King Darius and Queen Parysatis had two sons. Artaxerxes was the elder of the two, and Cyrus was the younger. When Darius was growing feeble and began to suspect that he had not long to live, he wanted both his sons to be at hand. The elder one happened to be there, but he had to send for Cyrus from the province of which he had made him satrap or governor. He had also appointed him commander in chief over all the troops that muster in the Plain Of Castellus.

Cyrus then traveled up to the capital with Tisiphones, whom he regarded as a friend, taking with him 300 Greek hoplites under the command of Xenius of Parthia. But after the death of Darius, when Artaxerxes was established on the throne, Tisiphanes maligned Cyrus to his brother and accused him of plotting against him. Artaxerxes believed the story and arrested Cyrus with the intention of putting him to death. But his mother, by her entreaties, secured his life and his recall to his province. Still, after the danger and disgrace from which he had escaped, Cyrus took measures to ensure That is the beginning of a pretty incredible book.

In English, it goes by the name well, a few different names. It goes by the Expedition of Cyrus, the Persian Expedition, but most commonly, I think, is the Greek name for the book, Anabasis, the ascent. It's about a failed coup, or maybe you'd call it a failed revolution. And it's about how a group of soldiers who were hired to help orchestrate it, fight that revolution, well, how they recovered from that failure and managed to survive against the odds. And it's also the story of one man rising up to lead that scattered group of soldiers.

It's written by Xenophon of Athens, who was a friend of Socrates. He was also a friend of the Spartan king Agesilaus. And most importantly, he was the man who rose up to lead them. And so the author of the book is a direct participant in the events, which is pretty special. And this is a book that I reread while I was working on the biography of Ajis Elias coming soon.

And while I'm putting that together, I thought it wouldn't be too difficult or time consuming, in the meantime, to share with you some notes and highlights from Anabasis that I thought you would find valuable or interesting. And, you know, I like Anabasis. It pairs well with the lives of Lysander and Agesilaus. And Anabasis was extremely popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a book, for the general public and also for schoolboys, both to read it in English and also in Greek. It was one of the first texts that people would read of real Greek when they used to learn Greek more in schools, ancient Greek.

And it was thought to be an excellent text on leadership, and it is. And there's also a lot of adventure and some very disturbing scenes. It's a lot of fun though. I will say, however, it's it's a challenging text. Xenophon gives you, for example, a lot of details because he really wants you to have all the data so that you can understand the leadership decisions clearly that people are making at any given time.

Because Xenophon knows mastering the details that are available to you is really crucial for making the right call. As so many famous founders and CEOs know, such as John Rockefeller, for example, who was a really scrupulous keeper of accounts for all of his life. So, you know, Xenophon is an author very much worth reading, but for our purposes here, I think it's better to just do some highlights here of the interesting parts and some notes here. In no way intended to be a a satisfactory summary or synopsis, but this is all from book one of the Anabasis. So Xenophon jumps right in.

The the passage that we just read gives you the background. There's, a new king on the throne, Cyrus's brother. This is Cyrus the younger, not Cyrus the great, who was the founder of the Persian Empire about a century and a half earlier than what we're talking about today. But Cyrus is the younger brother, and he has a sort of a quarrel with his brother. But it's really the fault, at least according to Xenophon, of this other satrap, this other governor, Tisiphones.

Cyrus has been made a governor as well. And Cyrus wants to make sure that this never happens again. He wants to be independent. That's at least Xenophon's motives for that he attributes to Cyrus. And I think it's interesting here to note that Xenophon is a participant in the story.

He does come up in book one in the third person, just very briefly. But he doesn't start the story, here is a history of my times, I am Xenophon of Athens. He starts with what he thinks his audience is already interested in and already knows about, this great, pivotal event that happened in their own lifetimes for a lot of them. And he's gonna eventually talk about himself, but he begins with what he knows his audience is gonna resonate better with. So that's that's the background.

Cyrus's first problem that Xenophon talks about is, well, you're gonna revolt against the king of Persia, maybe the most powerful man in the world. How do you raise an army without the king knowing it? You wanna have at least some element of surprise because word's gonna get around, you know, how do you cover your tracks? The king's got spies and, you know, informants everywhere. Well, here's what Cyrus does.

