IV

The Teaching Concerning Tyranny

Since tyranny is essentially a faulty political order, the teaching concerning tyranny necessarily consists of two parts. The first part has to make manifest the specific shortcomings of tyranny (“pathology”), and the second part has to show how these shortcomings can be mitigated (“therapeutics”). The bipartition of the Hiero reflects the bipartition of the “tyrannical” teaching itself. Now, Xenophon chose to present that teaching in the form of a dialogue, and he had therefore to choose a particular conversational setting. However sound, and even compelling, his reasons may have been, they certainly lead to the result that he has not given us his “tyrannical” teaching in its pure, scientific form, in the form of a treatise. The reader has to add to and to subtract from Hiero’s and Simonides’ speeches in order to lay hold of Xenophon’s teaching. That addition and subtraction is not left to the reader’s arbitrary decision. It is guided by the author’s indications, some of which have been discussed in the preceding chapters. Nevertheless, a certain ambiguity remains, an ambiguity ultimately due not to the unsolved riddles implied in many individual passages of the Hiero but to the fact that a perfectly lucid and unambiguous connection between content and form, between a general teaching and a contingent event (e.g., a conversation between two individuals) is impossible.

Considering the primarily practical character of the “tyrannical” teaching as a political teaching, it is necessary that one interlocutor, the pupil, should be a tyrant. It is equally necessary that he should be an actual tyrant, not a potential tyrant. If the pupil were only a potential tyrant, the teacher would have to show him how to become a tyrant, and in so doing he would have to teach him injustice, whereas in the case of an actual tyrant the teacher has the much less odious task of showing him a way toward lesser injustice. Seeing that a tyrant (Periander of Corinth) was said to have instituted most of the common devices for preserving tyranny,1 one might think that the natural teacher of the tyrannical art would be a great tyrant; but preservation of tyranny and correction of tyranny are two different things. Xenophon evidently felt that only a wise man could teach what he considered the tyrannical art, i.e., the art of ruling well as a tyrant, and that a tyrant would not be wise. This leads to the consequence that the wise man who teaches the tyrannical art cannot have learned that art from a tyrant as Socrates, who teaches the economic art, has learned it from an economist. In other words, the wise teacher of the tyrannical art has to teach it by himself, without any assistance, or he has to discover it by himself.² Now, the wise man might transmit to his pupil the whole “tyrannical” teaching, i.e., both the indictment of tyranny and the correction of tyranny; but Xenophon apparently thought that a tyrant’s indictment of tyranny would be more impressive for the average reader.³ Finally, the tyrant might start the conversation by complaining to a wise man about a tyrant’s sad lot, in order to elicit his advice. This, however, would presuppose that the tyrant would have a wise friend whom he trusts, and that he would consider himself in need of advice.⁴ To sum up, the more one considers alternatives to the conversational setting chosen by Xenophon, the more one becomes convinced that his choice was sound.

Yet this choice, however sound and even necessary, leads to the result that Xenophon’s indictment of tyranny is presented by a man who is not wise and who has a selfish interest in disparaging tyranny, whereas his praise of tyranny is presented by a wise man who argues in favor of tyranny without an apparent selfish interest. Besides, since the indictment of tyranny precedes the praise of tyranny, the indictment is presented on the basis of insufficient evidence—for Hiero does not take into account the facts or possibilities set forth by Simonides in the latter part of the Hiero—whereas the praise of tyranny seems to be voiced en pleine connaissance de cause. That is to say, Xenophon could not help being led to giving a greater weight, at least apparently, to the praise of tyranny than to the indictment of tyranny. The question arises whether this is merely the inevitable result of considerations such as those sketched before, or whether it is directly intended.

One might think for a moment that the ambiguity under consideration was caused merely by Xenophon’s decision to treat at all in a dialogue the question of the improvement of tyrannical rule: every ambiguity would have been avoided if he had limited himself to indicting tyranny. A comparison of his conversational treatment of tyranny with Plato’s, however, shows that this suggestion does not go to the root of the matter. Plato refrained from teaching the tyrannical art and he entrusted his indictment of tyranny to Socrates. The price which he had to pay for this choice was that he had to entrust his praise of tyranny to men who were not wise (Polos, Callicles, and Thrasymachus) and who therefore were openly praising the very injustice of tyranny. To avoid the latter inconvenience, Xenophon had to pay the price of burdening a wise man with the task of praising tyranny. An effective conversational treatment of tyranny which is free from inconveniences is impossible. For there are only two possibilities apart from those chosen by Xenophon and Plato: the praise of tyranny by the wise might be succeeded by the indictment of tyranny by the unwise, and the indictment of tyranny by the wise might be succeeded by the praise of tyranny by the unwise; these alternatives are ruled out by the consideration that the wise man ought to have the last word.

