This is part of a larger project I am working on. These are just raw reactions to the text as I read it. For the final discussion, check out my Substack.
Xenophon’s Anabasis, “upward march,” more often seen in English as The March Upcountry, is the story of 10,000 soldiers from across the Greek world who had to escape overland through modern day Iraq and Turkey after the Persian king Artaxerxes defeated the larger army the Greeks had been a part of. It is a straightforward chronological narrative, which opens with an explanation of how a bunch of Greeks ended up fighting near what is now Baghdad in the first place.
Cyrus was the brother of Artaxerxes, the King of Persia. He wanted to overthrow his brother and began assembling an army in his holdings in western Anatolia. Part of that army was a force of Greeks, which included a young Athenian, Xenophon, who had been a student of Socrates.
Cyrus’ army marched overland along the southern Anatolian coast, through Syria, and then into what is now western Iraq. There they began to see signs that the trip might not be as easy as Cyrus tried to convince them it would be. The Persian cavalry burned the crops along Cyrus’ line of march, making gathering supplies difficult. The Persians were trading space for time, allowing Cyrus further into the countryside, getting them away from resupply, and stringing them out.
Eventually, Artaxerxes did commit his army to battle. By that time, he had raised a sizable force, and it overlapped Cyrus’ battleline considerably. Cyrus ordered the Greeks to advance, which they did with alacrity, quickly routing the Persian units in front of them. However, and unknown to the Greeks, Artaxerxes’ army easily enfiladed Cyrus’ remaining force and killed Cyrus himself.
The Greeks now found themselves in an awkward position. They numbered 10,000 well-trained heavy infantry, but they were trapped in the middle of enemy territory. They briefly concluded a truce with the Persians, hoping for guides to escort them back to Greece, but Artaxerxes could not let the Greeks escape, least others [*cough* Alexander “The Great”], get the idea that someone could invade Persia with impunity. The Greeks fled north, harried by Persian cavalry and light infantry for much of the way, at least until the Greeks developed their own ad hoc cavalry and skirmisher troops on the fly.
They eventually made their way into the Kurdish controlled mountains north of the Tigris’ and Euphrates’ River valleys. There they developed increasingly complex tactics to deal with the various challenges they faced, utilizing screening forces, overwatch, and pinning and enfilading elements. In Thucydides, we often read of hoplite battles that sound like rugby scrums, but in Xenophon, we find maneuvers that would make the best Napoleonic infantry commanders proud.
After many weeks on the march, the Greek force crested a ridge and saw the Black Sea in the distance. “The sea! The sea!,” they shouted because it represented the far extent of Greek colonies. There they spent more than a month resting and recuperating. They were safe(r) but still had to figure out a way home.
If you’re interested in the final discussion of the book, check out my Substack.
The History Doctor 
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