Xenophon: A Loaded Question at Delphi and the March of the Ten Thousand

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Xenophon was born around 430 BC to a wealthy Athenian family in the district of Erchia, served in the cavalry, and lived through Athens' defeat by Sparta and the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. He followed Socrates, who by legend blocked his path in an alley with a walking stick and said follow me then and learn, and who reportedly saved his life at the Battle of Delium. Invited by the Boeotian captain Proxenus to join Cyrus the Younger's army, he asked the oracle at Delphi not whether to go but which gods to pray to for a safe journey. Cyrus told his 10,000 Greek mercenaries they were fighting the Pisidians, then marched them toward his brother, King Artaxerxes II. At Cunaxa Cyrus was killed, and the Persian commander Tissaphernes executed the Greek generals, including Clearchus and Proxenus, at a feast.

Elected a leader, Xenophon organized a fighting retreat, forming improvised cavalry and slingers and burning villages to starve pursuers. In the Zagros Mountains he sent 2,000 men through a hidden pass while 8,000 kept fires burning, then led the army through the Armenian winter. Against the Colchians he split his line into columns and sent a reserve through the gap. He later served with Spartan King Agesilaus and fought against Athens in 394 BC, was exiled, and lived about 20 years on an estate at Scillus near Olympia, writing the Anabasis, the Hellenica and the Cyropaedia. After Sparta's defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC he moved to Corinth and died around 354 BC.

• The Persian king had once lost an army of 120,000 men in the Carduchian mountains.
• His men drew boulders from a hill fort by dashing onto the road and back into the trees until the defenders ran out of stones.
• The Hellenica picks up where Thucydides left off.
• His Apology argues Socrates provoked his jury on purpose to escape the indignities of old age.
• Alexander the Great used the Anabasis as a field guide when he invaded Persia.