Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T07:10:35.826Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Xenophon on the Psychology of Supreme Political Ambition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2017

LORRAINE SMITH PANGLE
LORRAINE SMITH PANGLE*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
*
Lorraine Smith Pangle is Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin, 158 W. 21st St., Stop A1800, Austin, TX 71712 (lorrainepangle@gmail.com).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study illuminates Xenophon's teaching about the underlying psychological motives of the most fully developed political ambition. An analysis of what the Cyropaedia portrays as the interplay among Cyrus's spiritedness, justice, benevolence, piety, and cultivation of an aura of divinity leads to an unveiling of supreme ambition's deepest root: not the desire for power as such, nor the love of justice, but the desire to be a quasi-divine benefactor. The article traces the development of this ambition from its earliest manifestations in the young Cyrus's puppylike spiritedness, through his hope-filled rise to power, to his grim mature rein and his death, showing how a shadowy concern for immortality drives him in ways he is reluctant to see or acknowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 111 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 308 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments of Timothy Burns, Steven Forde, Russell Muirhead, Thomas Pangle, Linda Rabieh, Jean Yarbrough, and the anonymous referees of the APSR on earlier drafts of this article.

References

REFERENCES

Addison, Joseph. 1712. Cato A Tragedy. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/addison-cato-a-tragedy-and-selected-essays.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1894. Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea. Ed. Bywater, I.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1957. Aristotelis Politica. Ed. Ross, W. D.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Robert. 2015. “How to Rule the World: An Introduction to Xenophon's The Education of Cyrus .” American Political Science Review 109 (1): 143–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruell, Christopher. 1987. “Xenophon.” In History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed, eds. Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Danzig, Gabriel. 2009. “Big Boys and Little Boys: Justice and Law in Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Memorabilia.” Polis 26 (2): 271–95.Google Scholar
Danzig, Gabriel. 2012. “The Best of the Achaemenids: Benevolence, Self-Interest, and the ‘Ironic’ Reading of Cyropaedia.” In Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Inquiry, eds. Hobden, Fiona and Tuplin, Christopher. Leiden: Brill, 384–413.Google Scholar
Due, Bodil. 1989. The Cyropaedia: Xenophon's Aims and Methods. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhas University Press.Google Scholar
Ehrenhalt, Alan. 1991. United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power, and the Pursuit of Office. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Faulkner, Robert K. 2007. The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Problems. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Field, Laura K. 2012. “Xenophon's Cyropaedia: Educating Our Political Hopes.” Journal of Politics 74 (93): 720–38.Google Scholar
Fox, Richard L., and Lawless, Jennifer L.. 2005. “To Run or Not to Run for Office: Explaining Nascent Political Ambition.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3), 642–59.Google Scholar
Grant, Alexander. 1871. Xenophon. Edinburgh: Blackwood.Google Scholar
Herodotus. 1927. Historiae. 2 Vols., ed. Hude, C.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Homer. 1924. The Iliad. Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library.Google Scholar
Lawless, Jennifer L. 2012. Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and the Decision to Run for Office. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lincoln, Abraham. 1953. “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, Roy P. 8 volumes. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1: 108–15.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1988. The Prince. Second ed. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Walter, trans. and ed. 1914. Xenophon, Cyropaedia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nadon, Christopher. 1996. “From Republic to Empire: Political Revolution and the Common Good in Xenophon's Education of Cyrus.” American Political Science Review 90 (2): 361–74.Google Scholar
Nadon, Christopher. 2001. Xenophon's Prince: Republic and Empire in the Cyropaedia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Newell, Waller R. 1983. “Tyranny and the Science of Ruling in Xenophon's Education of Cyrus .” Journal of Politics 45 (4): 889–906.Google Scholar
Newell, Waller R. 2013. Tyranny: A New Interpretation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pangle, Lorraine. 2015. “Moral Indignation, Magnanimity, and Philosophy in the Trial of the Armenian King.” In In Search of Humanity: Essays in Honor of Clifford Orwin, ed. Andrea Radasanu, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 101–13.Google Scholar
Plato. 1902. “Republic.” In Platonis Opera, vol. 4, ed. John Burnet, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Reisert, Joseph. 2009. “Ambition and Corruption in Xenophon's Cyropaedia.” Polis 26 (2): 296–315.Google Scholar
Rohde, David W. 1979. “Risk-Bearing and Progressive Ambition: The Case of the U.S. House of Representatives.” American Journal of Political Science 23 (1): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, Leslie. 1989. “Love and Politics in Xenophon's Cyropaedia .” Interpretation 16 (3): 391–413.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Joseph A. 1966. Ambition and Politics: Political Careers in the United States. Chicago: Rand NcNally.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo. 2013. On Tyranny: Corrected and Expanded Edition Including the Strauss-Kojève Correspondence, eds. Victor, Gourevitch and Roth, Michael S.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tatum, James. 1989. Xenophon's Imperial Fiction: On the Education of Cyrus. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Washington, George. 1931–44. The Writings of George Washington, ed. John, Fitzpatrick. 39 vols. Washington, DC: US Government Print Office.Google Scholar
Whidden, Christopher. 2007. “The Account of Persia and Cyrus's Persian Education in Xenophon's Cyropaedia .” Review of Politics 69 (4): 539–67.Google Scholar
Whidden, Christopher. 2008. “Cyrus’ Imperial Household: An Aristotelian Reading of Xenophon's Cyropaedia .” Polis 25 (1): 31–62.Google Scholar
Xenophon. 1954. “Anabasis; Cyropaedia; Hiero; Memorabilia.” In Opera Omnia, ed. Marchant, E. C., 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Xenophon. 2001. The Education of Cyrus, ed. and trans. Wayne Ambler. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar