February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Blood Barn > February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.

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Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Welcome earthlings to the Awful Book of the Month!
In this thread, we choose one work of ~~literature~~ absolute crap and read/discuss it over a month. If you have any suggestions of books, choose something that will be appreciated by many people, and has many avenues of discussion. We'd also appreciate if it were a work of ~~literature~~ complete drivel that is easily located from a local library or book shop, as opposed to ordering something second hand off the internet and missing out on a week's worth of reading. Better yet, books available on e-readers.

Resources:

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org

- A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best.

SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/

- A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.

:siren:

For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. :siren:

Past Books of the Month

[for BOTM before 2014, refer to archives]

2014:
January: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness
February: Mikhail Bulgalov - Master & Margarita
March: Richard P. Feynman -- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
April: James Joyce -- Dubliners
May: Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 100 Years of Solitude
June: Howard Zinn -- A People's History of the United States
July: Mary Renault -- The Last of the Wine
August: Barbara Tuchtman -- The Guns of August
September: Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice
October: Roger Zelazny -- A Night in the Lonesome October
November: John Gardner -- Grendel
December: Christopher Moore -- The Stupidest Angel

2015:
January: Italo Calvino -- Invisible Cities
February: Karl Ove Knausgaard -- My Struggle: Book 1.
March: Knut Hamsun -- Hunger
April: Liu Cixin -- 三体 ( The Three-Body Problem)
May: John Steinbeck -- Cannery Row
June: Truman Capote -- In Cold Blood
(Hiatus)
August: Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Between the World and Me
September: Wilkie Collins -- The Moonstone
October:Seth Dickinson -- The Traitor Baru Cormorant
November:Svetlana Alexievich -- Voices from Chernobyl
December: Michael Chabon -- Gentlemen of the Road

2016:
January: Three Men in a Boat (To say nothing of the Dog!) by Jerome K. Jerome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwwY9y6O3hw

Current:

The March Up Country (The Anabasis) of Xenophon

This is one of my favorite books of all time. It's entertaining, it's action-packed, it's philosophical, it's political, it's historical.

It's free online here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1170/1170-h/1170-h.htm

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1170

The nutshell version is this:

quote:

Xenophon was a student of Socrates, yes, that Socrates. He was a young kid and wanted to be a soldier but the Pelopponesian Wars had just ended and his city lost. One of his buddies was leading a mercenary army, and being young and ambitious, he joined up (after asking Socrates' advice. Sortof.)

The mercenary army, roughly ten thousand men, got hired for a secret mission and marched for a couple months. Then they realized the secret mission was to try to help the Persian King's brother seize the Persian throne.

They march into the heart of Persia, the greatest kingdom in the world at that time. They are massively outnumbered. They fight anyway. They fight all drat day. They kill everyone who comes close to them. End of the day, they're holding the battlefield.

But there's a small problem. The guy who hired them, yeah, he died. And the Persian King didn't.

The mercenary generals, including Xenophon's buddy, go to deal with the Persian King to see if they can talk their way out of this mess. He kills them all despite the flag of truce.

That night, all the Greeks who are left are sitting around their campfires going "oh gently caress." They have no leaders, they're stuck a thousand miles deep in Persia with no supplies except their weapons, they have no leaders, nobody's got any idea what to do, basically they're all just envisioning death on a Persian impaling spike.

But Xenophon has had an education. And nobody else is taking charge. Somebody has to step up and lead. He does. And at his inspiration, they decide to fight their way home.

The rest is, as they say, history. Written in this book, step by step, battle by battle, wound by wound.

Don't be afraid that because this is a "classic" it'll be too difficult: Xenophon was a military man and he wrote like one -- plainly, simply, straightforwardly. If you can read a modern fantasy novel, you can read this too -- it's all swords and gods and battles, so pretty much just the same thing you're already used to!

Historical Context:

This mercenary expedition took place in a historical lull.

Prologue:

Roughly eighty years before, Athens and Sparta, together, leading the rest of the greek city-states, had defeated the invading Persian army and navy. If you saw Frank Miller's 300, that fight. This was a huge deal, because the Persian army was many, many times larger, and the Greeks won basically just through superior training, skill, and tactics. There aren't many modern analogues to the scope of this victory, but if you've played Civilization, imagine one unit of Hoplites defeating thirty units of spearmen and chariots.

After that, though, the Greeks spent the next few decades fighting each other -- Athens and Sparta fighting over who was top dog. For a long time, Athens routinely won the sea battles and Sparta won the land battles; eventually AThens hosed up and lost (they weren't helped by a plague).

So it's a few years after the end of that (semi-civil, greek against greek; internecine) war) is over. Athens is still the acknowledged leader in terms of philosophy and the arts and sciences and mathematics and knowledge and so forth, but Sparta is in charge. Sparta set up a puppet government in Athens that ruled it for a few years, but they get kicked out in 403. Now it's 401 BC. Athens -- and every other city in Greece -- have a lot of trained soldiers left, but nobody wants to fight any more because Sparta has already won and there's no point.

So where to go? Well, we kicked those Persians' asses, right? Maybe try that again?

