Xenophon's partly fictional account of the education and career of Cyrus the Great — one of antiquity's most influential texts on leadership and governance.
The first Bildungsroman of political leadership: Cyrus's education as a model for the ideal ruler — justice, military genius, the management of men through consent rather than fear. More philosophical fiction than strict history — Xenophon shapes Cyrus into an ideal rather than a historical portrait. Enormously influential in the Renaissance: Machiavelli, Scipio Africanus, and many rulers used it as a leadership manual.
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