![]() ![]() After a march of hundreds of miles from Sardis, the two sides met at Cunaxa, north of Babylon. According to the Anabasis, Cyrus concealed his intentions to attack Artaxerxes but he eventually persuaded the Greeks, led by the Spartan exile Clearchus, with promises of higher pay. Sparta now quietly supported Cyrus’s ambitions. These events took place shortly after the Spartan-led coalition, with aid from Persia, had defeated Athens and its allies in the decades-long Peloponnesian War. by a Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, to support his campaign to claim the throne from his brother, Artaxerxes II. To encourage fidgety school boys to pay attention to their Greek lessons, English and American headmasters would frequently assign Xenophon’s Anabasis of Cyrus (The Ascent of Cyrus, sometimes rendered as “The March Up-Country” and popularly titled “ The Persian Expedition”). Xenophon told the thrilling story of what became known as the Ten Thousand, a Greek mercenary contingent engaged during the summer of 401 B.C. Wayne Ambler, translator, with an introduction by Eric Buzzetti, Agora Editions, Cornell University Press, 2008. ![]()
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