Aftermath:

The other half of the historical context is what happened afterwards. After Xenophon's group fought their way back, they had effectively proved that a mixed Greek force could march at will, undefeated, through Persian territory. That gave someone an idea, and that someone was Alexander the Great. xenophon directly inspired Alexander and Alexander kept a copy of Xenophon's book with him during his conquest of Persia. That makes this book arguably one of the single most influential books in the entire course of world history. Without Xenophon, there might have been no Library at Alexandria, no Greek conquest of Persia, no preservation of Greek philosophers and writings through the European dark ages, no Renaissance, etc.

About the Author

quote:

Xenophon (/ˈzɛnəfən, -ˌfɒn/; Greek: Ξενοφῶν [ksenopʰɔ̂ːn], Xenophōn; c. 430 � 354 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary,[1] and student of Socrates. While not referred to as a philosopher by his contemporaries, his status as such is now a topic of debate. He is known for writing about the history of his own times, the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC, especially for his account of the final years of the Peloponnesian War. His Hellenica, which recounts these times, is considered to be the continuation of Thucydides� History of the Peloponnesian War. His youthful participation in the failed campaign of Cyrus the Younger to claim the Persian throne inspired him to write his most famous work, Anabasis.

Discussion, Questions & Themes:

One of my favorite things about this book is that it's a really compelling microcosm of Greek political theory and the practical application of Greek philosophy. The army is a mixed bag of Spartans, Athenians, etc., and they all have to get along. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't. There aren't any firmly fixed leaders so keeping the leadership is a constant struggle (and one Xenophon doesn't always succeed at). All those pretty theories Xenophon learned from Socrates get put to the practical test -- and a test that lives depend on, because if the mercenaries lose their cohesion, if they fall apart as a fighting unit, they'll all get killed.

Pacing

Try to go section by section and post as you read through the book if you can. There are some action elements and a bit of suspense even to this book so don't rush to the end. That said, it's also 3000 years old, so no complaining if people post spoilers.

References and Further Reading

There are an almost infinite amount of other things to read that relate one way or another to this book. I'd personally recommend Mary Renault's historical fiction set in Ancient Greece, some of which (e.g. The Last of the Wine) features Xenophon as a minor character. If you have other suggestions for good companion reading, please post those suggestions in the thread.

A lot of modern fiction is to one extent or another inspired by this book (including, as per the clip above, the 1979 movie The Warriors, which transposed the action to a single day in New York).

Final Note:
If you have any suggestions to change, improve or assess the book club generally, please PM or email me -- i.e., keep it out of this thread -- at least until into the last five days of the month, just so we don't derail discussion of the current book with meta-discussion. I do want to hear new ideas though, seriously, so please do actually PM or email me or whatever, or if you can't do either of those things, just hold that thought till the last five days of the month before posting it in this thread. Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book!

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Feb 3, 2016

# ? Feb 3, 2016 05:43

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# ? Oct 7, 2024 23:44

Crashbee: May 15, 2007; Stupid people are great at winning arguments, because they're too stupid to realize they've lost.

Is there a recommended translation? I've been looking at The Expedition of Cyrus by Robin Waterfield.

# ? Feb 3, 2016 10:52

pixelbaron: Mar 18, 2009; ~ Notice me, Shempai! ~

Crashbee posted:

Is there a recommended translation? I've been looking at The Expedition of Cyrus by Robin Waterfield.

Can't go wrong with the Loeb edition of Anabasis.

Includes the story in Greek as well.

# ? Feb 3, 2016 18:37

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Crashbee posted:

Is there a recommended translation? I've been looking at The Expedition of Cyrus by Robin Waterfield.

Good question. Good starting place for discussion!

The free version is by Dakyns, from the 1800's.

First version I ever read was the Rex Warner translation from the Penguin Classics series, and I've always had a fondness for it, but I've no idea how authoritative it is.

Also, these quotes from reddit:

quote:

I don't know which is best, but Project Gutenberg has Anabasis by Xenophon translated by Henry Graham Dakyns (1838�1911), a British translator, and The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis by Xenophon literally translated with explanatory notes by the Reverend John Selby Watson (1804-1884), a British classical translator and murderer noted for his plea of insanity as his defense against the murder charge. Those translations are freely available for download in a variety of electronic formats or can be read online.

quote:

Perseus has an English translation here:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0202

I wish the Landmark series would come out with their edition but I've been waiting years and they haven't.

# ? Feb 4, 2016 03:03

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Oh, it turns out that Italo Calvino, who we have featured before on BotM as the author of Invisible Cities, wrote a big essay on why you should read the Anabasis. I'll quote a chunk of it:

quote:

Reading Xenophon's Anabasis today is the nearest thing to watching an old war documentary which is repeated every so often on television or on video. The same fascination that we experience when watching the black and white of a faded film, with its rather crude contrasts of light and shade and speeded-up movements, emerges almost spontaneously from passages such as this:

quote:

They completed another fifteen parasangs in three days, every day through deep snow. The third day was particularly terrible, because of the North wind blowing against them as they marched: it raged all over the area, destroying everything and freezing their bodies . . . During the march, in order to defend their eyes from the glare of the snow, the soldiers put something black in front of them: against the danger of frostbite the most useful remedy was to keep moving the feet, never staying still and especially removing one's boots at night. . . A group of soldiers, who had been left behind because of these difficulties, saw not far off, in a valley in the middle of the snow-covered plain, a dark pool: melted snow, they thought. In fact the snow had melted there, but because of a spring of natural water, which rose nearby, sending vapours up to the sky.

