Xenophon & The Ruins of Assyria // Ancient Greek Primary Source
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ค. 2024
- General of the elite Greek mercenary army 'The Ten Thousand', student of Socrates, effusive historian; Xenophon (431 - 354 BC) was a monumental figure in ancient Greek history. Here we have an extract from his Magnus Opus, 'The Anabasis' in which he describes encountering the ruins of two ancient cities as he and his men crossed Persia on their long journey home after taking part in a Persian civil war. He calls these cities Larisa and Mespila. Today they are generally assumed to have been ancient Assyrian cities, perhaps Nimrud and Nineveh, destroyed centuries earlier as the Neo-Assyrian Empire collapsed under the weight of its subject peoples, amongst them the Persian Achaemenids. Inspiring the famous Shelley poem 'Ozymandias', Xenophon describes the vast proportions of these ancient ruins; long deserted, looming large against the desert, a ruined shadow of a vast forgotten empire.
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Hearing Xenophon call something ancient, that just puts time into perspective, doesn't it?
Yeah and also imagine beeing an Egyptian during the times of Cyrus the great. I wonder what people thought about the pyramids back than, even for them ancient.
Cleopatra is closer to the invention of the iphone then the construction of the Pyramids.
Even Alexander the Great is closer in time to us than he is to the people who built the first Egyptian pyramids.
Similarly, more time elapsed between the appearance of Stegasaurus and the appearance of Tyrannosaurus Rex than elapsed between T. Rex and the appearance of humans.
Whats truly interesting here is the subtext of this. He stood in a city no one knew its original name. No one knew who built it. A nation that used to be the most powerful in the world no one remembers. Every great nation comes to an end.
and it was forgotten within 300 years. the US is over 200 years old, 300 years ago was the early 1700's. Shows perspective in both how lucky we are to have kept track of our history soo well, but also how quickly things can change completely
Edit. Yo, wtf is going on with the dude below me
The Empire may have collapsed but its people still roam this planet, speak the language and kept their culture... how do I know ? I'm one of them...
@@sysrek we salute you
@@diegomagellan modern assyrian 😒
The city you wonder about was the ancient city of Nineveh was destroyed by the Medes and the Babylonians, so it was deserted,
Opposite Nineveh, the city which was named as missbila or missila, actually it is the city of Mossil today in north of Iraq. But its very original people today are not a majority of its populace.
The Anabasis of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand was definitely an inspiration for Phillip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great in their plan to conquer the Persian Empire -the Anabasis demonstrated how relatively simple such an undertaking could be.
Kalo Arepo yup I think the fact that Xenophon and his soldiers survived the war and returned to Greece inspired Alexander in his future conquest of Persia
I think you're probably right about this influencing the Macedonian leadership into invading Persia.
That idea came from isocrates or jason of pherai who was a proto-phillip
Watching this video, I became so immersed in the ancient world that when it ended, I felt as if I had suddenly awakened from a lucid dream. It's so intriguing that I'm going to do that again...
Puts me in the mind of lovecrafts Memory.
I'm surprised no one's made a movie about Xenophon and the March of the Ten Thousand.
(Or maybe there is one and I'm just not aware of it?)
The Warriors is based off of this work, though the setting is different.
I was also wondering about this, let's see when Hollywood picks it up and butchers it
Yes agree. One of the greatest stories so few people know about. Would make a great movie.
Hell I'd settle for a graphic novel of it.
Believe it or not, I was literally looking for a film about the Anabasis, but was surprised when I found out there was none!
The style of the Anabasis makes a film rendition appropriate.
Wow he calls the site misbela,, the same way its inhabitants the Assyrian called their city ,which is called today Mosul
The Medes, whom Xenophon referred to, have left no trace in the so-called 'Iron Age' strata in which they have been sought, but are very much present in the earlier 'Bronze Age' strata in Mesopotamia, where they are called Mita or Mitanni. See the work of Professor Gunnar Heinsohn on this question. Also, emmetsweeney.org for a full discussion.
The Medes are the Mitanni? The Mitanni ruled over the Assyrians in the 2nd millenium BC and then they disappeared
@@Confucius_76 thing is Xenophon didnt know that
More. So Hypnotic.
Up until the twentieth century "parsang" or "farsang" was still used as a unit of length in Persia. The word also entered Arabic as "Farsakh". By the way, I like how Xenophon cleverly disses Persians. They could not take any city on their own. Gods, who for some reason were at odds with the Medes, had to intervene every time.
how is it dissing ? much the opposite would mean the Persians are favoured by the Gods. also he not said "any city" but only this city because of the height of its foundation, what are you talking about ?
The city you wonder about was the ancient city of Nineveh, it was destroyed by the Medes and the Babylonians, its people were nearly obliterated and rest fled to the city of Har-ran in north of Syria but also were almost obliterated, so the Assyrian city of Nineveh was deserted until one hundred years ago.
opposite to city of Nineveh, the city which was named as missbila or missila, actually it is the city of Mossil of today in north of Iraq. And the ruins belong to the Assyrian castle, which became the city of mossil.
Can we have something about early Roman thoughts on Brittania please?
There is a caesar on Britain video.
@@cyborg2048 yeah I know of that one. But there were 100 years or so between him and a return to Brittania.
Xenophon looks like Nicholas Cage.
Not the Medes!!
I think he looks like Vincent Regan
Could not be Larsa or it was more at the east?
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Funny to here someone use the word "barbarian" to describe the people in the area that he finds ancient ruins that where far more sophisticated than anything being built in his homeland some (at least) 200 years after the ruined city was abandoned...
Barbarian simply means non-Greek.
Barbarian was just a term used for anybody who wasn't Greek
I remember reading this and think hey that's a ziggguraut
That moment you you march several furlongs and come to a land full of many good things, but the locals do not wish to be good friends or provide a fair market for their goods.
if he said Medians lived there how it can be assyria, must have been in Iran.
As far as I understand it, that means "under Median sovereighnity"... because Assyria was one of the first territories conquered by the Medes before they took over the whole Persian empire, thus founding the Achemenid era. That Greek mercenary contingent was part of that endeavour, also.
Ariel Valsagna the Persian empire was ran by Assyrian soldiers, Persian would take Mesopotamian scholars, workers, and use them in Persia.
@@assyriancomedycentral1753 by Assyrian soldiers ? good joke. Persians run the show, already the babylonians ruled over the Assyrians.
@@viraloracle5151 Go look at what the Assyrians designed for the Persians. Persians were influenced off of Assyrian culture. Ahura Mazda/Farhava is a replica of Ashur. We ran your empire for you, you guys used the same system of government as us. Lots of things you guys had came from Assyria.
@@assyriancomedycentral1753 bruh Ahura Mazda isn't a replica of Ashur, and while it is true that Assyrians influenced the Persians a lot, saying that "we ran your empire for you" is wrong.
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Interesting take, totally wrong, but interesting.