It is more appropriate to say that the bearing of Xenophon’s praise of tyranny is sufficiently limited, not only by the conversational setting, but above all by the fact that his wise man who praises tyranny makes sufficiently clear the essential shortcomings of tyranny. He describes tyranny at its best, but he lets it be understood that tyranny even at its best suffers from serious defects. This implied criticism of tyranny is much more convincing than Hiero’s passionate indictment which serves a selfish purpose and which would be literally true only of the very worst kind of tyranny. To see the broad outline of Simonides’ criticism of tyranny at its best, one has only to consider the result of his suggested correction of tyranny in the light of Xenophon’s, or Socrates’, definition of tyranny. Tyranny is defined in contradistinction to kingship: kingship is such rule as is exercised over willing subjects and is in accordance with the laws of the cities; tyranny is such rule as is exercised over unwilling subjects and accords, not with laws, but with the will of the ruler.5 This definition covers the common form of tyranny, but not tyranny at its best. Tyranny at its best, tyranny as corrected according to Simonides’ suggestions, is no longer rule over unwilling subjects. It is most certainly rule over willing subjects.⁶ But it remains rule “not according to laws,” i.e., it is absolute government. Simonides, who extols tyranny at its best, refrains from using the very term “law.”7 Tyranny is essentially rule without laws, or, more precisely, monarchic rule without laws.

Before considering the shortcomings of tyranny thus understood, we may dwell for a moment on its positive qualities. As regards the tyrant himself, Simonides asserts without hesitation that he may be perfectly happy. Furthermore, he leaves no doubt that the tyrant may be virtuous, and in fact of outstanding virtue. The correction of tyranny consists in nothing else than the transformation of the unjust or vicious tyrant who is more or less unhappy into a virtuous tyrant who is happy.⁸ As for the tyrant’s subjects, or his city, Simonides makes it clear that it may be very happy. The tyrant and his subjects may be united by the bonds of mutual kindness. The subjects of the virtuous tyrant are treated, not like little children, but like comrades or companions.⁹ They are not deprived by him of honors.¹⁰ They are not disarmed; their military spirit is encouraged.¹¹ Nor are the mercenaries, without whom tyranny is impossible, undesirable from the point of view of the city: they enable the city to wage war vigorously.¹² When Simonides recommends that the tyrant should make a most ample use of prizes and that he should promote agriculture and commerce, if agriculture to a higher degree than commerce, he simply seems to approve of policies which Xenophon considered to befit a well-ordered commonwealth. He thus creates the impression that according to Xenophon tyrannical government can live up to the highest political standards.¹³