But it is difficult to quote from Xenophon: what really counts is the never-ending succession of visual details and action. It is difficult to locate a passage which epitomises entirely the pleasing variety of the text. Maybe this one, from two pages before:

quote:

Some Greeks, who had moved away from the camp, reported having seen in the distance what looked like a massive army, and many fires lit in the night. When they heard this, the commanders thought it unsafe to remain bivouacked in separate quarters, and once more made the soldiers regroup. The soldiers then all camped together again, especially as the weather seemed to be improving. But unfortunately, during the night so much snow fell that it covered the men's armour, the animals, and the men themselves huddled on the ground: the animals' limbs were so stiff with the cold that they could not stand up; the men delayed before standing up because the unmelted snow lying on their bodies was a source of heat. Then Xenophon bravely got up, stripped and started to chop wood with an axe; seeing his example, one of the men got up, took the axe from his hand and continued with the chopping; others got up and lit a fire; and all of them greased their bodies, not with oil, but with unguents found in the local village, an oil made from sesame-seeds, bitter almonds and turpentine, and lard. There was also a perfumed oil made of the same substances.

The rapid shift from one visual representation to another, and from those to an anecdote, and from there again on to a description of exotic customs: this is the texture of the backdrop to a continuous explosion of exciting adventures, of unforeseen obstacles blocking the way of the itinerant army. Every obstacle is overcome, usually, by some piece of cunning on Xenophon's part: every fortified city that has to be captured, every enemy that takes the field to oppose the Greeks in open battle, every fiord to be crossed, every bit of bad weather � all of these require a piece of brilliance, a flash of genius, some cleverly thought-out stratagem on the part of this narrator-protagonist-mercenary leader. On occasions Xenophon appears to be one of those heroes from children's comics, who in every episode manage to survive against impossible odds; in fact, just as in those children's comics, there are often two protagonists in each episode: the two rival officers, Xenophon and Cheirisophus, the Athenian and the Spartan, and Xenophon's solution is always the more astute, generous and decisive one. On its own the subject matter of The Anabasis would have been ideally suited to a picaresque or mock-heroic tale: ten thousand Greek mercenaries are hired under false pretences by a Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, for an expedition into the hinterland of Asia Minor, whose real aim was to oust Cyrus' brother, Artaxerxes II; but they are defeated at the battle of Cunaxa, and now leaderless and far from their native land, they have to find a way back home amidst very hostile peoples. All they want is to go back home, but everything they do constitutes a public menace: there are ten thousand of them, armed, but without food, so wherever they go they ravage and destroy the land like a swarm of locusts, and carry in their wake a huge following of women.

But Xenophon was not the type of writer either to be tempted by the heroic style of the epic or to have a taste for the grim and grotesque aspects of a situation such as that. His is a precise record written by an army officer, a kind of log-book containing all the distances covered, geographical reference points and details of the vegetable and animal resources, as well as a review of the various diplomatic, strategic and logistical problems and their respective solutions.

The account is interspersed with 'official statements' from high command, and speeches by Xenophon either to the troops or to foreign ambassadors. My classroom memory of these rhetorical excerpts was one of great boredom but I think I was wrong. The secret in reading The Anabasis is not to skip anything, to follow everything point by point. In each of those speeches there is a political problem, regarding either foreign policy (the attempts to establish diplomatic relations with the princes and leaders of the territories through which the Greeks have to pass) or internal politics (the discussions between the Greek leaders, with the predictable rivalry between Athenians and Spartans etc.). And since the work was written as a polemic against other generals, about the responsibilities of each person in managing that retreat, then this background of overt or merely covert polemic can only be elicited from those rhetorical pages.

As an action writer Xenophon is a model. If we compare him with the contemporary writer who is his nearest equivalent � Col. T. E. Lawrence � we see how the skill of the English writer consists in surrounding events and images with an aura of aesthetic and even ethical wonder that lies like a palimpsest beneath the factual surface of the prose; whereas in the Greek there is nothing beneath the exactness and dryness of the narration: the austere military virtues mean nothing other than austere military virtues.

. . . .

Xenophon has the great merit, in moral terms, of never mystifying or idealising his or his men's position. If he often displays an aloofness or aversion towards 'barbarian' customs, it must also be said that 'colonialist' hypocrisy is completely foreign to him. He is aware of being at the head of a horde of parasites in a foreign land, and that the 'barbarian' peoples whose lands they have invaded are in the right not his men. In his exhortations to his soldiers he never fails to remind them of their enemies' rights: 'You have to bear in mind something else. Our enemies will have time to rob us, and will have good reason for ambushing us since we are occupying their property . . .' In this attempt to give a certain 'style' or rule to this parasitical movement of greedy and violent men amidst the mountains and plains of Anatolia resides all his dignity: not tragic dignity, but rather a limited dignity, fundamentally a bourgeois dignity. We know that one can easily succeed in endowing the basest actions with style and dignity, even when they are not dictated as these were by a state of necessity. The Greek army, creeping through the mountain heights and fjords amidst constant ambushes and attacks, no longer able to distinguish just to what extent it is a victim or an oppressor, and surrounded even in the most chilling massacres of its men by the supreme hostility of indifference or fortune, inspires in the reader an almost symbolic anguish which perhaps only we today can understand.

