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HIRSCH, S.W., The Friendship of the Barbarians. Xenophon and the Persian Empire. University Press of New England, Hanover / London, 1985. XIV,216p. Maps. Original cloth with dust wrps. Paste-down endpaper a bit damaged. Endpaper gone. Title page loose. Dust wrps on spine discoloured. Else fine. The thesis of this book is that Xenophon's attitude to the Persians was generally favourable. (...) Ch. 1 deals with the philosophical and technical works, in which Hirsch finds only admiration for Persian efficiency. Ch. 2, 'Trust and Deceit in the Anabasis' deals honestly with problems posed by Cyrus the Younger's behaviour, and concludes innocuously that Xenophon liked honesty and disliked dishonesty, wherever he found them. (...) the interesting ch. 5 is about the King's Eye. H. does not think there was any such official(s), but denies that Xenophon in 'Cyrop'. 8.2 thought there was either. There is a useful critique of Pagliaro's view that this and other Greek terms for Persian institutions were the result of false etymology. Ch. 6 compares, rather breathlessly, Plato's views. Much of this needed saying. (...). I have two reservations about H.'s book. First, much of the time he is knocking down a straw man. (...) Second, and more important, H/'s enterprise suffes by seeing Xenophon in literary isolation. (...) He should really have examined the whole genre of fourth-century Persika', taking in such figures as Callisthenes, Dinon, Ephorus, and Herakleides' of Kyme. Only thus could we have disoposed properly of the untenable vies of A. Momigliano, in 'Alien Wisdom', that the fourth-century authors of 'Persika' were interested only in gossip.' (SIMON HORNBLOWER in the Classical Review (New Series), 1988, p.144). € 32.50 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9780874513226