Cyrus’s Imperial Household: an Aristotelian Reading of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is a fictional account of the life of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. This article argues that reading the Cyropaedia through an Aristotelian lens provides a useful means by which to understand Xenophon’s analysis of Cyrus’s empire. On an Aristotelian reading, a crucial facet of Cyrus’s knowledge is his view that the household provides an appropriate model by which to found and govern an empire. By incorporating many nations into what I call his ‘imperial household’, Cyrus finds a way to avoid what Xenophon sees as the fundamental problem of political rule, which is that human beings do not wish to be ruled by others and eventually revolt against their rulers. But in contrast to all previous rulers known to Xenophon, Cyrus secures his subjects’ obedience. He does so by treating them as women, children, and slaves, each of whom looks to him as the head of the household. Under Cyrus, the perpetual political revolutions Xenophon describes thus become a thing of the past, at least so long as Cyrus is alive to preside over his imperial household. But Xenophon also suggests that order, peace, and security in the empire come at a cost. In order to keep his subjects in line, Cyrus as leader must distort and do violence to their humanity. Read carefully, the Cyropaedia thus provides a thoughtful critique of imperial ambition and empire.