Analysis: Excerpt from Anabasis, or "March Up Country"

Date: c. 400 BCE

Geographic Region: Greece; Persia

Author: Xenophon

Translator: H. G. Dakyns

Summary Overview

Written as an autobiographical account of the author's own involvement in wars resulting from a dispute within the ruling family of the Persian Empire, Anabasis provides an eyewitness account of historical events and military practices in the ancient world. In 401 BCE, the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger raised a Greek mercenary army in hopes of overthrowing his older brother, who had recently inherited the throne. Among these troops was the author-soldier Xenophon, a native of Attica who joined at the behest of a friend. The complete account first tells the story of the Greek army—some ten thousand strong—marching inward from the sea with Cyrus (the Greek word anabasis refers to an expedition from the coast inland). After Cyrus's death in battle deep in Persian territory, the Greek army was left to fight its way back to friendly territory. Chosen as one of the army's new leaders, Xenophon documented their dramatic experiences and set a precedent for later autobiographical and military writing.

Defining Moment

For centuries, the Persian Empire and its successor, the Parthian Empire, was a leading global power. During the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, Persian territory stretched from the Aegean Sea to India, and from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea. Much of this territory was consolidated in the mid-500s BCE by Cyrus II, also known as Cyrus the Great; it was this Cyrus who later became the subject of Xenophon's biographical The Education of Cyrus. As part of his conquests, Cyrus added the Greek city-states along the western coast of Asia Minor to Persian territory. After Cyrus's death, another conqueror-king, Darius I, came to power. Darius, having gained control of lands in southeastern Europe, including Macedonia, hoped to expand his authority over the Greeks. Mainland Greek support for an unsuccessful rebellion of the Greek city-states in Asia Minor gave him fodder for this goal. In 490 BCE, the mighty Persian army attempted to gain a foothold in Greece, but were defeated by a much smaller Athenian force at the famed Battle of Marathon.

This defeat only interrupted Persian ambitions, however. Darius died in 486 BCE and was succeeded by his son, Xerxes I. Xerxes gathered a force even stronger than that repelled at Marathon and launched a fresh invasion of the Greek peninsula in 481 BCE. The Persian army overcame Spartan troops at Thermopylae and destroyed the city-state of Athens. Working together, Greek forces from Sparta, Athens, and other city-states successfully expelled Persian troops from the peninsula in 479 BCE. However, fighting continued between Greeks and Persians for years, mostly near the Greek city-states of Asia Minor.

Although Sparta had fought bitterly against Persian expansion into Greece during the Persian Wars, the two powers had developed better relations during the Peloponnesian War that followed between Sparta and Athens. The Persian satrap (governor) Tissaphernes forged a somewhat limited alliance with Sparta in 413 BCE; the king of the Persian Empire, Darius II, expanded that alliance greatly in 407 BCE. At that time, Darius also installed his teenage son, Cyrus, as satrap in the place of Tissaphernes. This satrapy, or province, included Hellenic cities in Ionia, along the western coast of Asia Minor. Persian financing was critical to Sparta's complete victory over Athens in the grueling Peloponnesian War. For example, Persian funds allowed for the construction of the Spartan fleet that triumphed over Athens at that's war final battle at Aegospotami in 405 BCE, which forced an Athenian surrender to Spartan forces.

After Darius's death soon after the war's end, Cyrus looked to his satrapy to provide soldiers for his planned overthrow of his older brother Artaxerxes, who had inherited the throne. Xenophon begins his Anabasis with a summary of this process.

Author Biography

Born in about 430 BCE in a rural area near Athens, Xenophon was a soldier, philosopher, and prolific writer of history. In 401 BCE, he decided to become a mercenary in the Persian army of Cyrus the Younger; his experiences in the campaigns he fought with this company inspired his most famous work, Anabasis. Despite the traditional Athenian rivalry with Sparta, Xenophon became a supporter of the latter city and upon returning to Greece settled in Spartan territory near Olympia. Historians believe he began writing during this time, with his contemporary history Hellenica and the biographical novel Cyropaedia (The Education of Cyrus) becoming his best-known works after Anabasis. With the decline of Spartan power around 370 BCE, he was forced from his home there and settled in the city of Corinth. By the time of his death in the mid-350s BCE, he was widely regarded as a literary force, and his works influenced later writers in both Greek and Latin.

Document Analysis

This excerpt, from the first book of Anabasis—literally, “Upcountry March”—describes the background and early action of Cyrus's recruitment and movement of a large force of Greek mercenary soldiers into Asia Minor. Xenophon, as an eyewitness to some of this action, organizes the text in a roughly chronological fashion to allow his readers to understand the flow of events.

Xenophon begins his account by summarizing the reasons for Cyrus's military recruitment. This section introduces some of the narrative's main figures: Cyrus the Younger, Persian satrap and hopeful for the throne; Artaxerxes, Cyrus's brother and inheritor of the throne; and Tissaphernes, who emerges as a major antagonist to Cyrus and, later, the Greeks. The author points to Tissaphernes as the cause of the Persian civil war, for his “slanderous accusations against Cyrus” caused Artaxerxes to plan to execute his brother; only the intervention of their mother, Parysatis, saved Cyrus. But Cyrus was angered, and Xenophon suggests that the younger brother was better suited to the position of king, as both his mother and those in the court preferred him.

The account then discusses Cyrus's recruitment of soldiers both among the “barbarians”—the Greek term for all foreigners—and among the Greeks. Again, Tissaphernes' actions antagonize the Greeks and contribute to their decision to support Cyrus against their former ruler. Further Greek support comes from Spartan, Thessalian, and Boeotian leaders, among others, most of whom recruit troops with the dual purpose of serving their own end and those of Cyrus. The balance of the excerpt describes the movement of these assembled armies inland. Cyrus called thousands of troops together, an action that Xenophon notes could not possibly escape the notice of Tissaphernes and Artaxerxes. They began raising their own forces, and civil war was inevitable.

Beginning at the fortress city of Celaenae in what is now west-central Turkey, Cyrus led his army steadily inland, stopping at major cities to consolidate his forces and support. Xenophon describes some of the history and significance of these places as well as some of the administrative working of a large military force. For example, he notes that Cyrus failed to pay the troops for several months, giving them a large lump sum after receiving presumed financial support from a queen of Cilicia, a region in southern Asia Minor. In all, however, the march is steady and unwavering as Cyrus heads ever closer to battle with his enemies.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Flower, Michael Attyah. Xenophon's Anabasis, or the Expedition of Cyrus. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.

Higgins, William Edward. Xenophon the Athenian: The Program of the Individual and the Society of the Polis. Albany: State U of New York P, 1977. Print.

Tuplin, Christopher J. “Xenophon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 Sept. 2014. Web. 6 May 2015.