mehradmin

Monticello, the
Home of Thomas Jefferson

photo source: Bruno Barbey

Mausoleum of Cyrus the Great
ca. 530 BC *
JEFFERSON AND CYRUS

HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF AMERICA, IN THEIR OWN WORDS,
WERE INSPIRED BY CYRUS THE GREAT
SYNOPSIS OF UPCOMING BOOK

Richard N. Frye, Harvard University and Afshin Zand, Independent Scholar

Summer 2013. http://www.richardfrye.org © Richard Frye and Afshin Zand, 2013. 2nd Edition, Feb‐March 2014.

Though twenty‐three centuries apart in time, continents apart in space, their systems of
republican and monarchical government ostensibly diametric opposites of each other, the
Founding Fathers of America and the founders of the Iranian state were close in the realm of ideas
‐ ideas that underlie systems of governance vying to institute liberty and justice. America’s
Founding Fathers were avid readers of Cyrus the Great’s biography, the Cyropaedia, written by a
student of Socrates, Xenophon, being the masterpiece among his works. Leaders at any age stand
to benefit from inspiration, which plants its seeds for later manifestation and realization. Such
inspiration that the Founding Fathers drew from Cyrus, amidst all the ancient and modern sources
they were exposed to, was because they found his ideas and aspirations resonating with their
own, with their inmost beliefs, values and convictions. The Cyropaedia describes Cyrus’s
character, that made him into an ideal ruler. It is an exposition of timeless qualities of leadership.
Thus it has since served as the World’s manual of leadership, from Alexander, Scipio, Cicero,
Caesar, Machiavelli who read and drew inspiration from it, so on to our times. In the estimation of
Peter Drucker, widely recognized as the father of modern management science, this first book on
leadership remains the best book. His biographer and student William Cohen writes: “Despite all
the books published on leadership by well known academic researchers and successful CEOs,
Drucker never altered his opinion. Xenophon was still the best.”1
There is perhaps no more fitting appellation for Thomas Jefferson than the Apostle of
Americanism, which he has aptly been called. In characterizing the place of Jefferson in the
American ethos the late Gore Vidal told NPR:

“If there is such a thing, which I think there is and others perhaps do not, as an American
spirit, then he is it. . . . And it still goes ’round; it still inspires, and it is still the essence of
whatever spirit we still have and that we once had, indeed.”2Long before the ancestors of Americans and Europeans emerged from the dark ages, their older
cousins established a state further East, which they named after themselves, Aryana, denoting
‘the Land of Aryans’. In the course of time the term Aryana underwent phonetic changes to evolve
to today’s Iran. “Aryan” had no physical connotations prior to its re‐adoption in Europe as a self‐
designation in the 19th century and meant, simply, noble. In India, ancient cousins of the Iranians
also referred to themselves as “Aryan”, in Sanskrit meaning noble. In the language of their distant
cousins in far west Europe, Old Irish, its cognate eire likewise meant noble.

In due course in the southern and warmer reaches of Aryana, in a region called Parsa, being
today’s Persia, arose Cyrus who created and with his successors for over two centuries maintained
the World’s first multi‐national, multi‐lingual multi‐cultural, multi‐religious, and multi‐ethnic Unity
of States, much as the United States is to‐day. Cyrus then was also the gentile savior of the Jews
and other nations and tribes hitherto in a state of captivity or slavery. Cyrus fulfilled the function
of Anointed of the Lord (Isaiah 45), a rendition in English of Hebrew mashiah, or Messiah.

Our central link between the Founders of America and Cyrus and his successors, the Cyropaedia, is
augmented by the accounts of the Bible and other sources, including inscriptions remaining of
Cyrus’s successors, such as those that Darius commissioned to be hewn ‘in Aryan’3 and in other
languages. The discovery and decipherment of inscriptions extant of Cyrus himself postdates the
American Revolution. The proclamation of freedom on the Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed on a small clay
tablet from ca. 537 BC, which has been on a tour in the US from the British Museum is regarded by
many as the first draft and by some as the first charter of human freedom and human rights.

In our day we have been witnessing the evolution of the United States, partly by manifest destiny,
partly by default, toward fulfilling the role that Cyrus and his successors knew the need for,
created and fulfilled. Yet Persians have been regarded more or less as barbarians in the West,
mainly based upon other Greek sources. Among the Greeks, the term ‘barbarian’ was used to refer
to people speaking a language other than their own, a usage that reflected the influence of Egypt.
Herodotus reports : “The Egyptians call all men barbarians who do not speak the same language as
themselves“4 ‐ a misnomer which has come down to us. The Greeks themselves, however,
regarded the Persians in a different way, because the first great empire established by the Persian
Achaemenids probably for the first time in history enunciated a secular code of laws, the laws of
the king. So the legal framework which the Persians initiated was secular, and may have been
copied by the Romans later. This is an essential consideration for people who are studying history,
because the Persians not only instituted their secular law, but asked the Egyptians, the Hebrews
and others to codify their own law books relating to domestic law, civil law and religion. But above
them all was the secular law of the king. This separation of church and state has always been a
feature of the Persians and their culture, but not so of the Semitic cultures of the Near East and of

2
Egypt too; for them church and state work together and could not be separated. Throughout
history the Persians have always insisted upon separation of church and state, where they
complement and bolster each other but one is not above the other. Thus Nizam al‐Mulk the vizier,
nearly a thousand years ago, said: “kingship and religion are like two brothers; whenever
disturbance breaks out in the country, religion likewise suffers.”5 Thus Iran was not barbaric but,
quite the contrary, the builder and promoter of civilization. The Caliphate of the Arabs and down
to Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader today, have maintained the opposite, always keeping church
and state together. The older, native heritage represents the beliefs and values of the Iranian
people, and is in dire need of expression in their government for the sake of world peace and for
Iran’s own sake.

