The Ancients - March of the 10,000

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

Recorded by Xenophon, the 10,000 were a force of Greek mercenaries employed by Cyrus the Younger, with the aim of taking back the Persian Empire from his brother, Artaxexes. Travelling over 1,766 miles to the north of Babylon, where forces eventually clashed at the Battle of Cunaxa, Cyrus ultimately perished in the battle leaving the Greeks stranded and leaderless.Choosing to flee the scene rather than see themselves become slaves to the Persians, the Greeks began the perilous journey back to their homeland.In this episode, Tristan is joined by Owen Rees from Manchester Metropolitan University, to talk about the March of the 10,000 and the carnage they left in their wake.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, I'm very excited about this one because we've got this incredible extraordinary military adventure story from ancient history it survives in the account of a greek writer called xenophon

occurring in the late 5th early 4th centuries bc in the near east it's called the march of the 10 000 this amazing adventure story which sees these soldiers battling in lowlands and highlands against a variety of enemies in their bid to escape to flee it's a remarkable story and joining me on the podcast today to give a whirlwind account of the march of the 10 000 with great details still kept in there and so much enthusiasm i was delighted to go and interview once again dr owen reese from manchester metropolitan university owen he's been on the podcast before to talk about combat trauma to talk about dogs in ancient greece but he's got a special place in his heart for the story of the march the 10000 because it's such an incredible, brilliant military adventure story

from ancient history. So without further ado, to talk through the March of the 10,000, here's Owen. Owen, great to have you back on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me back. It's always a pleasure, Tristan. Very exciting one today.

March of the 10,000. You're going to be a tour de force. You've got 40 minutes to talk us through this epic story. It is an epic story, isn't it? It is definitely an epic story. It's of epic proportions. It is everything you want from a story. And it's made all the more amazing

by the fact that it's true and that it is a true story as we go through this in 40 minutes I'm not convinced I'll be able to cover all of it so excuse me when we have an abridged version

all I can really say to anyone listening to this you don't need to buy a historian's version of this book if you don't want to the easiest thing to read is the account itself by a

man called Xenophon in his what's called the Expedition of Cyrus, his Anabasis. If you take nothing else away from this chat, go and read that book. Well, it's good that we're doing a bridge version because it means we can cover the main points. And if people want to learn more, they can go and buy the book and read it. So that's great. So let's set the context as we begin our chat. The 40 minutes have begun. When and where are we talking with this story? OK, so this story really begins around 401 BC. OK, now we can kind of contextualize that a little bit, especially from the Greek perspective,

because ultimately this is a story of the Greek mercenary army of the 10,000. From a Greek perspective, the Peloponnesian War has just ended. So you've had almost 30 years of warfare, the mobilization of at least two generations of men, and who now have, many have, battle experience. But what we also have is a devastation of many of the, you know, the kind of farms and the like. You have a lot of men who the only thing they can really do at this point is fight to make money. So rather unsurprisingly, we see Greeks appear in mercenary armies. So that's kind of the context of the 10,000 themselves. Why do they even exist? Why can you get that many Greeks? Because there's this abundance of labor. It's not because the Greeks

are special. They're not particularly great mercenaries, but there are a lot of them and they need money. So that's the context of that. Ultimately the story itself exists, it starts in Asia Minor, modern Turkey, and it moves southeast into the heart of the Persian Empire, at its height at this point, all the way to sort of the lands of Babylonia. It then moves north into what is now Armenia and then up to the Black Sea. So that is fundamentally the geographic context of it. We'll kind of cover the impact that has on the individuals, which is very much my love as a research topic.

And also the impact it has on some very famous characters of Greek history, Xenophon among them, obviously. We mentioned Xenophon. Let's talk, therefore, through who are, would you say, the main characters in this story? Main characters of this story. You've got the main characters, and you've got the ones that I love most. All right. So undoubtedly, the main character of Xenophon's Anabasis is Xenophon himself. It's a beautiful book because it's written in the third person, much like Julius Caesar wrote his Gallic Wars in the third person. Xenophon had already done that. He wrote his entire book in the third person. It is his memoir.

So he is not writing about an expedition he's heard about. He was there. When he describes battles, he was in them. When he describes trying to coordinate sort of rallies of troops and things like that, it's because he did it. It's a fascinating insight into one commander's version of events. So he's most definitely the main story because he tells the story. But we also have other characters. We have Cyrus the Younger, the man who actually brings together this mercenary force and adds it to his own army. He is attempting a coup, an uprising against his brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes. Among them, we also have my favourite Spartan, Clearchus, who at this point in his career has been thrown out by the Spartans for being too aggressive.

