Can ya tell me what the text you put on the screen says after "you made me president" at 0:20 ? Those of us on phones cant simply move thru the vid frame by frame to read things like this and no amount of trying to pause the vid at the right time is working...
@@SylviaRustyFae "So yeah obviously the ancient Greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority."
It's honestly great that Xenophon stayed with the Spartans, cause it's because of him that we get a super close insiders look at the Spartan government and way of life.
For those wondering about the flashing text, it is at 0:21 and it says "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority"
Lets not ignore how much of a tactical mastermind Xenophon would have to be to pull off such a withdrawal. Id be willing to compare his escape from Persia to that of Cesar's campaign in Gaul, both were surrounded in hostile lands yet achieved their respective goals. Escape persia alive, Pacify Gaul
This story is often compared to the march of chzechoslovak legion. 60.000 veterans of ww1 who defected to the russian imperial army. When russia colapsed into civil war they had to march through siberia all the way to vladvostok and then sail arround asia to finally redeploy in the western front.
Ah, but you see, you're wrong there: Xenophon was an absolute tosser. He was mainly lucky. Having had to translate quite a lot from his works what I have experienced of him is a mediocre historian whose understanding of socrates' philosophy is so poor that the character he writes about and the one Plato does could be considered two different historical figures. (Obviously Plato's early Socrates, not the later one who mainly speaks for Plato).
"Perhaps. Perhaps we should just pay the army that has managed to survive marching and fighting from one end of our fucking country to the other" - the only sane man in Persia
Basically this man became leader of a rogue army because no one else wanted to and no one wanted to pay them and on top of that, the army acted like a republic while being betrayed almost every month. This story is amazing and I wanna see a movie on this!
It would certainly work for a TV show if it had solid production values and an authentic focus on history. Like imagine a version of this tale with Rome level production details and exceptionally well managed battle sequences. It would be awesome.
Side note. He was so pissed about his banishment that he wrote an entire book that can be summarised by saying „Democracy sucks. Athens suck. Monarchy is cool. Sparta is cool. You should go to Sparta”. And then he died. The end. (That is, if it was him who wrote the book, there were at lead 8 Xenophons at the time, one was a Doctor, another a comedy writer, the one in the video, another two were feom Athens, a cavalry man in Athenian army, and some two more and we are not sure which one of them wrote that book but my bet is on the 10,000 guy.)
Fun Fact: Plenty of people read about what Xenophon and his Greeks did in Persia and what they had to do to escape. And among those that read about them was Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. And these accounts led them to conclude that Persia was right for conquering. Which means this incident had an effect on world history. Just one that most people don't know about.
@@brokenbridge6316 Let's be honest it's Alexander the A-tier, dude didn't really need much of a reason to conquer Persia he viewed all of Asia and the Mediterranean as "free real estate".
@@CollinMcLean Yes but he still had to convince his generals and most of all the rest of the allies that it was do-able. Anabasis provided some hard facts about the persian inabillity to deal with a well coordinated greek army.
The Virgin 300 Spartans under Leonidas: --hold off huge Persian force via chokepoint (with help from thousands of allied Greeks) for three days --get outflanked --die --get blockbuster movie The Chad 10,000 Greek Mercs under Xenophon: --march into middle of Persia --win battle --lose all their generals --select new leaders --march through thousands of miles of hostile land to get home, despite no help and constant betrayals --don't get movie
Well the story was adapted in the warriors novel(1965) which was adapted into a cult classic movie back in ‘79 but that’s really a setting update to the then currents years using youth street gangs, so that’s up to you if that scratches the itch.
Not to mention Xenophon and his mercs have thier women and children with them, and also win a few epic battles. Also Xenophon shoved a guy who back talked at him, knocked him down school yard bully style. It'd be a great show.
Everyone should read Xenophon and Plutarch so they can say "I've read my Xenophon and Plutarch" thus flexing your credentials and winning every argument about ancient history or military strategy. Also Xenophon is a great read!
Honestly, I wish he had gone on to unite Greece and change world history by being Alexander the Great before Alexander the Great. He could conquer the world while complaining about wanting to go home to Athens, only to find out it was somehow burned down by a freak accident. It's more exciting than the ending we got.
One of my favourite parts of the story was when the persians almost managed to encircle the Greeks by cutting their escape route and at the same time placing forces around them. There was a hill that the persians didnt thought to hold and that high ground could be the key for the upcoming battle. Xenophon with 300 men raced towards the hill top, while the same time the persians realizing their stategic error also sent a contigent to get there first. The two groups literaly raced to the top while the Persian and Greek troops from the valley cheered their men. Xenophon was on horseback running up and down trying to encourage his men and urge them. At that moment a soldier named Soteridas turned back and shouted to Xenophon that its easy for him to give orders while on horseback while him had to carry the burden of his shield and weapons. Xenophon then jumped down from the horse, grabbed Soteridas shield and started running forward. Xenophon was wearing a cavalry bronze thorax which flanged out towards the waist in order to allo the rider to seat on horseback, and the shield was catching and banging on the cuirass making it even harder to carry the shield. At that point the other soldiers started to shout and swear at Soteridas forcing him to take back his shield in shame. Xenophons men managed to secure the hill top first and after seeing that the persians realized that they lost the advantage and decided to withdraw without any battle that day.
I read one of Xenophon's books on horsemanship, it's pretty neat. It's got a section on how to flex properly while riding your horse, pretty wild for a book thats thousand of years old.
@@joek600Horsemanship on that level would've been fairly new at that point, we were -barely- able to ride on horseback by the end of the bronze age due to them being bred as animals of war for chariots
The Anabasis is is one of my all time favorites! Xenophon was not made full leader until much later on the Anatolian coast. There were four commanders of the army. The two most experienced took the wings while Cheirisophus took the van and Xenophon the rearguard (with the only cavalry the Greeks had.) Cheirisophus, at least the way Xenophon tells it, was kinda sorta in the lead position, with Xenophon as something as a check on him, but it's all a weird power dynamic. The Greeks as a whole tended to shout out what they thought they should do and, depending on how riotous they were getting, the leaders tended to go with the consensus.
@@nebsam715 It's the title of the book Xenophon wrote about this "little" oddysey of his. You know, the one that suddenly ends in Pergamon as Jack said.
Anabasis is a great read, but its a massive piece of self-promotion and justification. Xenophon loves to point out that he was only one of several commanders whenever the army makes a mistake or does something untrustworthy, but whenever they do something great, he's happy to take all the credit. He wrote the whole thing in the third person and pretended it was by somebody else, so it definitely seems to have been written to try to rehabilitate his reputation over allegations that he wanted to use the army to make himself king or a chunk of Asia Minor.
Ah the life of an athenian philosopher, one day your dialoguing over the concepts of truth and equality. and the next you've been at war with everyone possible and you still haven't been paid. The end
You would think that between this, and the other two times Greek armies curb stomped much larger Persian armies someone in the Persian government would've thought that maybe, just maybe they needed to come up with a better way to fight heavy pike men than shooting them with horse bows and throwing endless waves of light infantry at them.