Cyrus’s rule as related in the Cyropaedia and other classical sources, in contrast to that of the
Babylonians and others before him, is secular. The separation of church and state and freedom of
religion under him is augmented by records of his successors such as Darius, which had caught
Jefferson’s attention. In his extensive studies in various fields of knowledge and inquiry, and in his
initial process of developing as an intellectual, then progressing to a polymath, Jefferson made
notes of the passages in the various books he read that were of interest to him, passages
manifestly he knew he wanted to refer to again, much the same as scholars reading innumerable
books do today but using copying machines and cameras. This collection became Jefferson’s
Commonplace Book. He, as scholars today, did not record what he already knew or was obvious,
but in the main made note of what he felt he was apt to forget later. The separation of church and
state were of interest to him and to others including Voltaire, whose great work on history, Essai
sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations, was standard reading for intellectuals in the Age of
Enlightenment, going through no less than 27 editions. Note no. 852 in Jefferson’s Commonplace
Book which he took from Voltaire’s Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations, indicates his
interest in the issue of separation of church and state, in the aftermath of invasion and forcible
conversion of Iran to Islam. The Magi, a number of whom Matthew reports went bearing gifts to
find the infant Jesus, were priests of Zoroastrianism:
“Then that ancient religion of the Magi fell, that the conqueror Darius had respected, as he
never disturbed the religion of conquered peoples. The Magi regarded their religion as the
most ancient and the most pure. The knowledge that they had of mathematics, astronomy
and of history augmented their enmity toward the conquerors the Arabs, who were so
ignorant. They [the Magi] could not abandon their religion, consecrated for so many
centuries. Then most of them retreated to the extremities of Persia and India. It is there that
they live today, under the name Gaurs or Guebres.”6
Gaur, or Guebre, is a derogatory term in Islam meaning infidel,7 referring to Zoroastrians. An
authority on Jefferson’s Commonplace Book, Gilbert Chinard of France, who then became a

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professor at Johns Hopkins and eventually at Princeton, has worked out the range of dates for
Jefferson’s notes in his Commonplace Book. Chinard writes : ”it seems that we may assume with
reasonable certainty : that the bulk of the Commonplace Book represents the notes taken by
Jefferson on law, political science, and religion during his formative years.”
Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777, which through Madison’s
close collaboration with Jefferson later became a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights in the
Constitution. Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom in Virginia firmly established the
separation of Church and State. Initially, in 1779‐82, since it would deprive vested interest of its
privileges, the statute encountered opposition in the Virginia legislature. Later, while Jefferson
was ambassador to France, he was working closely with his longtime friend Madison, their letters
coded such that the British would not be able to spy on them along the route. Madison managed
to gather the support of minority sects and get the statute passed through the Virginia legislature
ca. 1786. The prevalence and usage of the phrase separation of church and state to‐day in modern
English and in other languages in and outside the US may be traced back to that statute.

Several years ago, a friend, Cyrus Kar, began a project to produce a documentary for his
namesake, for which we have been acting variously in the capacities of consulting scholars and
donors. One of the findings of Kar during his research was two editions of the Cyropaedia in
Thomas Jefferson’s library.8 Later, we found other works dealing with Iran in Jefferson’s library
such as The Persian Expedition and Oikonomicus.

A recent, brilliant work of scholarly forensic analysis by Julian Raby, Director of the Freer and
Sackler Galleries, and colleagues, revealed Jefferson’s keen interest in the Cyropaedia. Of his two
copies of the Cyropaedia that have survived one is an edition from 1767, having the original Greek
on the left and the Latin translation on the right, on each opening. Raby observes : “What’s
extraordinary is that he scratched out one line . . . The particular passage that was crossed out is a
problematic passage in the manuscript … it is quite clear that Jefferson himself must have been
collating line by line between his earlier edition and this later edition.”9 This has been validated by
another feat of forensic analysis by the Chief Curator of Rare Books at the Library of Congress,
Marc Dimunation, who found the ink consistent with Jefferson’s other markings.10
Caroline Winterer of Stanford University reports of copies of the Cyropaedia in the libraries of
Benjamin Franklin as well as Adams and Jefferson, and how Jefferson wrote to a friend in 1787
seeking books which included an edition of the Cyropaedia in Italian,11 indicating his having read
the originals and perhaps other editions, but interested in clarification of some fine points.

Neil Macgregor reports that Scottish intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment had consulted the
Cyropaedia, from whose midst came Jefferson’s Scottish mentor at the College of William and

4
Mary, in the early 1760s, William Small. Jefferson later expressed how deep his gratitude was to
William Small, and regarded him “as a father”12.

Wm. Scott Harrop of the University of Virginia reports: “Family letters provide further hints of
Jefferson’s high regard for Xenophon and the Cyropaedia. In early 1803, Anne Cary Randolph
wrote to “Dear Grand Papa” that her brother, Jefferson Randolph, was busy “translating the history
of Cyrus by Xenophon.” ”13

Her ‘history of Cyrus’ refers to the Cyropaedia. Cyrus and the Persians were Zoroastrians, the
ethical religious belief system taught by Zarathustra. The beliefs and values of Zoroastrianism
survive among the people of Iran in the form of Persianized Islam, with its tenets markedly
different from those of orthodox Islam (though this is not to be sought in the politics).
Zoroastrianism also survives, albeit in small numbers, in its own right, in Iran, India and around the
world. Centuries after the invasions of Iran and forcible conversion to Islam, which began in the
600s AD, groups of Iranians emigrated to India, much as the Pilgrims to the shores of America, and
have since been called Parsees, or Persians. Their population is estimated at over one hundred
thousand. There are also Zoroastrians in Iran itself, their numbers being smaller than those in
India. There are a few thousand in the US, in Canada, in Europe and smaller numbers in other
countries. While conversion of Moslems to any faith is prohibited within Islamic countries,
regarded as apostasy and punishable by death, there have been modern conversions outside the
realm of Islam. One example was Charles D. Poston (1825‐1902) ‘Father of Arizona’, who, upon
travelling to see the Parsees in the 1860s and learning about their religion, adopted
Zoroastrianism. Of Zoroastrianism Poston wrote : “the great Zoroaster had promulgated the
sublime laws announced to him by the “Bright shining essence of light” for the government of
mankind”14.