First of all, he picks a fight with Tisiphones. The king can definitely understand that. Tisiphones is the satrap of Lydia, which is on the coast of Asia Minor, and Cyrus is a neighboring satrap, a neighboring governor of this province that happens to border the cities and contain the cities of a lot of Greeks. And so Cyrus picks a fight with Disaphones. He raises an army to, you know, capture some cities from Tisiphones.

And you might think that a king would frown upon his governors warring against each other, but turns out that the Persians didn't really mind that much if their governors kind of, quarreled amongst themselves as long as the tribute, as long as the tax kept flowing into the royal coffers. You know, they saw competition among their governors as not necessarily a problematic thing. So that's the first thing Cyrus does. He raises a merchant a a mercenary force to fight against Tisiphones. He takes a few cities from Tisiphones, and that gives him a fighting force that he's kind of training up.

And then he finds a rogue Spartan commander in the area named Clearchus. And this rogue Spartan commander, Clearchus, is a pretty interesting guy. I wanna read you, a little bit about Clearchus in a second here. But basically, he Clearchus comes to Cyrus. He's he's been exiled, and he asks for a job.

And Cyrus happily gives him a job, basically pays him a lot of money to start he pays him a lot of money secretly to start making war on some other tribe kind of in the region, the Thracians, or one of the tribes of the Thracians. And Clearchus is making war upon the Thracians. It's not really clear in whose name he's doing this. He's sort of doing this on behalf of Greeks in the area. There are Greek cities that the Thracians often raid.

And, so he's saying, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep the Thracians off of these independent Greek cities. But secretly, he's receiving money from Cyrus. So Cyrus is building up an army with Clearchus as well. And I'll read you a little bit about Clearchus because this is a really important character in the story and I think an interesting character study. This is actually from book two.

Clearchus, by common consent of all who were personally acquainted with him, seemed to have shown himself a man who was both fitted for war and fond of war to the last degree. For in the first place, as long as the Lacedaemonians, that is the Spartans, were were at war with the Athenians, he bore his part with them. Remember, he's a Spartan himself. Then as soon as peace had come, he persuaded his state that the Thracians were injuring the Greeks, and after gaining his point as best he could from the Ephors, the authorities at Sparta, he set sail with the intention of making war upon the Thracians who dwelt beyond the Chersonese and Perinthus. When, however, this is interesting, the Ephors changed their minds for some reason or other, and after he had already gone, tried to turn him back from the isthmus at Corinth.

At that point, he declined to render further obedience, but went sailing off to the Hellespont. And as a result, he was condemned to death by the authorities at Sparta on the ground of disobedience to orders. So that's Clearchus, and this is actually the guy that that, Cyrus ends up really having as the commander of the Greeks that he ends up hiring. So we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. So so Cyrus does does this kind of thing with a few more generals, a few more kind of, warlords in various regions in the area.

He he he pays them to wage war on some neighboring tribe, train up a fighting force, not you know, it's in secret. He doesn't, you know, nobody knows that he's doing this. They just think that so and so is fighting so and such and such tribe. But really, Cyrus tells some of these guys, don't don't end your conflict with this neighboring tribe until I tell you, until I'm ready. So he's kind of getting getting a fighting force ready for for what he's planning.

And I think this gives you a sense of how amazingly rich the Persians were, that that Cyrus has the funds to do all this and still pay the tribute that he owes the king. But but this is something that I think you have to ask yourself anytime you're gonna do anything daring. How are you gonna find the talent? And with something that requires massive amounts of manpower, I think that question is a lot more urgent. Another question that is interesting is how are you going to get them to follow you on a really daring expedition?

And that's gonna come out a little bit as we go on here, but, especially, I wanna get that to that further on towards the end. So, you know, I won't give you all the details on how he raised the army, but he he calls them up to war at last. And and this is how Xenophon gets roped into this. He's a Greek, and, he has a friend who is a friend of Cyrus, and the friend is, like, raising a force of a few hundred Greek hoplites who have nothing better to do than, go fight for a Persian prince. And they're gonna make a lot of money in the process.

He's gonna pay them quite well. So eventually they they start marching off to war. Cyrus tells them that they're going to fight against the Pisidians, which is some tribe in southern, Asia Minor. It's a mountainous region, warlike tribes. It gets kinda plausible.