If you ever thought that was possible, he has been. He was given money to create a mercenary force and he went and did that. So he is a rather eccentric figure as well. We also have another Spartan commander, Curasophus, who helps or possibly leads Xenophon, depending on how you read the sources. But he's definitely one of the great commanders of the 10,000 as well later on that we'll kind of get to. These are the kind of main characters. You have other sort of Persian protagonists, Cicifernes, for instance, who appears quite often. His job is to basically chase the 10,000 for a while. But to be honest, our main source is Xenophon. So Xenophon is our main character. So we have these Greek figures, therefore, in Turkey, in Asia Minor, and we've got Cyrus the Younger.

How does this whole story, therefore, begin with them and this army in Asia Minor? Well, if we go long term, it really starts when Cyrus the Younger gets too involved in the Peloponnesian War. when Cyrus the Younger gets too involved in the Peloponnesian War. So the Peloponnesian War between Sparta, Athens and their allies. Cyrus the Younger sides with Sparta and he does this by funding. So he funds the Spartans, he helps them basically defeat the Athenians and win the Peloponnesian War. This is kind of where the story starts. After the Peloponnesian War, Cyrus is informed that his dad, the former king of Persia, is dying. So he is summoned, and basically the intention of the Persian court is to stop a civil war before it even begins. So, you know, they want everyone to agree that Artaxerxes is going to be the reigning king, and he has the right to that kingship, which he does. He's the

oldest son. Cyrus very much has his mother in his ear, telling him, well, he might be the oldest, but you're the first son that your father had whilst king. Therefore, you should be the king. This is utter nonsense. That's not how royal lines work. It's never how royal lines work, but that's the story we get. Ultimately, when his dad dies, Cyrus then starts plotting. He's given this position of power and authority in Asia Minor, which is quite far away from the royal court. So he's sort of semi-autonomous, but even he knows he can't just bring an army together. His brother will notice. So what he does is he obviously starts to bring together his own troops, but he finds commanders of mercenary forces and basically gives them money and goes,

go and get some men, bring them together, and I'll give you something to do. So Clearchus, for instance, he gives Clearchus a load of money. Clearchus goes out and gets an army of mercenaries. We're not talking hundreds, like a thousand or so. And then Clearchus goes out and gets an army of mercenaries. We're not talking hundreds, like a thousand or so. And then Clearchus basically goes and finds a war to fight. He just invents one in his own mind. Clearchus is described as a war lover by Xenophon. And that's what he does to stay busy. And of course, what Cyrus is waiting for is the moment to strike. So the moment he thinks there's weakness in Persian court, Artaxerxes is quite distracted by what's going on in Egypt. There's a bit of a revolt in Egypt. He's quite distracted by that. So this is when Cyrus decides, that's it, we're on the move.

Problem is, no one can know why we're moving. So how is he going to hide bringing together this large army from all these different places? He creates a story that basically there's an uprising in Anatolia. There are rebels in Anatolia that he needs to put down. And this is how the Greek 10,000, so-called 10,000 Greek mercenaries, there are actually about 13,000 of them, but they're called the 10,000. That's how they come together. And that's how they end up being led by Cyrus himself. Thing is, the Greeks have been lied to. Everyone has been lied to because they all think they're putting down an uprising. And as they start to move further and

further south, leaving Asia Minor, starting to enter sort of Western Asia and what we think of the Middle East now, they start to go, well, this ain't right. Where are we going? And then the rumors start. And the rumor is, we're going to go fight the king. And the Greeks are very much, that's not what we signed up for. So there's actually a mutiny. There's an attempted mutiny where the Greek 10,000, before the story's even begun, try and leave. And they get talked around by Clearchus, of all people. But ultimately, Cyrus ends up paying them more to do it. So they agree, but everyone now realizes, oh, we're in for a rough ride. And we're marching against the king of the superpower of the time.

Exactly. There is no empire that could come close to matching the Persians. Militarily, they're untouchable. And Cyrus the Younger is dragging the Greeks along in with it. And so this is kind of the beginning of the story. And it comes to a crescendo when they do actually make it all the way to Mesopotamia. They make it to Babylonia and they come to the battlefield of Cronaxa. So this is 401 BC, the Battle of Cronaxa, where finally the royal army

has come to meet them and put down this ridiculous civil war uprising, whatever you want to call it. And the Greeks take part in this battle. The Greeks take up the right-hand flank of Cyrus's army. And the battle goes on all day. The Greeks do actually win their bit of the battle. So opposite them was a small cavalry force, about 500. There is light infantry, and there is an Egyptian heavy infantry sort of section as well. That's what's facing the Greeks. And then the Persian line is also fronted by scythe chariots. Really interesting, going on a tangent, but really interesting moment where the scythe chariots are the first thing to move and they go for the Greek line. You think heavy infantry, scythe chariots cutting their way through, break

up the lines, good tactical advantage. And what the Greeks do is they open their lines and just let the chariots through and basically just create a big enough space so it doesn't work. And the reason why this is interesting is one, it does actually, that's successful, no one dies. But it's also interesting from an individual perspective, because we actually have an account in Xenophon of a man in the Greek phalanx who doesn't move. So modern physiological and sort of psychological study of warfare, we talk kind of colloquially about fight, flight or freeze. You know, it's this kind of fear response. Fight and flight talked about all the time. You know, you run away in fear or, you know, you kind of go, when something aggressive against you, you go aggressive against them.

