The friendship of the barbarians : Xenophon and the Persian Empire /

This monograph deals primarily with Xenophon's attitude toward the Persian Empire and the Persians, and secondarily with the attitude of the Greeks in general toward the hereditary enemy. It is distinctly a work with a thesis: Xenophon, from his considerable knowledge, respected and admired the Persians and so, in general, did the other Greeks except for a few bigots like Aristotle. Hirsch (Tufts University) has done a careful and thorough job, and even the footnotes include brief discussions of references. However, he may have been carried too far by the currently fashionable American prejudice against ethnocentrism. Every statement favorable to the Persians is accepted or justified while every criticism is explained away as resulting from Xenophon's literary or political need at this point in his story. It is good to have so careful a study of even one aspect of Xenophon, who is too easily downgraded, but the reader will soon recognize that this is distinctly a brief for the defense; the ancient Greeks just may have been a bit more scornful of barbarians than Hirsch allows. Full and up-to-date bibliography; beautifully useful notes; no illustrations. Appropriate for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, but intended for the reader already familiar with Xenophon.-E.W. Davis, Trinity College, Conn.