Greek and Persian Wars | Cyrus, Xenophon, and the Ten Thousand (Lecture 16)

Lecture 16: In 404 B.C. (the same year that Athens fell), King Darius II died, and Prince Cyrus’s older brother, Artaxerxes II, was named successor to the throne. Bitterly disappointed, Cyrus gathered an army of Asian troops and Greek mercenaries, known collectively as the Ten Thousand, and set out to take the throne from his brother in the spring of 401 B.C. Led by a rough Spartan named Clearchus, the army was accompanied by an enormous train that included personal slaves, cooks, craft workers, engineers, and a young Athenian volunteer, Xenophon, who later recorded the details of the army’s march. Hiding his true intentions from the increasingly frustrated Greeks, Prince Cyrus marched through the Taurus Mountains, the Euphrates River, and barren desert regions before encountering Artaxerxes II and his forces (at Cunaxa). There, the two brothers met to fight a battle on a scale worthy of the prize: the Persian Empire itself.

Recommended Reading:
Trundle, Greek Mercenaries: From the Late Archaic Period to Alexander.
Xenophon, The Persian Expedition.