Talk:Cyropaedia

Untitled
This article could do with an expert's opinion and references. At the moment I think it is poor -- - K a s h  Talk 18:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the overview of this article is pulled directly from a product description of the book on Amazon. It's word for word.Mk edwards (talk) 17:25, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm presenting a project on Ctesias and Xenophon's views of the Near East with in depth analysis of Persica and Cyropaedia. I might add something to this article if I can spare the time. It's very lacking at the moment. --Keltica 21:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

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"Education of Cyrus"
What Xenophon wanted to say by "Education of Cyrus" was ... "The way of Cyrus".

After studying for so long on the belief of Cyrus and his followers. I think that is the right definition.

Persian propaganda
Another example of persian propaganda on wikipedia. 'Cyropaedia' is not a biography of Cyrus but a work of fiction. Historians claim that it is the first historical novel and the first moral romance that has come down to us. So enough is enough with the persian nationalism. Someone should fix the article
 * Why would a people WANT to treat this as their own history? Cyrus (in Cyropaedia) was the master of using people for his own personal gain.  Its basically a textbook on how to control people.  If one of our political leaders acted like him (minus certain things that were acceptable at the time), we would love it & he/she would be able to do anything he/she wants.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.226.117 (talk) 04:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Why would this not be a crude biography of the man whom ruled the widest empire (to date)? He certainly was a ruler, and multiple historical sources have attested to his noble character. While this is easily dismissed as 'propoganda', it is never justified as such. However, the real propoganda comes from people like you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.196.88.228 (talk) 04:05, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Ted Koppel??
What is a Ted Koppel quotation doing in an article on a particular Greek text? -- Fullstop 02:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * removed -- Fullstop 12:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Article name
Why is this article at Cyropaedia (Xenophon) instead of Cyropaedia (which redirects here)? Is there another Cyropaedia written by someone else, and if so, why isn't there a disambiguation page? I'm going to move the article; if there's some reason for the current title that I'm not aware of, feel free to move it back. Isomorphic (talk) 00:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Postmodern
The paragraph at the end about postmodern criticism has been tagged as needing attribution for over a year. As it stands it is clearly original research. I propose deleting the paragraph entirely. Fumblebruschi (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Do it. Bang bang. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ps(paedagogant scriptum): who and weasel-inline were added 6 Aug. 2007


 * Done. Fumblebruschi (talk) 20:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Some suggestions for improvement
I find the quality of the present entry absolutely below any standard, whether scholarly or otherwise. The present text largely consists of a reproduction (and a very clumsy one at that) of the article by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg in Encyclopaedia Iranica (see here: ). It is for this very reason, it seems to me, that the present entry has all the qualities of a hackneyed work. For instance, who on earth begins an encyclopaedia entry by citing such a controversial statement as Cyropaedia "is a political romance, describing the education of the ideal ruler, ..."? This statement is copied and pasted from the above-mentioned Iranica article without giving due attention to the context in which it has been made. As can be verified, this controversial sentence is not the opening sentence of the latter work; rather, it comes after the writer has made a careful examination of the contents of the book and exposed the divers set of extant views on the book, its historical origin, etc., etc. Actually, from the little that I know of Cyropaedia, I am able to raise some valid objections against some aspects of Ms Sancisi-Weerdenburg's Iranica article (I believe, for instance, that her discussion of Chapter of 8 of Cyropaedia is imperfect, if not defective).

I have just checked, and it appears that in particular on the Persian-language Internet there is an unimaginably large amount of useful information on Cyropaedia which can be tapped into for the purpose of extending and improving the present entry &mdash; unfortunately, at this moment I am not in a position to do this myself, leaving aside that I am professionally not competent to write on Cyropaedia. For instance (and this has been indicated, without any elaboration, in the above-mentioned Iranica article by Ms Weerdenburg), there is a close relationship between Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Ferdowsi's Shāh'nāmeh. In this connection, one should note that in Persian, Cyropaedia is referred to as Kurosh'nāmeh; replace Kurosh (or Cyrus) by Shāh (and Cyrus was a Shāh &mdash; in fact he proclaimed himself Shāh'han'shāh), and Kurosh'nāmeh becomes Shāh'nāmeh. There is a wealth of reliable information on the Persian-language Internet that deal with identifying a large number of apparently unrelated personalities that one encounters in various texts, such as Cyropaedia, Shāh'nāmeh and Old Testament.