That's the fight response. We don't often talk about freeze, which is actually something many of us may well have experienced, which is that fear makes you just stop and you can't move. It doesn't last forever, but you can't move. And this is what happens to this man. He can't move. He just stays there., but you can't move. And this is what happens to this man. He can't move. He just stays there.

Xenophon talks about it quite dismissively. He's a bit of a prat. Because why didn't he get out of the way? He doesn't die. He doesn't get his legs chopped off. No, no, nothing like that. He does, I don't know whether someone pulled him out or whatever it was. But it's just a lovely little insight into the individual.

And the reason why Xenophon can tell us this story is because Xenophon's in that phallax. So, you know, it's his perspective. It's also in his whole account of this battle, you start to realize we're only seeing what Xenophon himself saw. So Xenophon described, like I said to you, he described the cavalry, he describes the light infantry in opposite, he describes the Egyptians opposite. And then he says, and then the rest of the Persian army lined up. He doesn't describe them at all. And the reason he doesn't describe them at all is because he's on the right flank, and he can't see this. So he doesn't describe it. So going back to the battle narrative, you know, Xenophon is part of this Greek force which chases off the light infantry who are running away. Tisiphanes, who is leading the cavalry, knows the Greeks are going to do this because this is what the Greeks

always do. Whenever someone runs away, the Greeks chase them. So he takes his cavalry and lets them run past. And his cavalry just comes behind the rebel lines and aims for the baggage train. So he knows the Greeks are now gone and he's got a cavalry force behind Cyrus's lines. So the Persian army of Cyrus against Artaxerxes' Persian army, they have a battle. Cyrus's army is defeated. Cyrus himself aims for his brother. Real weird sibling rivalry going on. He just goes, oh well, I'm going to take my bodyguards and we'll just try and kill him ourselves. He fails. He's killed. And they lose. The Greeks are about a mile and a half off the battlefield. They don't know anything that's happened. They think they've

won. They think they've won the battle. And so they basically go, cool, great, we're done. So they basically go, cool, great, we're done. And then news comes that Cyrus has died and that they've actually lost. But in the Greek minds, they haven't lost. So there's this real weird disparity between reality and what the Greeks think has happened. So when all this has come to an end and the Greeks have kind of just sort of sat there going, well, now what? Our paymaster is dead. Our leader is dead, same man.

And we're hundreds and hundreds of miles away from home. We're in the middle of what is now modern Iraq, behind enemy lines, heart of the Persian Empire. And we're stuck. The Persians send an envoy over and basically go, give us your weapons and we won't kill you. We don't want you here. You don't want to be here. We'll escort you home. It'll be fine. Greeks were a little suspicious of this. I'll be honest with you. They're a little suspicious of this. And they basically say, well, rather than that, why don't you hire us and we'll join you? Persians refuse

because they don't trust them. So there's this real weird moment where neither can trust the other. And so what they're ending up with is an inevitability, which is the Greeks have to get home and the Persians can't trust them to walk through Persian lands. So this is the beginning of the march home. And as you can see from the very beginning, that distrust inevitably results in conflict. So the Persians are, I use this term loosely, escorting the Greeks home, but really they're harassing them home in just the hope of breaking them. That's the aim. That's the intention. So the story of Xenophon's Anabasis is not the lead up to Canaxa. That all occurs in the first book. The other six, seven books, the rest of them are this march home, behind enemy lines.

This is literally the ancient version of Bravo 2.0. Like, if you're going to think of, like, you know, the modern war films, people stuck behind enemy lines. This is the original version of that. And it's just the most amazing tale of human endurance. And so what are, therefore, the initial problems that these soldiers now face? That they've got this huge army, Tisiphanes and Artaxerxes' armies, very, very close. They are in the heartlands of the Persian Empire. How do they get through that initial stage of this book so that there is still a March of the 10,000 a few months down the line?

Yeah, this is it. So obviously within any military situation, morale is everything. And in a mercenary army made up of Greeks who don't necessarily associate with one another. So, you know, we've got Arcadians with Spartans with Athenians, Xenophons and Athenians. You know, this mix of city-states. Their relationship with one another is strained anyway. And as a mercenary army, your main motivation is money. And your paymaster's dead. So what's keeping you together? All that's keeping them together now is the realization if they break apart, they die.