[1978]

# ? Feb 4, 2016 03:52

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

You should also point out that The Warriors is based on this.

Glad this was the pick for BotM, gonna read the poo poo out of it. Been meaning to read it for a while really.

# ? Feb 4, 2016 04:44

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Interesting website on Xenophon as a philosopher:

quote:

Xenophon�s political philosophy is a matter of interpretation and some controversy. Did his relationship with Sparta incline him away from Athenian democratic values? Was his evident admiration for Persian kings indicative of an allegiance to absolute monarchy? The main works examined in an effort to reconstruct this aspect of his thought are The Education of Cyrus (also known as Cyropaedia;) a partial biography of a Persian king building an empire, the Anabasis (account of the ill-fated Greek mercenary expedition in Persia), Hiero (a conversation about tyranny), Agesilaus (biography of a Spartan general),the Constitution of the Lacedaimonians (description of the system of laws and social practices of Sparta), and Hellenica (history of Greece from 411 � 362 B.C.E., taking up where Thucydides ends). One thing is clear and beyond controversy: Xenophon has an abiding interest in describing leadership, the constellation of qualities that enables a person to function as a leader in groups, whether military, civic, or familial.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/xenophon/

# ? Feb 4, 2016 05:01

Peel: Dec 3, 2007

I read this a few months ago and I'm too busy to read it all again, but I can remember some thoughts.

First off, I thought the numbers (and particularly the victories attached to those numbers) in the battles at the start seemed a little implausible. Overturning odds of ten or more to one and so on, a million-man army for the emperor. Can history goons input on how accurate the book is thought to be to the real events?

Second off, I enjoyed the long gushing eulogy for the barbarian prince who lied, died, and left them stranded in Persia. Xenophon stands by his employers.

Third off, when you see him, yes, it's that Socrates.

# ? Feb 4, 2016 12:33

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Peel posted:

First off, I thought the numbers (and particularly the victories attached to those numbers) in the battles at the start seemed a little implausible. Overturning odds of ten or more to one and so on, a million-man army for the emperor. Can history goons input on how accurate the book is thought to be to the real events?

I've had the same thought before. Since you asked, and because I had already found all the links for this thread, I went and pulled up the text on Perseus:

quote:

1 The number is probably overstated. Ctesias, the King's Greek physician (see viii. 26), is said by Plutarch (Artax. 13) to have given it as 400,000

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0202%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D7%3Asection%3D11

So they're defeating odds of four to one, not ten to one. Of course, that's just this battle. Once all the other Persians abandon them, they are outnumbered by crazy amounts.

Pulling up that quote from Plutarch:

quote:

13 1 And now the thirty messengers came riding up with joy and exultation in their faces, announcing to the king his unexpected good fortune. Presently, too, he was encouraged by the number of men who flocked back to him and formed in battle array, and so he came down from the hill under the light of many torches. 2 And after he had halted at the dead body of Cyrus, and its right hand and head had been cut off (in accordance with a law of the Persians), he ordered the head to be brought to him; and grasping it by the hair, which was long and bushy, he showed it to those who were still wavering and disposed to fly. These were amazed, and made obeisance to the king, so that very soon seventy thousand men were about him and marched back with him to their camp. 3 He had marched out to the battle, as Ctesias says, with four hundred thousand men. But Deinon and Xenophon say that the army which fought under him was much larger. As to the number of his dead, Ctesias says that it p157was reported to Artaxerxes as nine thousand, but that he himself thought the slain no fewer than twenty thousand. This matter, then, is in dispute. But it is certainly a glaring falsehood on the part of Ctesias to say that he was sent to the Greeks along with Phalinus the Zacynthian and certain others. 4 For Xenophon knew that Ctesias was in attendance upon the king, since he makes mention of him and had evidently read his works; if, then, Ctesias had come to the Greeks and served as an interpreter in so momentous a colloquy, Xenophon would not have left him nameless and named only Phalinus the Zacynthian.15 The truth is that Ctesias, being prodigiously ambitious, as it would seem, and none the less partial to Sparta and to Clearchus, always allows considerable space in his narrative for himself, and there he will say many fine things about Clearchus and Sparta.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Artaxerxes*.html

That text though seems like it has its reasons for being suspected also. I think the best we can probably say is that the lower bound was 400,000 and the upper bound was a million.

Another estimate would probably come from the size of the armies Alexander faced, but I can't check those right now.

edit: just checking Wikipedia, Darius's forces at Gaugamela, vs. Alexander a generation later, were:

quote:

According to Arrian, Darius's force numbered 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry,[28] Diodorus Siculus put it at 200,000 cavalry and 800,000 infantry,[29] Plutarch put it at 1,000,000 troops[30] (without a breakdown in composition), while according to Curtius Rufus it consisted of 45,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry.[31] Furthermore, according to Arrian, Diodorus, and Curtius, Darius had 200 chariots while Arrian mentions 15 war elephants.[28] Included in Darius's infantry were about 2,000 Greek mercenary hoplites.[5]

So we get a similar range there.

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Feb 4, 2016

# ? Feb 4, 2016 14:34

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Minor mind-blowing moment for me on my re-read last night.

