The Persian Expedition

Xenophon’s account of in The Persian Expedition displays the adventure 10,000 Greek men and soldiers embarked on following Cyrus, the younger brother to the Persian king Artaxerxes, deep into the Persian Empire. Xenophon displaying the history of battles and situations the Greeks faced along with elaborating on how their motivation and emotions stayed strong while also glorifying himself and his involvement. He shows the reader how everyday life was for an ordinary man during the journey and shows how Greek morality and politics were practiced in defining situations, alongside with displaying the chronology of the expedition.

Xenophon wrote this story following being exiled from Athens after he fought under King Agesilaus II and Sparta against Athens at Coronea, alongside many other contributing factors. The Spartans then gave him land near Olympia where he wrote this account of the Persian Expedition; also known as the Anabasis and March of the Ten Thousand. With this given information and through the way The Persian Expedition is told it can be assumed this story was written after the fact. It appears that many details of the expedition were left unmentioned in the book along with some details just being left a little fuzzy. This could be explained by the fact that Xenophon probably was not everywhere at once and could not have seen every little detail and he may have just forgotten a few details or was not able to make note of them at the time and they were lost in his memory; he is still in fact human. His accounts of in this story are written in a very simple fashion and were very easy to read. It appears he wrote this book not only to give a history of what occurred during the failed attempt to earn riches in Persia and their fight back home, but also in a way to glorify the adventure. During the journey home Xenophon was elected a general after the generals that had brought them to Cunaxa had all been killed or captured so this was, in a way, the