Everybody believes them except Tisiphones. Tisiphones suspects the force that Cyrus is marching towards Pisidia is too big. He's he thinks that Cyrus has something else up his sleeve. So Tisiphanes goes off to try to warn the king. And so they're marching along through Asia, and, this interesting interlude happens that I think tells you a lot about the dynamics here.

Along the way, Cyrus is does end up kind of running short of money. I mean, you could say he was, wealthy, but, you know, cash poor at the moment. He spent a lot of his gold on on these troops. He's kind of behind on paying his troops. And a queen from Cilicia, rides out to meet him on the way.

Epiaxa of Cilicia is her name. And she brings money from Cilicia to support Cyrus's expedition. Again, nobody knows. Nobody's talking about well, a few people know, but generally, nobody's aware of what they're doing or where they're going. But but Epioxa comes and gives Cyrus, money to pay for the troops, and, it turns out that, they either already were or at that moment they become lovers, even though she's married to the king of Cilicia, whose name is Cyenesis.

That might be actually just the word for king in Cilicia, but whatever. That's she's already got a husband, and yet she's, you know, consorting with this Cyrus guy, which I think is kind of, gets you to raise an eyebrow about, you know, what's going on there. But so the way that, ancient armies work, why the issue of pay kinda becomes urgent, I think you gotta this helps you appreciate what how the logistics of ancient warfare worked. The general doesn't keep a staff to, supply food, and they don't, like, buy rations and then distribute them to the troops. They just give the troops money and let them buy their own rations.

And if they're in the right kind of territory, then they can peacefully trade for, you know, meat and bread and stuff and, you know, leather, whatever they need, rather than the general having to arrange for the logistics of everything. If they're in really hostile territory, the general will often just let them go raid. But the general will basically, his duty in, in typical ancient expeditions is to make sure that there's a market to buy food. So he'll send word out to the countryside and the merchants and the bakers and the sausage cart pushers, etcetera. And they'll they'll come out and they know that they're gonna get a good price for their wares.

So, yeah. What do you think of that? I think that's kind of interesting, outsourcing this task to vendors instead of doing it in house, focusing on, you know, what you're good at, which is warfare, if you're a commander, hopefully. And so there's this funny scene that happens. This queen, Epioxa, asks Cyrus to make a display of his army to do some kind of a military parade or exhibition.

And so he has them all lined up in a plane and in battle formation in their in their finest armor and their, you know, their purple cloaks, and they're looking very warlike and, and stately. And, and they do some drills. And then at this, towards the end of the drill, he gives the word out to that he he wants them to charge the camp. And so Epioxa, the queen, is at the camp, and all of the sausage sellers and the bakers and the the tanners and everybody. They're all there at the at the army's camp just kinda watching the demonstration, enjoying the show.

And then all of a sudden, the Greeks, he has them lined up in battle formation. They lock shields as they do in in the phalanx formation, and they start to advance towards the camp and they start to charge at a run. And, okay. I'm just reading here. And then as they went faster and faster at length with a shout, the troops broke into a run of their own accord in the direction of the camp.

As for the barbarians and the others, they were terribly frightened. The Cilician queen took flight in her carriage, and the people in the market left their wares behind and took to their heels, while the Greeks with a roar of laughter came up to their camp. Now the Cilician queen was filled with admiration at beholding the brilliant appearance and the order of the Greek army, And Cyrus was delighted to see the terror with which the Greeks inspired the barbarians. So I guess the queen kind of liked the joke, and and Cyrus was pleased. This is, you know, maybe a foreshadowing of what he hopes is gonna happen when they when they face a non Greek army in the coming days.

Greeks were widely regarded as the best fighters in this area. So on their way, skipping over a lot, but they get to Cilicia proper to a city called Tarsus, which is actually where Saint Paul was from. It's kind of, it's like South Central Turkey. When they get there, the Greeks are like, wait a sec. We already passed Pisidia.

Where are we going, actually? And they suspect that they're gonna go fight the king. But Cyrus won't won't tell them that. And he won't really tell them where they're going because now the the whole Pisidia story doesn't seem plausible anymore. And there's a mutiny of the Greek troops.

Tarsus is really one of the last stops along the sea. And if they go any further east, they're they're gonna go up land. And, you know, when Greeks get away from the sea, they start to get kinda nervous. So the soldiers are are mutinying. They're thinking this is not worth it.