The kindle edition I'm reading now has different footnotes from versions I'd read previously, and points out that the general Menon in this book (who gets executed by the Persians, and who Xenophon states was just out for himself and implies might have betrayed the other generals) is the same person as the Meno of the Socratic Dialogue where Socrates discusses the meaning of virtue.

quote:

The dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates to tell him if virtue can be taught. Socrates says that he does not know what virtue is, and neither does anyone else he knows.[1] Meno responds that, according to Gorgias, virtue is different for different people, that what is virtuous for a man is to conduct himself in the city so that he helps his friends, injures his enemies, and takes care all the while that he personally comes to no harm. Virtue is different for a woman, he says. Her domain is the management of the household, and she is supposed to obey her husband. He says that children (male and female) have their own proper virtue, and so do old men�free or slaves.[2] Socrates objects: there must be some virtue common to all human beings.

. . . .

Meno proposes that virtue is the desire for good things and the power to get them. Socrates points out that this raises a second problem�many people do not recognize evil.[6] The discussion then turns to the question of accounting for the fact that so many people are mistaken about good and evil and take one for the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meno

So Meno wasn't just an abstract talking head; he was someone everyone in Attic Greece knew was an out-for-himself jackass who had possibly died in torture as a result of his greed and conniving. So when Socrates says in the Platonic dialogue that not everybody can tell good from evil, it's actually a cutting barb against Meno as an individual. Similarly, when Xenophon starts ranting about what a selfish jackass Meno was, he wasn't just talking; he was saying something that must have been common knowledge in his circles.

Do we have any classical scholars who can tell me if I'm right about this analysis or not?

# ? Feb 5, 2016 15:00

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

The Meno is one of Plato's most infuriating dialogues, to me at least, and I've probably blanked out large portions of it in my head since I last read it. (Approaching the title of 'most infuriating Platonic dialogue' is a hell of a feat, given the competition). Still, I would relate that step in the dialogue more to Socrates-Plato's obsession with the truth of things, and the concept of ideals. Knowledge is such an important concept throughout Plato's oeuvre that the possibility of ignorance in regards to virtue would necessarily be raised in this case. The Protagoras trod similar ground concerning ignorance of the good when discussing if anyone did evil willingly.

Although I don't think that the point was raised because of Meno, it's possible that Meno was included because of this point. When writing up a dialogue on this subject, Plato might have settled on Meno as good candidate for the recipient, since he managed to both be a pupil of Gorgias and the various sophists, and also was apparently known as this nasty piece of work. Give a bit of extra bite to the message.

I've read the Anabasis in English already, but I'm going to set myself the challenge to read it only in the Greek this time. If there are weird translations going on or whatever, I can be on call to try to sort that out by checking the original.

# ? Feb 5, 2016 20:04

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Minor mind-blowing moment for me on my re-read last night.

The kindle edition I'm reading now has different footnotes from versions I'd read previously, and points out that the general Menon in this book (who gets executed by the Persians, and who Xenophon states was just out for himself and implies might have betrayed the other generals) is the same person as the Meno of the Socratic Dialogue where Socrates discusses the meaning of virtue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meno

So Meno wasn't just an abstract talking head; he was someone everyone in Attic Greece knew was an out-for-himself jackass who had possibly died in torture as a result of his greed and conniving. So when Socrates says in the Platonic dialogue that not everybody can tell good from evil, it's actually a cutting barb against Meno as an individual. Similarly, when Xenophon starts ranting about what a selfish jackass Meno was, he wasn't just talking; he was saying something that must have been common knowledge in his circles.

Do we have any classical scholars who can tell me if I'm right about this analysis or not?

I think it's a plausible reading. If you recall, the opening of Meno isn't Meno asking what virtue is, he asks whether or not virtue is gained through teaching, practice, or in some other way. Socrates says that neither he nor anyone else he's ever met knows what virtue is, and the two briefly quarrel over whether or not that includes Meno's teacher, the famous sophist Gorgias. When Socrates asks Meno for his definition of virtue, it boils down to skill at politics. If you read between the lines a little, it starts to sound like Meno wants Socrates to validate his teacher and reaffirm that Meno was, in fact, taught virtue.

So I think it's not an accident that Plato chose Meno as Socrates' opponent for that discussion and part of what the dialogue is doing is suggesting that the followers of the sophists might have selfish motives for wanting to learn from them.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 02:41

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

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

I came across ToposText today, which has the Perseus translation with clickable links for a lot of place names in the text which bring up Google Maps with where those lie on a modern map.

It's not perfect (there are a lot of placenames that aren't yet links) but if you're looking for an online reading experience that's more like the Landmark editions of Herodotus/Thucydides, it might be useful.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 03:46

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

I'm going a bit slow and have only read Book 1 so far, but I made a few notes to myself/questions to share with the thread:

What do people think about Cyrus?

In Greek stories, even in other histories, characters tend to be presented as either heroic figures or as tragic ones. When I was reading book 1, it struck me that Xenophon doesn't really present Cyrus as a great person in every regard. He has some characteristics that I think could be said to be heroic, sure, but what he gets singled out for is his generosity and his ability to recognize and make use of talents in others. Is that what Xenophon is suggesting is the model for heroic leadership?

Cyrus's answer to most of his leadership-related problems is, more or less, "I'll make you rich when we win". Does this say anything about him as an individual, or is this just how things were done?

