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Xenophon's Anabasis
One of my goals after getting away from my tech job was to push myself to read more, and I've been managing a pace of about a book a week since April. In particular, I finished reading the Anabasis earlier today: it's a fascinating adventure story, of how a mercenary force, stranded hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, manages to bring itself safely home.
Here's a little synopsis of each of its seven books:
Prince Cyrus of Persia secretly gathers a large army, including ten thousand Greek mercenaries, to assassinate his brother, King Artaxerxes. They march on Babylon, but Cyrus is killed in battle.
The Greek mercenaries are stranded deep in enemy territory. They sign a truce with a Persian viceroy who guarantees their safe return. He betrays them and assassinates most of the Greek captains.
Xenophon urges the surviving Greek captains and lieutenants to action. He is elected captain of a unit. At his recommendation, the ten thousand destroy all nonessential equipment and march north with all haste. The Persians pursue and the Greeks suffer for it, but eventually make it to high ground and relative safety.
The Greeks decide to go over the mountains to the Black Sea, hoping that the Persians would not pursue through Kurdistan and Armenia. They did not, but the natives and harsh conditions prove worse and there are many casualties. Nonetheless, the Greeks scrape through and reach the Black Sea at Trapezous.
The Greeks fail to secure transport and provisions for a sea voyage and so march west, trading military services for guidance and safe passage through foreign territories, eventually reaching Sinope, from which they finally secure transport.
The Greek army sails to Heraclea. There, they suffer from internal disunity, diplomatic failures, disastrous skirmishes, and a lack of provisions, but they eventually stabilize and march as far as Chrysopolis.
The Greeks cross the Bosphorus into Byzantium, but the army has no money to buy needed provisions and so the city's governor fears that it will use force in desperation. He uses deceit to lure the army out of the city and closes it. Desperate, Xenophon trades the army's services to a local barbarian king for provisions and pay. When the term of service comes to an end, pay is withheld, but Xenophon manages to secure it with difficulty. Sparta begins a campaign against Persia and the recruits the army, but since Xenophon is not a formal member of the army, he finally returns home.
The whole thing is harrowing, and it seems a miracle that the Greeks managed to secure adequate provisions as they went: often they were a day away from being without food, and nobody—not even the Greek cities!—showed them hospitality.
One of the surprising things was that Xenophon, who was instrumental in saving eight thousand lives, wasn't even supposed to be there! He wasn't an officer or even a soldier (though, like all Athenians, he had a few years of mandatory service under his belt, so he wasn't green), he just happened to come along for fun and adventure as a friend of one of the captains, Proxenus. He ended up in charge by taking action when nobody else would, being of upstanding character, never asking others for something he wouldn't do himself, and by learning from his mistakes.
I'm also reading The Art of not Being Governed by James Scott, who suggests that barbarians aren't primitives—rather, they're peoples who specifically and actively reject statehood, and tend to mountains and violence as a deliberate reaction to state-making. Xenophon's account underscores that: as powerful as the Persian Empire is, the Greeks make a mockery of them even when greatly outnumbered—but the Kurds tear the Greeks to shreds: losing something like a tenth of their fighting force in weeks.
Amusingly, Socrates makes a cameo appearance! When Proxenus invited Xenophon to go with him, Xenophon had a bad feeling about it and asked Socrates what to do. Socrates advised Xenophon to ask the oracle of Delphi, but Xenophon botches his question and asks how best to travel (not whether to travel). Oops! When Xenophon tells Socrates about it, Socrates says, "Welp, you can't just ignore what Apollo told you to do, so I guess you're in for it now!" Xenophon certainly got more than he bargained for, but got through it none the worse for wear—in fact, he became famous!—so I guess the Oracle was right!
Also interesting is that Xenophon repeatedly describes prophetic dreams and omens. As he first sets out, an eagle cries out in a particular way and an augur divines for Xenophon from this that his path is difficult and would bring renoun but not wealth. He is induced to spur the Greeks to action by a dream in which Zeus leads him out of a burning building. In a seemingly hopeless situation where his army is trapped between the enemy and a deep river, he dreams that fetters which bind him fall open, and upon waking some of his men discover a safe ford. The army often only takes up, or drops, a course of action after the captains divine on it, and Xenophon frequently only seems to scrape through on the basis of divinatory advice.
Another thing I didn't expect was how all the different Greek nationalities all seem to come with stereotypes attached. Spartans, for example, are treated as courageous and morally upstanding, but also as grudge-bearing and perhaps less intelligent than most. Athenians are treated as clever but conniving (and Xenophon seems to surprise everyone with his openness and honesty). Arcadians and Achæans are treated as being of great physical strength and endurance, but also very quick to anger. I always thought Thrace was part of Greece, but here they're treated as barbarians! It was interesting to see all this, as they're all Greek to me—but to Xenophon and his army, it seems that the Greeks are completely different peoples united only by bonds of honor and language. It underscores, to me, just how radical Diogenes was being when he claimed to be "a citizen of the world."
Anyway, I found it a fun and interesting read and would recommend it if you're into military sorts of things.
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thanks!
I remember a small history topic in high school emphasizing that the people we call Greeks really saw themselves as denizens of their respective (city)-states: there was no Greek political unity or nationality. Those have been more or less retrospectively applied to them. I can't promise you my memory of spats between the states is accurate but I believe they only ever acted in unison when threatened with invasion, as by the Persians.
Even more speculatively, because I am winging this hypothesis, once the Romans got them in the Empire was when they acquired the group label. Think of the hundreds of tribes of Australian Aborigines who also had no concept of being anything but disparate nations till whites saw them as a group.
A library copy of Scott's book was in my hands for a short while once. Like many good things, it was recalled well before I had finished it. The idea of the hill-dwellers' tactics was tantalising and very much poignant since that sovereign state they were bent on avoiding is wielding its might so ubiquitously just now. I love the idea of not being bound by a name.
Re: thanks!
Your notion of the Roman group label reminded me of a story I heard, which I have no idea how true it is, but as I heard: the Greeks call Greece "Hellas" and themselves "Hellenes." Now, the Greeks became a regional power and each city-state started to colonize all over, from the Black Sea to Italy and so on. One little city north of Athens, Graea, happened to have colonized part of the Italian peninsula, and when the growing Roman sphere of influence bumped into them, they asked what they called themselves, and so called them by their preferred name, "Graeci." But Rome kept growing and bumped into more and more Greek colonies, and said, "Oh! We know you guys, you're Graeci!" and the Greeks would say, "What, Graeci? No, we're Athenian" or "No, we're Corinthian" or whatever, but the Romans would say, "Nah, you can't fool us! You're Graeci, alright." And so the name stuck and presumably the Greeks have been grumbling about it since.
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Yes, I believe I have heard the same story about Graeci and Hellenes. The present name in Greek for that country is still Hellas and their language Hellenikos IIRC. They call modern Greek "new Hellenic". Recall the historical term for the Greek rule in Egypt which is still known in acadaemia as Hellenic or whatever cognate I don't presently remember.
One of my Greek classmates declared that since the Greeks invented tragedy, they claim still to have a monopoly on it. I think he spoke true and it was a fine bit of insight coming from this man anybody would have mistaken for a depressive neurotic. A Greek family textile business in this country whose products I had liked claimed on its website that it had closed down since (because of) the "tragic" death of its octogenarian founder.
Thanks for the favour. I have declined to return this in the past as I don't write protected entries, but today it occurred to me that perhaps this was obtuse and it is more symbolic... time to remedy my unintended rudeness. So meaningless as it be in one way, now I can feel entitled to ask you for tips on translation ;)
Re: thanks!