希羅多德《歷史》與色諾芬的《居魯士的教育》均涉及波斯早期歷史,二人根據各自理解和需要塑造了不同的居魯士形象。希羅多德試圖說明居魯士的成功遵循具有必然性的命運,而色諾芬則試圖刻畫居魯士的成功歷程,更注重教育對塑造典范統治者的作用。但兩書也體現出相似的時代性,作者在重視神意和必然性命運的同時,也重視人事,并試圖將命運與人事相結合,這是古典時代人文精神發展的重要體現。

There are stories in the Histories and the Cyropaedia related with Persian history, and both Herodotus and Xenophon portrayed Cyrus the Great according their needs. In the Histories, Cyrus’ fates were predetermined, while Xenophon believed that education was helpful for Cyrus’ successful. However. There are some similarities between them, for example, the stories in two books reflected that the authors concerned not only the will of god and fate, but acts of human, and tried to combine them in narration, which is the embodiment of the humanism in Classical Greece.