The Cyropaedia was rediscovered in Western Europe during the late medieval period as a piece on political virtue and social organization.[20] It heavily influenced the late medieval and Renaissance genre known as mirrors of princes, which gave examples of leadership behavior to educate future rulers.[21][22] Giovanni Pontano, Bartolomeo Sacchi, Leon Battista Alberti and Baldassare Castiglione treated Cyrus as such an example.[23] However, unlike most mirrors of princes, whether the Cyropaedia was really intended to describe an ideal ruler is a subject of debate.
The Cyropaedia continued to be widely read in the early modern period and during the Enlightenment. Machiavelli's The Prince, which represented a turn toward modern political thinking, was particularly influenced by the Cyropaedia and represents a more sophisticated reading of Xenophon.[24] It appears critical of his idealistic approach to Cyrus, while also considering Cyrus's deceit and the danger of deceitful leaders part of the Cyropaedia's message.[25] Many early modern writers after Machiavelli, including Montaigne, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Bacon, Jonathan Swift, Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, Edward Gibbon, and Benjamin Franklin also esteemed Xenophon as a philosopher and historian. The Cyropaedia was often used to model correct prose in classical Attic Greek, mastery of which was part of the education of European and American gentlemen in the eighteenth century. Thomas Jefferson had two copies of the book in his library, possibly for this reason.
In the nineteenth century, Xenophon and the Cyropaedia began to decline in popularity compared to other classical authors and works. This is partly because its endorsement of monarchy had grown less favorable.[26] Yet, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Xenophon's work has become more studied and esteemed.[26] Some present scholars[27][28] argue that the basic historical events of the Cyropaedia are more credible than those described in Herodotus's Histories, and debate continues over the work's relevance and historical accuracy.
