[Cyropaedia by Xenophon]@TWC D-Link book
Cyropaedia

INTRODUCTION
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It is faithful to the tone and spirit of the original, and it has the literary quality of a good piece of original English writing.

For these and other reasons it should prove attractive and interesting reading for the average Englishman.
Xenophon, it must be admitted, is not, like Plato, Thucydides, or Demosthenes, one of the greatest of Greek writers, but there are several considerations which should commend him to the general reader.

He is more representative of the type of man whom the ordinary Englishman specially admires and respects, than any other of the Greek authors usually read.
An Athenian of good social position, endowed with a gift of eloquence and of literary style, a pupil of Socrates, a distinguished soldier, an historian, an essayist, a sportsman, and a lover of the country, he represents a type of country gentleman greatly honoured in English life, and this should ensure a favourable reception for one of his chief works admirably rendered into idiomatic English.

And the substance of the _Cyropaedia_, which is in fact a political romance, describing the education of the ideal ruler, trained to rule as a benevolent despot over his admiring and willing subjects, should add a further element of enjoyment for the reader of this famous book in its English garb.
J.HEREFORD.
EDITOR'S NOTE In preparing this work for the press, I came upon some notes made by Mr.
Dakyns on the margin of his Xenophon.

These were evidently for his own private use, and are full of scholarly colloquialisms, impromptu words humorously invented for the need of the moment, and individual turns of phrase, such as the references to himself under his initials in small letters, "hgd." Though plainly not intended for publication, the notes are so vivid and illuminating as they stand that I have shrunk from putting them into a more formal dress, believing that here, as in the best letters, the personal element is bound up with what is most fresh and living in the comment, most characteristic of the writer, and most delightful both to those who knew him and to those who will wish they had.


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