They were able to march all the way to Attica and conquered Macedonia. They could fight them. Horse archers also did pretty well against them, and they could just hire Greek mercenaries.
Finally a history channel is covering this! Such a great story with so much drama. It's also interesting that Xenophon clearly develops an affinity for horses while leading his amateur cavalry. In the beginning of the book he says something like "a horse in battle is only good for running away faster" but after 3 years of riding a horse Xenophon would learn to respect them and go on to write a book about them.
Don't forget that Athens orders Socrates execution while he was off fighting. This one of the reasons that he doesn't return to Athens and instead settles in Sparta.
@@kavky Not Socrates, Xenophon. Athens kills Socrates. Xenophon then returns and works Athens rival, Sparta. Even had his kids raised in the Spartan system.
And you may find yourself at the head of a large greek army, in the middle of Persia, And you may find yourself being the enemy to all of Persia, And you may ask, how did I get here?
@@Ttegegg Why not? Socrates, his teacher, served in the Falange till retirement and was much respected among the military, saving bunch of people, including Xenophon when he was wounded and fell from his horse. Socrates other student, philosopher Plato, was Olympic champion in Pankration (it's like modern MMA). Xenophon himself participated in wars at least since he was 20 y.o., his friend Proxenus which invited Xenophon to join Cyrus was one of the Strategoi (generals) of Greek mercs. So when Proxenus was murdered by Persians his warriors elected Xenophon, whom they well knew, to be new Strategos (general).
Brother of Menelaus? No thats Agamemnon lol....(if you wanna have real fun time with ancient names, read about the Ptolemaic dynasty, every guy is named Ptolemy, every girl is named Cleopatra, Berenice or Arsinoe, its gets confusing so fast lol)
@@chrisdavey5530 Greeks get their names from their grandparents, in a display of honor to them. especially important, if u a prince/princess, who wants to stress the relationship to the king, and have claims on the throne later... Imagine: "if you were the legal heir to Ptolemaios, you´d be named Arsinoe, and not Tiffany...!!!" (Tiffany by the way is also greek, like the empress Theofanu, but surely not a typical female name in the Ptolemaic dynasty... When the eastern Roman princess Theofanu married the german, "holly roman" emperor, the orthodox christians essentialy recognized, that the catholics aren´t just dirty heretics, but a legitimate religion itself, maybe even a christian religion)
@@klausbrinck2137 th-cam.com/video/MjQUIxPXuXQ/w-d-xo.html, the first part, the second part was just me making fun of the ptolemys....I never claimed to be a comedic master,mind lol
*"Paying* the army that marched through half our lands slaughtering countless soldiers, hitherto undefeated, but homesick and in need of pay... To *go back home in peace?"* NEVER!!! Keep letting them kill our troops and citizens as they desperately try to make it back to their homes in one piece, costing us hundreds of talents of silver to repair the damage and contain them, instead of the one or two it would've cost to let them leave peacefully!" - The Persians, apparently
Thing to consider is Xenophon won the war against the Persian king… who is not too pleased with having had his butts kicked, so to ensure that no one hears of this defeat, he elected to go the route of destroying the army/enslaving the army so it could not share what happened to their enemies…only as the Greek kept beating them and surviving, it further wounded the pride of the persian empire. Xenophon’s survival and tales of his adventures likely was the perfect galvanising force for Alexander the Great to point at Persia and say “these persians are garbage compared to us. If the could not kill Xenophon and his army, they couldn’t possibly best the greatest army of Alexander, conquerer of Egypt, tyre, and lord of the Greeks.”
Socrates got killed for 'impiety' and 'corrupting the youth', probably meaning he was criticising the Hellenic religion and encouraging his pupils to overthrow Athenian Democracy and replace it with an 'enlightened' oligarchy. He was dealt with utterly ruthlessly, but there was a bit more to it than 'mildly sassing the leaders'. Xenophon definitely shared Socrates' contempt for democracy, so he would have been out of step with Athenian politics of the time.
@@chrisball3778 depending on how seriously you read the trial of Socrates those were the charges and in platos writings they did make sense but if you look at the vote count of conviction and then death sentence he basically sassed himself to the grave. Also it was enlighten aristocracy not oligarchy
@@ianyork2655 Very likely true he could have escaped execution if he'd made a show of contrition during his trial, and probably 'aristocracy' is more accurate than 'oligarchy', but he was still executed because he was a very real threat to the political order. Violent political conflict between democrats and anti-democrats had been commonplace during the Peloponnesian war and its aftermath, and it was a fear of its renewal that led to Socrates' execution The Athenian establishment murdered Socrates because they were afraid of civil war, not because he 'sassed' them. Xenophon was also very sceptical of democracy, and that's a likely reason for his exile after the events in Anabasis.
@@Kaiyanwang82 Doubtful. There's no reason to assume that. Also, the location and name fits Kurds better. Not to mention the rivalry with persians and that fact that they live in the mountains. This is actually a pretty weird thing I've noticed. When you claim that Kurds descend from Medes, people are like: NOPE! THAT WOULD BE THE TALYSH! But when you instead claim that Kurds descend from the Carduchians, people are once again going: NOPE! THAT WOULD BE THE TALYSH! Pretty strange why people do that. In reality, Kurds and Talysh have common ancestry, bot genetically and linguistically, mostly differentiated by the fact that Kurds live in the Zagros and Taurus mountains, whereas the Talysh live closer to the caspian sea.
0:21, "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority. " Now Everyone Can Read It!
0:21 "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority"
0:20 says "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority"
I haven't watched the whole video but as a Greek Im planning to read Cyrus Anabasis aka the book made by Xenophon about this whole adventure and from what i know it seems like an epic tale that can easily been made to a series. Edit: Saw it,loved it,can't wait to read the actual book.
The book is really good. Its like a crazy adventure. Know though that you will have to familiarize yourself with ancient greek tactics, because Xenophon takes their knowledge as granted and you might miss some juicy details.
It's a great read. What I found really interesting is that due to how far in the past it is and how different most modern cultures are from the then Greeks and Persians it almost reads like a fantasy novel. My favourite early passage is a mention of greek soldiers complaining they couldn't catch the ostriches they were hoping to eat. Beyond my surprise at ostriches living in Persia back then, the idea of greek soldiers running after these huge birds, that didn't live in Greece (and must have been quite alien-looking to them) and that can outspeed most non motorized vehicles put a huge smile on my face.
"as a Greek Im planning to read Cyrus Anabasis" we had it at school, in ancient Greek to that (of course, we´d spend 100times more effort on grammar/sentence-constitution, than on the content itself, but still better than not having it at all)... I don´t get how our schools have turned so bad lately...
I think this is as happy as it gets for him. He and his men get out of Persia. He settles in Sparta with his family. There is simply no way for him to go back to Athens because they'll execute him. They already executed Socrates so Xenophon doesn't want to go back there anyway and hates the Athens government. He leaves his mark in history and even inspired Alexander to go conquer Persia.
whoa, less than a minute gang, I dunno how I got here or who this guy is but I never turn down a chance to see whatever the heck content you put out lol
The entire expedition could be a sitcom. There's a point near the end where Xenophon is told that there is a guy called Asidates that he can easily kidnap and loot only for him to spend 3 days besieging his tower and getting shot at.