Zoroastrian ethics are simplified in the motto of the religion; Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good
Deeds, of which the latter count the most. The application and implementation of this as the
effective means for man in each generation of producing an honest livelihood, without
appropriating from others, directly or indirectly, became agriculture and the founding of
settlements. Agrarianism came to form, in practice, the core of Zoroastrianism. Of the works of
Xenophon, Jefferson also possessed others, one of which, Oikonomicus, rendered into English as
an ‘essay in estate management’, has an account of Cyrus the Great’s successors. In those days
leaders and emissaries from various nations went to Persia to seek aid, be it economic, political or
military, as they journey today to the United States. In a Socratic dialog in Oikonomicus Xenophon
reports how to the astonishment of the Spartan leader who had gone to see the Persians seeking
aid in Sparta’s long conflict with Athens, he found the Persian nobility proud to garden with their
own hands. Likewise to Jefferson, the culture of the soil was the most pleasant. These traits are
traceable to Zoroastrianism.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison were Southerners and planters, and even Dr. Franklin the scientist
regarded farming as “the most honorable of all Employments, in my opinion, as being the most
useful in itself, and rend’ring the Man most independent.”15 Jefferson proclaimed that “those that
labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.”16 Washington was in full concurrence with them,
so much so that the roots of agriculture in America became embedded more than ever before and
formed the economic base of the United States. The ideology of agrarianism went further, and
became incarnate in the South.
Yet the socio‐economic system that the Founding Fathers’ generation inherited and the one that
the Persians brought into being differed markedly in regards to the labor force. As it is held in
Zoroastrianism that it the human being who is capable of embodying the spirit of God, Spenta
Mainyu (rendered into English approximately as Holy Spirit), to enslave a human being was
tantamount to constraining and penning the spirit of God. The teachings of Zoroaster found their
large scale implementation in practice by Cyrus. Thus Iran, in contrast with ancient as well as
modern empires, was the only major empire not built by slave labor, but paid and voluntary labor.
Cuneiform tablets extant from the Persian Empire (ca. 550‐330 BC) and preserved and studied at
the University of Chicago under Matt Stolper show records of wages. In addition, they show
women as well as men in supervisory positions, and such advanced social nets (whether for 500 BC
or now) as a year’s worth of maternity pay. Due to the establishment and entrenchment of slavery
in the Colonies while still under British Empire, the language that Jefferson had incorporated into
his initial draft of the Declaration of Independence that would lead to the abolition of slavery was
vetoed and edited out when it came to be ratified. But it was recognized that the issue would be
left for another day, another generation. As that system had the weight of history behind it, and
thus was difficult to gather consensus around and transform, the day came to be the Civil War. In
many plantations, as in Monticello, the ‘slaves’ were part of the family in which there existed
spiritual bonds between the members. This is evident from a number of signs, including how when
British troops took over and laid waste to Monticello, destroyed its crops and killed its
domesticated animals, leaving Jefferson along with other expenses he would incur in the
Revolution in debt for life, the ‘slaves’ had the chance to free themselves, they chose to hide, such
as in the basement, remaining loyal to Jefferson, who had been forewarned and had left the
plantation.
The Parsees in India, being free to practice their religion and having a strong work ethic, were able
to prosper. Their past experiences of being persecuted further enabled them to sympathize with
those in need. Once refugees, now they were able to practice philanthropy. This included aid to
the Sanitary Commission in the American Civil War, as reports Alfred Martin: “As for the generosity
of the Parsees, it is unrivalled, extending far beyond the limits of Bombay. It went to Russia at the
time of the Crimean War, when Florence Nightingale described the Parsee community as “the salt

6
of the Bombay community”. It went to France in 1859, when the terrible inundations necessitated
the supplementing of local aid by foreign help, and the Parsees were among the first to respond and
among the most liberal of the contributors. It went to the United States at the time of the Civil War,
our Sanitary Commission receiving a handsome remembrance from the followers of Zoroaster in
India, sent, they said, because of their sympathy with the suffering soldiers and the Cause of
Freedom and union.“17
The aid, intended for both sides, was fated to end up in the industrial, well organized North with
its more developed infrastructure and lines of command and communications. Prior to the Civil
War these were held in common among the states or, as appropriate, belonged to the individual
states. In a broader sense they served the country as a whole. But during the war in large measure
they fell under the control of the North, which had and employed the means to further develop
and unify them. The agrarian South had fewer such means and was thus unable to plan and
organize its logistics as well to stay even with the North. Thus the South lacked a sanitary
commission or supply lines on a par with the North. In a battle in which a relatively inexhaustible
supply of materials, machines and intellect, predominant in the North were arrayed against mostly
spirit and limited supplies in the South, the latter would not have the staying power and the
outcome was in fact predetermined.
Jefferson, in his embassy to France and in many ways, was successor and heir to Benjamin
Franklin, senior‐most among the first tier of the Founding Fathers, to whom he referred as the
‘immortal Doctor Franklin’. Jefferson became a polymath, much as Benjamin Franklin was. When
Jefferson went to Paris as ambassador (1785‐89), he found Benjamin Franklin as the most
respected man in France, foreign or native. Earlier, when Ben Franklin had been in London (1757‐
1775), he had found the Avesta, the corpus of holy books of Zoroastrianism, just a year after it was
published in Paris by Anquetil‐Duperron (1771), a French scholar of the Orient who had spent
about six years among the Parsees in India learning about their faith, and together with the
Parsees had translated the Avesta into French. It was the first time the Avesta became accessible
in any European language.

