Xenophon
Xenophon (c430-c355 BCE) was a Greek general and historian, who also wrote on military and other subjects. The English pronunciation of Xenophon is ZE-ner-fern, IPA: /ˈzɛnəfən/; and the adjective from Xenophon is Xenophontic (pronounced ze-ner-FON-tik, IPA: /ˌzɛnəˈfɒntɪk/)..
Xenophon came from a wealthy Athenian family and grew up in Athens, where he made the acquaintance of Socrates (though, unlike Plato, he was never a close friend). However, the greater part of his adult life was spent away from Athens. In 401 Xenophon joined the army of Cyrus, the Persian governor of Asia Minor, in an expedition against Cyrus' brother, the Persian king Artaxerxes II. After the defeat of the army and the death of Cyrus at the battle of Cunaxa (near Babylon in modern Iraq) later that year, Xenophon led the remnants of the army - about 10,000 soldiers - to the safety of Trapezus, a town on the south-east coast of the Black Sea. (These events are the subject of Anabasis - see below.) During the following years, while in his thirties, Xenophon participated as a mercenary in various military expeditions. He had in the meantime been banished from Athens for his pro-Spartan sympathies, and in the late 390's he was given an estate by the Spartans and went to live in Sparta. In 371 he moved to Corinth, and it was there that he died.
More than a dozen of Xenophon's works have survived. Of these the four best-known are:
- Anabasis (ΚÏÏου ’ανάβασις , Kurou anabasis, Cyrus' expedition up [from the coast]) - an account of Cyrus' expedition against Artaxerxes and of the defeated army's journey, under Xenophon's command, from Cunaxa in Iraq to the shore of the Black Sea.
- Hellenica (‘Ελληνικά, Hellenika) - a general history of Greece from 411 (the last year covered by Thucydides' Histories) to the battle of Mantinea in 462.
- Cyropaedia (ΚÏÏου παιδεία, Kurou paideia, The Education of Cyrus) - a biography of Cyrus the Elder, who lived in the sixth century BCE and was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