So the first thing they've got to do is they've got to sort out who's in charge. A very authoritative figure comes to the fore, who is Clearchus. Clearchus the Spartan. So Clearchus is a very pragmatic man. He is a military man through and through. He does not care about your feelings. He does not care that you're tired. He does not care that you're cold. Anything you can do, he will do better. That's kind of his approach. Xenophon tells us no one likes him. Everyone wants to be led by him. That's the image we get from him. You don't want him in charge of you at home. But if you're going to battle, there is no greater leader. That's the image we get of Clearchus. That's what he's told.

That's what we're told. So he takes the lead. So as Clearchus takes this lead, we do sort of see this endurance kick in, this mental endurance kick in from the very beginning. Tisfernes is a smart man. He knows to get the Greeks to fall apart, you just need to keep chipping away. And Artaxerxes at this time, he's just decided, yeah, exactly that. This is not a king's job. This is not a king's job. Artaxerxes doesn't got to worry about this. Tisiphanes this is your job until a certain point. And then we've got other satraps, those are Persian governors, they can deal with it as this force moves further and further north okay. So Tisiphanes knows how to chip away at

their morale, so constant harassment, constant haranguing you know, if the Greeks are trying to forage for food they're not allowed to. If the Persians can get ahead of them, they burn the land so there's no food for them to forage at all. You know, and this just has an obvious impact. The last thing he clocks is of course leadership. So Ctesiphonius sets a trap. Well, the Persians themselves set this trap. They set this trap of basically a parley, bring the commanders of the Greek forces together with the persians and come to an agreement of course the agreement was that you're going to die so the persians actually just kidnap those commanders and take them away and kill them so it's not in xenophon because obviously xenophon doesn't know what happens to them but another source by nero ktesias, who is a Greek physician in the Persian court,

he wrote a book all about Persian history. And this forms part of it because he was supposed to be, supposedly, the physician of Artaxerxes himself. There is one claim that he actually healed the wounds of Artaxerxes from the Battle of Canaxa. So he may even have been at the battle. He mentions meeting Clearchus. He mentions meeting him in jail. And there's this really interesting dynamic between the two of them, where they sort of become friends.

But we only have it as like an epitome in another book. It's only mentioned in passing. We don't, oh, it's one of those, if there's a book you'd really want, or like a section of a book you'd love to read. For me, it's that. I'd love to know what you actually said about meeting clearchus because from what we hear there is this impression that he may well have been asked by clearchus to give him an item so that clearchus could kill himself rather than be executed you know things like that so the greek commanders are killed, gone. Now, all of a sudden, the Greek army, the 10,000, are leaderless.

And this is where the narrative of Xenophon and Abbasid starts to pick up pace. Because of course, there's panic, there's turmoil. We're told the men don't even sleep in a proper camp. They just lie wherever they are. There's no security, there's no patrol duties, nothing like that. They've given up all hope. What are they going to do? Who's going to save them? And then all of a sudden, a man has this dream. And in this dream, basically Zeus gives him a message, which is that fundamentally, you can do this. You are the man to do this. And that man wakes up. And of course, who is that man? It is Xenophon himself. This is where Xenophon introduces himself to the story. At this moment of complete chaos, Xenophon comes in to save the day. So this is the story we get. So Xenophon basically goes,

come on, lads, buck up. We need leaders. Let's vote for leaders. So they vote in five leaders, Xenophon being one of them. And from there, this whole story takes a completely different trajectory. And we see through Xenophon's eyes now how they managed to do what they managed to do for the next year. So, for instance, Xenophon talks about dealing with the cavalry and the archery skills in the Persian forces. Because the Greeks just don't, at this point, don't seem to have much of a cavalry, barely have a cavalry force They don't really seem to have an archery force or a slinging force that can match the Persian for range So Xenophon creates one and in a fascinating bit of insight into his psychology. He goes to his army I hear there are some Rhodians, so people from Rhodes, the Greek island famous for its slingers So he's like well, give me a spear and a shield and I'll give you a sling.

So that's how he creates a sling force. He then goes, we need a cavalry force. How many horses we got? Right, rich people, give me a horse. I'm taking it. Who can ride a horse? Who's going to be in the cavalry? Only a small force, about 50 men.

And then he goes, they need armour. Who's got armour? So even though this is a mercenary force, well funded to. And then he goes, they need armour. Who's got armour? So even though this is a mercenary force, well-funded to an extent, they're not heavily armoured. So he's literally just grabbing whatever he can find and putting it together. And what's so interesting is that it works.