Wherever they're going, They're demanding to know more information. They wanna sail back. They're even talking about, like, approaching Cyrus and saying, we're done. Pay for us to have ships, you know, to to have ships come pick us up or, you know, lead us away with your guides. This is all really kind of bold considering the position they're in.

And and Clearchus is a man that they're they're lodging a lot of their complaints to. Clearchus is one of the main commanders. He's probably the the senior commander of the Greek mercenaries. There's about 12,000 Greek mercenaries, which are kind of like the the elite of the army that Cyrus is amassing. And Clearchus knows the real plan.

He knows where they're really going, but, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't divulge the secret. And he does something tricky here as these troops are, making these demands before him. And I think this is an interesting example for how do you retain the loyalty if you're kind of in a middle position in a chain of command. How do you retain the loyalty of your subordinates and also your superior at the same time if they're having a conflict. And so, well, here's what Clearchus does.

So he addresses the troops. He tells them, I'll lead you wherever you wanna go. We came here following Cyrus. I think Cyrus is a great man. He's a a personal friend of mine.

I would be very upset to betray him, to betray his friendship, but I would be even more upset to betray your friendship. So if you don't wanna go further inland, I understand. I'm your I'm your commander. I'm happy to lead you wherever you wanna go. And so Cyrus gets word of this.

He sends messages to Clearchus, What's going on? And he summons Clearchus to come to my tent. And Clearchus refuses, but he sends a secret message to Cyrus. Keep summoning me. I'll keep refusing, but keep summoning me.

But don't worry. I've got this under control. It's gonna turn out well. Just trust me. And so Cyrus keeps sending summonses to to Clearchus.

Come come, Clearchus. And Clearchus keeps saying that he won't go, and and, you know, the Greeks around him see this. And he's he's sending a message here just with his actions that Clearchus is one of the Greeks. He's with them. That's where his loyalty lies with his men.

So Clearchus is kinda working on them psychologically. And and and eventually, you know, the debate goes on. Clearchus kind of lets them vent their anger, and he lets a lot of other voices rise up and kind of make the arguments that he'd like to see made. Tempers rise. And and eventually Clearchus stands up and he addresses them.

He says, let no one among you speak of me as a man who is to hold this command. For I see many reasons why I should not do so. Say rather that I shall obey to the best of my ability the man whom you choose, in order that you may know that I understand as well as any other person in the world how to be a subordinate also. End quote. And Clearchus basically resigns his command.

He says, appoint a different commander. I I'm I'm I don't think I'm the guy for the job anymore. I'm gonna obey whoever you pick. This is a a thing that Xenophon really harps on in many places that, in his view, a good leader is one who knows how to command and also how to be commanded. And so this really, in Xenophon's view, was a thing that that spoke to the troops.

It really won their trust over. And this is, you know, arguably not the way that we see a lot of celebrated leaders or at least celebrated founders, talked about today. You know, a lot of entrepreneurs talk about how they were a bad employee or, you know, how they always wanted to work for themselves, and they just couldn't stand not being their own boss. And I'm not saying which is better, but, you know, for Xenophon, the model of of a great leader is more, do you know how to obey and how to command? Worth considering.

So eventually, the troops pick Clearchus after he's resigned to go and lay their complaints before Cyrus. And Cyrus ups their pay, and he says, okay, okay, I'll tell you where we're going. Really, I'm just going to punish this, rival satrap, who is a personal enemy of mine, and he's just a little further inland at the Euphrates River. It's twelve days march inland. We go defeat him, and then we can come back.

And at this point, the Greeks don't really buy the story, Xenophon says. They think that they're probably going against the great king. But this whole altercation, like, there's been some defections, and Cyrus has just been very gracious with people who have decided to leave and just not not done the Persian thing that Persians usually do with dissenters, which is, you know, have them crucified and and tortured and stuff. And they're they're all they all like the way that Cyrus has handled the situation. They also like the way that Clearchus has handled the situation.

