“Lest we be carried away with blind indignation ...”

Decoding Strauss’ On Tyranny IV

Introduction

The central Chapter of Leo Strauss’ On Tyranny, a remarkable

reading of Xenophon’s little-remarked dialogue Hiero, bears the

title “The Teaching Concerning Tyranny.” It is the fourth of

the seven numbered Chapters of the book1, and it lies at the

centre also of the heated political charges against Strauss’

“teaching” in the recent “Strauss wars”, and anxieties

concerning his alleged grey eminence behind the neoconservative

Bush II administration. According to Strauss’ most famous

critic Shadia Drury, referring to this chapter alongside the

central chapter in Strauss’ 1953 Natural Right and History:

We are led to conclude that the only natural right is the

right of the wise to rule absolutely or in the absence of

law. Strauss understands tyranny (as it is commonly

understood) to be rule in the absence of law. Classic

natural right is, therefore, identical with the tyranny 1 Or the sixth of eleven, if—as Strauss might have done—the subsections of III are counted separately along with Strauss’ “Introduction”, and the lengthy notes.

of the wise ... Tyranny, or rule in the absence of law,

comes closest to the best regime—which is the absolute

tyranny of the wise... (Drury 1985, 304)

Nicolas Xenos in Cloaked in Virtue argues, similarly, that a

reading of this Chapter and On Tyranny as a whole makes it “it

seem pretty obvious to all but Straussians” that Strauss

accepts the tyrannical teaching Xenos discerns in this

Chapter. (Xenos 2008, 113) Alan Gilbert’s 2009 “Do

Philosophers Counsel Tyrants” puts things most categorically

concerning Strauss’ alleged philotyrannia, and its connection

with Strauss’ mode of writing in On Tyranny and elsewhere:

This is initiation into a sect, with different levels of

meaning for different initiates, in which one speaks only

to fellow sect members, self-reinforcing. One becomes a lover

of tyranny or, in today’s idiom, extralegal “executive” or

“commander-in-chief power,” not through argument but

through persuasion that the authorities—the great Plato, the

great “Mr. Strauss,” other Straussians—esoterically say

so.” (Gilbert 2009, 116)

In response, Strauss’ students and defenders have accused

Drury, Xenos, and nearly all other critics, with wilful

misreading and misquotation of the texts (eg: Zuckert &

Zuckert 2006, 156-169, 172-185; Minowitz 2009, 69-79), if not

the “envy” of the vulgar for “all superior men” that On Tyranny

identifies as a permanent feature of political life. (Strauss

1948 82 [10]2; cf. 44 [16]; 82-84 [10-11]) So much ink has in

fact been shed, and bad blood accumulated, concerning Strauss’

1948 work On Tyranny and his wider oeuvre that we hesitate to

venture anything further. The extraordinary tenor of the

debate, wherein criticism is treated as symptom, slander or

betrayal, is amply indicated by the title of Peter Minowitz’s

2009 book Straussaphobia.

Nevertheless, this paper begins by accepting the arguments of

Minowitz, Catherine and Michael Zuckert and other Straussians

that Strauss’ most vocal critics arguably have not read

Strauss’ text with all of the persistence, or according to all

the “inquisitorial” stipulations for reading esoteric

2 Since the text is cited so frequently in what follows, we will refer to Strauss’ 1948 text On Tyranny in what follows in unmarked brackets, with page number followed by the number of the paragraph in the relevant section—so (105 [5]) would mean the 5th paragraph in Chapter VII of On Tyranny, on page 105. We do this since, alongsidecommentators like Lawrence Lampert (eg: Lampert 1996; Lampert 2010), we argue that one of Strauss’ literary peculiarities was to consciously number paragraphs, in order to assign peculiar significances to certain numbers (for example, 13 (the prince or the highest way of life) (Strauss 1959, 52) and 17 (nature) (Strauss 1995, 158). In what follows, we will see this operating particularly with Strauss’13th paragraphs in On Tyranny which are either on the “teaching concerning tyranny” (74 [13], 99 [13]), or the transpolitical superiority of “greatest good” of philosophising, the fate of Socrates, and the wise man. (41-42 [13]; 55-56 [13]; 85-6 [13])

philosophical texts, that Strauss himself championed. (Strauss

1962, 185) Nevertheless, to be clear from the start, our claim will

be that such a closer, more Strauss-like reading of Strauss’

own vital work On Tyranny puts Drury’s, Xenos’, and Drury’s

critical claims about Strauss’ “Platonic political philosophy”

on yet stronger evidential footing, rather than weakening their

case. In what follows, recognising the scale of the task of

reading OT as minutely as Strauss read premodern texts3, we

focus on the book’s central fourth Chapter only, “The Teaching

Concerning Tyranny.” On Tyranny as we see it is a bold and

guileful—hence, for some, highly seductive—text which presents

an only-half-hidden defence of beneficent tyranny as the best

form of political regime, from the perspective of philosophy

as Strauss understands it. This much is of course what

Xenos, Drury and Gilbert have all controversially claimed.

More than this, we will show that closely following Strauss’

central arguments in OT’s central Chapter, and their

references, makes clear the full extent to which Strauss goes in3 Xenos has noted On Tyranny’s complexity, and in particular the peculiarities in Strauss’ extensive system of notes at the close of the text. Faced with these perplexities, he comments: “... [t]he temptation is to try to follow all these signposts in order to reconstruct what Strauss has deconstructed, ... almost all readers who even begin this task will grow weary and either give up the effort or undertake it sporadically ... even those who persevere may find themselves unable to piece it all together.” (Xenos 2008, 101) This is certainly true, and one reason why Strauss’ readership is so restricted, and divided so sharply between would-be insiders and outraged outsiders.

positioning Xenophon, against all counterarguments, as an

authoritative advocate of absolute political rule,

characterised by a spirit of “moderation produced by fear” in

subjects. Finally, we will show the inefficacy of the defence

that Strauss advocates this “teaching concerning tyranny” as a

theoretical teaching only—adduced for example by the Zuckerts—by

close reading of the decisive moments in OT, and the recourse

of that text to Xenophon’s writings on the absolute monarch

Cyrus, and Xenophon’s own political career recounted in the

Anabasis.

So, to explain our title: Strauss himself at one point in OT

feels compelled to warn readers against the “blind

indignation” we can feel as he without critical comment

unfolds the full extent of Xenophon’s advocacy of tyranny.

(98) Turning Strauss’ meaning on its head, this paper aims to

show that such indignation need and ought not to be blind.

