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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.
 
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Nanomashoes
Aug 18, 2012

 I'm about halfway through this, the book really picks up once Xenophon is introduced as a character, before that it's mostly historical facts that are no doubt important, but lacking in personality.

* # ¿ Feb 8, 2016 21:02
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Nanomashoes
Aug 18, 2012

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Just want to say that I'm really happy with this thread so far, thanks everyone.

How reliable a narrator do we think Xenophon is? On the one hand, he seems to pretty clearly be talking himself up at every opportunity (and also talking up how loyal he is to Sparta, which is interesting for an Athenian). On the other, though, there were roughly ten thousand other witnesses to all this; if he had lied about anything, someone would probably have called him out on it, right?


Edit: yeah for purposes of reading for fun skipping everything before the first battle is probably legit.

There's a lot of "and everyone stood up and clapped" parts, but I think the general story is true. He probably expanded on his speeches after the march was over because there's no way he delivered sermons on valor, justice, and generosity that suddenly convinced everyone of his point of view, but he seems to take a great care to get distances, locations, and names right.

* # ¿ Feb 12, 2016 03:57
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Nanomashoes
Aug 18, 2012

 Billy Budd, Sailor.

* # ¿ Feb 20, 2016 09:21
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.