Today's lesson is to always be upfront with your Workers on what their end goal is and pay your Mercenaries gods so many people forget that one. Xenophon was great.
Jack no, you have to have him say, "well, it all started at the beginning" and then have it cut to him being spanked by the doctor at his birth or an embarassing and awkward look at him as a kid, then the voiceover says "not THAT far back!"
Arrian/Xenophon the Younger was a huge Xenophon fanboy from centuries later and wrote a book about Alexander The Great-o in imitation of the style of the Anabis, he also wrote a book about hunting like his namesake but as some point in that book he drops all pretense and gushes about his dog, shes so great guys
If you are wondering 0:21"So yeah obviously the ancient Greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority" flashes on screen
Xenophon was not exactly joining the expedition as an officer. He was a friend of Proxenos one of the generals and he was more something like an observer. The night that the Persians managed to trick the Greek generals that they would have talks to sort out the situation, only to have them murdered along with their escorts, nobody in the Greek camp realised what was going on. Suddenly through the night Nicarchos the Arcadian appeared holding his entrails with his two hands and told to the horrified Greeks about the betrayal. Right after that first shock a contigent of 300 persian riders appeared. They were lead by Ariaios a noble supporter of the dead now Cyros and former ally of the Greek contigent. He spoke on behalf of the King and announced to the Greeks that their leaders were punished for betrayal by the Great King (oh the irony) who demanded their weapons surrendered to him. While Xenophon was not an officer, he wasnt even an experienced warrior, he was one of the few that managed to keep his calm under that situation and called for the troops to elect new officers and reorganize. After his speech the troops elected him as one of their leaders. If that would not make a hell of a tv series I dont know what would.
Well, in fact he was very experienced warrior - he participated in war with Sparta (got saved by Socrates in one of the battles) and was at least 43-44 y.o. during the events of Anabasis. And it's unlikely that's he was just an observer in the marching army. More likely that he was adviser like he was later when he served in Spartan army. He was elected as a new Strategos by his murdered friend's (Proxenus) warriors, who must have knew Xenophon and his commanding abilities pretty well.
@@nortons7040 Xenophon was hardly 30 when he joined the expedition. He was not a part of a specific mercenary group. He was there more as a so to speak aide de camp for Proxenos. The one saved by Socrates was Alkiviades.
@@joek600 "Xenophon was hardly 30" - what makes you state this? This is pure speculation which contradicts other sources about Xenophon and his own works. This speculation (that Xenophon was born in 430 B.C,. and was about 30 y.o. during the events of Anabasis) comes from some unclear places in Anabasis and completely ignores other known facts. According to Diogenes and Strabo, Xenophon participated in the battle of Delia in Boeotia in 424 B.C. and was saved by Socrates. Since young people from 18 to 20 years of age carried out military service only inside Attica, than Xenophon in 424 B.C. should have been at least 20 years old, and therefore the year of his birth should be considered 444 or even earlier. With this conclusion, Xenophon's own testimony at the beginning of his "Symposium" that he himself was present at this Symposium, which was arranged by Callius in honor of the victory of his favorite Autolycus in the gymnastics competition, completely agrees with this conclusion. The year of this competition, and therefore the Symposium, is determined exactly - 422 B.C. And since all the guests at this Symposium were adult young people, over twenty years old, we must conclude that Xenophon was not a child, that is, that in 422 B.C. he was more than 20 years old: this again brings us approximately to that same year of his birth. The same conclusion must be drawn based on the year of his death. This year cannot be determined with accuracy: according to the testimony of Stesiclides, Xenophon died in 360 B.C.; but in view of the fact that in the Hellenica Xenophon mentions one event in 357 and that his Ways and Means was written in 356 or 355 B.C., only 355 can be considered the year of his death. And since, according to the testimony of Lucian , Xenophon lived for more than 90 years (according to the testimony of Demetrius i"died old enough"; according to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus - " extremely old "), then again this indicates his birth between 450 and 440 years. This opinion was held by the almost all philologists. But the English historian Mitford in his History of Greece (1822, vol. V, ch. 23), and then the famous Dutch critic Cobet, without mentioning Mitford, in his New readings ("Novae lectiones", 1858, p. 534 et seq.) pointed to a number of places in Xenophon's "Anabasis", on the basis of which it can be concluded that Xenophon during the campaign of Cyrus in 401B.C. was less than 30 years old and that therefore the birth of Xenophon should be attributed to some year from between 430 and 425 B.C.. Most of the new biographers of Xenophon accept this date. Nevertheless, it is hardly true, and, apparently, it is necessary to return to the opinion of previous scientists. The fact is that all the places indicated by Cobet in "Anabasis" are very vague (III, 1, 14; III, 1, 25; VI, 4, 25; VII, 3, 46; VII, 6, 34): with the extensibility of the concept of "young" - in the ancient languages even much more than in the new ones - one could also call a young man of 43 years old. KW Krüger, in his study of the life of Xenophont ("De Xenophontis vita" in "Historisch-philologische Studien", 1851, II, S. 262 u. Ff.), Perfectly proved the lack of persuasiveness of the conclusions based on these passages of the "Anabasis". Meanwhile, Cobet and his followers have, for the sake of these vague places in the "Anabasis", to consider the information of Xenophon's participation in the battle of Delia (in 424) unreliable. “Well,” says Cobet, “that we have a better witness, an eyewitness in Plato's “Symposium”, tells how Socrates retreated after this defeat: Alciviades, on horseback, accompanied Socrates and Lakhet and brought them to safety." Hug, in a footnote to this passage of Platon's "Symposium", suggests that the information about the rescue of Xenophon by Socrates in the battle of Delia is based on mixing him with Alciviades. But in this case, one would have to assume a double confusion - not only persons, but also battles, because Alciviades was rescued by Socrates at the Battle of Potidae in 432 B.C.. The story of Alciviades in Plato's "Symposium", perhaps, can still cast a shadow of suspicion on the details of the information of the rescue of Xenophon by Socrates, at least in the Strabo version, that Socrates, “while fleeing, saw Xenophon falling from horse and lying, took him on his shoulders and carried many stages until the flight stopped. But in Diogenes' version, the last detail is missing: Socrates in the battle at Delia "saved Xenophon, who fell from his horse, taking on himself." And in this form, perhaps, there is no contradiction between this story and the story of Alciviades: different moments of the battle can be depicted here; the story of Alciviades refers to a later time of retreat than the rescue of Xenophon in the battle itself. But even if all the information about the salvation of Xenophon by Socrates is recognized as fiction, then there is no reason to consider the main part of the information as fiction - Xenophon's participation in the battle of Delia (which is only important for the biography of Xenophon). But not only do Cobet and his followers, for the sake of their speculations, have to reject the information about participation of Xenophon in the battle of Delia; they also do not believe the statement of Xenophon himself at the beginning of the "Symposium" that he was personally present at the feast of Callias and, therefore, in 422 B.C. was already an adult. So, on the basis of the above information and considerations, one must conclude that Xenophon was born no later than 444, and died no earlier than 355 BC. This is partly indicated by his experience in military affairs during the campaign of Cyrus: one cannot think that the army would choose him as a leader in the dangerous position in which it was in Asia, if it did not see him as a person who is well acquainted with military affairs. It cannot be assumed that he was in the position of a simple tourist ("observer") who wanted to see new countries: such a person who does nothing would be only a burden on a long expedition, and, of course, neither Proxenus would invite him, nor Cyrus would try to persuade him to stay if they would not see him as a useful person. Probably, without holding any official position, he still played some role: maybe he was an advisor under Cyrus or something like that.