It is remarkable that nearly a century before the ‘brilliant young German philologist’,18 Martin
Haug, made the discovery that it was the Gathas within the Avesta that were the words of
Zoroaster himself and among the oldest parts, Benjamin Franklin, among all the matters, scientific
and political, that his mind was occupied with, had reached a similar conclusion, as stated in his
letter to the president of Yale University Ezra Stiles: “Dear Sir : There is lately published in Paris a
work entitled Zend-Avesta . . . I have cast my Eye over the religious part; it seems to contain a nice
morality, mixed with abundance of prayers, ceremonies, and observances. If you desire to have it, I
will procure it for you. There is no doubt of its being a genuine translation of the books at present
deemed sacred, as the writings of Zoroaster, by his followers; but perhaps some of them are of later
date, though ascribed to him.”19 Franklin ends the letter informing Stiles how Henry Marchant,

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who was then visiting him from Rhode Island, having been referred to him by Stiles,
“understanding you are curious on the Subject of the Eastern ancient Religions, concludes to send
you the Book.”20

Jefferson, as with fellow Founding Fathers, most being Deists, Unitarians and products of the Age
of Reason and then of Enlightenment, took it upon himself to go through the Bible and produce an
edited version of the New Testament bereft of what was seen then as its miracles and mythology
which had gone unquestioned by many over the ages, but on the other side of the spectrum
troubled intellectuals, leading many to adopt the ‘irreligion of thinking men’. This became known
as the Jefferson Bible. Jefferson had meant to carry out the same for the Old Testament, but this
being a long undertaking, and his attention needed to numerous other projects and issues, he
lamented lacking the time to do so. Zoroastrianism as taught by its prophet (and in its later
teachings that maintain consistency with his), once its starting dogma of the existence of the Wise
Lord, is accepted, is a rational belief system, appealing to intellectuals. The Jefferson Bible and in
particular its ethics correspond to and bear a close resemblance to the teachings of Zoroaster.

As has aptly been put by George Cawkwell of Oxford, the Cyropaedia is “a delineation of virtue as
embodied in the person of the founder of the Persian empire.”21 The traits of character of Cyrus in
the Cyropaedia derive from Zoroastrianism. America’s founders saw virtue as essential to the
formation and subsequent development and preservation of the Republic they were founding.
They repeatedly beseeched its practice, their own record being replete with it. Virtue was what
Revolutionary America ran on. The underlying, recurrent theme in the Cyropaedia and nearly all of
Xenophon’s works is, virtue. George Washington, upon ending his second term as President
(1797), in a letter advised his brother in‐law: “Without Virtue and without integrity, the finest
talents and the most brilliant accomplishments can never gain the respect or conciliate the esteem of
the truly valuable part of mankind.”22 Benjamin Franklin preached much the same. Thomas
Jefferson advised his nephew Peter Carr in 1785 : “from the practice of the purest virtue you may
be assured will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of
death.”23 Xerxes, successor to Darius, wrote similarly ca. 450 BC, the tone of his statement being
similar and traceable to Cyrus’s final address and will in the Cyropaedia, that he worshipped Arta
(righteous virtue and cosmic order), and whoso should worship Arta, truth and happiness forever
shall be his, both while living and when dead.

Of the two main students of Socrates whose works are extant and through whose works, aside
from minor fragments left from others, Socrates is known at all, Plato and Xenophon, Thomas
Jefferson, John Adams and many others over the course of history held Xenophon in far greater
esteem than Plato, for his clarity and forthrightness and for the application of philosophy to
practice.

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John Adams adored Xenophon, whom he regarded as “my favourite author, that ancient and
immortal husbandman, philosopher, politician and general.”24 Adams, further, related to Jefferson
how he had gone over the History of Persia in two volumes by British Ambassador Sir John
Malcolm looking further for Cyrus. Malcolm in the early 1800s had arrived in Iran with a retinue of
five hundred, his mission mainly to counter French influence under Napoleon. He was assigned to
the post by Lord Cornwallis who, subsequent to his defeat at Yorktown by America and France in
1781, was now the Governor‐General (viceroy) of India and in 1792 was created 1st Marquess
Cornwallis.

John Adams persuaded his son, John Quincy Adams, later to be President, to read the Cyropaedia
at a young age, though this pressure may have had the opposite result from what Adams wished
to achieve. Jefferson made it requisite for students seeking to enter the University he founded,
the University of Virginia, the ability to find their way around the works of Xenophon and classical
authors in the original Greek or Latin. The morals of Jefferson, fellow Founding Fathers and
posterity bear a close resemblance to those of Cyrus, what he practiced and preached. In a letter
to his grandson Francis W. Eppes in 1816 Jefferson writes:

“Never suffer a thought to be harbored in your mind which you would not avow openly.
When tempted to do anything in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public. If you
would not, be sure it is wrong. . . . Whenever you feel a warmth of temper rising, check it
at once and suppress it, recollecting it will make you unhappy within yourself and disliked
by others.“25
Xenophon describes Cyrus in this respect and how he was perceived by followers:

“His own temperance and the knowledge of it made others more temperate. When they saw
moderation and self-control in the man who above all others had licence to be insolent,
lesser men were the more ready to abjure all insolence of their own. But there was this
difference, Cyrus held, between modesty and self-control: the modest man will do nothing
shameful in the light of day, but the man of self-control nothing base, not even in secret.
Self-restrain, he believed, would best be cultivated if he made men see in himself one who
could not be dragged from the pursuit of virtue by the pleasure of the moment, one who
chose to toil first for the happy-hearted joys that go hand-in-hand with beauty and
nobleness.”26
Jefferson, early on as US minister to France, sent about 200 books in two crates to James Madison,
his close friend and political lieutenant, on the various forms of government known then and
pertinent histories and philosophies. The copy of the Cyropaedia that came to be Madison’s is apt
to have been among those. Thus when it came time in 1787, Madison had made himself most

9
knowledgeable in the subject of governance and ready to lead the Philadelphia Convention which
led to the formation and adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Madison managed to persuade George
Washington, initially reluctant and not knowing what was in the plans, to attend, which assured
the attendance of all others. When in Paris, Jefferson, at the invitation of America’s friend
Lafayette, came to exercise an influence on the French Revolution in the Declaration of the Rights
of Man and of the Citizen.

