Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age

by Robin Waterfield

Book Overview

In The Expedition of Cyrus, the Western world's first eyewitness account of a military campaign, Xenophon told how, in 401 B.C., a band of unruly Greek mercenaries traveled east to fight for the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger in his attempt to wrest the throne of the mighty Persian empire from his brother.

With this first masterpiece of Western military history forming the backbone of his book, Robin Waterfield explores what remains...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674030737
• ISBN13: 9780674030732
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Accessible, engaging, illuminating...

Xenophon was an Athenian with Spartan leanings that joined a mercenary force employed by one side of a fraternal conflict in Persia. When his patron was defeated and killed, Xenophon set out with the mercenary forces to return to Greece. It was not an easy trip. This was a tight and tidy job of presenting a fascinating historic rife with intrigue battles, hardships, betrayals, individual valor and at least some kind of triumph. It's crammed with the kind of facts and asides that I find absolutely necessary to bring history alive, but so much more. I found elements of the archetypal hero's journey with detours into the nature (and follies) of war, group dynamics, political maneuvering and the fount of classical philosophy. Very well done and highly recommended.