For anyone wondering the text at 0:21 says "So yeah obviously ancient Greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority." I had to pause it over and over again at 25x to be able to read it.
Xenophon also has a fanboy historian centuries later called Arrian, who wanted to be called Xenophon the younger. Arrian wrote a book called Cynegeticus where he goes into hyper detail about his doggo called Horme ( Dash, in English) and admits to kissing his dog on the mouth. What a world innit.
I’d like to point out that the guy with the megaphone in the beginning is literally just the immortal armor from assassins creed odyssey. God bless history TH-cam humor
I've heard a lecture about specifically the battles but the whole thing and I gotta say ya think someone would've paid those guys but at least they didn't get the silver shield treatment bein forced to fight into their 80s and older for some of them until they finally ran out of people to kill and died of old age gotta love Greece
I think this is a bit played down here, but Xenophon REALLY liked Cyrus the Young, like A LOT. Anabasis is a good read and tells this story (the one in the video), if anyone is interested.
For the ones who didn't saw it ( 0:21 ): " So yeah obviously , the ancient greeks didn't had presidents, but in so far as we has the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority."
1440 quickly becoming my new favorite morning ritual! Sign up today for free, and include it in your routine: www.join1440.com/jackrackham
Thank you for the good history vids
@@JesusChrist42000 Much obliged!
Can ya tell me what the text you put on the screen says after "you made me president" at 0:20 ? Those of us on phones cant simply move thru the vid frame by frame to read things like this and no amount of trying to pause the vid at the right time is working...
I really wanted to dislike the video for the flash text I could not pause on... but it's a great video. But... fu
@@SylviaRustyFae "So yeah obviously the ancient Greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority."
It's honestly great that Xenophon stayed with the Spartans, cause it's because of him that we get a super close insiders look at the Spartan government and way of life.
Man Xenophon is just the Goat
@@arawn1061 yooo wassup man of culture! Gyro dp!
@@bhargavadutt8827 Eyyyyyyyy
pizza mozarella..
Still, it’s just sad he wasn’t allowed to return home…
For those wondering about the flashing text, it is at 0:21 and it says "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority"
There's always a good guy in the comments section who pauses over the text 😇
@@JackRackam The fact those notations are so challenging fast make the wonderful videos even better.
Hahaha I put it at the lowest speed and paused every frame
Oh God took me like 10 tries at 0.25x speed to read that
@@horseshit1503 Pro tip: you can scrub videos frame by frame on a computer by using the . and , keys
I like how Xenophon's wacky adventure leads him into becoming practically the only reason why we know anything about Spartan culture
Lets not ignore how much of a tactical mastermind Xenophon would have to be to pull off such a withdrawal.
Id be willing to compare his escape from Persia to that of Cesar's campaign in Gaul, both were surrounded in hostile lands yet achieved their respective goals.
Escape persia alive, Pacify Gaul
This story is often compared to the march of chzechoslovak legion. 60.000 veterans of ww1 who defected to the russian imperial army. When russia colapsed into civil war they had to march through siberia all the way to vladvostok and then sail arround asia to finally redeploy in the western front.
@@Fuzato15 yah using a ww1 supper weapon that ended up in Japanese hands never to be seen again
Jesus. A rogue army essentially
Ah, but you see, you're wrong there: Xenophon was an absolute tosser. He was mainly lucky. Having had to translate quite a lot from his works what I have experienced of him is a mediocre historian whose understanding of socrates' philosophy is so poor that the character he writes about and the one Plato does could be considered two different historical figures. (Obviously Plato's early Socrates, not the later one who mainly speaks for Plato).
@@siamihari8717 they probably didn't give a shit. They just wanted to go home.
"Perhaps. Perhaps we should just pay the army that has managed to survive marching and fighting from one end of our fucking country to the other" - the only sane man in Persia
beating up literally everyone including the imperial royal army TWICE!
"What? Speak sense man, thats dumb, we go and ambush them instead." - the typical persian governor
The governers all look at each other then back at Rationalicles, and immediately run him through with 5 spears
But that would be the sensible thing to do.
We don't do "sensible."
FOR REAL.LOL
I would high-key watch a full movie about this
It's such an enticing premise!
This basically sounds to me like "Mad Dogs", only Ancient Greek and not about drugs.
@KhAnubis Hey look! Its KhAnubis!
Isn't that just The Warriors?
Me too, it's like a comedy but a documentary and an action movie in 1
Fun fact: The "Kardóùkhoi" that Xenophon mentioned might be the first time that Kurds are mentioned in western historiography.
Always cool when you see those first references to something in history.
Basically this man became leader of a rogue army because no one else wanted to and no one wanted to pay them and on top of that, the army acted like a republic while being betrayed almost every month. This story is amazing and I wanna see a movie on this!
It would certainly work for a TV show if it had solid production values and an authentic focus on history. Like imagine a version of this tale with Rome level production details and exceptionally well managed battle sequences. It would be awesome.
You CANNOT start a history video with a “yep that’s me” meme with NO WARNING Jack. My mind was NOT ready
Side note. He was so pissed about his banishment that he wrote an entire book that can be summarised by saying „Democracy sucks. Athens suck. Monarchy is cool. Sparta is cool. You should go to Sparta”.
And then he died. The end.
(That is, if it was him who wrote the book, there were at lead 8 Xenophons at the time, one was a Doctor, another a comedy writer, the one in the video, another two were feom Athens, a cavalry man in Athenian army, and some two more and we are not sure which one of them wrote that book but my bet is on the 10,000 guy.)
Ha, Awesome
They were all the same guy, included the two more.
@@Kaiyanwang82😂
Fun Fact: Plenty of people read about what Xenophon and his Greeks did in Persia and what they had to do to escape. And among those that read about them was Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. And these accounts led them to conclude that Persia was right for conquering. Which means this incident had an effect on world history. Just one that most people don't know about.
I am not surprised by this of course those two would read Xenophon's book
@@nebsam715---I wasn't surprised either when I first read about it.
@@brokenbridge6316 Let's be honest it's Alexander the A-tier, dude didn't really need much of a reason to conquer Persia he viewed all of Asia and the Mediterranean as "free real estate".
@@CollinMcLean---True. But he wouldn't have come to view it like that without his father and the exploits of Xenophon n friends.
@@CollinMcLean Yes but he still had to convince his generals and most of all the rest of the allies that it was do-able. Anabasis provided some hard facts about the persian inabillity to deal with a well coordinated greek army.
