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Xenophon describes the Persian training of boys in the Cyropaedia (1.2.6-7), highlighting the effects of ingratitude:
"The boys go to school and give their time to learning justice and righteousness: they will tell you they come for that purpose, and the phrase is as natural with them as it is for us to speak of lads learning their letters. The masters spend the chief part of the day in deciding cases for their pupils: for in this boy-world, as in the grown-up world without, occasions of indictment are never far to seek. There will be charges, we know, of picking and stealing, of violence, of fraud, of calumny, and so forth. The case is heard and
the offender, if shown to be guilty, is punished.
"Nor does he escape who is found to have accused one of his fellows unfairly. And there is one charge the judges do not hesitate to deal with, a charge which is the source of much hatred among grown men, but which they seldom press in the courts, the charge of ingratitude. The culprit convicted of refusing to repay a debt of kindness when it was fully in his power meets with severe chastisement. They reason that the ungrateful man is the most likely to forget his duty to the gods, to his parents, to his fatherland, and his friends. hamelessness, they hold, treads close on the heels of ingratitude, and thus ingratitude is the ringleader and chief instigator to every kind of baseness."
This passage appears to be the source for frequent Renaissance references to the Persian treatment of ingratitude. Remigio Nannini's Civill Considerations (English, 1601) included this citation: "Zenophon in the life of Cyrus saith, that among the Persians, no vice was more blamed then [sic] ingratitude; and thgey severely punished him, that was able to requite a pleasure, if he did not recompense it; for they judged an ingratefull man, to be a contemner of the gods, to have no respect to his Parents, love to his countrie, neither care of his friends."
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, March 20, 2006 at 07:10 PM
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