The reading of On Tyranny IV which follows tracks closely the

way Strauss reads the texts of other philosophers. (Strauss

1952, 1-26) This aim explains the somewhat strange features

of the piece, including the extent of its citations. One of

the consequences of Strauss’ claims about esoteric writing is

that they compel readers to weigh forms of hermeneutic

evidence typically overlooked by modern scholarship (eg:

focussing on numbering of paragraphs, hidden plans, and

contradictions).4 We begin in 1 then by setting out a

preliminary analysis of the plan of the central Chapter IV,

“The Teaching Concerning Tyranny”. In 2, we then analyse

Strauss’ argument in this chapter up to the crucial 13th

paragraph; wherein, as we see in 3, Strauss openly presents

the philosophical case for beneficent tyranny as he construes it

via Xenophon. Section 4 considers the final qualifications

Strauss then makes concerning this thesis—that it is an

illustrative or theoretical, not practical or political

“teaching”: which we agree with Xenos are clearly inadequate,

if not ad captum vulgari. In 5, we consider some little-remarked,

but remarkable, claims of Strauss’ concerning Xenophon’s

Anabasis, in which Strauss stridently supports Xenophon’s own

very practical, failed political bid to “ascend” (anabainein) to

become founder and absolute ruler of a new, monarchical

regime. We finally open the dense analysis of the paper to

wider critical considerations, questioning even the theoretical 4 We suspend the question here of whether these forms of evidence operate in texts outside of Strauss’ own as far exceeding our ambit here. The other reason for suchvoluminous citation is the tenor and shape of debate about Strauss, which turns always on textual citations, allegations of misquotation, and such like.

cogency of the defence of beneficent tyranny Strauss

attributes to Xenophon and the other wise ancients.

1. On the Plan of OT IV

Following Strauss’ manner of reading, which ascribes precise

plans to great philosophical texts (eg: Strauss, 1995, 140-

142), we begin our assessment of “The Teaching Concerning

Tyranny” here by trying to decipher its evident plan. We

stated initially that Strauss places this text as the

numerically central Chapter in On Tyranny.5 “The Teaching

Concerning Tyranny” has 17 paragraphs. In Strauss’ unusual

“arithmology,” which he attributes to writers of the “rank” of

Maimonides and Machiavelli (Strauss 1995, 158; Strauss 1958,

52), we are instructed that 17 somehow “means” nature. We

know Strauss’ most famous teaching is that of natural right,

which he juxtaposes to the historicism of the modern social

sciences. (Strauss 1953) Again then, we see that the critical

focus upon this text seems to be justified, insofar as these

5 “The Teaching Concerning Tyranny,” we have also noted, has 17 paragraphs. In Strauss’ unusual “arithmology,” as stated in particular in his reading of Maimonides (Strauss 1995, 158), we learn that 17 somehow for Strauss “means” nature, at least in the view he attributes to writers of the “rank” of Maimonides. We know Strauss’ most famous teaching is that of natural right, which he juxtaposesto the historicism of the modern social sciences. (Strauss 1952)

textual features do point to the critical importance of what

Strauss analyses in OT IV to his political philosophy.6

The supposition which Strauss’ “Introduction” to OT, and

standard opinion about tyranny, leads readers to bring to this

central fourth Chapter of the text, as to OT as a whole, is

that tyranny is a bad political regime. Yet, in the close

reading of Xenophon’s Hiero which Strauss has unpacked in OT’s

first half, Xenophon’s wise man Simonides is observed to

praise tyranny, at first ironically, but then more seriously,

after the tyrant Hiero has handed “leadership” of the dialogue

to him (Hiero 8.1; 86-87 [16]). Eschewing the vulgar sense that

all tyranny is bad, Simonides suggests the possibility of

beneficent tyranny to the out-of-heart Hiero, who has

protested (too much) of the hardships attending tyrannical

rule. By following the leadership of Xenophon’s wise

Simonides, Hiero can reform his rule without abdicating or

ceding absolute rule of Syracuse. (32 [3]; 59 [19]; Strauss

1958, 291) Strauss thus observes that this more radical

6 Chapter VI of OT incidentally has 17 paragraphs also. As the central IV advocates tyranny as the best form of political regime by nature, so this penultimate chapter ends by claiming to establish that philosophy is the highest way of life simpliciter. This recognition qualifies any too reductively political reading of OT: it concerns also the wider ethical or “Socratic” question of the best way of life, and in this lens, philosophy is finally positioned as “higher” than benevolent tyranny.

possibility is inescapably suggested by the dramatic action of

Hiero: that for its author Xenophon himself, not all tyranny is

faulty. Beneficent tyranny might be a desirable, or the

desirable, form of political regime.

Now, because of the conversational framing of Simonides’

remarks, Strauss has told us towards the end of On Tyranny

Chapter III that we cannot assume that “the praise of

(beneficent) tyranny” in Hiero’s second half is “integral” to

Xenophon’s view of tyranny, “until it had been proved to be

so.” (59 [17]) Our contention is that OT Chapter IV presents

just such a confirming Straussian “proof”, conducted by way of

a kind of staged dialogue and refutation of the classical and

moral arguments which speak against tyranny. To be specific,

the plan of Leo Strauss’ controversial Chapter IV looks like

this:

Paragraphs 1-4: on the rhetorical virtue of Xenophon’s structuring of the

Hiero so the tyrant states the “gentleman’s” criticism of

tyranny, before the wise man can tactfully present the

controversial philosophical praise of benevolent tyranny

as Hiero’s “last word” (67 [3]-68 [4]).

Paragraph 5: first qualifications of the teaching concerning tyranny: on the

“essential shortcomings” of tyranny, even “at its best”

(68 [5]), because it is “monarchic rule without laws.”

(69 [5])

Paragraph 6: “Before considering the shortcomings of tyranny thus

understood, we may dwell for a moment on its positive

qualities.” (69 [6])

Paragraph 7: second qualifications of the teaching in favour of tyranny: on the

essential shortcomings of tyranny, since it is rule

without laws: being the privation of subjects’ freedom,

their defencelessness against the tyrant and his

mercenaries, the harshness of tyrannical rule “even at

its best”, the prevention of subjects from partaking in

public affairs, the “precarious character of property

rights under a tyrant”, and the impossibility of a

tyrant’s “honouring” his subjects. (69-70)

Paragraphs 8-11: On how “these shortcomings of tyranny at its best are

not, however, decisive” from the perspectives of the

importance of freedom (70-71 [8]); of “virtue” and the

“qualified, or reduced, form” of the virtue which “befits

the subject of a tyrant” (71 [9]-72[10]); ascending to

the claim that the “gentlemen can live happily under a

beneficent tyrant”, “Xenophon’s highest political

standard”. (72 [11])

Paragraph 12: third qualification of the teaching advocating tyranny: that

nevertheless surely this Xenophontic “admission,” via

Simonides in the particular dialogue Hiero, is ad hominem

only and can’t reflect the author’s larger perspective.

