[10] So it came to pass that Cyrus said, "On the faith that you have spoken truly and with true intent, I take your hand and I give you mine; let the gods be witness."
And when this was done, Cyrus bade the old man depart in peace, without surrendering his arms, and then he asked him how far away he lived, "Since," said he, "I am minded to visit you." And Gobryas answered, "If you set off early to-morrow, the next day you may lodge with us." [11] With that he took his own departure, leaving a guide for Cyrus.
Then the Medes presented themselves; they had set apart for the gods what the Persian Priests thought right, and had left it in their hands, and they had chosen for Cyrus the finest of all the tents, and a lady from Susa, of whom the story says that in all Asia there was never a woman so fair as she, and two singing-girls with her, the most skilful among the musicians. The second choice was for Cyaxares, and for themselves they had taken their fill of all they could need on the campaign, since there was abundance of everything. [12] The Hyrcanians had all they wanted too, and they made the messenger from Cyaxares share and share alike with them. The tents which were left over they delivered to Cyrus for his Persians; and the coined money they said should be divided as soon as it was all collected, and divided it was.
NOTES
C1.10. Two theories of hedonism: (1) Cyaxares' "Economise the greatest joy when you have got it," and by contrast (2) Cyrus' roaming from joy to joy.
C1.22. Xenophon the Artist: the "kinsman" of Cyrus again, and the light by-play to enliven the severe history. The economic organising genius of Cyrus is also brought out.
C2.25. No looting, an order of the Duke of Wellington, Napier, Wolseley.
C2.32. Cf. modern times; humane orders, but strict.
C2.34. The question of commissariat. Would a modern force storm a camp without taking rations? I dare say they would.
C2.37. Notice the tone he adopts to these slaves; no bullying, but appealing to appetite and lower motives. This is doubtless Xenophontine and Hellenic.
C2.38. Important as illustrating the stern Spartan self-denial of the man and his followers. There is a hedonistic test, but the higher hedonism prevails against the lower: ignoble and impolitic to sit here feasting while they are fighting, and we don't even know how it fares with them, our allies. The style rises and is at times Pauline. St. Paul, of course, is moving on a higher spiritual plane, but still--
C2.45, fin. The Education of Cyrus, Cyropaedia, {Keroupaideia}; the name justified.
C2.46. Hystaspas' simple response: important, with other passages, to show how naturally it came to them (i.e. the Hellenes and Xenophon) to give a spiritual application to their rules of bodily and mental training. These things to them are an allegory. The goal is lofty, if not so sublime as St. Paul's or Comte's, the Christians or Positivists (there has been an alteration for the better in the spiritual plane, and Socrates helped to bring it about, I believe), but /ceteris paribus/, the words of St. Paul are the words of Hystaspas and Xenophon. They for a corruptible crown, and we for an incorruptible-- and one might find a still happier parable!
C2.46. Fine sentiment, this /noblesse oblige/ (cf. the archangelic dignity in Milton, /Paradise Lost/, I think).
C2.47. The aristocratic theory (cf. modern English "nigger" theory, Anglo-Indian, etc.).
C3.3. Xenophon's dramatic skill. We are made to feel the touch of something galling in the manner of these Median and Hyrcanian troopers.
C3.4. A 'cute beginning rhetorically, because in the most graceful way possible, and without egotism /versus/ Medes and Hyrcanians, it postulates the Persian superiority, moral, as against the accidental inferiority of the moment caused by want of cavalry and the dependence on others which that involves. I suppose it's no reflection on Cyrus' military acumen not to foreseen this need. It would have been premature then, now it organically grows; and there's no great crisis to pass through.
C3.11. I should have thought this was a dangerous argument; obviously boys do learn better than men certain things.
C3.12. Short sharp snap of argumentative style.
C3.19. The antithetic balance and word-jingle, with an exquisite, puristic, precise, and delicate lisp, as of one tasting the flavour of his words throughout.
C3.23. I think one sees how Xenophon built up his ideal structure on a basis of actual living facts. The actual diverts the creator of Cyrus from the ideal at times, as here. It is a slight declension in the character of Cyrus to lay down this law, "equestrian once, equestrian always." Xenophon has to account for the actual Persian horror of pedestrianism: Cyrus himself can dismount, and so can the Persian nobles with Cyrus the Younger, but still the rule is "never be seen walking;" and without the concluding paragraph the dramatic narrative that precedes would seem a little bit unfinished and pointless: with the explanation it floats, and we forgive "the archic man" his partiality to equestrianism, as later on we have to forgive him his Median get-up and artificiality generally, which again is contrary to the Xenophontine and the ideal Spartan spirit.
C4. Xenophon has this theory of mankind: some are fit to rule, the rest to be ruled. It is parallel to the Hellenic slavery theory. Some moderns, e.g. Carlyle (Ruskin perhaps) inherit it, and in lieu of Hellenic slavery we have a good many caste-distinction crotchets still left.
C4.13, fin. The first salaam, ominous of the advent of imperialism; the sun's rim visible, and a ray shot up to the zenith.
C5. Here the question forces itself in the midst of all this "ironic" waiting on the part of the Persians in Spartan durance for a future apotheosis of splendour and luxuriance,--what is the moral? "Hunger now and thirst, for ye shall be filled"--is that it? Well, anyhow it's parallel to the modern popular Christianity, reward-in-heaven theory, only on a less high level, but exactly the same logicality.
C5.6. A point, this reward to the catcher, and this rigid /couvrefeu/ habit (cf. modern military law).
C5.8. A dramatic contrast, the Median Cyaxares who follows Pleasure, and the Persian Cyrus who follows Valour, /vide/ Heracles' choice [/Memorabilia/, II. i. 21]. This allegorising tendency is engrained in Xenophon: it is his view of life; one of the best things he got from Socrates, no doubt. Later (§ 12) the "ironic" suicidal self-assertion of Cyaxares is contrasted with the health-giving victorious self- repression of Cyrus.
C5.9-10. Xenophon can depict character splendidly: this is the crapulous {orge} of the somewhat "hybristic" nature, seeing how the land lies, /siccis luminibus/, the day after the premature revel. Theophrastus couldn't better have depicted the irascible man. These earliest portraits of character are, according to Xenophon's genius, all sketched in the concrete, as it were. The character is not philosophised and then illustrated by concrete instances after the manner of Theophrastus, but we see the man moving before us and are made aware of his nature at once.
C5.17. {kalos ka nomimos}, "in all honour, and according to the law," almost a Xenophontine motto, and important in reference to the "questionable" conduct on his part in exile--"questionable" from a modern rather than an "antique" standard. [The chief reference is to Xenophon's presence on the Spartan side at the battle of Coronea against his native city of Athens. See /Sketch/, Works, Vol. I. pp. cxxiii. ff.]
C5.20. The "archic man" does not recognise the littleness of soul of the inferior nature, he winks at it, and so disarms at once and triumphs over savagery, and this not through cunning and pride, but a kind of godlike imperturbable sympathy, as of a fearless man with a savage hound. Still there is a good dash of diplomacy.
C5.21, fin. Pretty sentence. Xenophon's words: some of these are prettily-sounding words, some are rare and choice and exquisite, some are charged with feeling, you can't touch them with your finger-tips without feeling an "affective" thrill. That is in part the /goeteia/, the witchery, of his style.