[83] Cyrop. iii. 1, 10-38, vii. 2, 9-29, v. 4, 26, vi. 1, 37. Ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν, ὦ Κῦρε, καὶ ταῦτα ὅμοιος εἶ, πρᾷός τε καὶ συγγνώμων τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἁμαρτημάτων.
[84] Cyrop. vii. 3.
Scheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests are completed — Oriental despotism, wisely arranged.
This last remark may also be made respecting the concluding proceedings of Cyrus, after he has thoroughly completed his conquests, and when he establishes arrangements for governing them permanently. The scheme of government which Xenophon imagines and introduces him as organizing, is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, nor even Hellenic: it would probably have been as little acceptable to his friend Agesilaus, the marked “hater of Persia,”[85] as to any Athenian politician. It is altogether an Oriental despotism, skilfully organized both for the security of the despot and for enabling him to keep a vigorous hold on subjects distant as well as near: such as the younger Cyrus might possibly have attempted, if his brother Artaxerxes had been slain at Kunaxa, instead of himself. “Eam conditionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si uni reddatur”[86] — is a maxim repugnant to Hellenic ideas, and not likely to be rendered welcome even by the regulations of detail with which Xenophon surrounds it; judicious as these regulations are for their contemplated purpose. The amiable and popular character which Cyrus has maintained from youth upwards, and by means of which he has gained an uninterrupted series of victories, is difficult to be reconciled with the insecurity, however imposing, in which he dwells as Great King. When we find that he accounts it a necessary precaution to surround himself with eunuchs, on the express ground that they are despised by every one else and therefore likely to be more faithful to their master — when we read also that in consequence of the number of disaffected subjects, he is forced to keep a guard composed of twenty thousand soldiers taken from poor Persian mountaineers[87] — we find realised, in the case of the triumphant Cyrus, much of that peril and insecurity which the despot Hieron had so bitterly deplored in his conversation with Simonides. However unsatisfactory the ideal of government may be, which Plato lays out either in the Republic or the Leges — that which Xenophon sets before us is not at all more acceptable, in spite of the splendid individual portrait whereby he dazzles our imagination. Few Athenians would have exchanged Athens either for Babylon under Cyrus, or for Plato’s Magnêtic colony in Krete.
[85] Xenoph. Agesilaus, vii. 7. εἰ δ’ αὖ καλὸν καὶ μισοπέρσην εἶναι — ἐξέπλευσεν, ὅ, τι δύναιτο κακὸν· ποιήσων τὸν βάρβαρον.
[86] Tacit. Annal. i. 6.
[87] Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5, 58-70.
Persian present reality — is described by Xenophon as thoroughly depraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of Cyrus.
The Xenophontic government is thus noway admirable, even as an ideal. But he himself presents it only as an ideal — or (which is the same thing in the eyes of a present companion of Sokrates) as a quasi-historical fact, belonging to the unknown and undetermined past. When Xenophon talks of what the Persians are now, he presents us with nothing but a shocking contrast to this ideal; nothing but vice, corruption, degeneracy of every kind, exorbitant sensuality, faithlessness and cowardice.[88] His picture of Persia is like that of the of Platonic Kosmos, which we can read in the Timæus:[89] a splendid Kosmos in its original plan and construction, but full of defects and evil as it actually exists. The strength and excellence of the Xenophontic orderly despotism dies with its heroic beginner. His two sons (as Plato remarked) do not receive the same elaborate training and discipline as himself: nor can they be restrained, even by the impressive appeal which he makes to them on his death-bed, from violent dissension among themselves, and misgovernment of every kind.[90]
[88] Cyrop. viii. 8.