They really start to feel that it's been an opportunity for them to air their grievances, but also remind themselves that they all really actually like Cyrus and they feel duty bound by the Greek customs of friendship. Even though they are getting paid, that's important, but, you know, friendship is almost like a more important, meaningful, symbolic principle that they wanna adhere to. And so they're they're they're in for the for the ride, and and they decide to follow on, despite their reservations. So I'm gonna skip a lot here, but they are traveling, an interesting route that has been traveled by many armies in history, including the Roman emperor Julian, the apostate in March. It's a fateful campaign that he fought at the end of his life, which this really reminds me of in a lot of ways.

I'm just gonna give you a couple passages about the route. This little bit is interesting. After this, Cyrus marched four stages, 20 Parasangs, that's like, you know, five days march, to the Kalas River, which is a plethora in width and full of large, tame fish. These fish, the Syrians regarded as gods, and they would not allow anyone to harm them or the doves either. Well, what a world, And then so they cross the Euphrates River.

They're in Northern Iraq. And Xenophonie describes the region like this. Trees there were none, but wild animals of all sorts, vast numbers of wild asses, and many ostriches besides bustards, that's like a kind of a wild turkey, and gazelles. These animals were sometimes chased by the horsemen. As for the asses, whenever one chased them, they would run on ahead and stop, for they ran much faster than the horses.

And then when the horses came near they would do the same thing again and it was impossible to catch them unless the horsemen posted themselves at intervals and hunted them in relays. The flesh of those that were captured was like venison but more tender. But no ostrich was captured by anyone, and any horseman who chased one speedily desisted, for it would distance him at once with its flight, not merely plying its feet, but hoisting its wings and using them like a sail. The bustards, on the other hand, can be caught if one is quick in starting them up, for they fly only a short distance like partridges and soon tire, and their flesh was delicious. Xenophon actually wrote a short treatise on hunting, and he tells you how to hunt bunnies and stuff in Greece.

And he thought that hunting was good training for military endeavors. So that's interesting. Now eventually, they get so far inland. Cyrus figures, it's safe to tell them now, they are in fact marching against the great king. But at that point, they're all finally committed.

They're quite quite a ways inland. They're along for the ride, and so they they keep following him. And here's something interesting about Cyrus, as they're on their way, this this event occurs. And, you know, I think most leaders or many leaders taking a really big risk, they might back off a little bit. You know, they're they're asking these men to make a huge risk on their behalf.

Cyrus is asking these men to make a huge risk on his behalf. You could see how he'd wanna sort of not push it too far as he's leading and not, like, ask extra things of them. But Cyrus instead really leans into in into his leadership roles. Here's what happens. But it seemed to him that they took their time with the work.

So just a little bit of context. The wagons are are getting stuck in a, like, steep, muddy area. They're coming down a hill or something, and and the wagons are getting stuck. But it seemed to him that they took their time with their work. Accordingly, as if in anger, he directed the Persian nobles who accompanied him to take a hand in hurrying on the wagons.

And then one might have beheld a sample of good discipline. They each threw off their purple cloaks where they chanced to be standing, and rushed, as a man would run to win a victory, down a most exceedingly steep hill, wearing these costly tunics and colored trousers, some of them indeed with necklaces around their necks and bracelets on their arms, and leaping at once with all this finery into the mud, they lifted the wagons high and dry and brought them out more quickly than one would have thought possible. So, I mean, Cyrus already here is he's acting like a king. You know? He's he's he's on his way to become a king.

He really leans into the fact that he has a right to ask these men a lot. I thought that was really interesting. And the fact that they obey so eagerly is also really interesting too. And just a little bit more here. And in general, it was clear that Cyrus was in haste throughout the whole journey and was making no delays except where he halted to procure provisions or for some other necessary purpose.

His thought was that the faster he went, the more unprepared the king would be to fight him, while on the other hand, the slower he went, the greater would be the army that was gathering for the king. So by this time, the king, you know, Tisiphonese got there, and the king is is mustering his troops. And, you know, it's it's pretty obvious to both sides that they're gonna fight a massive battle shortly. And so they they finally do meet the king's forces at a place called Kunaksa. It's not really clear, to historians where exactly the battle was, but it's some place in Central to Northern Iraq along the Euphrates River kind of near Babylon.

It wasn't called Iraq back back then. It was called, Babylonia or Mesopotamia. But they're they're getting ready for for the battle. And I think one question that people often wonder when they're reading the Anabasis is why would Cyrus make all the effort to recruit all these Greek mercenaries? He's got more than 10,000 of them.

