INTRODUCTION.
A very few words may suffice by way of introduction to this translation of the _Cyropaedia_.
Professor Jowett, whose Plato represents the high-water mark of classical translation, has given us the following reminders: "An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only to the scholar, but also to the unlearned reader.

It should read as an original work, and should also be the most faithful transcript which can be made of the language from which the translation is taken, consistently with the first requirement of all, that it be English.

The excellence of a translation will consist, not merely in the faithful rendering of words, or in the composition of a sentence only, or yet of a single paragraph, but in the colour and style of the whole work." These tests may be safely applied to the work of Mr.Dakyns.

An accomplished Greek scholar, for many years a careful and sympathetic student of Xenophon, and possessing a rare mastery of English idiom, he was unusually well equipped for the work of a translator.

And his version will, as I venture to think, be found to satisfy those requirements of an effective translation which Professor Jowett laid down.