Along with the Declaration of Independence of the United States, the Federalist Papers have since
served as an aid to first ratify then interpret the Constitution. Central to this collection has been
Federalist Paper No. 10, authored by Madison, published in 1787, the year most delegates from
the colonies agreed on the new Constitution. Titled The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against
Domestic Faction and Insurrection, the distinction there is clearly drawn by Madison between a
crude democracy such as that in ancient Athens where a mob tried and executed Socrates, and a
Republic, which the founders meant the United States to be:

”Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have
in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”27
John Adams stated much the same. Madison wrote a treatise showing the failures of prior forms
of government, in which he exempted that of the Persians. The Founding Fathers ensured the
term ‘democracy’ as understood then would be absent from the Constitution. In the Cyropaedia,
Xenophon contrasts other forms of government with that of Cyrus, in words that at any point in
time over the course of history seem as though written days ago:
“We have had occasion before now to reflect how often democracies have been overthrown
by the desire for some other type of government, how often monarchies and oligarchies have
been swept away by movements of the people, how often would-be despots have fallen in
their turn, some at the outset by one stroke, while those who have maintained their rule for
ever so brief a season are looked upon with wonder as marvels of sagacity and success.”28

In coming to know the character of Cyrus and the Founding Fathers closely, it becomes manifest to
the reader that they, in particular Jefferson and Cyrus, were kindred spirits. One spirit, it seems,
recognized this kinship and became inspired by the other, and the results then became history.

The Founding Fathers, not knowing initially whether their experiment would be successful, sought
a model that validated their ideas by virtue of its success in the past, a model they felt close to
their own. This they found in ancient Persia. Thus Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum,

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who with his team, and colleagues at the Sackler Museum and elsewhere, has vied more than any
other scholar to bring the message of the Cyrus Cylinder to the world, aptly remarked to the BBC:

“The story of Persia – Iran – is part of the story of modern United States.”29

President Harry Truman, coming from humble origins, was a self‐educated man. The Hebrew Old
Testament ends with the decree of Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem and restore the Jews to their home.
As regards biblical history Truman knew the significance of Cyrus when he declared “I am Cyrus, I
am Cyrus” in response to Jewish elders gathered in New York to thank him for establishing Israel
as a state.30

The Old testament ends with the recognition of Cyrus by Yahweh and the decree of Cyrus to
rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion, principal founder of the modern state of Israel,
wrote of the ending of the Old Testament: “Beyond question Cyrus was deserving of these
eulogies.”31 Cyrus and his fellow Persians were saviors of the Jewish nation then, as the US has
been in our day. They restored Israel as a state, and enabled the return of the Jews to what had
been their homeland from which they had been uprooted (597‐587 BC). The Persians maintained
it under their protection as the Persian province of Yehud, much as the US has done to‐day. The
Persians assigned to it a Jewish governor, Nehemiah, from among the now Persian Jews. The
prophet Second Isaiah, regarded universally and continuously since then as the greatest prophet
of the Old Testament, extols and names Cyrus not only as Messiah but also as the Lord’s Shepherd
(44:28), a term which, in this sense, in Psalms 23:1 is intended by David to mean the Lord Yahweh
himself.32

Joseph Gaer, Founder & Director, Jewish Heritage Foundation, explains: “The Persians called the
people of the Kingdom of Judah Jehudis, from which we get the word Jews . . . The Persians were
friendly towards the Jews, and their king, Cyrus, permitted them to return to their land and rebuild
their kingdom. And because the Persians were so friendly, the Jews studied the Persian religion, and
learned many things from them . . . A much more important belief that the Jews borrowed from
Zoroastrianism was their changed conviction about the coming of the Messiah . . . From the
Persians the Jews learned that they, too, awaited a Saoshyant, a Redeemer. But the Redeemer of the
Persians was not to be just a national hero who would bring glory and power to the Persians. Their
Saoshyant would redeem all of mankind from the powers of the Evil Spirit. The Jews, too, began to
think of their Messiah, their Redeemer, as more than just a national hero who would restore the
Jewish kingdom to its glory . . . By the time the Jews returned to Palestine and, with the help of
King Cyrus, rebuilt their Holy Temple in Jerusalem, their religion had greatly changed.”33

Initially the Jews would not return. They sought to establish a lobby at the Persian court to further
their interests. In our days AIPAC in the United States is but a re‐creation of the Jewish lobby at the

11
Persian court. Their homeland had become but a wasteland after their fifty years of captivity in
Babylon, much as it had been in many parts prior to 1948. Implementing the decree of Cyrus,
successive Persian administrations led, financed and provided security and supplies for the
rebuilding of the Temple and fully restored nationhood to the Jews. The Arabs and others sought
to undermine the process. Nehemiah (ch. 6) complains of how Sanbalat, Tobiah and Geshem the
Arab sought to harm the project of reconstruction of Judah. The Jews, sensing the reservoir of
good will and generosity in the Persians, became covetous. They did not wish the Persians to help
others and sought from them the destruction of Babylon. The Persians’ impartial and even‐
handed policy which derives from Zoroastrian teachings and in turn appears in the Bible as the
Laws of the Medes and Persians which altereth not (Daniel 6:8, 12, 15), would not let them
entertain the contrary ideas. Babylon, too, flourished, and the Persians constructed the temple for
others as well.

The Persians, further, decreed the collection and publication of Jewish law and the books that
came to be the Bible, which was carried out ca. 440 BC by the Persian Jews led by Ezra. While the
Persians had the full power to exert their will, their decrees did not compel subject people or their
own civilians to do the work of implementing. Rather, in respecting individual liberty, they sought
volunteers for the implementation. It was part of the ideology and practice of humane power, soft
power, for although militarily and economically they were the sole superpower on earth, it was
their humanity and soft power that won over most of the nations Xenophon informs us of. As
shown by Forrest McGill, Chief Curator of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, this was
celebrated in European art centuries ago in the form of depiction of a lamb on Cyrus the
conqueror’s flag. The last words in the Hebrew Bible (II Chronicles 36) read: “Thus saith Cyrus
king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath
charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all
his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.”