That's that's a lot. He also has about a hundred thousand other barbarian troops. But, you know, why is he getting these Greeks and, taking such care to make sure that they don't revolt and paying them so much? And in a little speech before the battle, I think Cyrus kind of answers that question. So he he addresses them before the battle.

He says, men of Greece, it is not because I have not barbarians enough that I have brought you hither to fight for me, but because I believe that you are braver and stronger than many barbarians. For this reason, I took you also. Be sure, therefore, to be men worthy of the freedom you possess, upon the possession of which I congratulate you. For you may be certain that freedom is the thing I should choose in preference to all that I have and many times more. So you can see why why the Greeks love this guy.

He he really understands their values and, and, you know, he he communicates to them that he shares them. Freedom being perhaps the most important value to all of the Greeks in the free Greek city states that these men are from. And I won't go into many details of the battle itself. You can read the book. There are links to editions in the show notes.

I'll tell you a little bit about them at the end. But before the battle, everyone is urging Cyrus not to fight in the front lines, but to stay back and guard his person. That's a bit of foreshadowing there. They're vastly outnumbered. Xenophon says that they have, you know, they have a 12,000, five hundred or so troops on Cyrus' side.

And he says that the the great king Artaxerxes has more than a million. And, that's not not believed by historians, but they probably have at least two or three times as many troops, maybe four times as many fighting for the king. But in the fight, the Greeks, win the battle on their side. You know, ancient ancient warfare is is kind of like a clash between two lines. And, the Greeks on their side of the line, they win, and Cyrus is actually winning in his section of the battle.

He's kind of in the center. But then as as they're putting the Persians to flight, he sees his brother, Artaxerxes, the king, and he decides to charge him. In this daring action, Cyrus ends up wounding Artaxerxes with a spear. He wounds him, but he doesn't kill him. And the soldiers around the king end up killing Cyrus in the battle.

And Xenophon points out earlier before the battle, narration, he points out that Cyrus wasn't even wearing a helmet, although everyone else was. So always wear a helmet. That's the lesson. No. I mean, he I think I think this is interesting because, Cyrus ends up actually getting wounded first by taking a pretty serious blow in the face, right below the eye.

And Xenophon kinda suggests that this disorients him, that kind of because of this, he he ends up getting killed in this struggle. And this is how Xenophon is usually gonna criticize people that he admires. He gives you the facts and lets you decide, and that's generally the way that he writes. And and if you you are gonna read Xenophon's An Abyssus, like, know that about Xenophon that he's not gonna draw all the conclusions for you, but the details are are almost always there because he wants you to pay attention to what's going on, and the decisions that are being made. So once again, I'm not gonna give you the details of the battle.

The Greeks win, but they also lose because with Cyrus dead, the whole cause is lost. And I just wanna end here with a series of excerpts from a final passage in the book that Xenophon gives as a kind of eulogy on prince Cyrus at the end of book one. And, you know, you wonder, right, what kind of man could assemble an army of a 15,000 people or so to fight against great odds against maybe the most powerful man in the world at the time. And here's what Xenophon says. In this way then Cyrus came to his end, a man who was the most kingly and the most worthy to rule of all the Persians who have been born since Cyrus the Elder, Cyrus the Great, that is, as all agree who are reputed to have known Cyrus intimately.

For firstly, while he was still a boy and was being educated with his brother and the other boys, he was regarded as the best of them all in all respects. For all the sons of the noblest Persians are educated at the king's court. There one may learn discretion and self control in full measure, and nothing that is base can be either seen or heard. And the boys have before their eyes the spectacle of men honored by the King, and of others dishonored, and they likewise hear of them. And so from earliest boyhood they are learning how to rule and how to submit to rule.

There's that thing that Xenophon constantly is pointing at. Good leaders know how to rule and how to submit to rule. In Greek. Skipping ahead here a little bit. Again, when he was sent down by his father to be satrap of Lydia, Greater Phrygia, and Cappadocia, and was also appointed to command all of the troops whose duty it is to muster in the Plain Of Castellus, he showed in the first place that he counted it of utmost importance when he concluded a treaty or compact with anyone or made anyone any promise under no circumstances, to prove false to his word.

