The son of the king of Persia wants to press the advantage, after the combined forces of Media, Persia, Armenia, and Chaldaea have
- killed the Assyrian king, along with most of his best men, and
- driven the rest of the Assyrian army from their fortifications.
The king of Media is of another mind: he would rather quit while he is ahead. He has an argument for standing pat, by the account of Xenophon in the Cyropaedia (IV.i.11–18).
One may consider the argument of Cyaxares as an example of “motivated reasoning.” I think it is a specious argument: attractive, but ultimately unsound. Perhaps I say that, only because the king’s nephew Cyrus rejects the argument, but is nonetheless successful in what he goes on to do. With his Persian troops and as many Medians as wish to join them, along with the Hyrcanians, who have defected from Assyria, Cyrus pursues and defeats again the Assyrian army. He kills the kings of Cappadocia and Arabia, and he puts to flight both the king of Phrygia and Croesus, king of Lydia (IV.ii.28–31). Of course, this is not the end of the story; history never ends.
I have been reading and discussing the eight books of the Cyropaedia with a Catherine Project group, at the rate of half a book a week, since July 8 of this year (2024). Thus we shall have completed the sixth book (called “On the Eve of the Great Battle” in the Loeb edition) on September 23. It has astonished me that some of my fellow readers think well of the argument for taking it easy, even as they acknowledge that the man who makes it may be a fool. The argument does not seem to me like one that a king such as Cyaxares can afford to make.
Possibly Xenophon has an esoteric message, as Plato is thought to have. However, although these two writers had a common teacher in Socrates, he never went far from Athens. Xenophon helped lead a stranded army of ten thousand Greek mercenaries, from Babylon north to the Black Sea, after the failure of the coup for which they had been hired by Cyrus the Younger. Xenophon admires a practical man who can actually get things done. This being what Cyrus the Elder is, he is the hero of the Cyropaedia. I shall review my textual reasons for saying this. First I shall look at “motivated reasoning” today, along with the idea that we could have “evolved” to use it. (In short, the rest of this post has the three parts just linked to.)
Photo taken September 17, 2024, of Lesbos over the sea, from a beach in Lydia. Of this country, Chrysantas says to Cyrus, after the latter has pursued the Assyrians over the objections of his uncle Cyaxares (Cyropaedia VI.ii.21),
since it now appears that Syria is not to be the only prize – though there is much to be got in Syria, flocks and herds and corn and palm-trees yielding fruit – but Lydia as well, Lydia the land of wine and oil and fig-trees, Lydia, to whose shores the sea brings more good things than eyes can feast on, I say that once we realise this we can mope no longer, our spirits will rise apace, and we shall hasten to lay our hands on the Lydian wealth without delay.
This is in response to the suggestion of Cyrus that his army are intimidated by the alliance that Assyria has formed with Lydia.
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