Paragraph 13: first philosophical defence of tyranny as consistent with justice, given the

limitation of rule through laws, and with the possibility

of a “translegal justice” (74 [13]; cf. 67 [3]-68 [4])

Paragraph 14: second philosophical defence of tyranny on the basis of the superiority of

“knowledge” as claim to rule, including over all

“constitutionalist” concerns with how a regime is

founded, inclusive of whether it was founded on “force

and fraud” or “any number of crimes”. (75 [14])

Paragraphs 15-16: fourth, final qualifications of the teaching advocating tyranny and

Xenophon’s advocacy of it: on the second, essential or

philosophical shortcoming of tyranny (the need of even

the best tyrant to be advised by the wise (75 [15]; cf.

86 [15]); and the practical impossibility or extreme

unlikelihood of beneficent tyranny, which is “a purely

theoretical teaching”. (76 [16])

Paragraph 17: on the need for Xenophon not to have openly expounded this

philosophical teaching advocating benevolent of

philosophically-counselled tyranny, since every written

statement is “to a smaller or greater degree a public

exposition.”7 (77 [17])

With this plan laid out, we turn now to our analysis of the

argumentative details.

2. Paragraphs 1-12: weighing the positives and shortcomings

Strauss begins the decisive 13th paragraph of OT IV with the

observation that the naive reader will have expected much

earlier: “it must appear most paradoxical that Xenophon should

have had any liking whatsoever for tyranny, however good.” (73

[16]) However, Strauss’ opening paragraphs of “The Teaching

for Tyranny” are in fact devoted to showing the rhetorical

virtue of Xenophon’s structuring the Hiero as he has—given a

presupposed need to express some kind of praise of tyrannical rule. That is,

Strauss simply asserts in paragraph 3 that Xenophon (and Plato)

felt compelled to “entrust his praise of tyranny” to some

dramatic character, a Simonides, a Callicles or Thrasymachus.

(68 [3]; cf. 76-77 [17])8 The beginning of OT’s central 7 This serves also as transition to Chapter V, by comparing Simonides’ stranger-status—as exponent of the tyrannical teaching—to Plato’s stranger from Elea in the Statesman, in this way implying that that dialogue also propounds the philosophical “teaching concenring tyranny”.8 To dot the i’s here: given that there is some, at this point simply presupposed need to praise tyranny ascribed to Xenophon, Strauss goes about showing us the

Chapter thereby just silently grants what we might have

thought needed above all to be shown, that Xenophon and his

ilk felt it necessary somehow to praise tyranny. (loc cit.)

Given this unusual, indeed troubling, beginning to OT IV,

Strauss’ first qualification of the implied philosophical

advocacy of tyranny, assigned to Plato as well as Xenophon,

thankfully follows in paragraph 5. (68 [5]) Xenophon’s

Socrates, we are now told, distinguishes tyranny from kingship

since it involves both (a) rule without laws, and (b) rule

over unwilling subjects.

These qualifications are no sooner stated, however, than

Strauss returns to the affirmative case for tyrannical rule.

Tyranny “at its best, or as corrected by Simonides’ advice,”

Strauss immediately proposes, will render the subjects

willing, so (b) does not hold.9 (68 [5]) Paragraph 6 purports

to present the reasons why: the tyrant who corrects his regime

along Simonidean lines can himself be happy, contra the

“gentlemanly” criticism that such vice can never pay (cf. 111,

n. 4). Furthermore, the benevolent tyrant’s subjects will be logographic prudence of Xenophon’s choice of having an established tyrant condemn tyranny—to impress “the average reader”—in speaking to a wise man whom he trusts, who then advises him on how to improve his rule, and so has the last word. (67 [2];68 [3 end]) 9 (a) becomes more and more central from paragraph 8 onwards. Cf. below.

treated like “comrades or compatriots,” Strauss claims. They

will be afforded honours and not deprived of their arms.

Agriculture and commerce will be encouraged—all of which

“creates the impression that according to Xenophon tyrannical

government can live up to the highest political standards.”

(69 [6]; cf. 74 [13])

Now these defences of benevolent tyranny’s alleged “positive

qualities” are remarkable enough. But perhaps more

remarkable is how, having stated these “positive qualities” of

tyranny in paragraph 6, Strauss’ very next paragraphs

addressing the second adduced “shortcoming” of tyranny as rule

without law (a) see Strauss openly contradicting what he has just

conveyed. While page 69 [6] tells us that the good tyrant’s

subjects will be awarded honors, page 70 [7] tells us that

“neither can the tyrant be said to honour his subjects,” as

against enriching them—since the “equality of honors” is

incompatible with tyranny. Again, we have just been told in

paragraph 6 that tyranny won’t treat his subjects “like little

children,” but comrades or compatriots. Yet Strauss in the

very next paragraph explains that the tyrant must treat the

entire polis as his own private property, “which he would naturally

administer according to his own discretion.” It is hard to

see how subjects could have many more rights than children

under such discretionary rule. (70 [7]; cf. Strauss 1989, 144-

145) More widely, it is hard to see why Strauss would want to

so openly contradict the views he ascribes to Xenophon in the

space of two pages, unless he meant to ironically show the falsity of

the more benign, initial presentation of benevolent tyranny as

consistent with subjects’ happiness.

Paragraphs 8-11 of Strauss’ “Teaching Concerning Tyranny” in

any event make the argument, with growing audacity, that all

the apparent shortcomings speaking against the political

wisdom of tyranny are “not necessarily decisive,” according to

Xenophon. (70 [8]) Strauss observes that the privation of

subjects’ freedoms by a tyranny is only a detracting

consideration, if we take freedom to be good in itself, or

necessary for other excellences. Yet Xenophon, Strauss

rightly observes, was no democrat or friend of eleutheria.10

Strauss next examines the seeming problem that only highly

“qualified forms” of the virtues of courage and justice are

10 His Simonides does not even mention “freedom,” Strauss makes point of saying. (43 [14]) And Strauss sees this view reflected in Hiero 5, wherein it is the “brave” who are said by Hiero to be concerned with freedom, not wise men like Simonides or Xenophon. (71 [8])

consistent with “monarchic rule without laws.” (71 [9]; 69 [5]

end) Again, however, Strauss immediately proceeds to show how

this is not a telling criticism by his lights. Why? Firstly,

we are instructed that Xenophon does not list courage as one

of Socrates’ virtues in the Apology of Socrates or the Memorabilia (71

[10]), which Strauss presents as a relevant, authoritative

fact. As for justice, Memorabilia IV.3.1 tells us that justice

is one part of moderation. Yet Strauss cites Cyrus’ treatment

of the defeated Armenian prince Tigranes’ pleading for his

life to Cyrus in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia III,1.16-37 to attest to

