In substance, the Cyropaedia is a narrative describing the education of the ideal ruler.[3] It has been interpreted as an early novel, a biography, and a manifesto on leadership.[4] The work is intended to communicate political and moral instruction to its audience, most of whom would have been Athenian elites.[5]
While most scholars note that Xenophon did not write it as a historical text,[6] the Cyropaedia does not fit into any known classical genre, only somewhat resembling an early novel.[5] Its validity as a source of Achaemenid history has been repeatedly questioned, and numerous descriptions of events or persons have been found inaccurate.[6]
Despite its limitations, it has been argued that the Cyropaedia provides a glimpse of Cyrus the Great's character. It gives an artistic portrayal of Cyrus, which, according to some, could not have been so positive without a historical memory of good leadership.[7] Xenophon (c. 431 – 355 BC) was not a contemporary of Cyrus (c. 580 – 530 BC) and it is likely that some of his information about Persia was based on events that occurred at the later Achaemenid court. Xenophon had visited such as one of the "Ten Thousand" Greek soldiers who fought on the losing side of a Persian civil war, which he recounted in his Anabasis.