The empire that Cyrus founded, the Achaemenian empire, endured from about 550 to 330 BC.
During this period, marriages occurred between Persian men and Jewish women. As men
conducted the battles and accordingly fell in battle, their numbers were reduced below that of
women in society. Thus a man could have several wives. Conversely, several women would be
dependent on one man. Jewish women had entered Persian harems, the epitome of which is the
story of Esther the Jewish Queen of Persia from the Bible. The Aryan tradition of descent was
patrilinear, while the Semitic tradition was matrilinear, and there being no conflict as to heritage,
the children were legitimate heirs on both sides, accepted and loved. They inherited beliefs from
both parents, both traditions. The Aryan Jews formed the polity of the new moral, messianic and
spiritual faith that came to be known as Judaism, from which in due course emerged a number of
sects, including Christianity. Although Solomon, David, Moses and Abraham predated the new
religious beliefs in Judaism, they would assume roles in a largely retroactive sense in the broader

12
context of the new Judaism. As Arnold Toynbee, University of London notes of the Persian
Empire: “it deliberately maintained complete religious toleration . . . Consequently there was an
active intercourse between local religions in and after the Achaemenian Age, and Zoroastrianism
eventually had a great influence on Judaism, just because it was not propagated by force. The
origins of Zoroastrianism and Judaism in their present form, and of Christianity and Islam too, can
be traced back to the religious ferment in the First Persian Empire.”34

In recent times in the West, Zoroaster, or to use his Persian name Zarathustra, has been known, or
rather, been misunderstood, through the works of Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in which his
depiction of Zoroaster is the precise opposite of what Zoroaster was and taught. As Nietzsche later
clarified in his autobiography ecce homo, or how he [philosophically] became what he is, morality,
what Zarathustra taught, was what Nietzsche, through his logical analysis sought to nullify. Thus
Did Not Speak Zarathustra was a more apt name for Nietzsche’s work, as he explains : “I have not
been asked, as I should have been asked, what the name of Zarathustra means to me, in my capacity
as the first immoralist; for what distinguishes this Persian from all others in the past is the very fact
that he was the exact opposite of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle
between good and evil the essential cycle in the working of things. The translation of morality into
the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, as end in itself, is his work. . . . The self-overcoming of
morality through truthfulness, the moralist’s self-overcoming of himself into his opposite— into
me—that is what the name Zarathustra means to me.”35 Long before the emergence of written law
regulations, and their interpretation, application and implementation in practice, morality was
what people depended on in their relations and transactions in society, and even after laws were
written morality could not be codified. Thus to the present day it has played its role in bringing
about greater peace and justice in society. Nietzsche through a mechanistic argument draws the
conclusion to discard morality, without successfully showing the merit of the implementation of
such in society. Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra was thus a parody of what Zarathustra taught.
Nietzsche’s ideology was later adopted and practiced by the Nazis, who ruled their own country
and subject nations in stark contrast to how Cyrus governed. Nietzsche’s ideology and its
implementation by the Nazis was likewise a parody of how in the U.S. the Founding Fathers
devised and ran the government of the United States. With the contradictions and conflicts
Nietzsche had to cope with, perhaps it should not be a surprise that he became insane and
committed suicide, and much the same fate befell he who implemented Nietzsche’s theory, Hitler.
As Xenophon describes in the Cyropaedia, the qualities of leadership Cyrus exercised were such
that they transcended nationalism, sectarianism and partisanship. Thus Cyrus was able to draw
together disparate peoples and nations, from various parts of the then known world, many of
whom were situated so far apart that they did not know or could not meet each other, some of
whom were at odds, some in enmity, some at war with each other, and a host of other tribes
“whose very names defy the memory of the chronicler.” Further, Xenophon observed of Cyrus: “It

13
is obvious that among this congeries of nations few could have spoken the same language as
himself, or understood one another”, and yet “all they asked was to be guided by his judgment and
his alone.”36 Xenophon, counterpart to II Isaiah, gives us the secular definition of Messiah.

This was not only true at Cyrus’s time, but also in our time. As has been noted by Neil MacGregor
and others, often leaders from across the political spectrum have identified with Cyrus, ranging
from US President Truman to Prime Minister Ben Gurion of Israel, and in Iran itself from the late
Shah to those who overthrew him, such as Ahmadinejad. The same is true regarding
Zoroastrianism. This becomes evident when we proceed further and look at a diametric opposite
of Judaism, Germany and its ideology as implemented before and during WWII. After World War II
and the fall of the Nazi regime, of the two top ethnologists of the state, Alfred Rosenberg and
Hans Gunther, Rosenberg was found guilty of planning and promoting the extinction of the Jews at
the Nuremberg trials and along with others executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Gunther, while promoting the culture, preservation and advancement of Nordic peoples and their
purity of thought and spirit, had not sought this at the expense of extinction of others. This is in
part because he was inspired by Joseph Arthur, Count Gobineau, who regarded the Jews as an
intelligent people. Besides Cyrus and Darius, we see from Jefferson’s notes that he also showed a
keen interest in the government of ancient Anglo‐Saxons. Gunther regarded the Germans, as
many other populations, as ethnically diverse. He saw the natural aptitude of the Nordics for
leadership, their welcome by other peoples and the resultant drive of the leaders and the led
toward imperialism, as the cause, in the end, of decay among Nordic peoples and Nordic classes in
such societies, and his opinion in this regard casts doubt as to whether he of his own will
supported the idea of a Third Reich. What Gunther looks past, is that at each such juncture and
ensuing period when disparate cultures came together and assumed their respective roles in
society, the synergy led to great leaps forward being made and in fact in large measure this
constituted the process of development of world’s civilization as we know it today. At the end of
World War II, after a detention of about three years during which his role was investigated,
Gunther was exonerated and set free. Prior to the war he had written with deep convictions
regarding Zoroastrianism, alternatively referred to as Mazdaism (after Ahura Mazda, the Wise
Lord):

