Anabasis

About this book

In 401 BC, ten thousand Greek mercenaries march deep into the Persian Empire to help the prince Cyrus the Younger seize the throne from his brother, King Artaxerxes. Cyrus is killed at the battle of Cunaxa, near Babylon in today's Iraq, and soon afterwards the Greek generals are lured to a meeting and murdered. Leaderless and surrounded, the soldiers elect new commanders, among them the young Athenian Xenophon, and fight their way north through the mountains of Kurdistan and Armenia, through snow and hostile tribes, until they see the Black Sea and cry out, 'The sea! The sea!'

Context and significance

Xenophon (about 430–354 BC), a pupil of Socrates, wrote this account of the march, in which he played a leading part, years later. It is one of the great adventure stories of the ancient world, and Alexander the Great is said to have used it as a guide to the Persian Empire. Compare Thucydides.

About the author