how “moderation which is produced by fear” befits the subjects of

“an excellent tyrant.” (72 [10])11 Finally, Strauss reads the

admittedly “single statement” of Hiero 10.3 concerning the

effect of having mercenaries on gentleman12 as showing that

gentlemen can “live, and live happily, under a tyrant.” This

one line of evidence alone, we are told somehow “definitively

settles” the issue of the compatability of some forms of, non-

republican, virtue with tyranny. (72 [10]; Xenos 2008, 108)13

11 Cf. 4 below on the implication here as elsewhere that Cyrus is the historical, model tyrant for Xenophon, despite what Strauss sometimes wants to claim.12 viz. “And as for the gentleman, there is nothing, it seems to me, by which you would confer so great services upon them as by the mercenaries”. (Hiero 10.3)13 Xenophon’s text here says nothing of the happiness or otherwise of the gentleman;only that they will be well served by the use of mercenaries as police. It is as ifStrauss were playing on the credulity of more inattentive readers, who will not check back to the original text, to measure it against Strauss’ claims.

It hence becomes indeed “of very great importance,” as Strauss

says, that OT at this point tells us (72[11]) that Xenophon

can adduce no examples of happy tyrants. Otherwise, what has

been argued between paragraphs 6 and 11 all leads to the

conclusion that the ostensibly negative consequences of

paragraph 5’s “essential shortcoming” of tyranny—the absence

of laws and a civic ésprit of “moderation produced by fear”—are

not decisively negative at all, for Xenophon or the wise, in Strauss’

view. It is at least “more likely” that the aim of a good

“ruler” will be achieved through the rule of law than through

“absolute rule,” Strauss now says, introducing a thankful,

third round of qualifications. (72 [11]) Yet having reassured

us, he correctly then also notes that “this does not do

away ... with the admission that, as a matter of principle,

rule of laws is not essential for good government.” (72-73 [11

end]) Every time in fact that Strauss in OT IV seems to

attribute reassuring testimony or arguments against attributing

the “teaching concerning tyranny” to his Xenophon, it is as

though his right hand takes away what his left hand has put

forward. This unusual literary process reaches its peak in

the 13th and 14th paragraphs, to which we now turn.

3. The Beneficent Tyrant as a Seeing Law (paragraphs 13-14)

In his 1958 Thoughts on Machiavelli, Strauss intimates that the

number 13 is somehow associated with the Prince or ruler.

(Strauss 1958, 52) It may then be deliberate that Strauss’

longest, 13th paragraph in “The Teaching Concerning Tyranny”

presents the “highest” or philosophical argument for rule

beyond laws which his previous paragraphs have been moving

towards.14

The paragraph in question follows Strauss’ raising, one last

time, the qualification that surely Xenophon’s seeming praise

of tyranny through Simonides in the Hiero must be dictated by

the conversational setting he has chosen. (73 [12]) But what

follows sees Strauss presenting a principled, philosophical case

for tyranny on the basis of the well-known problem of the

distinction between justice and legality. Tyranny as absolute

monarchic rule without laws would only be illegitimate15 if

justice were identical with legality, Strauss observes: “On

14 Supporting such a claim would be the observation that paragraph 13 of Chapter VI of OT goes to some trouble to return to this topic, in a seeming diversion from Strauss’ concerns there with “Pleasure and Virtue”. (99 [13]) See 4 below. 15 Viz. iff we limit ourselves to this consideration only, and forget the claims aboutthe types of “virtue” tyranny promotes in subjects.

the other hand, tyranny would become morally possible if the

identification of ‘just’ and ‘legal’ would not absolutely

correct, or if ‘everything according to law were (only)

somehow (pos) just’”. (73 [13]) Now one does not need to be a

student of Leo Strauss to see that there are good reasons to

distinguish legality and morality, as many philosophers do,

including Immanuel Kant. These reasons centre upon the

ability to differentiate between just and unjust laws, so

subjects can reasonably criticise whatever positive decrees

their rulers happen to lay down. (74 [13]) Then there is the

type of problem raised by Xenophon’s Alkibiades in the

Memorabilia, which Strauss adduces. This is that regimes which

disagree concerning fundamental political matters (like who

should rule and on what basis) each make laws. Yet each

equally claim the allegiance of their subjects to these

different laws. So we surely are right to ask, which legal regime

then is best or most just? (73 [13])16 16 Even the laws conceived and passed by a wise founder will, as written, participate in this limitation. (Strauss 1987, 74-75) It is notable that to illustrate the way that the demands of justice extend beyond those of legality, Strauss chooses two specific examples. The first is fair or just trade, which he argues can prosper under the nonlegal rule of a tyrant (a point which of course hasoften been disputed, not least by Messrs Hayek et al in our time). The second example is that of ingratitude of individuals towards beneficiaries, and Strauss’ notehere refers us amongst several places to the “severe chastisement” schoolmasters inthe Persian empire issued to schoolboys guilty of ingratitude. (74 [13], & n. 44: Cyropaedia I 2.7) This second example is unusual, first since it implies Strauss believes the Persian empire under Cyrus was tyrannical (on which, see 5 below), andsecond as it concerns subjects’ unjust failures to follow their rulers. In order to

However, Strauss’ principal argument here for the possible,

translegal justice of tyrannical rule concerns what he terms

Xenophon’s “second definition” of justice as beneficence,

associated specifically with the attitude or comportment of

the philosopher Socrates (cf. 91 [21] & 5 below): “according

to it, the just man is a man who does not hurt anyone, but

helps everyone who has dealings with him.” (74 [13]) Taking

this “philosophical” notion of justice as the decisive

measure, the absolute rule of someone capable of such

beneficence to his subjects—or “who knows how to rule, is a

born ruler”—“may very well be just.” (74 [13]) Indeed,

Strauss next suggests that it will be in principle “superior”

to rule according to laws, because of the essential limitation

of laws as laws: namely, that such laws, however good, must be

general in scope. Unlike an absolute ruler who can be as a

“seeing law” (74 [13]), they are incapable of anticipating all

of the specifics of the actions and situations about which

magistrates may be called upon to decide.17

establish how justice transcends legality, that is, Strauss bypasses the more obvious, opposing examples: viz. cases of civil disobedience and principled opposition by subjects to rulers’ unjust decrees. 17Importantly, Strauss draws our attention to the same argument in his account of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics V near the centre of Natural Right and History (Strauss 1952, 159-161), and his reading of Plato’s Statesman in his contribution to The History of Political Philosophy. (Strauss 1987, 73-74)? “The good ruler in this light is like to a ‘seeing law’,” Strauss comments. (74 [13]; & 5 below) In contrast to a written lawcode, an “excellent tyrant” will be able to adjudicate as it were “on the spot,”

The highest justification Strauss cites in OT IV for beneficent

tyranny comes then in the 14th paragraph, and builds on this

idea that a tyrant may be like a “seeing law”. (74-75 [14])

Citing Xenophon’s Memorabilia as authority, it points to

“knowledge” simpliciter as the only “sufficient” title to rule.