The Virgin 300 Spartans under Leonidas:
--hold off huge Persian force via chokepoint (with help from thousands of allied Greeks) for three days
--get outflanked
--die
--get blockbuster movie
The Chad 10,000 Greek Mercs under Xenophon:
--march into middle of Persia
--win battle
--lose all their generals
--select new leaders
--march through thousands of miles of hostile land to get home, despite no help and constant betrayals
--don't get movie
Sadly the adventure of the 10,000 is very episodic, so I doubt any movie producers would be willing to touch it. Now a TV series on the other hand...
Well the story was adapted in the warriors novel(1965) which was adapted into a cult classic movie back in ‘79 but that’s really a setting update to the then currents years using youth street gangs, so that’s up to you if that scratches the itch.
Not to mention Xenophon and his mercs have thier women and children with them, and also win a few epic battles. Also Xenophon shoved a guy who back talked at him, knocked him down school yard bully style. It'd be a great show.
Netflix....
The story of a man who just want to go home
Everyone should read Xenophon and Plutarch so they can say "I've read my Xenophon and Plutarch" thus flexing your credentials and winning every argument about ancient history or military strategy.
Also Xenophon is a great read!
"Warriorssssss come out and playyyyyyy"-Persians trying to tempt greek warriors to attack
Is t hat a ps1 spider-man reference? Cause i dig it
*clinks glass bottles together in Greek*
@@enkiimuto1041 it’s uh the warriors reference
*Message roughly translates to:* 🖕
"Mom! Can we stop and get Alexander the Great, Greek conqueror of Persia?"
"We have Alexander the Great at home."
Alexander the Great at home:
This NEEDS to be made into a historical drama comedy! The potential is too much!
Y'know after 3 years of utter bullshit, I'm happy he got a peaceful, relatively non climactic ending. He must have been so done.
Kind of a happy ending.
Honestly, I wish he had gone on to unite Greece and change world history by being Alexander the Great before Alexander the Great. He could conquer the world while complaining about wanting to go home to Athens, only to find out it was somehow burned down by a freak accident. It's more exciting than the ending we got.
One of my favourite parts of the story was when the persians almost managed to encircle the Greeks by cutting their escape route and at the same time placing forces around them. There was a hill that the persians didnt thought to hold and that high ground could be the key for the upcoming battle. Xenophon with 300 men raced towards the hill top, while the same time the persians realizing their stategic error also sent a contigent to get there first. The two groups literaly raced to the top while the Persian and Greek troops from the valley cheered their men. Xenophon was on horseback running up and down trying to encourage his men and urge them. At that moment a soldier named Soteridas turned back and shouted to Xenophon that its easy for him to give orders while on horseback while him had to carry the burden of his shield and weapons. Xenophon then jumped down from the horse, grabbed Soteridas shield and started running forward. Xenophon was wearing a cavalry bronze thorax which flanged out towards the waist in order to allo the rider to seat on horseback, and the shield was catching and banging on the cuirass making it even harder to carry the shield. At that point the other soldiers started to shout and swear at Soteridas forcing him to take back his shield in shame. Xenophons men managed to secure the hill top first and after seeing that the persians realized that they lost the advantage and decided to withdraw without any battle that day.
I read one of Xenophon's books on horsemanship, it's pretty neat. It's got a section on how to flex properly while riding your horse, pretty wild for a book thats thousand of years old.
Why? Its only natural that people of old have a more intimate knowledge of horsemanship.
@@joek600 Especially when that was pretty much your life back then
@@joek600Horsemanship on that level would've been fairly new at that point, we were -barely- able to ride on horseback by the end of the bronze age due to them being bred as animals of war for chariots
Damn. What a Chad. After everything else, Xenophon managed to not only get his guys paid but did so by holding a Spartan admiral hostage.
The Anabasis is is one of my all time favorites! Xenophon was not made full leader until much later on the Anatolian coast. There were four commanders of the army. The two most experienced took the wings while Cheirisophus took the van and Xenophon the rearguard (with the only cavalry the Greeks had.) Cheirisophus, at least the way Xenophon tells it, was kinda sorta in the lead position, with Xenophon as something as a check on him, but it's all a weird power dynamic. The Greeks as a whole tended to shout out what they thought they should do and, depending on how riotous they were getting, the leaders tended to go with the consensus.
The Anabasis?
@@nebsam715 It's the title of the book Xenophon wrote about this "little" oddysey of his. You know, the one that suddenly ends in Pergamon as Jack said.
Anabasis is a great read, but its a massive piece of self-promotion and justification. Xenophon loves to point out that he was only one of several commanders whenever the army makes a mistake or does something untrustworthy, but whenever they do something great, he's happy to take all the credit. He wrote the whole thing in the third person and pretended it was by somebody else, so it definitely seems to have been written to try to rehabilitate his reputation over allegations that he wanted to use the army to make himself king or a chunk of Asia Minor.
@@MasterWilczu thanks for the heads up
@@chrisball3778 exactly, modern historians suggest that Xenophon exaggerated his rank and accomplishments in Anabasis.
1440 is an amazing idea. Maybe you could have it printed out, and have someone bring it to your house. Like the news on paper.
You’re a monster
What?! are you to lazy to google stuff now?
milenials...
Great idea, they could call it "news-paper"!
@@hotdogfingerz9674 no paper of news
I’m need the screens too much
Ah the life of an athenian philosopher, one day your dialoguing over the concepts of truth and equality. and the next you've been at war with everyone possible and you still haven't been paid. The end
Even if his teacher *wasn't* Socrates he'd still finish life a, er, philosophical man.
Man, somehow Xenophon's story somewhat reminds me of The Odyssey. At least Odysseus made it home.
At best, Xenophon gets to retire.
I mean, Xenophon at least was able to raise his kids in his retirement
You would think that between this, and the other two times Greek armies curb stomped much larger Persian armies someone in the Persian government would've thought that maybe, just maybe they needed to come up with a better way to fight heavy pike men than shooting them with horse bows and throwing endless waves of light infantry at them.
To be fair, there isnt much other plan to do
but, but.....the immortals!
They were able to march all the way to Attica and conquered Macedonia. They could fight them. Horse archers also did pretty well against them, and they could just hire Greek mercenaries.
@@liamjm9278 hey look an actually intelligent person. Let's not forget they burned Athens as well.
@Aditya Chavarkar true that
Finally a history channel is covering this! Such a great story with so much drama. It's also interesting that Xenophon clearly develops an affinity for horses while leading his amateur cavalry. In the beginning of the book he says something like "a horse in battle is only good for running away faster" but after 3 years of riding a horse Xenophon would learn to respect them and go on to write a book about them.
Don't forget that Athens orders Socrates execution while he was off fighting. This one of the reasons that he doesn't return to Athens and instead settles in Sparta.
Hol up, when did Socrates settle in Sparta?
@@kavky Not Socrates, Xenophon. Athens kills Socrates. Xenophon then returns and works Athens rival, Sparta. Even had his kids raised in the Spartan system.
@@CatholicDragoon Ok your wording had me confused.
Your wording is confusing. Makes it seem that you are talking about Socrates settling in Sparta
And you may find yourself at the head of a large greek army, in the middle of Persia,
And you may find yourself being the enemy to all of Persia,
And you may ask, how did I get here?
