Xenophon's dramatic skill.

We are made to feel the touch of something galling in the manner of these Median and Hyrcanian troopers.
C3.4.A 'cute beginning rhetorically, because in the most graceful way possible, and without egotism _versus_ Medes and Hyrcanians, it postulates the Persian superiority, moral, as against the accidental inferiority of the moment caused by want of cavalry and the dependence on others which that involves.

I suppose it's no reflection on Cyrus' military acumen not to foreseen this need.

It would have been premature then, now it organically grows; and there's no great crisis to pass through.
C3.11.I should have thought this was a dangerous argument; obviously boys do learn better than men certain things.
C3.12.Short sharp snap of argumentative style.
C3.19.The antithetic balance and word-jingle, with an exquisite, puristic, precise, and delicate lisp, as of one tasting the flavour of his words throughout.
C3.23.I think one sees how Xenophon built up his ideal structure on a basis of actual living facts.

The actual diverts the creator of Cyrus from the ideal at times, as here.