Written in the fourth century BC, Xenophon’s Anabasis is the firsthand account of one of antiquity’s most extraordinary military adventures. After the defeat and assassination of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger at the Battle of Cunaxa (401 BC), ten thousand Greek mercenaries found themselves stranded deep in Persian territory with their commanders dead. Xenophon, a young Athenian, helped lead them on a brutal march of roughly 1,500 miles northward through mountains, deserts, and hostile peoples to reach the Black Sea — their famous cry of “Thalatta! Thalatta!” (“The Sea! The Sea!”) upon finally sighting it has echoed through history.
The Anabasis is simultaneously a military memoir, a manual of leadership, and a genuine adventure narrative of startling modernity. Download the free EPUB to read one of the great true adventure stories of all time.