpretations of Plato’s use of the craft analogy.
Both Xenophon and Plato conceptualise kingship itself as a craft in their Socratic writings (see Dorion 2004 for an exploration of the different ways that they do this, and the way in which the craft of kingship is related to other crafts), but in both the Cyropaedia and Plato Statesman each writer moves away from the exploration of the royal craft (basilikē technē) to a closer investigation of the personal qualities of the ruler.
Here, Cyrus identifies the typical Xenophontic virtues of sōphrosunē and enkrateia, along with physical strength, as attributes that, like a craft, require practice and attention to maintain (see Sandridge 2012:63-4; Dorion 2013:103-05).

Cyrus claims that it will be harder to maintain his new empire than it was to win it. While creating a new empire involves processes of change, maintaining an empire requires resistance to change. While there are several different Greek views of political change (particularly whether it is a linear or a cyclical process), most historians and philosophers think that change is inevitable, and will usually be for the worst. From Hesiod’s myth of the ages (Hesiod Works and Days 106-201) comes the view that there is a long-term process of decline, in which the current age (the Age of Iron) is one of particular conflict among humans. From Herodotus comes the idea (drawing on Presocratic ideas of change) that history is marked by constant change, in which cities alternate between periods of expansion and decline (Herodotus Histories 1.5).
In Herodotus’ histories, kings who inherit rather than conquer their kingdoms fear being seen as potentially weak: Xerxes, as heir to the great king Darius, makes the need to expand rather than simply manage explicit in announcing his reasons for the expedition against the Greeks (Herodotus Histories 7.8.a1-2), and a similar concern is expressed to Cambyses (Herodotus Histories 3.34.4). Plutarch’s Alexander also expresses the thought that he would rather inherit a less established regime from his father and have more opportunities for successful expansion himself (Plutarch Alexander 5).
Further claims about the problems of maintaining empire appear in Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens struggles to maintain its empire of tribute-paying poleis. Pericles’ final speech to the Athenians examines this issue (Thucydides Histories 2.60-64), considering the benefits of fighting to maintain the freedom and power that Athens enjoys, and the risks of losing them.

For Xenophon, ponos is an important means by which virtue can developed and maintained. Undertaking ponos is the particular concern of the gentleman. Much of the work identified as ponos is discretionary, leisure activities involving physical activity and training, rather than agricultural labour required for the maintenance of life.
However, the leisure activities identified as ponos do have a practical purpose in training for war, which Xenophon personifies as ‘the most loving of ponos’ (Cyropaedia 7.5.47). Ponos prepares the gentleman to display excellence in war, whether in his own physical activity on the battlefield or in coordinating and commanding the efforts of others. The good leader displays capability in ponos in enduring the hardships of war, leading from the front and engaging in hard work, a recurrent theme in Xenophon Anabasis (see Hunt 1998:149-53).
Physical toil for subsistence does not seem to count as ponos in Xenophon’s categorisation; while aristocratic leisure hunting is valorised as ponos (throughout the Cyropaedia, and in the treatise on hunting, the Cynegeticus), trapping animals for food does not count as ponos in that it does not develop virtue in the same way. 
See Johnstone 1994 and Sandridge 2012:60-63 for more on the ideology and practice of ponos. Xenophon’s views on ponos can be linked to the thought of later Cynic philosophers, and the role of Antisthenes, fore-runner of the Cynics, in his Socratic works suggests his sympathy with the views that would become those of the Cynics (see Tsouna-McKirahan 1994 for an investigation of the links between Socratic thinkers, the Cynics and the Cyrenaics).

Andragathia is an abstract quality or virtue that encompasses all the characteristics or virtues that a man described as kalos kagathos would possess or embody (see Nadon 2001:122), but it is a more explicitly gendered term. Cyrus has mentioned this specific quality before, as one that requires both education and the presence of examples, supported by exhortation, to be developed; it cannot be achieved without the mixture of both, as Cyrus says to Chrysantas when they discuss the value of speeches from the leader in exhorting troops on the battlefield to display excellence in fighting (Cyropaedia 3.3.55).

Xenophon links virtue closely to eudaimonia, human flourishing or good fortune. Human flourishing is not possible without virtue. In part, this is because of the obvious falsity of the opposite claim, explored here; becoming less virtuous than before should not permit the maintenance of rule, nor should there be any link between vice and eudaimonia.
Again, the relationship between virtue and eudaimonia will be explored in greater detail by Aristotle in his ethical works; Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1.8.1098b30-31 is broadly in agreement with the identification of the two, but cautions both that some consideration should be given to the role of fortune, and also to exploring the nature of virtue as a whole and its constituent character virtues, and the way in which the development of character virtues can contribute to living the good life and achieving the human goal of eudaimonia.

Cyrus hopes that the Persian culture in which he was educated can be transplanted to the new environment of his court at Babylon. This includes the system of paideia in which his education began, and which forms the basis of his character.
The suspicion that Persian paideia may not survive transplantation to Babylon, and that Cyrus may no longer embody its principles, is perhaps suggested by Cyrus’ call to the Persians that he and they should mutually monitor each others’ behaviour for signs of deterioration. The failure of Persian paideia is identified by Plato as the cause of the decline of the Persian empire and the failure of Cyrus’ sons to live up to the example of their father (Plato Laws 3.694a3-696b).
The preservation of Persian values in governing the empire was a frequent theme of Greek commentary on Persia; the courts of satraps were expected to maintain the same values (see Briant 2002:347). Isocrates Panegyricus 152 refers to this: ‘Therefore, those of them who go down to the seashore and whom they call satraps do not appear unworthy of the education of their country and keep the same customs.’. Evidence that the Persian educational system may have influenced local aristocrats may be gleaned from the epitaph of the fourth century BCE Lycian dynast Arbinas, who professes to have been able “to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth.” According to Herodotus Histories 1.136, these were the hallmarks of the Persian educational system. Also note the emphasis that Darius I places on the Persian educational system in his tomb inscription (DNb).

The closing section of this speech points to the problem of succession and inheritance. This was broadly recognised by Greek historiographers as a problem for monarchies (as with the good king, bad successor pairs in Herodotus’ histories, such as Cyrus and Cambyses). But within the context of the Cyropaedia it will be a specific problem, as Cyrus seeks to ensure the continuity of his empire and peace between his two sons, only one of whom can be the ruler.
Plato’s Athenian Stranger argues that Cyrus’ failure to educate his sons within Persian culture causes the failure of his empire (Plato Laws 3.694a-696b). It seems most likely that this passage, part of a wider argument which contrasts Persian monarchy and Athenian democracy as extreme (and unstable) forms of government with the more stable mixed constitution exemplified by Sparta, is a response to Xenophon’s description of Cyrus’ regime in this part of the Cyropaedia. On this see Danzig 2003; Hirsch 1985:97-100, Hirsch 1985:40-47.