Customer Reviews

Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age

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Though, at its heart, "Xenophon's Retreat" is a summary of "The Expedition of Cyrus" (the first, and one of the most important, military campaign accounts of the ancient world), this book is surprisingly more than just a translation.

Written with a fantastically dry wit by an author who actually retraced the life, and travels, of "The Expedition's" Greek creator, it not only tells the story of Cyrus' ill-fated uprising, but also takes a very reasonable, and enlightening, approach to the ancient Greeks as a people...providing critical background on not only Xenophon (something that was desperately lacking until now), but also the social, economic, and political forces of the world he lived in.

As someone who's read more than my share of military history, I loved the balance it strikes between the technical, the philosophical, and the practical. In particular, I was impressed with the religious and cultural perspectives it provides on history that is so often left to relatively dry statistics. Turns out it's absolutely remarkable how much more sense the military aspects of the ancient world makes once you get a glimpse at the rest of the picture.

All in all, "Xenophon's Retreat" is unlike anything else I've ever read in the field, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This book is more than a summary of Xenophon's `The Expedition of Cyrus'. It gives an outline of Xenophon's life in the backdrop of the places and times in which he lived. I found the account of the Cyreans' march to and from Cunaxa, as well as the battle itself, to be particularly gripping. The political shenanigans that are described both before and after the march, to me, seemed less interesting in comparison; however, these descriptions do allow the reader to form a more complete picture of what life was like and the way people reasoned things out in those turbulent times. The writing style is clear and engaging; several black and white photographs complement the text. This book should of particular interest to ancient history buffs.

Robin Waterfield did a great job in summarizing the historical circumstances that preceded and followed the troublesome return home of a contingent of Greek mercenaries in 400 BC. The journey back home took about a year; it cost the lives of thousands of Greeks, members of their families and slaves who accompanied the warriors. He also wrote a very insightful last chapter on the legacy of the battle of Cunaxa. I recoomend reading this text as well as an accompanying historical fiction (such as Michael Curtis Ford's "The Ten Thousand").

I recently finished reading Xenophon's Anabasis was really impressed with his eye witness account of a military campaign that took place 2,400 years ago. However, there were numerous historical references that I did not understand and I wanted to find a book that put the Anabasis into its proper historical context. Robin Waterfield's "Xenophon's Retreat" fit the bill perfectly. Waterfield has made a career out of translating Xenophon and other Ancient Greek writers and knows the Anabasis with the intamacy that only a translator can posses. With great skill and diligence, Waterfield's puts the Cyrean retreat into its proper context. He knows Xenephon as thoroughly as any scholar alive today and is willing to pass judgement on Xenophon's character and motivations. "Xenophon's Retreat" was a pleasure to read and I highly recommend it.