So this tiny cavalry force and this makeshift missile force is able to repel the Persians. And this is where we get this real impression of, now we're not just watching the Greeks flee, we're watching a fighting retreat. That's what we're seeing as they move north through Mesopotamia and up north into the mountainous region. Hi there, I'm Don Wildman, the host of the brand new podcast, American History Hit. Join me twice a week as I explore the past to help us understand the United States today.

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so it's big extensive plains it's not highlands so it's lowlands probably ideal for persian scouts with bows and slings and all that and and you know, mounted reconnaissance units. And then as you get to the more highland montane terrain, it becomes a different kettle of fish entirely. Completely different problem as soon as you hit the mountains into what is sort of Armenia, that kind of region. It's a different kettle of fish for combat. You know, you're fighting uphill a lot. Difficult for anyone. The higher ground is always the advantage. And what they meet is more and more and more and more local resistance. No one wants a mercenary force marching through their land. Because even with the best intentions, you're

stealing food. You're looking for shelter. You're just entering villages you have no place to be, things like that. But what you also hit when you enter the mountains is a change in weather. So think of the heat of the plains of Mesopotamia and further north. As soon as you hit the mountains, you now deal with the cold. And what's particularly interesting in Xenophon's account of the cold is what he describes the men suffering with So as they're marching along through the cold, we're not even talking about dealing with being attacked We're not even talking about the kind of the almost mini ambushes They're constantly dealing with or the towns. They've got to try and take just so they can safely march past we hear reference to

snow blindness Men going blind because the snow and how they try to deal with it putting something dark in front of their eyes so the glare of the snow is impacting them so how are they going blind from the snow how is that happening it's from the light snow blindness is still a common phenomenon we look at skiers and they're kind of they basically you basically ski in in big goggles which are basically sunglasses and it's the brightness of the white and it's the sun reflecting, all this kind of thing. That's always been true. So they've got to deal with that.

So that's the first thing we get in a lovely little passage, where he just really goes into detail. We get reference to what the Greeks call bulimia, which is obviously where we get the term bulimia. So bulimia, to the Greeks, is hunger fainting. So the men are so hungry that they're starting to pass out. Now, in Greek medicine, they associate this predominantly with being cold. So without going into a massive thing on Greek medicine, Greek medicine is always based on balance. And one of those balances you need to be careful of is hot and cold. Oh, the humus. The humus, yeah. The humus system is one of a few. It's Oh, the humors. The humor, yeah, the humor system is one of a few, you know,

it's not just the humors themselves, but it's all part of balance. So one of the other things is hot and cold. We talked about it in the dog episode with medicine, and there's also wet and dry, hot and cold, other things to consider. So snow blindness, sorry, snow blindness, bulimia, hunger fainting is associated with being cold. We also get, obviously, accounts of frostbite and people losing toes, akin to the great Antarctic voyages we used to read in the 20th century. There's quite a gruesome description of men having their sandals, their footwear, freezing to their flesh. This is how cold they're getting, to the point where they're having to sleep out in that snow. There's no shelter, nothing like that.

As they've left Mesopotamia, as they've left the plains and they've entered the mountains, they've had to shed more and more of what they're carrying to move faster, so they're not being held up. So they've got rid of equipment. They've got rid of people, slaves, baggage trains, things like that. They've really cut it right back. So by the time they hit the snow, clearly they haven't kept a lot of tents. They haven't kept a lot of shelter or anything like that, anything for camps. So they start going from almost village to village, try and find a village, use that. So you can also kind of see why locals don't like them. But that's by the by. So what we also see in the snow is depression. Think of the mental impact this is having. All the way back to the battle itself, all the way back to Cyrus's lies. This is all taking its toll. And then as you hit the snow, the cold, you're starting to see your

friends freeze and die. You're not even able to dig them graves because the ground is solid. Think of the impact this is having on you. Think of the mental anguish this is creating. We have one story where they are in the snow and they notice there's a patch that isn't frozen. Probably a warm spring of some sort in the local area, but it happens to not be. And some of the men sit there and refuse to move, just refuse. And Xenophon basically goes, come on, get up, we need to go. And the men go, we would rather you kill us than us keep moving. And Xenophon's like, but the Persians are everywhere. They're going to get you. You will be taken. You will be killed. And they're just like, we do not care. And that gives you a real insight into what

they're feeling and what they're thinking. There's another account which kind of also gives you an idea of the panic that's going on. You know, the Persians are still chasing them. So we hear it by the by through actually Xenophon's put on trial later for something he did. And we hear about a man who was told by Xenophon to carry a wounded comrade. And, you know, pick him up, carry him, let's keep moving. And rather than do that, he tried to bury him alive and was caught. And Xenophon was the man who caught him. And so he hit him.

