SOURCE: "The Teaching Concerning Tyranny," in On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's "Hiero," Political Science Classics, 1948, pp. 50-62.

Strauss published his book on tyranny in Xenophon's "Hiero" in 1948, only three years after the end of World War II. With that recent history as his context, Strauss attempts to determine what concept of tyranny the Hiero, a dialogue between a tyrannical ruler and a philosopher, presents. In the excerpt that follows, Strauss also considers how Xenophon's own political context may have influenced the form in which he presented his ideas.

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...