Cȳropaedīa

Cȳropaedīa (Kyrou paideia, ‘education of Cyrus’), narrative by Xenophon, in eight books, of the career of Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, in which characters and historical facts are modified to suit the author's didactic purpose. Writing roughly at the same time as Plato, who in the Republic argues for his conception of the education of an ideal ruler, Xenophon sets out his own in the Cyropaedia, a work which strongly resembles a historical novel with a moral purpose. Cyrus himself is an idealized character, the perfect statesman, ruler, and general, drawn partly from the character of the younger Cyrus who was known to Xenophon and appears in his Anabasis. The constitution of Persia, and the method of education described, similarly represent Xenophon's ideals (based in part on the institutions of Sparta). The military precepts and the tactics described are Xenophon's own. There are numerous minor characters, kings, soldiers, and councillors, and among them the Indian tutor of the Armenian king's eldest son, Tigranes, unjustly put to death—a portrait intended to suggest Socrates. The tedium of the work (for most modern readers) is somewhat relieved by the romantic episode of the farewell of Abradatas (who is about to die in battle) to his wife Panthea. After the narrative of Cyrus' military campaigns is concluded with the capture of Sardis and Babylon, the work ends with a description of the organization of the Persian empire and the death of Cyrus. But by the time Xenophon came to write the end of the book it had become apparent that the Persian system was neither efficient nor progressive; the final chapter, describing the confusion resulting from Cyrus' death, was perhaps intended as a counterweight to the earlier admiration.