Simonides’ praise of beneficent tyranny, which at first sight seems to be boundless and rhetorically vague, proves on closer examination to be most carefully worded and to remain within very precise limits. Just as Simonides avoids in it the term “law,” he avoids in it the term “freedom.” The practical consequence of the absence of laws, he gives us to understand, is the absence of freedom: no laws, no liberty. All specific suggestions made by Simonides flow from this implied axiom, or reveal their political meaning in its light. For instance, when recommending to the tyrant that he consider the citizens as companions or comrades, he does not mean that the tyrant should treat the citizens as his equals, or even as freemen. For slaves may be companions as well as freemen. Furthermore, Simonides advises the tyrant that he consider the citizens as companions, and his friends as his own children:¹⁴ if his very friends are then in every respect his subordinates, the citizens will be his subordinates in a still more far-reaching sense. The advice just referred to shows in addition that Simonides does not go so far in his praise of beneficent tyranny as to call it “paternal” rule.¹⁵ It is true, the subjects of the beneficent tyrant are not disarmed; but in time of peace at least they do not protect themselves against the slaves and evildoers as the citizens of free commonwealths do; they are protected by the tyrant’s bodyguard.16 They are literally at the mercy of the tyrant and his mercenaries, and they can only wish or pray that the tyrant will become, or remain, beneficent. The true character of tyranny even at its best is clearly indicated by Simonides’ “Machiavellian” suggestion that the tyrant should do the gratifying things (such as the awarding of prizes) himself, while entrusting to others the punitive actions.¹⁷ It is hardly necessary to say that the tyrant’s refraining from openly taking responsibility for punitive action does not bespeak a particular mildness of this rule: Nontyrannical rulers take that responsibility without any concealment¹⁸ because their authority, deriving from law, is secure. Similarly, the extraordinarily ample use of prizes, especially for the promotion of agriculture, seems to serve the “tyrannical” purpose of keeping the subjects busy with their private concerns rather than with public affairs.¹⁹ At the same time it compensates for the lack of the natural incentives to increase one’s wealth, a lack due to the precarious character of property rights under a tyrant. The best tyrant would consider his fatherland his estate. This may be preferable to his impoverishing his fatherland in order to increase his private estate; yet it certainly implies that the best tyrant would consider his fatherland his private property which he would naturally administer according to his own discretion. Thus no subject of a tyrant could have any property rights against the tyrant. The subjects would pay as much as he deems necessary in the form of gifts or voluntary contributions.²⁰ Nor can the tyrant be said to honor the citizens because he awards prizes or distinctions to some of them; he may be able and willing to enrich his subjects: he cannot accord to them the “equality of honor” which is irreconcilable with tyrannical rule and from the lack of which they may be presumed always to suffer.²¹

These shortcomings of tyranny at its best are not, however, necessarily decisive. How Simonides, and Xenophon, judged of the value of tyranny at its best depends on what they thought of the importance of freedom. As for Simonides, he seems to esteem nothing as highly as honor or praise; and of praise he says that it will be the more pleasant the freer are those who bestow it.²² This leads to the consequence that the demands of honor or praise cannot be satisfied by tyranny however perfect. The tyrant will not enjoy honor of the highest kind because his subjects lack freedom, and on the other hand the tyrant’s subjects will not enjoy full honor for the reason mentioned before. As for Xenophon himself, we have to start from the facts that freedom was considered the aim of democracy, as particularly distinguished from aristocracy, the aim of which was said to be virtue;23 and that Xenophon was not a democrat. Xenophon’s view is reflected in Hiero’s implicit assertion that the wise are not concerned with freedom.²⁴ To establish Xenophon’s attitude toward tyranny at its best as characterized by Simonides, we have to consider the relation of tyranny at its best, not to freedom, but to virtue. Only if virtue were impossible without freedom, would the demand for freedom be absolutely justified from Xenophon’s point of view.

The term “virtue” occurs five times in the Hiero. In only two out of the five cases is it applied to human beings.²⁵ Only once is it applied to the tyrant. Never is it applied to the tyrant’s subjects. Simonides advises the tyrant to be proud of “the happiness of his city” rather than of “the virtue of his chariot horses”: he does not mention the virtue of the city as a possible goal of tyrannical rule. It is safe to say that a city ruled by a tyrant is not supposed by him to “practice gentlemanliness as a matter of public concern.”²⁶ But, as has been proved by Socrates’ life, there are virtuous men in cities which do not “practice gentlemanliness as a matter of public concern.” It is therefore an open question whether and how far virtue is possible under a tyrant. The beneficent tyrant would award prizes for “prowess in war” and for “justice in contractual relations”:²⁷ he would not be concerned with fostering prowess simply and justice simply. This confirms Hiero’s assertion that the brave and the just are not desirable as subjects of a tyrant.²⁸ Only a qualified, or reduced, form of courage and justice befits the subjects of a tyrant. For prowess simply is closely akin to freedom, or love of freedom,²⁹ and justice simply is obedience to laws. The justice befitting the subjects of a tyrant is the least political form of justice, or that form of justice which is most remote from public-spiritedness: the justice to be observed in contractual, private relations.³⁰

