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Anabasis


Klaas
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Has anyone read Anabasis by Xenophon? I'm reading a Dutch translation now. Interesting to read, but quite corrupted by Xenophon's personal opinion and way to make things seem better and bigger then they really are (a Persian army of around 1.000.000 soldiers in one battle???). Maybe it's the translation, but he doesn't seem to be such a good writer either, not introducing things or working out his characters too well.

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Yep, the 120,000 refers the army of Cyrus. But the approximatly 1 million refers to the king's army. Of course it could have been the translation that is bad, I asume you've read the original version so you'll be right.

Thanks for clearing that up about Xenophon.

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  • 2 months later...

Klaas,

I've read Xenophon's Anabasis in an English translation and I love it! I think that it is one of the greatest military adventure stories ever told, and presents the brilliance and leadership of a man that has few parallels in history. That Xenophon was not a polished writer is a known fact in literary circles, but he was a great observer and thinker and pretty obviously had a real knack for finding creative solutions to get the 10,000 out of jam after jam, though most of the time he 'led from the rear', that is was not the commanding general of the army--but he was its principal motivator and tactician. He must have been a pretty convincing orator, to his audience, anyway, because they listened to what he had to say and then acted upon it, not to mention but in passing having elected him to be their 5th Strategoi (that body of men having had 5 generals).

It is well known nowadays that ALL contemporary writers of 'history' during the classical age inflated the numbers, probably for propaganda purposes directed for local consumption (no TV camera onsite to record it instantly as it was). We'll have to forgive them for that, eh? (Xenophon IS considered to have been one of the more truthful writer in this regard.) From the time of Hans Delbruck, historians have been 'proving' that to have been so based upon the other facts that can be known, and more modern estimates of those fallacious numbers have been rendered from their analises. Whatever the figure was, Artaxerxes greatly outnumbered his younger brother Cyrus who wanted to overthrow him and take the kingship for himself and won the battle of Cunaxa rather handily, except for the fact that the Greek Mercenary phalanx put a rout to his minions on the right flank along the Euphrates.

What is known, and what the real story is all about is that about 13-14,000 mercenary Greeks started out working for Cyrus, then at Cunaxa shortly found that they no longer had a boss, and that the victor on the field wanted to kill them all. Consequently, the story is of one of the greatest military feats of all time that took place in the march of the remaining 10,000 all the way from central Babylonia to the Euxine Sea... and then continuing with the further incredible difficulties and delays (and more battles) of those soldiers finally making it back to Greece (some of them, anyway) or Ionia from whence they had come about 4 years before. All things considered, I think of Xenophon, who led under the circumstances, successfully, to have been a greater general than most who have been recognised more than he just because they won a few battles.

If you want me to, I can zip the version in English, it runs 187 pages, 619 KB unzipped, and send. :P

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