CYROPAEDIA

Unlike certain conspicuous ancient civilizations, losing their world-historical connection with the nations of today, modern Iran, for a number of reasons, racial-nationalist continuity being foremost amongst them, has retained the right to claim the heritage of ancient Persia, and because of that, the great Persians of antiquity have a permanent link to the Iranian nation of today. This unbreakable link is of key importance in the understanding of what makes today’s Iran tick, and yet Washington’s foreign policy, while virtually declaring Iran America’s enemy number one, appears to be utterly insensitive to the cultural-historical peculiarity of Iran, treating it, instead, as a generic backward authoritarian regime, whose oppressed population just yearns for an American-style democracy. As though the only thing that distinguishes Iran from the rest of the third world is the inordinate nuclear ambition of her leaders, who have grown too big for their spats.

…As though the humiliating lesson of 1979 had been entirely lost on the American superpower, except for a lingering subconscious anti-Iranian bias nurtured ever since.

I am by no means suggesting that America ought to abandon the present-day extreme of hating Iran in favor of the other extreme of loving Iran, but for the sake of very pragmatic objectivity America must make herself understand that Iran is not some smalltime psychotic thug threatening the world with a big-time game, but an authentic world power with over two-and-a-half millennia of major-league history, and a legitimate great-power mentality. She has no intention to allow others to order her around, as to what she is or is not allowed to be, by bullies a tiny fraction her age.

In other words, she must be treated with respect. I see a vicious circle here. Disrespect causes defiance, and defiance is interpreted as a threat and treated with extreme prejudice, at the core of which lies... disrespect!

The title of this entry recalls the Xenophon title, meaning Instruction of Cyrus. In this case I am interpreting it more explicitly as Instruction from Cyrus. In the light of what I said earlier, a lesson of this nature is long overdue.

…Not that it is some foreign concept to America. Instruction from Cyrus was actively sought by her founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson owned two copies of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. In his time, the book was required reading for all aspiring politicians and a bedside reference book for established statesmen. Granted, Jefferson was not reading it in order to understand how America should be dealing with the Persians of his time. But I am confident that, having read about Cyrus the Great, he would never treat the Persians with the kind of disrespect characteristic of his culturally semi-literate successors in the twenty-first century.

So, who was this Cyrus, whose 2,500^th anniversary of founding the Persian Empire was celebrated in 1971 (that is, under the Shah) throughout Iran as a great national festivity, and who is still regarded today (under the Ayatollahs) as The Father of the nation. Whom the Jewish Prophet Isaiah, in the Bible, calls Hashem’s Mashiach, that is, the Lord’s Messiah. (Isaiah 45:1). Whom most historians rank well above Alexander the Great…

Thus, British historian Charles Freeman in his book The Greek Achievement makes this comparison of Cyrus to Alexander:

“In scope and extent, his achievements ranked far above that of the Macedonian king, who was to demolish the empire in the 320’s, but failed to provide any stable alternative.”

Britannica makes this last point clear: “It is a testimony to the capability of the founder of the Achaemenian Empire that it continued to expand after his death, and lasted for more than two centuries. But Cyrus was not only a great conqueror and administrator. He held a place in the minds of the Persian people similar to that of Romulus and Remus in Rome, or of Moses for the Israelites... The sentiments of esteem or even awe, in which Persians held him, were transmitted to the Greeks, and it was no accident that Xenophon chose Cyrus to be the model of a ruler for the lessons he wished to impart to his fellow Greeks. In short, the figure of Cyrus has survived throughout history as much more than a great man who founded an empire. He became the epitome of the great qualities expected of a ruler in antiquity, and he assumed heroic features, as a conqueror who was tolerant and magnanimous, as well as brave and daring. His personality, as seen by the Greeks, influenced both them and Alexander the Great; and as this tradition was transmitted by the Romans, it may be considered to influence our thinking even now…”

In the Western cultural tradition, Cyrus’s historical reputation rests essentially on his enormous prominence in the Bible as God’s Anointed Servant, who returned the Jews from their Babylonian captivity to the Promised Land. A second, Gentile, Moses, if you like. But his legacy is obviously larger than that iconic identification. Cyrus was a military genius who conquered many strong nations, using revolutionary methods of warfare. He was a genius administrator, creating an elaborate and effective system of governing a vast multicultural empire. He was also a genius ruler who was fair and generous to his subjects, native and foreign, allowing the latter a freedom of following their traditional way of life, retaining their religion and a certain autonomy, which all emphasized the advantages of staying under the wing of the Persian power, enjoying its mighty protection from potential outside threats, and minimizing the downside of their loss of national sovereignty. He is also described as” the first champion of human rights,” and his Imperial Charter to that effect used to be, albeit disingenuously and shamelessly self-servingly, the pet boast of the late Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. As for his great empire, it was in itself an unimpeachable tribute to Cyrus’s genius: lasting a full two hundred years after his death in 530 BC, until Alexander’s conquest of Persia in 330 BC.

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is admittedly “a political romance describing the education and rise of an ideal ruler, a benevolent despot ruling over his admiring subjects” (quoted from J. Hereford’s Introduction to an English translation of Cyropaedia, London, 1914), yet its insight into the character of the man whose actual life is inextricable from mythology has become our definitive source of knowledge about Cyrus the Great, whose legend is immeasurably more credible than most “lives” of historical figures, gleaned from nothing better than “reliable documentation.”

And it is the indestructible legend of Cyrus that forms the historical consciousness of the Iranian people and makes them a nation to reckon with.