And you may tell yourself,
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself,
This is not my beautiful wife!
On the ending of the story. Man, that's some "Last Jedi" anticlimax right there.
Too soon. Waaaaay TOO SOON!
Get a new punching bag
@@thefury770able But the one I have still has some life to it. :P
@@Mechabang I don't think so, it's been done to death
No wonder he's the source for one of the few written first hand accounts on Sparta.
Can’t believe some Greek philosopher was the leader of a bunch of mercs
@@Ttegegg Why not? Socrates, his teacher, served in the Falange till retirement and was much respected among the military, saving bunch of people, including Xenophon when he was wounded and fell from his horse. Socrates other student, philosopher Plato, was Olympic champion in Pankration (it's like modern MMA). Xenophon himself participated in wars at least since he was 20 y.o., his friend Proxenus which invited Xenophon to join Cyrus was one of the Strategoi (generals) of Greek mercs. So when Proxenus was murdered by Persians his warriors elected Xenophon, whom they well knew, to be new Strategos (general).
I was like “Xenophon? The guy who rode Pegasus??” But that was Bellerophon.
Brother of Menelaus? No thats Agamemnon lol....(if you wanna have real fun time with ancient names, read about the Ptolemaic dynasty, every guy is named Ptolemy, every girl is named Cleopatra, Berenice or Arsinoe, its gets confusing so fast lol)
@@chrisdavey5530 Greeks get their names from their grandparents, in a display of honor to them. especially important, if u a prince/princess, who wants to stress the relationship to the king, and have claims on the throne later... Imagine: "if you were the legal heir to Ptolemaios, you´d be named Arsinoe, and not Tiffany...!!!" (Tiffany by the way is also greek, like the empress Theofanu, but surely not a typical female name in the Ptolemaic dynasty... When the eastern Roman princess Theofanu married the german, "holly roman" emperor, the orthodox christians essentialy recognized, that the catholics aren´t just dirty heretics, but a legitimate religion itself, maybe even a christian religion)
@@klausbrinck2137 yeah I was mostly just making a reference to a show called frisky dingo lol
@@chrisdavey5530 a show called frisky dingo: sorry I didn´t get it, and thought myself: "He said Arsinoe, so, it´s hisory-lesson-time...!!!" ;-)
@@klausbrinck2137 th-cam.com/video/MjQUIxPXuXQ/w-d-xo.html, the first part, the second part was just me making fun of the ptolemys....I never claimed to be a comedic master,mind lol
This was the inspiration for Alexander, and also the first (and very riveting) account of the ruins of Nineveh
This would be an amazing series.
Even the fact he arrives on Pergamon and the series end out of no where and that's the season finale.
*"Paying* the army that marched through half our lands slaughtering countless soldiers, hitherto undefeated, but homesick and in need of pay... To *go back home in peace?"*
NEVER!!! Keep letting them kill our troops and citizens as they desperately try to make it back to their homes in one piece, costing us hundreds of talents of silver to repair the damage and contain them, instead of the one or two it would've cost to let them leave peacefully!"
- The Persians, apparently
Thing to consider is Xenophon won the war against the Persian king… who is not too pleased with having had his butts kicked, so to ensure that no one hears of this defeat, he elected to go the route of destroying the army/enslaving the army so it could not share what happened to their enemies…only as the Greek kept beating them and surviving, it further wounded the pride of the persian empire. Xenophon’s survival and tales of his adventures likely was the perfect galvanising force for Alexander the Great to point at Persia and say “these persians are garbage compared to us. If the could not kill Xenophon and his army, they couldn’t possibly best the greatest army of Alexander, conquerer of Egypt, tyre, and lord of the Greeks.”
Hey to be fair Athens did kill Socrates just for mildly sassing the leaders so tbh he got off pretty light
Socrates got killed for 'impiety' and 'corrupting the youth', probably meaning he was criticising the Hellenic religion and encouraging his pupils to overthrow Athenian Democracy and replace it with an 'enlightened' oligarchy. He was dealt with utterly ruthlessly, but there was a bit more to it than 'mildly sassing the leaders'. Xenophon definitely shared Socrates' contempt for democracy, so he would have been out of step with Athenian politics of the time.
@@chrisball3778 depending on how seriously you read the trial of Socrates those were the charges and in platos writings they did make sense but if you look at the vote count of conviction and then death sentence he basically sassed himself to the grave. Also it was enlighten aristocracy not oligarchy
@@chrisball3778 Not oligarchy though
@@arifahmedkhan9999 Yeah also dissing the Athenian democracy wasn’t very uncommon read the comedian Aristophanes.
@@ianyork2655 Very likely true he could have escaped execution if he'd made a show of contrition during his trial, and probably 'aristocracy' is more accurate than 'oligarchy', but he was still executed because he was a very real threat to the political order. Violent political conflict between democrats and anti-democrats had been commonplace during the Peloponnesian war and its aftermath, and it was a fear of its renewal that led to Socrates' execution The Athenian establishment murdered Socrates because they were afraid of civil war, not because he 'sassed' them. Xenophon was also very sceptical of democracy, and that's a likely reason for his exile after the events in Anabasis.
I love how this is literally a real-world version of the Odyssey
I've been counting the days for you to do Xenophon or one of Socrates' disciples! Let's gooooooooo
Fun fact : The Carduchians of 6:55 are probably the ancestors of modern Kurds.
They could be Talysh. None stayed exactly in the same spot that long.
@@Kaiyanwang82 nope
@@Kaiyanwang82 Doubtful. There's no reason to assume that. Also, the location and name fits Kurds better. Not to mention the rivalry with persians and that fact that they live in the mountains.
This is actually a pretty weird thing I've noticed.
When you claim that Kurds descend from Medes, people are like: NOPE! THAT WOULD BE THE TALYSH!
But when you instead claim that Kurds descend from the Carduchians, people are once again going: NOPE! THAT WOULD BE THE TALYSH!
Pretty strange why people do that.
In reality, Kurds and Talysh have common ancestry, bot genetically and linguistically, mostly differentiated by the fact that Kurds live in the Zagros and Taurus mountains, whereas the Talysh live closer to the caspian sea.
0:21, "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority. "
Now Everyone Can Read It!
Your the true mvp
Ancient Militaires Sans Frontières was NOT what I expected the next video to be about I love it.
We studied Xenophon extensively in high school ancient Greek class so learning stuff like this about him is really interesting
“Wrong sea, innit”
Yes, but actually no.
This is literally the video version of “in and out 20 minute adventure” meme
0:21 "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority"
0:20 says "So yeah obviously the ancient greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority"
I haven't watched the whole video but as a Greek Im planning to read Cyrus Anabasis aka the book made by Xenophon about this whole adventure and from what i know it seems like an epic tale that can easily been made to a series.
Edit: Saw it,loved it,can't wait to read the actual book.
The book is really good. Its like a crazy adventure. Know though that you will have to familiarize yourself with ancient greek tactics, because Xenophon takes their knowledge as granted and you might miss some juicy details.