“In Zarathustra’s teaching that lofty ethical sense characterizing the old Persians rises to
sublime heights . . . Mazdaism, which this great religious founder brought his people, is
important for the understanding of the Nordic spirit . . . This is the first self-conscious
religious creation in history — long before Buddha and the oldest Jewish prophets — and also
the earliest to give an ethical meaning to the whole world process and to the State, and to
look on man as playing a part in this far-spread ethical system through his behavior.
Zarathustra’s teachings are set forth in the Gatha songs of the Avesta . . . Thus for the first
time in the world’s history a conception had arisen of a positive religion, which spread over

14
the whole earth in the form of ethical systems of various kinds. And thereby the conception
of culture was at one stroke brought into the world, clear-cut and with deep foundations.
Mazdaism is the loftiest religious creation that has been produced by the peoples of Nordic
origin . . . The more Mazdaism discloses itself to research, the clearer do we see the true
greatness of the Persians and their culture, which stands as an equal beside that of Greece and
of Rome, while ethically it is above them. Gobineau it was who first pointed out how little
our ‘general education’ knows of Persia compared with its real importance.”37

Though perhaps not immediately perceived by an unknowing or untrained observer of Iran, due to
the absence of Persian culture and values in the external and internal politics of Iran today, and
the preponderance of what is reported of Iran in the media in the West being of the politics, the
Iranian people’s culture and values are still deeply rooted in the ideals of Cyrus and Zoroaster.
This is partly because “the Persians were Persians first and Moslems afterwards” (Richard Frye,
1951).38 Though little known or covered by the Western media, the fact has not escaped the
attention of astute visitors, such as Dr. R. S. Morton, that “The Iranians who accepted the
Mohammedan religion did not altogether forsake their loyalty to Zoroastrianism, for they subtly
developed a type of Islam which embodies many of the ancient religious ideas.”39
Just as the Thirteen Colonies then needed the help of a sympathetic great power, France, to
succeed in their quest to be free and be able to express their values in government, so does Iran
to‐day. But contrary to what some have suggested or offered, the Iranian people do not need
military aid, or military intervention, which would in fact be counter‐productive to that purpose,
not to mention to peace, regional and world stability. Rather, the bona fide, steadfast political
support of the US and its encouragement of allies to do so is what is needed and what would fulfill
that purpose. Moral support, words followed by diplomacy can achieve what cannot be
accomplished by way of arms.

15
THE AUTHORS
PHOTO SOURCE : K ASHI & N IRVANA A NOOSHEH
Richard Nelson Frye has researched and taught the history of Iran, the
Near East and Central Asia at Harvard University for over six decades,
where he earned his PhD in History and Philology in 1946, and has been
Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies. He was born in Alabama
in 1920. His parents had emigrated from Sweden in the early 1900s. He
is married, and has had four children. Dr. Frye was a founder of the
Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) at Harvard. Referred to a pro pos
as “dean of the world’s Iranists”, he needs little or no introduction to
experts in the field. Fluent in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, German, Russian,
French, Italian and knowledgeable in other living and extinct languages,
he has lived and worked in Iran, Afghanistan, and other areas of Iranian
culture, such as Tajikistan, and has conducted research and taught in
Germany and other countries. His work has covered the spectrum of
Iranian cultural studies and his several books and many articles over the
years have served as reference works on the subject. Some of the
professors in this field were his students. In recent years he has
delivered lectures before audiences in Iran (in Persian) and in the US,
advocating the separation of religion and state in Iran, expounding its
underlying basis in history and literature since 550 BC, through late
antiquity and medieval times.
Afshin Zand grew up in Iran, where his father was working closely with American engineers and technicians
employed and settled with their families in Khuzestan, as colleagues and neighbors building a

TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority). He developed a lifelong passion for history and philosophy during family
visits to numerous nearby archeological sites, influenced by his father’s interest, from whom he also
inherited a love for formative America. At about age 12 his family moved back to Tehran where his father

taught at a branch of Harvard Business School, Iran Center for Management Studies, whereupon during his

sabbatical at HBS (1975‐76) he was given an honorary MBA. At age 15 Afshin was sent to England to
complete his high‐school education. He then came to the U.S. and attended the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) where he earned the BSEE in 1982. He worked extensively in the high technology sector,
and has been awarded patents for his inventions. To fulfill his life‐long passion in history, Afshin pursued
professional studies in cultural history at Harvard University, as student of Dr. Frye during 1985‐1993,
where they worked together closely. His studies and research were inter‐disciplinary and included pre‐
Islamic history, Persian literature, Zoroastrianism, Judea‐Christianity, biblical history, comparative religion,
linguistics and Indo‐European studies and later included contemporary history. His studies were carried
out as non‐degree professional development and fulfilled the requirements for PhD and beyond. His focus
was the causality of historical events, transformations and developments in particular as rooted in value
systems and religious beliefs.

The authors resumed collaborating on cultural history and holding lectures around 2003. They both may
be reached at: http://richardfrye.org/contactus.html A more extensive biography of Dr. Frye may be
found at: http://richardfrye.org/biographies.html Their research, of which this is a brief summary, is
articulated in greater depth and breadth in their upcoming book, Jefferson and Cyrus. To reserve a copy,
go to: http://richardfrye.org/contactus.html . For further details prior to the publication of the book,
readers may refer to the authors’ booklet by the same title.

16
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cyrus Kar also informed the authors of Charles Poston and his conversion to Zoroastrianism. He
and Jennifer Rose informed us of Benjamin Franklin and his interest in Zoroastrianism.

