Caught between the twin giants of Greek history, Herodotus and Thucydides, Xenophon can come off as a lesser figure. He lacks the whimsy of Herodotus, and, though he covered the Peloponnesian War, his own account of the protracted conflict between Sparta and Athens, the Hellenika, is eclipsed by the monumental work of Thucydides. Outside that dwindling tribe for whom the Loeb Classical Library is a holy canon of sorts, he is not widely known.
Xenophon’s most famous work is probably The Anabasis, which recounts how he, a native Athenian, joined a Spartan army in the service of Cyrus the Younger, who aimed to depose his brother Artaxerxes and claim the throne of Persia. But the Ten Thousand—as the Greeks were known—quickly found themselves on the losing side of the conflict and, after their generals were murdered, were forced to march back home through hostile terrain.
Anabasis translates roughly as “The March Up-Country,” but today the text is famous as the basis for the 1979 cult move The Warriors, in which a dystopian New York City is ruled by rival gangs. One, headed by the aptly named Cyrus, finds itself stranded in the Bronx and must fight its way through the ravaged landscape to its home in Coney Island, much as the Greeks had battled their way to the friendly settlements of the Black Sea—without the assistance, of course, of a heavily graffitied D-train.
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