(76 [14]; Memorabilia III.9, 10-13; IV.6, 36-37) On the basis

of this remarkable “epistemocratic” claim, Strauss now underscores

that Xenophon was no conservative or “legitimist,” as he has

earlier observed that Xenophon was no democrat. For Strauss’

Xenophon, indeed, the extent to which a ruler listens to wise

men is the decisive, if not the only, consideration in deciding the

“essential legitimacy” of a regime. (75 [14])18 And it has to

be said that, while there is the evidence Strauss cites in the

classics for such a contentious position19, Strauss’ On Tyranny

states the position much more strongly than either Xenophon,

sensitive to the particularities of individual cases, in ways impossible for any general code of law to anticipate. In Natural Right and History it is the demands of exceptional, emergency situations in necessitating or justifying absolute rule thatis given the greater weighting. (Strauss 1952, 158-161) Again, this argument is complementary to that in OT IV, where it is however not explicitly made.18 In Natural Right and History, as Drury rightly has observed, Strauss argues the same controversial point, that according to the classical philosophers’ teaching concerning the “natural right” of the wise to political rule:“It would be absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by any regulations; hence therule of the wise must be absolute rule. It would be equally absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by consideration of the unwise wishes of the unwise; hence the wise rulers ought not to be responsible to their unwise subjects.” (Strauss 1952, 140; 1989, 144, 2000, 7)19 Plato, Sta. 293c-d, 294a-b; Laws., 709a-710a, 712a, 735d-736a; Xen. Mem. II.1.21, III.9, 9-13; Aristotle, Pol. III.1284a3-11; 1285b24-32; 1285b33-1286a20; 1288a15-19, 24-28; 1332b16-23.

his Socrates, or the Simonides of the Hiero ever does. To cite

at length, at OT page 75 Strauss says exactly the following:

At any rate, the rule of a tyrant who, after having come

to power by means of force or 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. (75 [14]; cf. Strauss

2000, 7; cf. Zuckert & Zuckert 1006, 109)

If Strauss had wanted to distance himself from any suggestion

that he supported the “essential legitimacy” of beneficent

tyranny, it is impossible not to agree with Xenos et al that he

could have done better than to pen such an immoderate,

unqualified statement in its defence—particularly at the

culmination of six densely argued pages pointing to this

conclusion. The argument from the limits of law as law,

paragraph 13 likewise concludes, shows that Xenophon’s choice

to give greater weight in the Hiero to Simonides’ closing

praise of tyranny than to Hiero’s exaggerated indictment was

“not accidental”, or due to “the form of the dialogue.” It was

a decision rooted in philosophical principle. (74 [13 end])

4. Theoretical Only? (paragraphs 15-17)

After this strongest statement of the philosophical case for

beneficent tyranny, however, defenders of Strauss are right to

note that Strauss’ next paragraphs present a fourth, final set

of qualifications of the seeming advocacy of tyranny which the

chapter as a whole presents. Xenophon only “seems to” present

a case that such a tyranny is “as a matter of principle

preferable to the rule of law,” Strauss now again thankfully

qualifies. (75 [15]) Two related claims are next adduced in

support of this “seems to,” as against the more categorical

statements we have been given in previous pages. (esp. 74 [13

end])

The first qualifying claim, in Strauss’ precisely worded

phrases, is that Xenophon “seems to have thought that tyranny

at its best could hardly, if ever, be realised.” (75 [15])

Just as the Hiero ends without indicating whether the tyrant

will follow the wise Simonides’ advice, so Strauss alleges now

that the “corpus Xenophontum” contains examples of happy kings,

but no example of tyrants who are both “beneficent and happy”.

(75 [15]; 72 [11]; cf. 34 [8])

The second claim, which grounds this alleged fact in

principle, is that the Xenophontic case “even for a beneficent

tyranny which was originally established by force or fraud,”

is “purely theoretical”. (76 [16]) This is the argument, we

note, that the Zuckerts for example appeal to in their attempt

to show that Shadia Drury “completely misses the point,” as

they categorically say, in The Truth About Leo Strauss. (Zuckert &

Zuckert 2006, 161; 161-3)20 The best possible practical

“solution” to the question of what is the best regime will in

fact consist in cases where a wise founder has created a good

legal code, like the founding fathers—not in beneficent

tyranny. (cf. Strauss 1989, 146; Strauss 1987, 76) Strauss

now explains that all the arguments we saw in 3 are “no more

than the most forceful expression of the problem of law and

20 To be precise, the Zuckerts somewhat confusingly want to claim that for Strauss, ultimately, that the “teaching” is not even true in theory on the strength of 99 [13], although “it reveals something about political life that is true”: so, it is theoretically revealing, here, without being true, if this is a coherent thought. (Zuckert & Zuckert 2006, 161) The problems with this post hoc qualification are expounded at the end of this section.

legitimacy.” (75 [15]) On this basis, Strauss now suggests

that Socrates’ reputation for teaching students like Charmides

or Alkibiades to aspire to tyranny “doubtless was due to the

popular misunderstanding of a theoretical as a practical

proposal.” (75 [15]) “For all practical purposes”, and “at

least as far as the Greeks were concerned” (see 5), Strauss

now qualifies that Socrates and Xenophon preferred the rule of law

to tyranny: a fact shown by how they often seem to equate

justice with legality. (75-76 [15])21 “We shall answer” the

inquiry as to why Xenophon wished to expound a case for

beneficent tyranny, Strauss enjoins in the 13th paragraph of OT

Chapter VI, by asserting that “it serves the purpose not of

solving the problem of the best political order, but of

bringing to light the nature of political things”22:

21 As Natural Right and History rejoins, the natural right to rule of the wise needs to be“qualified or diluted”, given the nature of political life and the need for wisdom from above to be answered by consent from below. (Strauss 1952, 152)22 It seems to me that the almost Olympian value-neutrality of such a position, given the extreme nature of tyrannical rule, is as striking as its relationship with Strauss’ opening denunciation in OT of such value-neutrality in modern social science is unclear. Just as when we read Strauss underscoring the “amazingly amoral nature of the tyrannical teaching embodied in the second half of the Hiero” in OT VI (at 94 [6]), the reader is unfortunately “left to dot the i’s” about the relations between Strauss’ choice to expound such an amazingly amoral doctrine, andhis opening claims against modern social science’s pursuit of objectivity. (cf. 28[14]) Can Strauss mean that what he termed in his “Introduction” a properly comprehensive or adequate social science could “speak with confidence” about tyranny, or “recognise tyranny for what it is”, only when it becomes able to recognise that certain forms of tyranny—rule by the wise, or by a supralegal ruler open to the advice of wise men—can be beneficent, if not desirable?