It's a great read. What I found really interesting is that due to how far in the past it is and how different most modern cultures are from the then Greeks and Persians it almost reads like a fantasy novel. My favourite early passage is a mention of greek soldiers complaining they couldn't catch the ostriches they were hoping to eat. Beyond my surprise at ostriches living in Persia back then, the idea of greek soldiers running after these huge birds, that didn't live in Greece (and must have been quite alien-looking to them) and that can outspeed most non motorized vehicles put a huge smile on my face.
"as a Greek Im planning to read Cyrus Anabasis" we had it at school, in ancient Greek to that (of course, we´d spend 100times more effort on grammar/sentence-constitution, than on the content itself, but still better than not having it at all)... I don´t get how our schools have turned so bad lately...
Wow this is like a real life Odyssey except without the happy ending and monsters.
I think this is as happy as it gets for him. He and his men get out of Persia. He settles in Sparta with his family. There is simply no way for him to go back to Athens because they'll execute him. They already executed Socrates so Xenophon doesn't want to go back there anyway and hates the Athens government. He leaves his mark in history and even inspired Alexander to go conquer Persia.
Odyssey did not have a happy ending.
Xenophon and his men's flight home reminds me of the Czech regiment that fought itself out of the Russia during WWI.
It's very similar except that railways had been invented by that time.
@@alanpennie8013 And that the Czech regiment was not fighting for itself, but for the British masters, probably.
I remember my history teacher mentioned Xenophon just as a helluva trip but never got to explain further, now I see why.
2:55 Waitwaitwait, did the Delphic Oracle actually try to give a _straight_ answer for once?
No nonono, that was just artistic freedom of the YTer...
To anyone interested in the books these events take place, they are called "Anabasis".
Honestly this is like the best intro to a TH-cam video I’ve ever seen. Love it
This video got me to read the anabasis. And I imagine Xenophon taking a deep sigh before every time he speaks.
No borders, you say?
Was waiting for this comment. Good man.
I LOVED YOU LIKE A BROTHER CIPHER!
+V2
AWNB did nothing wrong
>
Alternative title: "That time Hanibal got reincarnated as a Athenian and all he want's is to get home from persia"
Well, as Hannibal lived after Xenophon, the reincarnation would have to go the other way round...
@@thomasrinschler6783 Ah I messed up when checking. Well now I feel silly
@@FiraDeviant He's the Pre-incarnation of Hanibal!
@@FiraDeviant Hannibal was always good about paying his mercenaries, almost like he had personal experience as to what happens if you fail to do so...
Honestly, I just love how tired Xenophon sounds by the end of it lol
whoa, less than a minute gang, I dunno how I got here or who this guy is but I never turn down a chance to see whatever the heck content you put out lol
The entire expedition could be a sitcom. There's a point near the end where Xenophon is told that there is a guy called Asidates that he can easily kidnap and loot only for him to spend 3 days besieging his tower and getting shot at.
Today's lesson is to always be upfront with your Workers on what their end goal is and pay your Mercenaries gods so many people forget that one. Xenophon was great.
It is quite ironic considering that in Persian culture of the time lying was seen as THE cardinal sin
@@konnosx1213 Cyrus was planning to kill his brother and take his throne, of the biggest empire on earth, and you think he wouldn´t lie?
This guy always making me go crazy over the single frame of text he always displays smh
Two videos? In one week? This is outrageous!
This is the absolute best take the Anabasis since the Warriors
Poor xylophone, well at least his name will always be remembered.
Jack no, you have to have him say, "well, it all started at the beginning" and then have it cut to him being spanked by the doctor at his birth or an embarassing and awkward look at him as a kid, then the voiceover says "not THAT far back!"
Arrian/Xenophon the Younger was a huge Xenophon fanboy from centuries later and wrote a book about Alexander The Great-o in imitation of the style of the Anabis, he also wrote a book about hunting like his namesake but as some point in that book he drops all pretense and gushes about his dog, shes so great guys
portraying the Persian Prince as some HR rep on an outsourced jobs fair for a shady unsanctioned project is kinda on point lol
If you are wondering 0:21"So yeah obviously the ancient Greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority" flashes on screen
Xenophon was not exactly joining the expedition as an officer. He was a friend of Proxenos one of the generals and he was more something like an observer. The night that the Persians managed to trick the Greek generals that they would have talks to sort out the situation, only to have them murdered along with their escorts, nobody in the Greek camp realised what was going on. Suddenly through the night Nicarchos the Arcadian appeared holding his entrails with his two hands and told to the horrified Greeks about the betrayal. Right after that first shock a contigent of 300 persian riders appeared. They were lead by Ariaios a noble supporter of the dead now Cyros and former ally of the Greek contigent. He spoke on behalf of the King and announced to the Greeks that their leaders were punished for betrayal by the Great King (oh the irony) who demanded their weapons surrendered to him. While Xenophon was not an officer, he wasnt even an experienced warrior, he was one of the few that managed to keep his calm under that situation and called for the troops to elect new officers and reorganize. After his speech the troops elected him as one of their leaders.
If that would not make a hell of a tv series I dont know what would.
Well, in fact he was very experienced warrior - he participated in war with Sparta (got saved by Socrates in one of the battles) and was at least 43-44 y.o. during the events of Anabasis. And it's unlikely that's he was just an observer in the marching army. More likely that he was adviser like he was later when he served in Spartan army. He was elected as a new Strategos by his murdered friend's (Proxenus) warriors, who must have knew Xenophon and his commanding abilities pretty well.
@@nortons7040 Xenophon was hardly 30 when he joined the expedition. He was not a part of a specific mercenary group. He was there more as a so to speak aide de camp for Proxenos. The one saved by Socrates was Alkiviades.