It was for this reason, then, that the cities trusted him and put themselves under his protection, and that individuals also trusted him. And if anyone had been an enemy when Cyrus made a treaty with him, he trusted that he would suffer no harm in violation of that treaty. And so Cyrus learned from an early age, from his education maybe, that if you want to make a big ask of people at some point later in your career, build up a long track record of keeping your word. Because when you really need it, you'll want to have ten, twenty years of good reputation behind you. Moving on here, it was manifest that whenever a man conferred any benefit upon Cyrus or did him any harm, he always strove to outdo him.

In fact, some people used to report it as a prayer of his that he might live long enough to outdo both those who benefited and those who injured him, returning like for like. Hence it was that he had a greater following than any other one man of our time, of friends who eagerly desired to entrust to him both treasure and cities and their very bodies. Skipping ahead a little bit. But it was the brave in war, as all agree, whom he honored especially. For example, he was once at war with the Pisidians and the Mysians and commanded in person an expedition into their territories, and whomsoever in his army he found willing to meet dangers, these men he would not only appoint as rulers of the territory he was subduing, but would honor thereafter with other gifts also.

Thus the brave were seen to be most prosperous, while cowards were deemed fit to be their slaves. Consequently Cyrus had men in great abundance who were willing to meet danger wherever they thought that he would observe them. End quote. So there's a lesson in rewarding the kind of behavior you wanna see. A little bit more here.

To be sure, the fact that he outdid his friends in the greatness of the benefits he conferred is nothing surprising, for the manifest reason that he had greater means than they. But that he surpassed them in solicitude and in eagerness to do favors, this in my opinion is more admirable. For example, when Cyrus got some particularly good wine, he would often send the half empty jar to a friend with the message, Cyrus says that he has not chanced upon better wine than this for a long time, so he sends it to you and asks you to drink it up today in company with the friends you love best. And so he would often send halves of geese and of loaves and so forth, instructing the bearer to add the message, Cyrus enjoyed this and therefore wants you to take a taste of it. End quote.

I love that. Alright. Finally. Hence, as I, at least, conclude, from what comes to my ears, no man, Greek or barbarian, has ever been loved by a greater number of people. Here is a fact to confirm that conclusion.

Although Cyrus was a slave well, I mean, the Greeks consider anybody under a king a slave, so you gotta take that with a grain of salt there. So although Cyrus was a slave, no one deserted him to join the king save that Orontas attempted to do so. It's a story that Xenophon tells. And, Mark, you speedily, that man found out that he who imagined was faithful to him, was more devoted to Cyrus than to him. So Orontes was basically betrayed in his treachery by, a slave of his that actually wanted to be with Cyrus rather than with Orontas.

Okay. On the other hand, many went over from the king to Cyrus after the two had become enemies, these being moreover the men who especially possessed self respect. The best men went over to Cyrus because they thought that if they were deserving, they would gain a worthier reward with Cyrus than with the king. Furthermore, what happened to Cyrus at the end of his life is a strong indication that he was a true man himself and that he knew how to judge those who were faithful, devoted, and constant. When he died, namely, all his bodyguard of friends and table companions died fighting in his defense.

Such a man was Cyrus in Xenophon's eyes. And with that, the cause of the revolt was lost. The coup failed, and the Greeks, ten thousand or so of them, had to figure out what to do next. Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed this slightly different format.

Let me know what you think. If you wanna support this podcast and, I've piqued your interest in reading Xenophon, well, I've put some links to some editions of Xenophon's and Abasis in the show notes. Those are Amazon affiliate links. So if you buy a book using them, I'll get a little bitty commission at no cost to you or to the author of the book. I personally used the Loeb edition.

That's what I typically use, the the recently revised recently revised edition by Dillery. The Loeb editions have the Greek and the English facing each other, the English facing each other. For non specialists, I do like the old Penguin edition by Rex Warner and George Cockwell. It is very readable. But there's also a new landmark edition of Xenophon's Anabasis, which just came out last fall, and that has a lot of maps and commentary.

It's it's a series, the landmark series. They're big and bulky and beautiful. And, I highly recommend adding Anabasis to your library. I personally would probably get the Landmark. I just love all those maps and those little commentaries and the essays in there.

But, there you have it. Thanks for listening. Stay strong. Stay ancient. This is Alex Petkus.

Until next time.