Is Cyrus a tyrant?
In the book The Education of Cyrus, there is a portrayal of the steady development of a tyrant as well the development of a tyrannical regime. The author Xenophon of Athens (c. 365 BCE) describes the leadership of Cyrus the Great (c. 600-530 BCE). Cyrus obtained his legitimacy as a monarch by arguing that he was indeed the most deserving of the kingship on grounds of proven merit (Ambler, 2001). He founded his claims to the right to the kingship on the premise that his legitimacy to do as such was self-evident to his subjects; who were expected to recognize his appropriateness to do so as a result of their own experience of his leading role in bringing about a hierarchical social order for them.
Nonetheless, despite his claims to the legitimacy or proven merit and bureaucratic order, Cyrus the Great worked hard to create a liking for some sort of transformational tyranny. Cyrus was indeed a supremely talented as well as talented ruler who used clever tactics to satisfy his long for recognition through improvement of the material welfare of his followers (Ambler, 2001). The ruler used such methods as patronage and punishment following a well-formulated system of emissaries.
Cyrus emerges a calculating sort of tyrant who responds to the necessities of his situation in a rather wise manner, an evidentiary of how tyranny corrupts the minds of even the most virtuous tyrants. The king’s destruction of aristocracy began with his effort to corrupt its principle by convincing the Persian nobles to shift their exercising virtue for their own sake to the sake of its benefits (Ambler, 2001). Cyrus’s second action was the democratization of the army resulting in a regime that was slightly different from the least intolerable form of tyranny.
Cyrus’ extraordinary political triumph was in his transformation of a former stable and healthy aristocracy into an overly unstable ‘oriental despotism’, whose negative impacts only became evident after his death. In the wake of his death, Cyrus’ sons feuded among themselves, cities together with nations begun revolts, in addition to lots of things turning worse (Ambler, 2001).
According to Xenophon, Cyrus’ love for humanity was of a cold or unerotic nature. This is evidenced by the fact that the ruler was not inspired by true or Socratic eros as he lacked knowledge on what constituted a well-ordered soul. Cyrus was therefore motivated by political virtue which is a corrupted virtue of the non-philosopher and cannot bring forth more than an imitation or shadow of true love. Cyrus the Great is dominated by mercenary love, which is love for those things that benefit oneself (Ambler, 2001). The author describes how Cyrus the Great would handsomely reward those obedient to him but punish in the pretence of kindness and friendship while punishing ruthlessly those in disobedience.
Looked from a bigger picture, however, there must distinction between tyranny and Cyrus’ rule. There is no argument that Cyrus was a legitimate rule because he was born as the legitimate heir to the then reigning king. He became king of other nations through inheritance, marriage, and just conquest. In the context of ruling well, Cyrus would have been king and not tyrant, provide freedom to his people as opposed to subjecting them to slavery, rule by law instead of being law himself, and control his follower through positive pursuit of virtue and kindness instead of through fear.
Reference:
Ambler, W. (2001). The education of Cyrus. New York: Cornell University Press.