But how can a virtuous man—and Simonides’ beneficent tyrant would seem to be a virtuous man—rest satisfied with the necessity of preventing his subjects from reaching the summit of virtue? Let us then reconsider the facts mentioned in the preceding paragraph. As regards the fact that Simonides ascribes to the tyrant’s subjects a qualified form of prowess only, and fails to ascribe courage to them, we have to remember that in Xenophon’s two lists of the virtues of Socrates, courage does not occur.³¹ As regards Simonides’ failure to ascribe to the tyrant’s subjects justice simply, we have to remember that justice can be understood as a part of moderation and that, according to an explicit statement of Simonides, the tyrant’s subjects may very well possess moderation.32 As regards Simonides’ failure to ascribe to the tyrant’s subjects virtue as such, we have to remember that virtue is not necessarily a generic term, but may indicate a specific virtue distinguished from justice in particular.³³ However this may be, the question of what Simonides thought about the possibility of virtue under tyrannical rule seems to be definitely settled by an explicit statement of his according to which “gentlemen” may live, and live happily, under a beneficent tyrant.³⁴ In order not to misinterpret Simonides’ ascribing to the tyrant’s subjects only qualified forms of courage and justice, we have to compare it with Xenophon’s failure, in his Lacedaemoniorum respublica, to ascribe justice in any sense to the Spartans themselves. The utmost one is entitled to say is that the virtue possible under a tyrant will have a specific color, a color different from that of republican virtue. It may tentatively be suggested that the place occupied within republican virtue by courage is occupied within the virtue befitting the subjects of the excellent tyrant by moderation which is produced by fear.³⁵ But one has no right to assume that the virtue befitting the subjects of a good tyrant is meant to be inferior in dignity to republican virtue. How little Xenophon believed that virtue is impossible without freedom is shown most strikingly by his admiration for the younger Cyrus whom he does not hesitate to describe as a “slave.”³⁶

If gentlemen can live happily under a beneficent tyrant, tyranny as corrected according to Simonides’ suggestions might seem to live up to Xenophon’s highest political standard. To see at once that this is the case, one merely has to measure Simonides’ excellent tyrant by the criterion set forth in Xenophon’s, or Socrates’, definition of the good ruler. The virtue of the good ruler consists in making happy those he rules. The aim of the good ruler can be achieved by means of laws—this was done, according to Xenophon, in the most remarkable manner in Lycurgus’ city—or by rule without laws, i.e., by tyranny: the beneficent tyrant as described by Simonides makes his city happy.³⁷ It is certainly most significant that, as regards the happiness achieved by means of laws, Xenophon can adduce an actual example (Sparta), whereas as regards the happiness achieved by tyranny, he offers no other evidence than the promise of a poet. In other words, it is of very great importance that, according to Xenophon, the aim of the good ruler is much more likely to be achieved by means of laws than by means of absolute rule. This does not do away, however, with the admission that, as a matter of principle, rule of laws is not essential for good government.

Xenophon does not make this admission in so many words. He presents Simonides as describing tyranny at its best and as declaring that the tyrant can make his city happy. Considering the situation in which Simonides expounds his views of tyranny, the objection is justified that what he says serves the purpose of comforting a somewhat disturbed tyrant or at any rate is said ad hominem and ought not to be taken as expressing directly Xenophon’s own views. We have therefore to consider whether the thesis that tyranny can live up to the highest political standard is defensible on the basis of Xenophon’s, or Socrates’, political philosophy.