The ‘theoretical’ thesis which favours beneficent tyranny

is indispensable in order to make clear a crucial

implication of the practically and hence theoretically true thesis which

favours rule of law and legitimate government: legal justice is a

justice which is imperfect and more or less blind, and

legitimate government is not necessarily ‘good

government’ and almost certainly will not be government

by the wise. (99 [13], italics ours; cf. Zuckert &

Zuckert 2006, 161)

So what should we make of these passages’ final qualifications

of Strauss’ seeming advocacy of benevolent tyranny in On

Tyranny? Much turns on this. The first thing to note here is

that Strauss, in the italicised text, is forced to contradict his

own earlier claims that the teaching concerning tyranny is even

theoretically true—the argument of nearly all OT IV. (75 [13]) And

in an author who suggests contradictions are always

meaningful, this deserves notice: indeed, we are pushed to

conclude that one or other of the contradicting passages is ad

captum vulgari. So let us look at Strauss’ two substantive

claims here in turn to help us decide.

Concerning the first, practical claim that the Xenophontic

corpus contains no happy and beneficent tyrants (and hence

cannot be a practical teaching), Strauss almost immediately

again qualifies himself in OT IV, having raised this claim. In

the Cyropaedia, he notes, we learn of Cyrus’ tyrant-grandfather

Astyages, who Strauss accepts was happy, although he was

certainly not beneficent—indeed he had a reputation for

cruelty. So a happy, if not a happy benevolent tyranny is

possible, by Strauss’ lights. (75 [15]; cf. 111, n. 44) But

above all on this issue, there is the ambiguous status which

Strauss affords to the Persian monarch Cyrus in the references

OT increasingly provides to Xenophon’s Cyropaedia to illustrate

his claims concerning tyranny.23 Strauss repeats that the

benevolent Cyrus was not a tyrant, according to Xenophon.

This better be true, since Strauss wants us to accept that

there was no example of a benevolent tyrant in Xenophon’s

works. However, Xenophon’s key notion that the tyrant’s rule

is like a “seeing law” and in this way superior to rule by

“unseeing laws”, is drawn from the final chapter of the

Cyropaedia. This chapter describes Cyrus’ administration. 23 As we recall, the Education of Cyrus is framed by Xenophon as the “idealising description” of a ruler who has made “us” see that the government of men is after all not an impossible task, “provided it is set about in the right way”. (Cyropaedia I 1.3; 99 [12 end])

(Cyropaedia VIII 1.22; 74 [13], n. 46) We saw above that,

similarly, Strauss cites Cyrus’ rule to illustrate the type of

virtue produced through fear charactering tyrants’ subjects—an

argument which wouldn’t work unless he supposed Cyrus a tyrant

in the decisive sense. (72 [10])24 In OT Chapter VII, finally,

in the same breath as we are told that Cyrus became more pious

as his rule became more absolute and unbound by law (Cyropaedia

VIII 1.23), Strauss again asserts that nevertheless “strictly

speaking” Cyrus was no tyrant—before immediately repeating that for

Xenophon or his Socrates, tyranny just is “rule without laws”... (104 [3])25

These self-contradictions all muddy Strauss’ reassuring claim

that beneficent tyranny was practically impossible and

undesirable for Strauss’ Xenophon, if they don’t overturn it.

24 Just so, Strauss (with what seems open disingenuousness) cites the same Cyrus’ violent expropriation of “truants’” property in Cyropaedia VIII to illustrate “the gifts or voluntary contributions” subjects can be expected to make in a tyranny. Notonly is Strauss here playing fast and loose with the meaning of “voluntary”, but again he is using the happy, benevolent monarch Cyrus’ rule to illustrate the features of tyranny, despite his denials that Xenophon thought any tyrant could be happy and benevolent. (70 [7], n. 20; Cyropaedia VIII 1.17) Again, for an example of the successful transformation of a tyrant into a King whose rule is “generally considered valid”, OT refers us to Cyrus (75 [15]; Cyropaedia I 2.1 & I 3.18) just as,to illustrate “translegal justice” in “The Problem of Socrates” (Strauss 1989, 147*) we are referred to the example of Cyrus in Cyropaedia 1.4.16-17.25 Again, to dot the i’s, and to illustrate the kind of coding Strauss seems to haveundertaken to plausibly conceal his radical opinions, take On Tyranny Chapter II note21 (pp. 107-108), that assesses Grote’s claims concerning Xenophon’s “need” to lookoutside of Hellas for a ruler answering to Simonides’ advice (i.e. a benevolent tyrant) in the Hiero as “just” (p. 108). Grote means Cyrus. Then, however, the Straussian qualification comes: Grote has made the presumably grave error of identifying “tyrant” with “despot”, we are told. Nevertheless, in Chapter IV’s 7th note, we learn that Xenophon’s “tyrant” is identical with the ruler Rousseau identifies as a “despot”: namely, someone who rules “not by any law” but according to his own will. (119, n. 7)

We shall see in 5 that Strauss recognised that Xenophon’s own

political career likewise speaks against such a salutary or

reassuring claim.

But what then of Strauss’ wider, qualifying claim that the

entire teaching concerning tyranny is theoretical, not

practical? Well: first, although “popular misunderstanding,”

if not envy (cf. 82 [10]; 83 [11]) underlies the condemnation

of Socrates, Strauss says, he also acknowledges in the

penultimate paragraph of OT IV that this theoretical teaching

had very practical consequences on Socrates’ young companions. As

Xenos notes, it made them look down in scorn at political

democracy, “e.g.” the Athenian democracy: as it seems many of

Strauss’ students do today. (eg Zuckert & Zuckert 2006, 133,

65-73) In Strauss’ own words, far from denying this charge:

Xenophon does not even attempt defend Socrates against

the charge that he led the young to look down with

contempt at the political order established at Athens.