He hit the man who was trying to bury this guy alive. As you would, I think it's this guy alive. As you would, I think it's fair to say. As you would. But weird thing about Greek armies, other than the Spartans, none of them use corporal punishment. None of them use physical retribution. Because in most city-states, everyone's equal. So who has the right to do that? No one has that right. Hence why he's put on trial. You had no right to hit him. He then tells the story as it was, and then everyone goes, you shouldn't have hit him harder. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because when we think about armies, even mercenary armies, especially mercenary armies in the ancient world, we think professional, we think disciplined, things like that. things like that. But that discipline is different because they have a different set of values. They have a different set of hierarchies and what those hierarchies are built on. Not the classic discipline of modern armies. It's built on other things. And for this mercenary army coming home,

you will also take away money as an incentive. So what is driving them is basically all of their will to survive. And as a result, although we see complaints about physical violence against each other, they're happy to accept if it was right. Whereas an Athenian army would never accept that. An Argive army, an Theban army would never accept that. But this army, the 10,000 will. And this is so interesting. So as this is all happening in the highlands now, the snowy highlands, as you say, not only the local peoples who are not helping them at all, hindering them, but you still have the Persians chasing too, over mountain after mountain after mountain. Yeah, it's not Ctesiphones anymore. Remember what I said, they're going through different satrapies. They're going through different almost,

I don't know what their best equivalent would be, almost like counties. If you think about that. Governorships. Yeah, governorships. Yeah, governorships. Provinces, that's the word I'm looking for. Different provinces. So, you know, various satraps, governors of these provinces, take up that kind of mantle, so to speak. As they move further and further north, we hear less and less of the Persians themselves. We hear of local resistance.

But we also hear of quite horrific resistance. And it's very easy in this story to get stuck on what the Greeks are up to and their harrowing story. They're a great story of endurance. It's easy to forget the locals who, of course, are petrified. You know, they're not evil people trying to stop this heroic force come home. They're petrified. And we hear of one account Xenophon describes where they have to take a town on top of a highland and he goes into great detail about basically how they plan this interesting insight into the planning of a Greek army not disputing that and he uses various forms of troops so it's not just hoplites the heavy infantrymen

he uses light-armed troops etc but he describes what the women and children in the city do when they realize the Greeks are coming and it's unlikely the city will be able to resist. And what happens is, and Xenophon tells this from an eyewitness account, the women throw the children off the cliff and jump after them. Xenophon also describes men doing it. So he goes into detail about the women and children. He mentions men. There is one of the sort of captains, shall we say, of the 10,000, saw a man basically run to jump. And he tried to grab him to stop him, but he couldn't stop him and got taken over with him. So Xenophon's witnessing this and he's describing this in shock. And what's really interesting

about that is, why would that be shocking? Because obviously he can't see why would they be doing this if they just let us past. Or conversely, okay, yeah, we're going to take their city, but we're just going to enslave them. To Xenophon, that's not a fate worse than death. Well, they probably would if you offered it to him. But he's shocked by what he's watching. It doesn't stop him doing it, but he is shocked by what he's watching. And as a narrative, as a book, the Anabasis goes from this, this horrible story, to all of a sudden, probably the most famous scene in the Anabasis goes from this, this horrible story, to all of a sudden, probably the

most famous scene in the Anabasis. So they continue north, and they reach another plateau, and Xenophon, who's near the rear, suddenly hears all these cheers from the men at the front. And he's like, oh, what's happening? Is there now another assault we've got to deal with? So he runs to the front. He might well be on horseback at this point. He gets to the front as fast as he can. And then he realizes it's not war cries. It's not anger. It is cheers of joy. And what he has heard is the famous cry of the 10,000, the latter, the latter, the sea, the sea. They can see the Black Sea. And this is such an iconic moment because of everything that's gone on before, all the hardship, all the anguish, all the loss,

all the difficulties they've had. And all of a sudden, by seeing the water, by seeing the Black Sea, it's not that they see the Black Sea, it's that they see a way home, finally. This isn't the plains of Iraq. This is not Syria. This is not the Armenian mountains. This is the final, the last leg to the sea. Exactly that. We are entering Greek land. And that's why it's such an iconic moment. And this Thalata, Thalata cry is an iconic moment, not only in this book, but also in European literature. I mean, it's used time and time again. I mean, Iris Murdoch has a book basically named after this. You know, it's such an important moment, both literarily and within this story. And so that last leg, so they've seen the sea, do we therefore hear about how they get to the

sea and then what they do once they've reached the coast? Yes. Yeah, we we do so they continue their march things don't necessarily get any easier okay so it's you think of that at the moment as almost a climax and that's true to a kind of a point but the story does continue so they move north they get to the black sea now you've got to go well how do we get home so they've got to get ships things like that whereabouts are they on the Black Sea coast

so they're on the south sort of central Black Sea coast at this point and they need ships so they send their sort of main leader Kyrgyzophos the Spartan

to go get some ships so he's off to go get some ships this takes far too long weeks pass you've got a lot of men very excited to go home with nothing to do. What starts to ferment in the group is a sense of distrust with one another.

