9
heedless of his own safety, the news of an approaching boar prompts him to mount up
“on his horse as one possessed” and rush to kill it also (C 1.4.8).
In his first exposure to warfare, Cyrus again displays the same sort of heedless joy
in killing that he displayed while hunting. He rushes “without forethought” to pursue a
part of the Assyrian army but fails to notice that he is in danger from the main body of
the enemy (C 1.4.21). Only his grandfather’s timely advance with the rest of the Median
forces saved him from danger and produced an overwhelming victory for the Medes (C
1.4.22). To this point in the narrative, Astyages has sufficiently enjoyed Cyrus’ devoted
attentions to himself that he has been willing to overlook the boy’s recklessness on the
hunt. Cyrus’ conduct in battle, however, awakens Astyages to his grandson’s true nature:
“As for Cyrus, Astyages did not know what to say about him, for he knew that he was the
cause of the deed but also recognized that he was mad with daring. Even then when they
were going home, in fact, he alone, apart from the others, did nothing but ride around and
gaze at the fallen, and it was with difficulty that those who were ordered to do so dragged
him away and led him to Astyages” (C 1.4.24). Xenophon’s Cyrus delights in killing,
lording it over the senseless corpses of the slain; his conduct here reveals the
temperament of his tyranny. Unlike Xenophon’s unhappy tyrant, Hiero, who longs to be
loved indiscriminately by the human beings in his city, Cyrus has no need of love, though
he surely inspires many to demonstrate affection for him.
9
He longs instead for a kind of
total mastery that perversely requires the annihilation of humanity in those over whom he
rules. It does not matter that the corpses of his first victims, being dead, cannot
acknowledge his victory. Neither will it diminish his pleasure in ruling that the subjects
9
Hiero 8.1; Leo Strauss, On Tyranny, 88.
Convention