The obvious question in the story about Orontas -- did Cyrus have him killed? Would it mean anything if he did or didn't?

Related to these: Is he going to be contrasting Cyrus as a "Persian" leader with "Greek" leadership?

Xenophon mentions that people took Cyrus's crossing of the river at Thapsacus as being an omen of his destiny to become king. But Cyrus fails; is this a criticism of omens? Prior to the battle scene at the climax, Cyrus tells Xenophon that omens and sacrifices were made and favorable, but those aren't mentioned in the text otherwise.

I was intrigued by a bit of detail that Xenophon points out when the armies are preparing for combat -- the Persians don't wear headgear when they fight. Why not? Is this just an interesting anthropological detail, some attempt to otherize the Persians, or is it significant? Xenophon doesn't seem overly fond of 'fun facts' like Herodotus, so it kind of stuck out.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 04:14

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Tao Jones posted:

Xenophon mentions that people took Cyrus's crossing of the river at Thapsacus as being an omen of his destiny to become king. But Cyrus fails; is this a criticism of omens? Prior to the battle scene at the climax, Cyrus tells Xenophon that omens and sacrifices were made and favorable, but those aren't mentioned in the text otherwise.

Wow, I'm glad you singled that out. Throughout most of the text, everything is incredibly omen-driven, to the point that Xenophon almost seems insane. There's one particular point where the army doesn't do poo poo for like five days despite having no food because the omens tell them to stay put.

In the past I'd always put that down to Xenophon writing it 30 years after everything happened and just retroactive memory justifying things, but it was a topic I was definitely hoping someone would bring up because it's incredibly strange to a modern reader. Even within that framework though that passage really stands out. I think it may be the only completely unfulfilled omen in the whole book.

quote:

I was intrigued by a bit of detail that Xenophon points out when the armies are preparing for combat -- the Persians don't wear headgear when they fight. Why not? Is this just an interesting anthropological detail, some attempt to otherize the Persians, or is it significant? Xenophon doesn't seem overly fond of 'fun facts' like Herodotus, so it kind of stuck out.

Probably my fantasy reader's background but GRRM makes a point of having characters that don't wear helmets get facial scars. Maybe he's foreshadowing Cyrus's fate here?

As to Cyrus as a model of leadership, Xenophon also wrote a Cyropaedia, but that was of Cyrus the Great, not this Cyrus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyropaedia

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 9, 2016

# ? Feb 9, 2016 04:34

Murgos: Oct 21, 2010

If you have hoopla through your local library they have "The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon published by Blackstone Audio and read by Pat Bottino.

I've been meaning to get around to the Anabasis for, uh, decades, thanks to this thread, long commutes and a handy format I'm gonna do it this time.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 16:18

Carly Gay Dead Son: Aug 27, 2007; Bonus.

Tao Jones posted:

I was intrigued by a bit of detail that Xenophon points out when the armies are preparing for combat -- the Persians don't wear headgear when they fight. Why not? Is this just an interesting anthropological detail, some attempt to otherize the Persians, or is it significant? Xenophon doesn't seem overly fond of 'fun facts' like Herodotus, so it kind of stuck out.

My translation claims it's probably an addition from some later editor, not Xenophon himself.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 20:21

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

I read Book 2. Didn't think all that much was interesting narratively, but some background:

Promising safety and then attacking was a taboo for the Greeks. The idea of guest-friendship is based on mitigating it. Guest-friendship was a sort-of ritual where someone in a desperate situation pledges to enter into a guest-friend relationship with someone else who can protect them and keep them safe until danger passes. This creates a tie between the descendants of the guest-friend and host. As an example of the power of guest-friendship, in the Iliad, the hero Diomedes is possessed by Athena and on a killing rampage, but when he encounters someone whose ancestor his own ancestor was guest-friends with, he snaps out of it. One of the things Zeus rules over is the guest-friendship relationship, and breaking it is the kind of thing that gets the Furies sent after you. So this book is, I think, meant to evoke a primal "THOSE PERSIAN FUCKERS!" emotional beat that isn't there so much for us.

It's interesting that Xenophon mentions that Proxenus was a student of Gorgias of Leontini. Plato tells us that Gorgias also taught Menon. Gorgias was a sophist who has a Platonic dialogue named after him in which, among other things, Gorgias and Socrates discuss whether rhetoric has the power to make its practitioners just.

I wonder why the Great King tortured Menon for a year. I mean, obviously he's a bad dude and so by story-logic he deserves it, but it seems like a weird thing for the King to care about doing.

I also wonder why Xenophon calls out everyone's age in the post-mortem summary of their characters, except Menon.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 03:36

coyo7e: Aug 23, 2007; by zen death robot

Nanomashoes posted:

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.

\I've3 had this book on audio for ages but fall asleep every time i try to get into it. I think I may need to view the text to force my eyes and consciousness to stay open.

I have however run across the march of ten thousand a zillion times in shoddy SF&F novels so I probably know everything - except I'km not sure if they had dragons or not.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 05:24

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Tao Jones posted:

Xenophon mentions that people took Cyrus's crossing of the river at Thapsacus as being an omen of his destiny to become king. But Cyrus fails; is this a criticism of omens? Prior to the battle scene at the climax, Cyrus tells Xenophon that omens and sacrifices were made and favorable, but those aren't mentioned in the text otherwise.