@@joek600 "Xenophon was hardly 30" - what makes you state this? This is pure speculation which contradicts other sources about Xenophon and his own works. This speculation (that Xenophon was born in 430 B.C,. and was about 30 y.o. during the events of Anabasis) comes from some unclear places in Anabasis and completely ignores other known facts. According to Diogenes and Strabo, Xenophon participated in the battle of Delia in Boeotia in 424 B.C. and was saved by Socrates. Since young people from 18 to 20 years of age carried out military service only inside Attica, than Xenophon in 424 B.C. should have been at least 20 years old, and therefore the year of his birth should be considered 444 or even earlier. With this conclusion, Xenophon's own testimony at the beginning of his "Symposium" that he himself was present at this Symposium, which was arranged by Callius in honor of the victory of his favorite Autolycus in the gymnastics competition, completely agrees with this conclusion. The year of this competition, and therefore the Symposium, is determined exactly - 422 B.C. And since all the guests at this Symposium were adult young people, over twenty years old, we must conclude that Xenophon was not a child, that is, that in 422 B.C. he was more than 20 years old: this again brings us approximately to that same year of his birth. The same conclusion must be drawn based on the year of his death. This year cannot be determined with accuracy: according to the testimony of Stesiclides, Xenophon died in 360 B.C.; but in view of the fact that in the Hellenica Xenophon mentions one event in 357 and that his Ways and Means was written in 356 or 355 B.C., only 355 can be considered the year of his death. And since, according to the testimony of Lucian , Xenophon lived for more than 90 years (according to the testimony of Demetrius i"died old enough"; according to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus - " extremely old "), then again this indicates his birth between 450 and 440 years. This opinion was held by the almost all philologists. But the English historian Mitford in his History of Greece (1822, vol. V, ch. 23), and then the famous Dutch critic Cobet, without mentioning Mitford, in his New readings ("Novae lectiones", 1858, p. 534 et seq.) pointed to a number of places in Xenophon's "Anabasis", on the basis of which it can be concluded that Xenophon during the campaign of Cyrus in 401B.C. was less than 30 years old and that therefore the birth of Xenophon should be attributed to some year from between 430 and 425 B.C.. Most of the new biographers of Xenophon accept this date. Nevertheless, it is hardly true, and, apparently, it is necessary to return to the opinion of previous scientists. The fact is that all the places indicated by Cobet in "Anabasis" are very vague (III, 1, 14; III, 1, 25; VI, 4, 25; VII, 3, 46; VII, 6, 34): with the extensibility of the concept of "young" - in the ancient languages even much more than in the new ones - one could also call a young man of 43 years old. KW Krüger, in his study of the life of Xenophont ("De Xenophontis vita" in "Historisch-philologische Studien", 1851, II, S. 262 u. Ff.), Perfectly proved the lack of persuasiveness of the conclusions based on these passages of the "Anabasis". Meanwhile, Cobet and his followers have, for the sake of these vague places in the "Anabasis", to consider the information of Xenophon's participation in the battle of Delia (in 424) unreliable. “Well,” says Cobet, “that we have a better witness, an eyewitness in Plato's “Symposium”, tells how Socrates retreated after this defeat: Alciviades, on horseback, accompanied Socrates and Lakhet and brought them to safety." Hug, in a footnote to this passage of Platon's "Symposium", suggests that the information about the rescue of Xenophon by Socrates in the battle of Delia is based on mixing him with Alciviades. But in this case, one would have to assume a double confusion - not only persons, but also battles, because Alciviades was rescued by Socrates at the Battle of Potidae in 432 B.C.. The story of Alciviades in Plato's "Symposium", perhaps, can still cast a shadow of suspicion on the details of the information of the rescue of Xenophon by Socrates, at least in the Strabo version, that Socrates, “while fleeing, saw Xenophon falling from horse and lying, took him on his shoulders and carried many stages until the flight stopped. But in Diogenes' version, the last detail is missing: Socrates in the battle at Delia "saved Xenophon, who fell from his horse, taking on himself." And in this form, perhaps, there is no contradiction between this story and the story of Alciviades: different moments of the battle can be depicted here; the story of Alciviades refers to a later time of retreat than the rescue of Xenophon in the battle itself. But even if all the information about the salvation of Xenophon by Socrates is recognized as fiction, then there is no reason to consider the main part of the information as fiction - Xenophon's participation in the battle of Delia (which is only important for the biography of Xenophon). But not only do Cobet and his followers, for the sake of their speculations, have to reject the information about participation of Xenophon in the battle of Delia; they also do not believe the statement of Xenophon himself at the beginning of the "Symposium" that he was personally present at the feast of Callias and, therefore, in 422 B.C. was already an adult. So, on the basis of the above information and considerations, one must conclude that Xenophon was born no later than 444, and died no earlier than 355 BC. This is partly indicated by his experience in military affairs during the campaign of Cyrus: one cannot think that the army would choose him as a leader in the dangerous position in which it was in Asia, if it did not see him as a person who is well acquainted with military affairs.
It cannot be assumed that he was in the position of a simple tourist ("observer") who wanted to see new countries: such a person who does nothing would be only a burden on a long expedition, and, of course, neither Proxenus would invite him, nor Cyrus would try to persuade him to stay if they would not see him as a useful person. Probably, without holding any official position, he still played some role: maybe he was an advisor under Cyrus or something like that.
I presume Ariaios is the slippery character Xenophon tries to make king after the death of Cyros.
It's remarkable that there hasn't been a film about this yet
Xenophon’s story is like the Odyssey but they never make it home lol
Honestly man your posts maintain such a high quality. I legit look forward to them every time. Never disappoints bro keep it up!
For anyone wondering the text at 0:21 says "So yeah obviously ancient Greeks didn't have presidents, but in so far as he was the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority." I had to pause it over and over again at 25x to be able to read it.
Useful tip: the . and , keys on a computer will let you move through any TH-cam video frame by frame
Anabasis was my first big primary source read. Loved it!
Retiring in a nice sea-side town and writing books was probably a great way to end up from Xenophon's perspective.
This voice acted style is awesome. Loved the episode :)
I thought I'd grow tired of the Majora's Mask sound effect + text but every time it played/showed up I laughed my ass off
The living embodiment of sidequest
Xenophon also has a fanboy historian centuries later called Arrian, who wanted to be called Xenophon the younger. Arrian wrote a book called Cynegeticus where he goes into hyper detail about his doggo called Horme ( Dash, in English) and admits to kissing his dog on the mouth. What a world innit.
By the way THIS Xenophon also wrote a book called Cynegeticus, which means 'On Hunting'. Arrian just straight up fanboy ripped him off.
lol i love how modern this is. its a complex story so seeing it broken down to comedy makes it a bit easier to digest for beginners
This was your most, and best, animated retelling yet. You, good sir, do DAMN-FINE work!
Now please do Hassan and Hussein
I love how so many of your videos abruptly and anticlimactically. Such is the life of those surrounded by ancient war and intrigue.
This was the best video youve ever made in my opinion. 10/10. Wish youd make the full movie about this guy
This might be a new fav right behind Spartacus. Also very neat tie, well done!
I’d like to point out that the guy with the megaphone in the beginning is literally just the immortal armor from assassins creed odyssey. God bless history TH-cam humor
Big boss Xenphon created a nation for soldiers, their own outer heaven lol
This format is great! I love the voices and the effects!
The voice acting in these videos gets me every time, it’s so good 😂
I've heard a lecture about specifically the battles but the whole thing and I gotta say ya think someone would've paid those guys but at least they didn't get the silver shield treatment bein forced to fight into their 80s and older for some of them until they finally ran out of people to kill and died of old age gotta love Greece
I think this is a bit played down here, but Xenophon REALLY liked Cyrus the Young, like A LOT.
Anabasis is a good read and tells this story (the one in the video), if anyone is interested.
I first knew about Xenophon in school, translating his works from ancient greek and my teacher who told how badass he was
And now the story of an ambitious army who lost everything, and the one man who had no choice but to keep them all together...it's Arrested Invasion.
I love how jack changes his tie every new episode
Great job with the voice acting!
The long wait is over, today’s a good day
Bro ur vids are like an addiction its so informative but entertaining at the same time
For the ones who didn't saw it ( 0:21 ): " So yeah obviously , the ancient greeks didn't had presidents, but in so far as we has the chief officer of a marching republic, he held similar authority."
Best history story ever on TH-cam. You had me laughing out loud the whole videos
When call me Ezekiel and jack talk about the same guy, you know he's a beast
Holy Shit... He's a D&D character.