IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v109y2015i01p143-154_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How to Rule the World: An Introduction to Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus

Author

Listed:
  • BARTLETT, ROBERT C.

Abstract

As a contribution to the study of empire and imperial ambition, the present study considers the greatest analysis—Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus—of one of the greatest empires of antiquity—the Persian. Xenophon's lively and engaging account permits us to watch Cyrus as he builds a transnational empire, at once vast and stable. Yet Xenophon is ultimately highly critical of Cyrus, because he lacks the self-knowledge requisite to happiness, and of the empire, whose stability is purchased at the price of freedom. Cyrus finally appears as a kind of divinity who strives to supply the reward for moral excellence that the gods evidently do not. Xenophon implies that any truly global empire would have to present itself as a universal providential power capable of bestowing on human beings a blessed happiness that as such transcends our very mortality.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartlett, Robert C., 2015. "How to Rule the World: An Introduction to Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 143-154, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:109:y:2015:i:01:p:143-154_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055414000550/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:109:y:2015:i:01:p:143-154_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.