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Cyrus for President?
| Article
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20574 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
7,615 Words |
| Author
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Leslie Rubin
Leslie Rubin is associate director of the Society for Greek
Political Thought, North American Chapter, based at Duquesne
University, Pittsburgh. She has taught political theory and
American politics at Kenyon College, the University of
Houston, and Duquesne University. |
During this election year, the issue of leadership and its requirements has been raised often and in a variety of forms. With a mood of moderate crisis abroad in the country, each candidate has tried to argue for his own capacities to put America "back on course." Nonpartisanship, efficiency, international statesmanship, and greater cooperation between the president and Congress directed by a "vision of America" have been suggested as the types of leadership required.
Though it appears unlikely on the face of it, Xenophon's mostly fictional portrait of Cyrus the Great, The Education of Cyrus, can help to clarity the problems of leadership America faces today. The political situation Cyrus creates in his vast Persian empire bears some remarkable similarities to our own. For instance, among his innovations is a certain equality of opportunity for advancement in the army. Further, his empire poses problems still associated with a multiethnic populace. Finally, his methods of ruling the empire are colored by his experience as a military commander--he is faced with two issues: How does ruling a nation at peace differ from leading an army at war and (to employ the current jargon) how does domestic policy differ from foreign policy?
One large and unavoidable difference separates Cyrus' political situation from ours. Having used what we might see as an enlightened policy of equal opportunity to build an invincible multinational army and conquer a most impressive territory, Cyrus proceeds to call the enemy's subjects "slaves" and to speak of them as merely the animate portion of his spoils of war, to be used as the cultivators of his new lands. Despite this use of what is currently objectionable terminology, Cyrus rules his empire with a combination of fear and comparative beneficence such that both those who joined his campaign of conquest for reason of their own and those who were forcibly brought under his new regime came to follow him willingly and call him "father".
Why might Cyrus' example provide advice good both in itself and for us? In addition to nothing the potential similarities in our situation, we should ask Xenophon. In his prefatory chapter, Xenophon praises Cyrus' military and political success highly. No other ruler known to Xenophon has acted so thoughtfully and ruled so many peoples without a rebellion. Throughout The Education of Cyrus, Xenophon shows that his main character carefully anticipates potential problems and acts shrewdly to avoid them. The one or two mistakes he apparently makes either are not mistakes at all or are cleverly turned to advantage. Given that Xenophon is inventing the details of
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