ANABASIS. The Anabasis is the story in which Xenophon tells how the Ten Thousand (really some 14,000) Greeks in the year 401 ac. went up with the younger Cyrus to help him oust his brother Artaxerxes from the Per sian throne.
For the general reader the will remain simply a very interesting account of the most important episode in Xenophon's experi Nice — a story of warlike adventure and exploit told in clear and simple, if not always the purest, Attic Greek. It is very far from being "Xenophon's military stuff" which "we force upon our boys," as the editor of the Review of Reviews said to a classical club. So the classics must suffer sometimes even from would-be friends. I found the story fascinating
when I read it in Greek. at fifteen and when I came to edit it at fifty kept thinking, "How ridiculously interesting and easy it is!" A few years ago a professor of English, who is author of half a dozen books in prose and verse, came to me, after rereading the 'Anabasis,' jubilant over the interest of the story and the art of the story-teller. "A more delightful yarn it would be hard to find," he said. Its best lesson to the modern, in the way of style, will doubtless always be its clearness and simplicity, in proof of which let one pas sage, which is perhaps the best of many fine ones, be cited. The weary and footsore Greeks had been for many months marching and fight ing through desert and mountain wilds when at last a guide came and told them he could lead them in five days to a place whence they could see the sea. "If I don't," said he, "you may put me to death." "On the fifth day they came to a mountain named Theches. And when the foremost reached the summit a great shout arose. Xenophon and the rear guards heard it and thought other enemies were attacking in front. . . . But as the cry grew louder and nearer and the men as they came up ran for ward to join those that were shouting, and the cry became louder as the number grew larger, Xenophon, thinking it something serious, mounted his horse and with Lycius and the horsemen went to the rescue. Soon they heard the soldiers shouting 'The sea, the sea!' and passing the cry along. Then all ran, even the rear guards, and the pack-animals and horses were urged on. And when all reached the summit they wept for joy and embraced one another and the generals and captains. Sud denly someone gave the word and they brought stones and made a great heap, on which they placed a great number of raw hides and staves and captured shields, the guide himself cutting up the shields and exhorting others to do this." Under somewhat similar circumstances many a man has since remembered this scene and repeated the cry. General von Moltke relates that when he and his attendants first saw near Samsun the gleaming sea, "the same that drew from the Greek soldiers their celebrated fkiAarra, they too broke into shouts of joy." Best of all is Virgil's imitation: For an extended discussion of the 'Anab asis,' both from a historical and military point of view, consult Goodwin and White, asis' ; the introduction to Dakyn's 'Works of Xenophon' (Vol. I) ; article "Xenophon" (in 'Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography'); Hertzberg, Feldzug der Zehntausend Griechen.'