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Hellenica

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Xenophon was a wealthy and noble gentleman living in the countryside, devoted to farming and horses (he wrote excellent books on horse breeding and training), when he decided to see the world and accepted a friend's invitation to join the Persian Cyrus's army and march into Persia. The expedition was a disaster and Xenophon, no military man, had to lead the Greeks back home, in an incredible adventure recorded in his masterpiece, "Anabasis", or "The March of the Ten Thousand", for which he is best known. Although Athenian by birth, he defected to the Spartans and fought with them, both against the Persians and the Athenians. He was later forgiven by the Athenians and lived the rest of his eventful life in his estate.

This book, "Hellenica", fills an important gap in the knowledge of the Ancient World, at least the Greek. Indeed, little has remained about the years that go from the end of the Pelopponesian War to the beginning of the conquests by Phillip and Alexander of Macedonia. Xenophon begins where Thucydides ends, in 411 BC, narrating the final defeat, in Asia Minor, of the Athenians and their allies, against the Spartans and theirs. It includes the naval battle of the Argimusian islands, and the further trial in Athens of the strategos. These leaders of the Athenian army were -literally- unable to rescue some of their men, shipwrecked after a storm. They were unjustly executed, and Xenophon also tells us of the Athenians' later regret and sorrow for having unfairly executed them.

Then he tells the story of the Athenians' final defeat in Ergospotamus (in the Dardanelles). From there he goes to the final surrender of Athens and the fall of the oligarchic regime of the Thirty (401 BC). What follows is surprising, for although the Pelopponesian War has been officially declared finished, Athens and Sparta go on fighting everywhere, betwen them and together against the Persians. As usual, Greeks unite and feud in an incessant movement of alliances and divisions. In turn, the Persians themselves fight in the middle of constant intestine feuds. The book ends in 362 BC, with the alliance (quickly dissolved) between Athens and Sparta.

As opposed to Thucyidides, who reflects and extracts general conclusions and teachings from events, Xenophon stays within storytelling. He has been accused of being little objective, since he served the Spartans. However, his book is very interesting. It is a perpetual telling of battles, political upheavals, and stories about the main characters. Inevitably, it is a chaotic stroy, since chaotic are the events he recounts. He depicts a Pelopponesian War that ends but goes on, as well as a permanently divided Greece which will be able to survive Persian aggressions, but that will leave out of them so weak to face the Macedonian conquests. And then the Romans will arrive.