They want us to stay. They're going to make us go fight again. We're going to turn around. Something else is going on here. And also paranoia. So, I mean, there's even an indication that Xenophon might even have been dabbling with the idea of staying, keeping them there in some way. So, you know, it's perhaps not unfounded. But the ships do arrive, and they do finally get to head west. So they follow through the Black Sea to Byzantium. Not the Byzantium of the Roman period. This is not what's going to become Constantinople. It's just a small but important town at the mouth of the Black Sea. But ultimately, you know, there's still a mercenary army.

They still want money. And there's a local Thracian ruler, Seuthes, who basically says, I could do with some help. Here's some money. So actually, the 10,000 do get to leave the Persian Empire. But their story is not yet over. They're thrown straight back into another conflict. Precisely that. So we see this sort of play out for a while.

And then there's a bit of consternation because they're not getting paid. And then, of course, the question is, we're not getting paid. What are we doing here? And then the 10,000 have more discussions of what to do next. Then they get approached by a new paymaster, the Spartans. So the Spartans at this point, where are we now? 399 BCE, it's round about where we are, 400 to 399. The Spartans at this point are starting to look east. They've controlled the Greek mainland and they're interested in expanding east. And under the guise of freeing the Greek states under Persian rule, they're going to

go invade Asia Minor. The 10,000 are recruited, and they go. And that's fundamentally where the story of Xenophon and Abbotin ends. It's not where the story of Xenophon ends. It's not even the story of where the 10,000 end. The 10,000 sort of disappear from the history books and then reappear at the Battle of Coronea, which is another Spartan battle on the Greek mainland, where Agesilaus II, who's been called home from his venture in Asia Minor, to deal with an Athenian and Theban and basically a big alliance against them. He comes home. In that army where he wins the Battle of Koronea is the 10,000, well, the remnants of them. The last count we haveet is the 10,000. Well, the remnants of

them. The last count we have of them is 6,000. So from the original 13,000, they've been knocked back to six. That's really the end of the story of the 10,000 that we know. For Xenophon himself, he's got a bit more going on. So Xenophon leaves the 10,000. He doesn't stay with them this entire time. He finally leaves them when they're under Spartan control. But it's hard to kind of piece together Xenophon's life at this point. But at some point around now, he gets exiled from Athens. So he's not allowed to return home. Which interestingly, his teacher, the great Socrates, had warned him of before he left. So there's this whole story Xenophon tells about why he even joins the 10,000 in the first place. Why does he even go to Cyrus the Younger in the first place?

So Xenophon basically goes to Socrates and goes, I've got an idea. Obviously, Athens around 402, 401 has lost the Peloponnesian War. It's undergone a tyranny under Spartan control. And it's just reclaimed its democracy. And anyone who was part of the coup and the tyranny of 404 to 403 BC was hated, absolutely hated. And one of the groups most associated with that were the, well, not really the oligarchs, that's not fair, the aristocracy, the cavalry. Cavalry were really blamed for a lot of what happened during this period of tyranny. The suppression of public support for democracy.

Xenophon is part of that group. So it's interesting that after democracy is reclaimed, he's thinking, I could probably do with leaving. It's getting a bit uncomfortable. So he goes to Socrates and goes, I've had an idea. There's this prince in Persia, he says carefully, Cyrus, and I think he'd make a good, not leader, but actually friend. That's his idea. I can make connections with him. And Socrates says, I would be careful because if you join Cyrus, there's a good chance the Athenians will never let you home again. The reason he says that, of course, is remember that Cyrus was responsible for funding the Spartan victory over Athens. To support Cyrus is to support Sparta. Socrates

warns him of this. He actually warns him of this in this rather endearing story where he says, look, don't make a decision like this on your own. Go and consult the oracle at Delphi. Because contrary to popular belief, Socrates was a devout religious man. He trusted the wisdom of the oracle. So Xenophon goes to Delphi and he's told by Socrates what to ask. He says, ask them, should I go? Xenophon goes and does not ask that question. He asks a different question. He asks, if I want to return home safely, what gods should I honour, pray to and sacrifice to? And Apollo, like a good god through his oracle, answers the question. Tells him the answer. These are the gods, go and do that. Xenophon comes home, tells Socrates what's happened. Socrates is fuming. He is fuming. This is not what I told you to ask. But because you've