(76 [16]; Memorabilia I 2.9-11)

Most importantly, it has to be underscored that when Strauss

returns to his “teaching concerning tyranny” in the 13th

paragraph of Chapter VI cited above, he again is far from

clarifying that “beneficent tyranny is theoretically superior

and practically inferior to rule of laws and legitimate

government.” (99 [13]) Strauss now feels compelled to add

that the attribution of this view to Xenophon imputes to him

the “misologist” view that a political teaching might be

“morally and politically false ... in proportion as (it is)

metaphysically true.” However, Strauss now says, “a pupil of

Socrates [like Xenophon] must be presumed to have believed

that nothing which is practically false can be theoretically true.” (99 [13];

italics ours) Although the expression here is convoluted,

this parses as the thought that if any teaching—like that

favouring philosophically-counselled tyranny—was theoretically

true, it could not be practically false. In other words, and

as we commented above, Strauss is again contradicting himself:

indeed, his central qualifying claim in OT IV that the

“teaching concerning tyranny” is practically false. (76 [16])

So the reader is in fact left, as we said above, with two

possible exegetical choices. Either (1) we follow the

Zuckerts and try reassuringly to maintain that the teaching

concerning tyranny is both practically and, hence,

theoretically false—thereby saving Strauss from charges of

philotyrannia. The cost is that we are forced retrospectively to

call into question the entire argument of “The Teaching

Concerning Tyranny,” the central Chapter of Strauss’ book.

This seems hermeneutically implausible.26 Or else (2), we have

to conclude—in line with the manifold cited evidence

concerning Strauss’ positioning of Xenophon’s Cyrus—that this

teaching was held by Strauss to be both theoretically and

practically true, albeit only in exceptional cases.

5. Concluding Notes on Strauss’ Anabasis

One of the literary idiosyncrasies of Strauss’ On Tyranny, as

Nicolas Xenos notes, is the way that in Strauss’ extended

notes to the text:

...not only will one often find references to several

texts by the same author, but also to several separate

passages of the same text, itemized out of their original

page sequence, along with references to one or more texts

26 This is the line that Zuckert and Zuckert take. They do so by teasing out a distinction Strauss’ text does not make explicit, and which seems scarcely coherent. The teaching concerning tyranny shows something true about political life in general, but nevertheless it is not even theoretically true, we are asked to agree. (Zuckert &Zuckert 2006, 161)

of one or more additional authors with the same out-of-

order series of page citations, as well as to other of

Strauss’s notes, located either before or after the note

in question. (Xenos 2008, 101)

Xenos devotes some pages to showing how all is not as it might

seem with Strauss’ notes in On Tyranny—or at least, that often

Strauss’ references to other texts are far from transparently

related to the text they are meant to elucidate. (Xenos 2008,

106) Strauss’ formidable erudition, and the sheer scale of

OT’s referencing apparatus, can make us overlook instances

wherein Strauss forces exegetical claims. (cf. Xenos 2008, 108)27

It is a further case of this kind—where Strauss’ notes qualify

or contradict his more “salutary” qualifications concerning

tyranny—that will in fact serve to frame our concluding

remarks concerning Strauss’ advocacy of beneficent tyranny as

a “teaching” defended by the wise ancients practically as well

as in theory, should the man and the hour arise.

27 To recall: we have already seen one instance of this, OT page 70, note 20, wherein Strauss’ final reference in a single note subtly contradicts the point thathe was ostensibly making. Speaking of the “voluntary” gifts tyrants’ subjects willmake to their beneficent ruler, we are pointed to Cyrus’ forced expropriation of miscreants, in a way that seems difficult to avoid reading as deeply cynical. (70 [2]; 119, n. 20) Consider also what we saw above concerning the compatibility of tyranny with virtue, on grounds of the alleged possible contentment of gentlemen under tyrannical rule, in turn based in one line of the Hiero. (72 [10]; Hiero 10.3)

Let us recall again Strauss’ precise wording of the cited

claim that the teaching concerning tyranny was not advocated,

practically speaking, by the wise ancients in OT Chapter IV.

(75-6 [15]) Strauss says that “[f]or all practical purposes”,

and “at least as far as the Greeks were concerned,” Xenophon and the other

Socratics supported the rule of law. (75-76 [15], italics

ours; cf. 32 [4]) In the context of analysing Xenophon’s

political philosophy, one of whose orienting “poles” Strauss

elsewhere tells us was the non-Greek, absolute ruler Cyrus,

the italicised qualification should attract our notice.

(Strauss 1989, 131; cf. 4) And in fact, the reference note

Strauss appends to support this point in On Tyranny (Chapter IV

n. 49, p. 121) is as remarkably bold as it seems to directly call

into question Strauss’ apparent point. For to support this claim

that the practical chances of tyranny are particularly small

among the Greeks, Strauss refers readers to Xenophon’s Anabasis

III 2.13: i.e. the very moment in that autobiographical text when young

Xenophon was propelled from obscurity to political leadership of the mercenaries he

had joined, after the younger Cyrus’ death at Cunaxa, far from Greece.28 So,

28 This speech, alongside his first speech to the generals, sees Xenophon catapultedfrom obscurity to the top rank of the mercenary army, or as Strauss puts it in his essay on the Anabasis in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy: “Xenophon has become quite informally, if not the commander of the whole army, at least its spiritus rector.” (Strauss *, 114)

why—anyone who checks the reference has to ask—would Strauss

draw “careful readers’” attention at just this point of On

Tyranny to this decisive moment in Xenophon’s political career—

the moment when, through his mastery of “Socratic rhetoric”

alone, the philosopher-adventurer propelled himself to a

position of unlikely political leadership, far from Greek

soil? What has this got to do with prospects for tyranny by

wise men like Xenophon amongst Greeks and non-Greeks, if

Strauss does not want to suggest that in fact such rule was

considered practically possible and desirable by them, just

not in the Greek poleis due to their famous love of freedom

after the tyrannies of the 6th century BCE? (32 [4])

Well: one way to decide whether this is just more smoke or

mirrors is to look at Strauss’ later, extended commentary on

“Xenophon’s Anabasis” itself. For there we can see directly how

Strauss assesses Xenophon’s attempts after this moment of his

anabasis to win absolute leadership of the mercenaries, and

indeed to found his own city “in some barbaric place”. For at

Anabasis V 6, 12-37, while considering whether the mercenaries

should return to Greece, it famously somehow “occurred to

Xenophon” (Strauss’ delicate phrase) to privately propose to

his fellows that they found a new city, with himself

presumably as its absolute monarch. Here then, we see, the

Xenophontic corpus presents us with a kind of practical test case

wherein the reassuring idea that the Socratic-Xenophontic

“teaching concerning tyranny” was purely theoretical is shown,

in actu, to be false. And what then of Leo Strauss, who in

commenting on this moment is surely given the opportunity to

prove the mettle of his “theoretical only” claim about the

teaching concerning tyranny, by censuring Xenophon for

misconceiving this “teaching” as practically salient, indeed a

once-in-a-lifetime political opportunity he might boldly

seize? Well: on the nearly the exactly-central pages of Studies

in Platonic Political Philosophy, Strauss seems—far from censuring

Xenophon—almost to start barracking for Xenophon’s bid for such

political glory. Here, remarkably, is what he says:

Here we seem to have reached, and already surpassed, the

peak of Xenophon’s ascent. Granted that the foundation of a

great Greek city “in some barbaric place” (Plato Republic 499c9)

would have redounded to Xenophon’s name and power, was that

name and power not amply deserved? Would his action not

have been beneficial, not only to him but to Greece and hence

to the human race? Had he not justly and piously

performed anything, and more than anything, that one

could expect from someone who joined the expedition of

Cyrus as a nobody and apparently for rather frivolous reasons?