To begin with, it must appear most paradoxical that Xenophon should have had any liking whatsoever for tyranny however good. Tyranny at its best is still rule without laws and, according to Socrates’ definition, justice is identical with legality or obedience to laws.38 Thus tyranny in any form seems to be irreconcilable with the requirement of justice. On the other hand, tyranny would become morally possible if the identification of “just” and “legal” were not absolutely correct, or if “everything according to law were (only) somehow just.”³⁹ The laws which determine what is legal are the rules of conduct upon which the citizens have agreed.⁴⁰ “The citizens” may be “the multitude” or “the few”; “the few” may be the rich or the virtuous. That is to say, the laws, and hence what is legal, depend on the political order of the community for which they are given. Could Xenophon or his Socrates have believed that the difference between laws depending on a faulty political order and laws depending on a good political order is wholly irrelevant as far as justice is concerned? Could they have believed that rules prescribed by a monarch, i.e., not by “the citizens,” cannot be laws?⁴¹ Besides, is it wholly irrelevant for justice whether what the laws prescribe is reasonable or unreasonable, good or bad? Finally, is it wholly irrelevant for justice whether the laws enacted by the legislator (the many, the few, the monarch) are forcibly imposed on, or voluntarily agreed to by, the other members of the community? Questions such as these are not raised by Xenophon, or his Socrates, but only by Xenophon’s young and rash Alcibiades who, however, was a pupil of Socrates at the time when he raised those questions; only Alcibiades, and not Socrates, is presented by Xenophon as raising the Socratic question, “What is law?”⁴² Socrates’ doubt of the unqualified identification of justice and legality is intimated, however, by the facts that, on the one hand, he considers an enactment of the “legislator” Critias and his fellows a “law” which, he says, he is prepared to obey; and that, on the other hand, he actually disobeys it because it is “against the laws.”43 But apart from the consideration that the identification of “just” and “legal” would make impossible the evidently necessary distinction between just and unjust laws, there are elements of justice which necessarily transcend the dimension of the legal. Ingratitude, e.g., while not being illegal, is unjust.⁴⁴ The justice in business dealings—Aristotle’s commutative justice proper—which is possible under a tyrant, is for this very reason not essentially dependent on law. Xenophon is thus led to suggest another definition, a more adequate definition, of justice. According to it, the just man is a man who does not hurt anyone, but helps everyone who has dealings with him. To be just, in other words, simply means to be beneficent.⁴⁵ If justice is then essentially translegal, rule without laws may very well be just: beneficent absolute rule is just. Absolute rule of a man who knows how to rule, who is a born ruler, is actually superior to the rule of laws, in so far as the good ruler is “a seeing law,”⁴⁶ and laws do not “see,” or legal justice is blind. Whereas a good ruler is necessarily beneficent, laws are not necessarily beneficent. To say nothing of laws which are actually bad and harmful, even good laws suffer from the fact that they cannot “see.” Now, tyranny is absolute monarchic rule. Hence the rule of an excellent tyrant is superior to, or more just than, rule of laws. Xenophon’s realization of the problem of law, his understanding of the essence of law, his having raised and answered the Socratic question, “What is law?” enables and compels him to grant that tyranny may live up to the highest political standard. His giving, in the Hiero, a greater weight to the praise of tyranny than to the indictment of tyranny is then more than an accidental consequence of his decision to present the teaching concerning tyranny in the form of a dialogue.

Yet Simonides goes much beyond praising beneficent tyranny: he praises in the strongest terms the hoped-for beneficent rule of a tyrant who previously had committed a considerable number of crimes. By implication he admits that the praiseworthy character of tyranny at its best is not impaired by the unjust manner in which the tyrant originally acquired his power or in which he ruled prior to his conversion. Xenophon would have been prevented from fully agreeing with his Simonides regarding tyranny if he had been a legitimist or constitutionalist. Xenophon’s Socrates makes it clear that there is only one sufficient title to rule: only knowledge, and not force and fraud or election, or, we may add, inheritance makes a man a king or ruler. If this is the case, “constitutional” rule, rule derived from elections in particular, is not essentially more legitimate than tyrannical rule, rule derived from force or fraud. Tyrannical rule as well as “constitutional” rule will be legitimate to the extent to which the tyrant or the “constitutional” rulers will listen to the counsels of him who “speaks well” because he “thinks well.” At any rate, the rule of a tyrant who, after having come to power by means of force and fraud, or after having committed any number of crimes, listens to the suggestions of reasonable men, is essentially more legitimate than the rule of elected magistrates who refuse to listen to such suggestions, i.e., than the rule of elected magistrates as such. Xenophon’s Socrates is so little committed to the cause of “constitutionalism” that he can describe the sensible men who advise the tyrant as the tyrant’s “allies.” That is to say, he conceives of the relation of the wise to the tyrant in almost exactly the same way as does Simonides.47