FOOTNOTE TO THE PHOTOS

* Although Jefferson’s beloved Monticello ( http://www.monticello.org ) near Charlottesville, VA needs
little introduction, the mausoleum of Cyrus may need some illumination from the past. Alexander
admired Cyrus and was an avid reader of the Cyropaedia. The ancient historian Arrian (ca. 140 AD),
nicknamed “Young Xenophon”, was the author of the Expeditions of Alexander. Quoting from one
of Alexander’s companions, Aristobulus, who was Alexander’s advisor and military engineer, Arrian
reports of the tomb of Cyrus:
“The tomb was in the royal park at Pasargadae : a grove of various sorts of trees had been
planted around it; there were streams of running water and a meadow with lush grass.”40

Plutarch (ca. 85 AD) reports of Alexander’s visit to the tomb of Cyrus:

“Having discovered that the tomb of Cyrus had been rifled, he put to death the perpetrator of
the deed, although the culprit was a prominent Macedonian native of Pella, by name
Polymachus. After reading the inscription upon this tomb, he ordered it to be repeated below
in Greek letters. It ran thus:
“O man, whosoever thou art and whencesoever thou comest, for come I know thou
wilt, I am Cyrus, who won for the Persians their empire. Do not, therefore, begrudge
me this little earth which covers my body.”
These words, then, deeply affected Alexander, who was reminded of the uncertainty and
mutability of life.”41

17
REFERENCES

1
William Cohen, Peter Drucker’s Favorite Leadership Book, 07/26/2010 :
http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/process‐improvement‐case‐studies/columns/peter‐drucker‐s‐favorite‐leadership‐
book/
2
Gore Vidal, NPR: http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Vidal.htm
3
Darius the Great, Behistun Inscription, §§ 70 (4.88‐92) :
http://www.realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Elam/Darius_beh.htm
4
Herodotus. The Histories of Herodotus, D. Appleton, 1904, p. 144
5
Nizam al‐Mulk, The Book of Governance, trans. by Herbert Darke, Yale University Press, 1960
6
Thomas Jefferson, The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Gilbert Chinard, 1926, p. 334‐35. Passage quoted translated
by Richard Frye for the present work.
7
Gaur or Guebre or Gabr, are believed to derive from Kafar of Arabic, applied to the Persians who would not convert, meaning
infidel. Martin Schwartz of UC Berkeley in personal conversation with Afshin Zand
8
Cyrus Kar, http://www.spentaproductions.com/work_in_progress.htm
9
Lee Terhune, Ancient Persian Ruler Influenced Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Democracy, 13 March 2013 :
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2013/03/20130312143982.html#ixzz2bLqkOv4g
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2013/03/20130312143982.html#axzz2bLqKFmwX
10
Marc Dimunation, personal communications with Afshin Zand at the Library of Congress,
11
Caroline Winterer, The U.S. Founders and Cyrus the Great of Persia, Jun 1st, 2013 :
http://www.Cyropaedia.org/2013/06/01/the‐u‐s‐founders‐and‐cyrus‐the‐great‐of‐persia/#_edn4
12
Thomas Jefferson, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/william‐small
13
Wm Scott Harrop, Cyrus and Jefferson: Did they speak the same language? Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and
Cultures. Spring 2013, Volume 3, Issue 1 :
http://www.payvand.com/news/13/apr/1111.html
14
The Honorable Charles Debrille Poston, The Parsees: A Lecture, 1870, p10
15
Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Joshua Babcock, London Jan 13, 1772. The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 1923, Vol. 5, p. 572:
16
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Ch. 18 : http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/jefferson/ch19.html
17
Alfred W. Martin, Great Religious Leaders of the East, p. 101.
18
Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians, Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 1979, p 202
19
Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Ezra Stiles, 1772 :
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2459&chapter=242516&layout=html&Itemid=27
20
Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Ezra Stiles, Jany 13, 1772 :
http://www.historycarper.com/1772/01/13/on‐the‐writings‐of‐zoroaster/
21
George Cawkwell, Introduction: The Persian Expedition, Penguin, 1942
22
Jared Sparks, The Writings of George Washington, 1848, pt. IV, p. 196. George Washington in a letter to Bartholomew Dandridge
dated March 8, 1797
23
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson: Political Writings, 1999; Letter to Peter Carr (1785), p. 244
24
John Adams, Papers of John Adams, Vol., 2, Harvard University Press, 1977, p. 77
25
Monticello Association, Collected Papers to Commemorate Fifty Years of the Monticello Association of the Descendants of Thomas
Jefferson, 1965. Volume 1, p. 170, Letter to Francis Wayles Eppes
26
Xenophon, Cyropaedia, Translated by H. G. Dakyns, 1897 as “The Education of Cyrus”, VIII.C.1.30
Also available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2085
27
James Madison, Federalist Papers, No. 10, The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection,
1787. http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm
28
Xenophon, Cyropaedia, Translated by H. G. Dakyns, 1897 as “The Education of Cyrus”, I.C.1
29
Neil MacGregor, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐us‐canada‐21747567
30
Michael T. Benson, Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, 1997, p. 189
31
David Ben Gurion, Cyrus, King of Persia, Acta Iranica, Commemoration Cyrus, Vol. 1 Hommage Universel, 1974, p.127
32
This correlation, to our knowledge, was first noted in 1924 by Robert Ernest Hume of Union Theological Seminary, New York.
33
Joseph Gaer, How the Great Religions Began, 1956, p. 267
34
Arnold Toynbee, The First Persian Empire, Acta Iranica, Commemoration Cyrus, Vol. 1 Hommage Universel, 1974, p 16
35
Friedrich Nietzsche, ecce homo, translated by Anthony M. Ludovici, 1964, p. 133‐34
36
Xenophon, Cyropaedia, Translated by H. G. Dakyns, 1897 as “The Education of Cyrus”, Book I, C.5
37
Hans F. K. Gunther, The Racial Elements of European History, translated by G. C. Wheeler, Methuen & Co. LTD, London, 1927,
available also online: https://archive.org/details/TheRacialElementsOfEuropeanHistory
38
Richard N. Frye, (co‐author with V. Thomas) The United States and Turkey and Iran, 1951, p. 203
39
R. S. Morton, A Doctor’s Holiday in Iran, 1940, page 192. Like prior travelogues, the book is also a learned survey of the country
40
Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, Tr. Aubrey de Selincourt, Revised, J. R. Hamilton, Penguin, 1984 reprint of 1971 ed., p. 345
41
Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives, The Life of Alexander, 7.69

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