60 Model government in Cyropaedia 



67rtrpo7ro9 at once marked him as a slave. In relation to the general 

 employment of slave-labour there is practically no difference : both are 

 slave-driving 'overseers.' As the pamphlet on the Revenues has been 

 thought by some critics not to be the work of Xenophon, I pass it by, 

 only noting that it surely belongs to the same generation. It fully attests 

 the tendency to rely 1 on slave-labour, but it is not concerned with 

 agriculture. 



The romance known as Cyropaedia wanders far from fact. Its 

 purpose is to expound or suggest Xenophon's own views on the govern- 

 ment of men : accordingly opportunities for drawing a moral are sought 

 at the expense of historical truth. But from my present point of view 

 the chief point to note is that it does not touch the labour-question 

 with which we are concerned. True, we hear 2 of avrovpyoi, and of the 

 hardship and poverty of such cultivators, gaining a painful livelihood 

 from an unkind soil. That the value of a territory depends on the 

 presence of a population 3 able and willing to develop its resources, is 

 fully insisted on by Cyrus. But this is in connexion with conquest. 

 The inhabitants of a conquered district remain as tributary cultivators, 

 merely changing their rulers. That the labour of the conquered is to 

 provide the sustenance of the conquering race, is accepted as a funda- 

 mental principle. It is simply the right of the stronger: if he leaves 

 anything to his subject, that is a voluntary act of grace. The reason 

 why we hear little of slavery is that all are virtually slaves save the 

 one autocrat. The fabric of Xenophon's model government is a very 

 simple one : first, an oriental Great King, possessed of all the virtues: 

 second, a class of warrior nobles, specially trained and dependent on 

 the King's favour : third, a numerous subject population, whose labour 

 supports the whole, and who are practically serfs. A cynical passage 4 

 describes the policy of Cyrus, meant to perpetuate the difference of 

 the classes. After detailing minutely the liberal training enjoined on 

 those whom he intended to employ in governing (ovs...ap'xeiv aero 

 Xprivai), Xenophon proceeds to those whom he intended to qualify 

 for servitude (ot>9...AeaTeoveevafez> e/9 TO SovXeveiv). These it was his 

 practice not to urge to any of the liberal exercises, nor to allow them 

 to possess arms. He took great care to spare them any privations : 

 for instance at a hunt : the hunters had to take their chance of hunger 

 and thirst, being freemen, but the beaters had ample supplies and 

 halted for meals. They were delighted with this consideration, the 

 design of which was to prevent their ever ceasing to be slaves 

 (avSpf'Tro&a). The whole scheme is frankly imperial. All initiative and 

 power rests with the autocrat, and all depends on his virtues. That a 



1 Vectigalia ch 4 passim. 2 Cyrop vn g 6?> vm 3 36 _ 4I 



3 Cyrop IV 4 5-12, VII 5 36, 73. * Cyrop VIII i 43-4. 