While Xenophon seems to have believed that beneficent tyranny or the rule of a tyrant who listens to the counsels of the wise is, as a matter of principle, preferable to the rule of laws or to the rule of elected magistrates as such, he seems to have thought that tyranny at its best could hardly, if ever, be realized. This is shown most clearly by the absence of any reference to beneficent and happy tyrants who actually existed, not only from the Hiero, but from the Corpus Xenophonteum as a whole. It is true, in the Education of Cyrus he occasionally refers to a tyrant who was apparently happy;⁴⁸ he does not say, however, that he was beneficent or virtuous. Above all, the monarch in question was not a Greek: the chances of tyranny at its best seem to be particularly small among Greeks.⁴⁹ The reason why Xenophon was so skeptical regarding the prospects of tyranny at its best is indicated by a feature common to the two thematic treatments of tyranny at its best which occur in his works. In the Hiero as well as in the Memorabilia, the tyrant is presented as a ruler who needs guidance by another man in order to become a good ruler: even the best tyrant is, as such, an imperfect, an inefficient ruler.⁵⁰ Being a tyrant, being called a tyrant and not a king, means having been unable to transform tyranny into kingship, or to transform a title which is generally considered defective into a title which is generally considered valid.⁵¹ The ensuing lack of unquestioned authority leads to the consequence that tyrannical government is essentially more oppressive and hence less stable than nontyrannical government. Thus no tyrant can dispense with a bodyguard which is more loyal to him than to the city and which enables him to maintain his power against the wishes of the city.⁵² Reasons such as these explain why Xenophon, or his Socrates, preferred, for all practical purposes, at least as far as Greeks were concerned, the rules of laws to tyranny, and why they identified, for all practical purposes, the just with the legal.

The “tyrannical” teaching—the teaching which expounds the view that a case can be made for beneficent tyranny, and even for a beneficent tyranny which was originally established by force or fraud—has then a purely theoretical meaning. It is not more than a most forceful expression of the problem of law and legitimacy. When Socrates was charged with teaching his pupils to be “tyrannical,” this doubtless was due to the popular misunderstanding of a theoretical thesis as a practical proposal. Yet the theoretical thesis by itself necesarily prevented its holders from being unqualifiedly loyal to Athenian democracy, e.g., for it prevented them from believing that democracy is simply the best political order. It prevented them from being “good citizens” (in the precise sense of the term)53 under a democracy. Xenophon does not even attempt to defend Socrates against the charge that he led the young to look down with contempt on the political order established in Athens.⁵⁴ It goes without saying that the theoretical thesis in question might have become embarrassing for its holder in any city not ruled by a tyrant, i.e., in almost every city. Socrates’ and Xenophon’s acceptance of the “tyrannical” teaching would then explain why they became suspect to their fellow citizens, and, therefore, to a considerable extent, why Socrates was condemned to death and Xenophon was condemned to exile.

It is one thing to accept the theoretical thesis concerning tyranny; it is another thing to expound it publicly. Every written exposition is to a smaller or larger degree a public exposition. The Hiero does not expound the “tyrannical” teaching. But it enables, and even compels, its reader to disentangle that teaching from the writings in which Xenophon speaks in his own name or presents the views of Socrates. Only if read in the light of the question posed by the Hiero do the relevant passages of Xenophon’s other writings reveal their full meaning. The Hiero reveals, however, if only indirectly, the conditions under which the “tyrannical” teaching may be expounded. If the city is essentially the community kept together and ruled by law, the “tyrannical” teaching cannot exist for the citizen as citizen. The ultimate reason why the very tyrant Hiero strongly indicts tyranny is precisely that he is at bottom a citizen.⁵⁵ Accordingly, Xenophon entrusted the only explicit praise of tyranny which he ever wrote to a “stranger,” a man who does not have citizen responsibilities and who, in addition, voices the praise of tyranny not publicly but in a strictly private conversation with a tyrant, and for a purpose which supplies him with an almost perfect excuse. Socrates did not consider it good that the wise man should be simply a stranger;56 Socrates was a citizen-philosopher. He could not, therefore, with propriety be presented as praising tyranny under any circumstances. There is no fundamental difference in this respect between Xenophon and Plato. Plato entrusted his discussion of the problematic character of the “rule of laws” to a stranger: Plato’s Socrates is as silent about this grave, not to say awe-inspiring, subject as is Xenophon’s Socrates.⁵⁷ Simonides fulfills in the Corpus Xenophonteum a function comparable to that fulfilled in the Corpus Platonicum by the stranger from Elea.