Xenophon was fit to the highest degree not only to be the

supreme commander of the army but to become the founder

of a city, worthy of the greatest honour during his life

and especially after his death; the honors awarded to the

founder of a city. But then, in the last moment, that

highest and so well-deserved honour is snatched away from him

not by any divine ill-will, but by a greedy soothsayer.

It goes without saying [sic.] that the gods did not come to

Xenophon’s assistance in that matter. (Strauss 1986, 124-5)29

The textual evidence we have presented here from Strauss’ On

Tyranny and “Xenophon’s Anabasis” all suggests, we propose, that

Leo Strauss not only imputed the “teaching concerning tyranny”

as a theoretical doctrine to the wise Xenophon. Strauss also

thought it the political teaching of the ancient Socratics,

29 On the distinction between “divine”, an adjective which can refer to great human beings, or great pleasures, versus the gods that Strauss is arguably insinuating here, see especially On Tyranny 125, n. 58; 127, n. 6, and 85 [13 end]. We note alsothat Strauss’ essay on “The Gods in Thucydides’ Work” ends with three pages on Alkibiades and his “unquestioned predominance,” for reasons which Strauss does not indicate in light of the essay’s wider topic, but which may resonate with this divine-versus-gods distinction. (Strauss 1986, 101-4)

beginning from Xenophon, and ardently believed it should have

been Xenophon’s practical fate, “so well-deserved”, if he had

not been foiled by lesser men. (Strauss 1986, 124)

Nevertheless, although Strauss’ way of reading and writing has

the effect of elevating the author’s intention to a kind of

argumentative holy grail, let us conclude by raising now the

philosophical question here—not of what Strauss or Xenophon thought,

but of whether any such teaching concerning tyranny is a

desirable, defensible, or revealing one, even theoretically. For

Strauss (to his credit) does frankly admit in On Tyranny that

from the perspective of anything like ordinary civic virtue,

even the most beneficent tyranny looks decidedly undesirable.

(69-70 [7])30 Few people indeed will today be attracted to

openly defending a regime which promises no lasting property

rights, a virtue which hails from “moderation produced by

fear,” and in which all citizens’ public freedoms are denied.

30 Simonides is “not impressed” by Hiero’s history of crimes and ravages, Strauss comments in the 13th paragraph of Chapter IIIB. It is in this way above all that Simonides “subtly reveals his complete lack of scruples.” (56 [13]; 60 [22]) Simonides does not deny that a tyrant needs mercenaries, or that they need to “hateful things” to preserve their rule, Strauss observes: “the hateful aspects of tyranny are not annihilated, but banished from sight.” (62 [23]) For most people and political philosophers, the necessity of a regime of whatever kind to truck in “hateful things” will stand strongly against its legitimacy, regardless of its other merits.

However, putting even this aside, it seems to us that Strauss’

strongest argument for beneficent tyranny is not simply deeply

objectionable from any kind of republican or democratic

perspective. It is on its own terms theoretically weak.

Recall that this argument turns upon the idea of a “translegal

justice” which would legitimate the benevolent tyrant as a

“seeing law”, and which Strauss identifies, specifically, with

the philosopher Socrates. (76 [13]) Strauss specifies at this

decisive point of OT that this is a form of justice which

consists in harming neither friend nor enemy31. (76 [13]; cf.

56 [13]; 60 [22]; 62 [23]) The problem is that elsewhere,

Strauss is at pains to highlight the alleged contradiction

between this “translegal justice” and the justice

characteristic of political rulers per se. Political justice as

Strauss sees it32 is said to necessarily and always involves

harming enemies, if not a streak of cruelty like to that found

(again) in Cyrus. (101 [21]; cf. Cyropaedia I. 4.24; VII 1.13)

Strauss’ claim then is not that the “harm no one” justice of

the philosopher which—alongside appeal to an unspecified

31 Notably, this is a position hardly consistent with the way Strauss has agreed tyranny must involve keeping mercenaries and doing “hateful things”—so how can it be reasonably adduced in the same breath to justify any form of tyranny?32 Whether rightly or not is a moot point in this context: of course this is again ahighly contestable doxa.

philosophical “knowledge”—could supposedly legitimate

benevolent tyranny is politically sound, just difficult to

actualise. It is that it transcends the city, always, because

of its non-political nature.

Given that these are Strauss’ premises, put simply, it seems

to us that any conclusion drawn from them in favour of a

specific political regime of any kind has to be weak. For it

seems highly questionable whether we should draw political

conclusions about the desirability, here, of rule beyond law

only on the basis of a form of justice which is said to be

decisively non- or suprapolitical, and whose paradigm is the

philosophical sage.33 Inescapably of and in the political cave,

the question of the best regime is always practical in kind,

and it concerns nonphilosophers overwhelmingly—just as

political life involves different species of wisdom and virtue

than that involved in deciphering ancient texts, or other

33 Again, in Chapter VI Strauss observes that his argument has it that law and legitimacy are problematic from the highest perspective, that of wisdom. (99 [14]) The claim is ambiguous, insofar as Strauss stresses that the Greek sophia in Xenophonis often used ambiguously, to indicate according to context and addressee either theoretical wisdom proper to the philosopher, or the phronesis or practical wisdom characteristic of practical life. (cf. 85 [14]; 1958 80, esp. 119-120) Yet given the large role he affords the rule of law in all but the (theoretically) best regimes, and given the overwhelming phronetic justification for the rule of law, it seems again that Strauss is asking us to view political life, in the light of a particular kind transpolitical standard, that of the wise few. And it is, again, in just this light that the idea of a beneficent, all-seeing ruler can appear desirable.

theoretical pursuits.34 Faced with the evident conflict

between beneficent tyranny as elevated from the perspective of

the imputed “wise” and the demands of civic or political

justice, we mean, it is surely much more theoretically

reasonable (as well as civically virtuous) to assert openly,

consistently, and once and for all, the theoretical as well as practical

undesirability of beneficent tyranny as a political regime.

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