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From Republic to Empire: Political Revolution and the Common Good in Xenophon's Education of Cyrus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Christopher Nadon
Christopher Nadon*
Affiliation:
Trinity College
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Abstract

While recent scholarship has provoked renewed interest in the Education of Cyrus as an important work for our understanding of the origins of classical political philosophy, it has yet to produce a coherent interpretation that preserves the unity of Xenophon's vision of political life. Following a short review of three recent books on the subject, I argue that the obstacles in the way to such an understanding can be resolved by focusing on the underlying causes in Xenophon's account of the transformation of a republican regime into a universal empire and, in particular, on the various deficiencies and self-contradictions of the republican conception of the common good. I show how an understanding of Xenophon's analysis of virtue within both republican and imperial political orders can lead to a fruitful confrontation with the thought of his most famous student, admirer, and antagonist, Machiavelli.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 90 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 361 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1996

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References

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