I was intrigued by a bit of detail that Xenophon points out when the armies are preparing for combat -- the Persians don't wear headgear when they fight. Why not? Is this just an interesting anthropological detail, some attempt to otherize the Persians, or is it significant? Xenophon doesn't seem overly fond of 'fun facts' like Herodotus, so it kind of stuck out.

In the rest of his works Xenophon is really big on the importance of omens and sacrifices. It's kind of interesting just how conventional he is in his thinking, for a student of Socrates.

...

It would be interesting to contrast his descriptions of the Persians here, with the same in Cyropaedia. (The whole book is a bit long, but the last part has a summarized "customs of noble Persians back in the day - customs of decadent Persians right now" section. If there's anything besides the Ten Thousand that would inspire Alexander...)

...

The start is really goddamned dull. I tried to introduce the book to my dad (cue poster appearing and making the same joke for the thousandth time) who is really into military fiction, and he couldn't get past the "today we marched 5 no pasarans, and consumed 3 resource units" sections.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 09:03

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

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.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 16:16

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

coyo7e posted:

\I've3 had this book on audio for ages but fall asleep every time i try to get into it. I think I may need to view the text to force my eyes and consciousness to stay open.

For me, the ToposText version I linked above really helped me stay interested - I like maps and it was nice to be able to kind of trace the path of the expedition and see where all of these places were, geographically.

One of the things that makes this book hard to approach, for me, is that Xenophon is really big in describing things in terms of units of measure, but they're all from 2500 years ago and left in the translation rather than converted to modern units. (From a translation point of view, it's an interesting question whether or not it would be faithful to the text to convert parasanges to miles, stadions to yards, etc. or whether that would be intruding.) I looked the common ones I was finding up and made a little chart for myself so I can get a quick reminder that a parasange is ~3.5 miles, but it's a totally reasonable objection that only classics nerds would do that.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 16:43

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

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

That misses the parade at Tyriaeion, which is hilarious.

Something I thought was curious about that: the non-Greeks parade past Cyrus, but he drives past the Greeks in their stationary blocks (until he unleashes them to cause havoc.) Why? Do the barbarians look more impressive in motion? Are they less capable of holding nice ranks in a still formation? Is singling out the Greeks a good idea as a commander (or does Xenophon think it is)? While it's theoretically a good thing for the Greeks to be able to scatter an army, should he not be more concerned that it's his?

# ? Feb 11, 2016 16:53

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

The impression I always had from that passage was that the Greeks were wearing polished metal armor and moving in drilled, unified formation, and the Persians just had no conception of that, and reacted like we would to an alien invasion or something.

Aren't almost all the barbarians wearing cloth or wicker armor?

# ? Feb 11, 2016 17:04

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

I just read the early bit with Orontas, Cyrus' treacherous general (Dakyns's translation on Gutenberg):

quote:

After they had conducted him to the tent of Artapates, the trustiest of Cyrus's wand-bearers, none set eyes upon him ever again, alive or dead. No one, of his own knowledge, could declare the manner of his death; though some conjectured one thing and some another. No tomb to mark his resting-place, either then or since, was ever seen.

Seems really strikingly characteristic of what we see of Cyrus. He tries to project a perfect image of himself, but this story starts with his deceptions. Xenophon seems to take notice of this secrecy, like it's one of those cracks in Cyrus's image.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 17:19

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Tao Jones posted:

Cyrus's answer to most of his leadership-related problems is, more or less, "I'll make you rich when we win". Does this say anything about him as an individual, or is this just how things were done?

"Xenophon's perspective on visionary / transformative leadership notes the importance of intrinsic motivation, but also emphasizes the value of external rewards".

But seriously though "pay your goddamned mercenaries you absolute assholes" and "reward people appropriately" are the most fundamental takeaways of Xeno's leadership theory.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Feb 13, 2016

# ? Feb 11, 2016 19:07

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Xander77 posted:

But seriously though "pay your goddamned mercenaries your absolute assholes" and "reward people appropriately" are the most fundamental takeaways of Xeno's leadership theory.

That's not surprising, coming from a mercenary captain. But, as the Sack of Antwerp attests, people still failed to pay their mercenaries for at least 2000 years after Xenophon.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 20:12

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

golden bubble posted:

That's not surprising, coming from a mercenary captain. But, as the Sack of Antwerp attests, people still failed to pay their mercenaries for at least 2000 years after Xenophon.

Thus demonstrating, via negative example, the value of a classical education.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 21:05

Rusty: Sep 28, 2001; Dinosaur Gum

What makes a sacrifice unfavorable anyway? I think it's funny ever step of the way they are making sacrifices to see what direction to take. They make them in public, in private, and sometimes won't move even when they are starving because of the sacrifices. The have ships brining in animals to sacrifice as part of the war supplies. And to top it off, the guy who interprets the sacrifices rats out Xenophon's questions that he sacrifices over. It's such a large part of the book.

# ? Feb 11, 2016 21:49

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Rusty posted:

What makes a sacrifice unfavorable anyway? I think it's funny ever step of the way they are making sacrifices to see what direction to take. They make them in public, in private, and sometimes won't move even when they are starving because of the sacrifices. The have ships brining in animals to sacrifice as part of the war supplies. And to top it off, the guy who interprets the sacrifices rats out Xenophon's questions that he sacrifices over. It's such a large part of the book.