Kind regards, --BF 20:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC).

Plato
This below quote from the article contains a "paraphrase" comparing the Cyropaedia to Plato:

"To paraphrase Edmund Spenser in his preface to The Faerie Queene, 'Xenophon's Cyropaedia is to be preferred to Plato, for it demonstrates exquisite depth of monarchial judgement. Cyrus' formation of commonwealth is such as it should be, and government by example is much more profitable and gracious than government by rule.'"

While I don't know exactly what's stated in the original source, given the above paraphrase I can only presume that what was meant was that Xenophon's "Cyropaedia" is to be preferred over Plato's "The Republic" which is a work that also depicts an idealized society but from a philosopher's point of view (it has come under criticism in modern times for its "authoritarianism"). So I would suggest that "Xenophon's Cyropaedia is to be preferred to Plato" is rephrased into "Xenophon's Cyropaedia is to be preferred over Plato's The Republic". I'm quite confident that the Cyropaedia has nothing to say on the strictly philosophical and theoretical aspects of Plato's philosophy.

Abvgd (talk) 10:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Historical Validity
There is a ridiculous amount of effort put into this article, towards discrediting the historical accuracies of Cyropedia. This whole article should dwelve more into Cyropaedia, and not be so obsessed with invalidating it's historical truth (quite frankly, which there is little reason to doubt much of). I'm lost as to how Xenophen altering trivial historical details in Cyropedia, detracts from the main ingredient of the work, which is Cyrus as a benevolent and strategic-political ruler, whom is able to unite the masses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.154.56.136 (talk) 19:40, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is ambitious in some ways, but unambitious in others. Otherwise it would not work. One way in which it is not ambitious is that it seeks only to mirror the information and opinions found in published sources. Most published sources on this subject spend some time the question of whether Xenophon considered himself to be writing accurate history, and most conclude he did not. But I also think your description of "ridiculous effort" is a striking exaggeration.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I have removed a section recently added by that defends the Cyropaedia because the section was primarily original research. Though there were references to some sources, the sources cited did not directly support the conclusions made. For example:
 * Archaeological evidence supports the Cyropaedia’s  picture of relations between the Medes and the Persians. According to Herodotus, who was apparently following the later Persian propaganda of the Nabonidus Chronicle, Cyrus rose up in rebellion against his grandfather Astyages, king of Media, and conquered the Medes, who were then subject to Cyrus from that point on. The Cyropaedia, in contrast, presents both kingdoms as partners, with the Medes being the senior partners and equal with the Persians right up to the death of Cyaxares II, son of Astyages, about two years after the conquest of Babylon. After the death of Cyaxares the two kingdoms were merged peaceably under Cyrus. Archaeological evidence, such as the stairway reliefs at Persepolis, shows no distinction in official rank or status between the Persian and Median nobility. Although Olmstead followed the consensus view that Cyrus subjugated the Medes, he nevertheless wrote, “Medes were honored equally with Persians; they were employed in high office and were chosen to lead Persian armies.”

The paragraph is ostensibly 'sourced' to Olmstead, but Olmstead doesn't actually support what is given in the paragraph. Basically, the argument made is Olmstead says A, which probably means B. The Medes and Persians being on an equal level when the reliefs were made could mean they were equal partners for the two decades prior, but it could just as likely mean that the Medes were granted favour for their compliance to the Persians and came to be viewed equally over the intervening years. Unless Olmstead actually says that the Medes were "honored equally" at that time because the account in the Cyropaedia is more accurate, then Olmstead is not being properly used as a source to give credence to the Cyropaedia (even if the account in the Cyropaedia is entirely correct).-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 01:41, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Largely fictional
"All these factors have led classical scholars of the Cyropaedia to judge it as a work of fiction, with scarcely any historical content. ... The Cyropaedia can thus in no way be considered to provide reliable information on 6th-century Persia. ... Even for late 5th- and 4th-century Persian history the work can be used only with caution; this stricture is equally applicable to the epilogue of book 8, in which vilifying rhetoric is almost inextricably entangled with a few genuine facts (Sancisi­-Weerdenburg, 1987)."

- Encyclopaedia Iranica

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:29, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

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