asked it, you now have to go. Which, of course, was Xenophon's plan to begin with. So this is the backstory for Xenophon. He's now coming home. Possibly Socrates' warning has come true. Perhaps this is why he's exiled. Either way, we're not 100% sure. He doesn't go back to Athens. He actually ends up in the retinue of Agesilaus II of Sparta, the Spartan king, the man who then hires the 10,000 in Asia Minor, the man who then takes them to Coronea. Xenophon becomes pretty much one of his best friends for a period. And we're told he gets given a home by the Spartans. Not in Sparta itself, it's out in the outskirts. But he's given a home by the Spartans. There's even a claim in later sources that Xenophon's sons go through the hallowed agoge, the kind of almost ritual

upbringing of the Spartans, that kind of educational system. His sons may well have gone through it. That's kind of how ingrained he is in Sparta at this point. It's probably more likely this is why he's exiled, or that, and he may well have even joined Agesilaus at Coronea, you know, marching against the Athenians. Either way, it's during this period Xenophon is exiled and he never actually returns to Athens. He does get pardoned at some point, but he never returns. So that's kind of Xenophon's story, which continues further and further, you know, and he writes all his great works and Abbasid is only one of them. And it's probably, to my mind, the best

of all his works, because it's the most true, it's the most honest, and it's the most revealing of his own thoughts and also the experiences, emotions of everyone around him. It is such an amazing action-filled story, isn't it, that you've gone through in the past 40, 45 minutes or so. And even though it was just an overview, there's so much more detail in his works isn't there? But it is such an incredible piece of surviving literature from the ancient Mediterranean, ancient Near Eastern world Yeah, absolutely, there's just nothing that compares to it, there's nothing

that compares to it at all. It's a book that's not read as much anymore, I think it kind of got flogged to death during the Victorian period and at the beginning of 20th century in public schools because Xenophon writes in a very simplistic Greek which makes it great to study and of course school boys this is a great adventure story so you can see why they obviously picked it and as a result it kind of has this idea of low literature really dismissive it's not helped that Xenophon's own reputation has

been dismissed over the years. I mentioned he's a student of Socrates, but he's never considered one of the great students of Socrates. That would obviously be Plato. I mean, to kind of sum it up, his reputation, no matter how much I think he's great, there's a famous quote by Bertrand Russell, philosopher, in which he talks about the idea of reading the works of a clever man through the words of a stupid man. So, you know, you've got this, you'll see it in memes. It's everywhere. You know, it's a stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate because he will unconsciously translate what he hears into something he can understand.

What most people don't necessarily know is he's talking about Xenophon. This is a reference where he's talking about Xenophon's relationship with Socrates. He's basically, you can't trust a word Xenophon says about Socrates because he's too stupid to have understood him. And that's still an enduring reputation Xenophon has, which is grossly unfair. And actually, if you read his description of Socrates, if you read his descriptions of Clearchus, of Cyrus, people like that, these are believable human beings, as opposed to, say, Herodotus' accounts of Cyrus the Great, or, say, Plato's description of

Socrates, where they're almost fanciful to the point of idealistic. Xenophon is very realistic in his portrayals and that's probably why many intellectuals don't like him but it's why me as a historian, I love him. Me as a podcaster, I love it.

It's a great story. I remember doing the Anabasis in secondary school, RGS Guildford, last year. It was great. Canaxa. That was brilliant. Loved it.

Anyway, I digress because this has been amazing. We've gone over a little bit now, but absolutely completely worth it. It's all the force, Mr. Rees. Take a bow. And it just goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me on and for telling this amazing story.

Well, there you go. There was Dr. Owen Rees talking you through that incredible, extraordinary military adventure story from ancient history. That is the March of the 10,000. I'm so happy we finally covered this topic on the ancients. It was one that I've been looking at for some time. I remember reading about it during my education and it is just such a wonderful story. And I hope you enjoyed listening to Owen as much as I did when recording this episode. Now, last thing from me, if you'd be kind enough to leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify,

wherever you get your podcasts from, for the ancients, the whole team and I would greatly appreciate it. Why? Because it helps us and our mission to share these incredible stories from ancient history with you with as many people as possible to give these stories the limelight they deserve and the experts these incredible people who i'm fortunate enough

to interview week in week out who've been researching these particular topics for years we also give them the limelight to really go into the detail of their particular topics it's one of the great joys of doing this podcast sharing these stories and sharing the expertise of the interviewees that's enough rambling on from me dr owen reese well he'll be back in the near future to talk through another podcast episode. We recorded two that day when I went to interview him at Manchester Metropolitan University.

That's all still to come. But in the meantime, I will see you in the next episode. Thank you.