Creatures of Light and Darkness posted:

"Those are my innards! I will not have them misread by a poseur!"

# ? Feb 11, 2016 22:25

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Xander77 posted:

(cue poster appearing and making the same joke for the thousandth time)

I am - no joke - sometimes getting PMs from goons telling me when there's a setup for a "my dad" joke somewhere on the forums and someone once even complained how I failed to use a "perfect setup". I intentionally made only the lamest possible jokes of the sort in the past year in an effort to deter this, and thankfully it's (mostly) working.

Xander77 posted:

But seriously though "pay your goddamned mercenaries your absolute assholes" and "reward people appropriately" are the most fundamental takeaways of Xeno's leadership theory.

I wonder how the 30 years war practice of "lol, actually paying mercenaries" would compare to this.

# ? Feb 12, 2016 01:38

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Shout-out for the Zelazny reference

Rusty posted:

What makes a sacrifice unfavorable anyway? I think it's funny ever step of the way they are making sacrifices to see what direction to take. They make them in public, in private, and sometimes won't move even when they are starving because of the sacrifices. The have ships brining in animals to sacrifice as part of the war supplies. And to top it off, the guy who interprets the sacrifices rats out Xenophon's questions that he sacrifices over. It's such a large part of the book.

I started digging around online and it's surprisingly difficult to find information on ancient Greek divination by entrails. I think the presumption is you slaughter the animal and if it's shot through with cancer that's a big "no."

I did find this incredibly silly site attempting to apply etruscan Haruspexy (which we apparently have records of through Cicero) to the ritual sacrifice of . . . an egg. http://corvallistoday.com/Europe/italy_rome/etruscan.htm

# ? Feb 12, 2016 02:35

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Shout-out for the Zelazny reference

I started digging around online and it's surprisingly difficult to find information on ancient Greek divination by entrails. I think the presumption is you slaughter the animal and if it's shot through with cancer that's a big "no."

I did find this incredibly silly site attempting to apply etruscan Haruspexy (which we apparently have records of through Cicero) to the ritual sacrifice of . . . an egg. http://corvallistoday.com/Europe/italy_rome/etruscan.htm

Letters to the Kings of Mari contains Babylonian training guides for quick and easy liver divination.

# ? Feb 12, 2016 03:41

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

Rusty: Sep 28, 2001; Dinosaur Gum

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Shout-out for the Zelazny reference

I started digging around online and it's surprisingly difficult to find information on ancient Greek divination by entrails. I think the presumption is you slaughter the animal and if it's shot through with cancer that's a big "no."

I did find this incredibly silly site attempting to apply etruscan Haruspexy (which we apparently have records of through Cicero) to the ritual sacrifice of . . . an egg. http://corvallistoday.com/Europe/italy_rome/etruscan.htm

Thanks, that is interesting,. They put such importance on their rituals. And boy, if you get an eagle flying overhead, while you have a good sacrifice, well get going!

The speeches were so good. They're ready to stone him to death because some idiot won't pay them, and he just let's them have it. He does get that result from everyone though, and everyone always has to admit he's right, there is just no denying it. Oh you're going to stone me? Aren't you the guy I trusted to carry a injured soldier and you tried to bury him alive? And by the way, didn't I come back here when I could have just gone home, not for pay, but just for your sake? And so on. It's pretty satisfying. Thanks for the recommendation, it was a fun read.

# ? Feb 12, 2016 05:22

Murgos: Oct 21, 2010

Murgos posted:

If you have hoopla through your local library they have "The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon published by Blackstone Audio and read by Pat Bottino.

I'm going to revisit this comment and say avoid this version. The narrator is about as wooden a reader as I have ever come across with little or no effort at saying the greek words consistently much less correctly.

I can't make it more than a few minutes at a time before my attention is focused entirely on the [poor] quality of the narration rather than the content.

# ? Feb 12, 2016 13:33

Walh Hara: May 11, 2012

Ok, I got my library's copy of this book and will be participating!

# ? Feb 13, 2016 17:22

Carly Gay Dead Son: Aug 27, 2007; Bonus.

I'm in book 2 and it's getting way better but so far my favorite part is from book 1 with the ostriches.

# ? Feb 13, 2016 23:08

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# ? Oct 7, 2024 23:44

Elyv: Jun 14, 2013

I started reading this last night. A couple random thoughts from someone who doesn't read much anymore(sadly, trying to fix that). Also even when I read more the only ancient Greek things I read were the Iliad and the Odyssey.
1) Cyrus is kind of a manipulative dude, basically slowly pulling the mercenaries into this battle. I kind of half wonder if they would have gotten even a fraction of what he promised had he actually won.
2) Reading the army descriptions before the big battle, it was funny/startling to hear that the Great King's army was 1.2 million. Wikipedia says 40,000 at Cunaxa so I guess that's Xenophon basically saying "They had a shitton of guys." Would his readers actually have believed that number, or would they have understood as "Their army was really really big"?
3) There was a Greek admiral named Pythagoras. I wasn't expecting it to be the Pythagoras I'd heard of and, unsurprisingly, it wasn't.

# ? Feb 14, 2016 07:54

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Blood Barn > February BOTM: The March of the Ten Thousand, by Xenophon.

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