The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand [Hardcover]

Robin Lane Fox (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2004

The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most famous military adventures in the ancient world. Its fearless army of Greek mercenaries marched through western Asia (modern Turkey and Iraq) in 401–399 B.C., their hopes and hardships recounted by Xenophon, the Athenian, an admiring pupil of Socrates. Xenophon’s history of the Long March, or Anabasis, is a classic of Greek literature.
In this book, twelve leading scholars explore the Anabasis, a deceptively simple and profoundly rich source of social and cultural history and the mentality of the ancient Greek participants. The contributors explore a wide range of topics, from Xenophon’s values, motives, and manner as a writer to the outlook of his companions as mercenary soldiers, from his descriptions of religion in soldiers’ lives to their relations with women, boys, and the many foreign peoples encountered during the march.

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About the Author

Robin Lane Fox is reader in ancient history at Oxford University and a fellow of New College. Among his books is Alexander the Great (1973).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (November 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300104030
• ISBN-13: 978-0300104035
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,787,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Artifact in Itself., January 22, 2007

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James Hercules Sutton (Des Moines, IA (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (Hardcover)

A dozen specialists assemble to discuss their speciality. They write papers and read them to one another. The papers repeat what they know and a few things that are new. These are published in a book.

They remind each other that a parasang was a unit of time, not space; that Xenophon was often self-serving; and that motives of Greeks on the march were mixed. These are worth being reminded of, but not new. Recent discoveries in Persian studies are mentioned, but not examined. None realizes that the Cyropaedea is as much a treatise on an ideal curriculum, an issue that was on Plato's mind, as it is an encomium for Cyrus. Many, based on their own attention spans, are certain that Xenophon could not possibly have reported long speeches verbatim, decades after the fact, without contemporaneous notes. None speculates that Xenophon's name, "foreign voice," might have significance.

The book covers important issues and reports current directions of scholarship for specialists in other fields as well as laity. But its most interesting aspect may be the character of examiners themselves. Their intellectual style, strategies, and speculations reveal the pathology of those who dedicate themselves to knowing more and more about less and less. This makes it diverting, as well as improving, for the careful reader.