Anabasis (also rendered as The March of the Ten Thousand or The Persian Expedition) is a firsthand account of the Greeks' participation in Cyrus the Younger's revolt against his brother King Artaxerxes II, and their perilous return journey to the Black Sea after Cyrus' death in the Battle of Cunaxa.

Xenophon highlights the myriads of challenges a general faces in leading an army and carrying out a successful campaign. In addition to providing for a large army, commanding their respect and obedience despite his own shortcomings, and motivating them for a common purpose, he has to contend against nature, such as inclement weather and unfamiliar terrain; against his enemies, their guerrilla and attrition warfare; against his own comrades, who attempt to usurp leadership for their own gain to the detriment of the army.

As Xenophon has stated elsewhere, a statesman faces the same type of challenges in governing a nation. Ironically, just as a statesman would be maligned by the fickle public especially during national crisis, Xenophon was persecuted by his soldiers twice, almost to the point of death, after being praised by them for his selfless service and leadership.

Ultimately, I think of Anabasis as an analogy of the journey of life, and the triumphant joy with which the Greeks cry out, "The Sea, The Sea!" awaits us all. ( )

"your Latin & Greek should be kept up assiduously by reading at spare hours: and, discontinuing the desultory reading of the schools. I would advise you to undertake a regular course of history & poetry in both languages, in Greek, go first thro’ the Cyropaedia, and then read Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon’s Hellenies & Anabasis, Arrian’s Alexander, & Plutarch’s lives, for prose reading: Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, Euripides, Sophocles in poetry, & Demosthenes in Oratory; alternating prose & verse as most agreeable to yourself." - Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 6 Oct. 1820

"In all cases I prefer original author to compilers. for a course of Antient history therefore, of Greece and Rome especially, I should advise the usual suite of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Diodorus, Livy, Caesar, Suetonius, Tacitus and Dion, in their originals, if understood, and in translations if not." - Thomas Jefferson to George W. Lewis, 25 Oct. 1825

OK, I have to admit it. I read this because I had the peculiar project of reading by authors in alphabetical order, and X is hard to come by. I actually enjoyed it a great deal, and found it fascinating to be reading about the history of an interesting period from the pen of someone who'd actually lived it - even if there are doubts that he was totally honest. ( )