λоς τо
: The Politics of Translation’, Classical Quarterly, 43 (1993), 377–91.References to modern works included in the Select Bibliography are given in shortened form. FGH stands for F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (15 vols.; Berlin and Leiden, 1923–58). For more detailed guidance on topography, see O. Lendle, Kommentar zu Xenophons Anabasis (Darmstadt, 1995), V. M. Manfredi, La Strada dei Diecimila: Topografia e geografia dell’Oriente di Senofonte (Milan, 1986), and R. J. A. Talbert (ed.), Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton, 2000).
two sons: according to Plutarch, Darius II and Parysatis (who was Darius’ half-sister) also had two other sons, both younger than Cyrus, Ostanes and Oxathres (Artaxerxes 1.2); Xenophon himself later mentions a half-brother leading a contingent of Artaxerxes’ army (2.4.25). Plutarch also alleges that Cyrus’ claim to the throne was that he was the first son born after Darius II had become king (Artaxerxes 2.4), but his account may have been inspired by Herodotus’ account of how Darius I chose Xerxes as his heir after being advised by the exiled Spartan king Damaratus that it was Spartan practice for the eldest son born in the purple to accede to the throne (7.2–3). Herodotus’ account is suspicious: Xerxes was the eldest son born to Darius I by Atossa (the daughter of Cyrus II), and there were political reasons why Darius should have favoured a son born to her. Xenophon’s claim that Parysatis supported Cyrus recalls Herodotus’ account of Atossa’s support for Xerxes: the Greeks liked to imagine that the Persian royal women were powerful at court. See P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, trans. P. T. Daniels (Winona Lake, Ind., 2002; Fr. orig. 1996), 518–22.
satrap: governor of one of the regions (twenty, according to Herodotus 3.89.1) into which the Persian empire was divided; Cyrus’ area of command was greater than that of a regular satrap, though the details are controversial (see C. J. Tuplin, ‘The Persian Empire’, in R. Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March (New Haven, 2004), 162).
the Plain of Castolus: east of Sardis, a regular place of assembly (see also 1.9.7, and Hellenica 1.4.3). Xenophon also mentions Persian annual military reviews at Oeconomicus 4.6.
up country: the Greek word anabainei is cognate with the title of the work, Anabasis; the force of the ana- prefix is ‘away from the sea’.
hoplites: heavily armed foot soldiers: see Introduction, pp. xxvii ff.
barbarians: Greek barbaroi, the regular word for non-Greeks; not necessarily a hostile term.
by the king: these cities were within Cyrus’ area of command. On one view, the gift to Tissaphernes need not mean that Cyrus had been deprived of his satrapy: for the grant of cities to individuals, see notes to pp. 33, 191 below. The Ionian cities may have been granted to Tissaphernes when Sparta’s treaty with Persia was renegotiated in 407 BC (the ‘Treaty of Boeotius’ inferred by D. M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia (Leiden, 1977), 120–5, granting the cities autonomy along with a financial obligation to the king). On another view, however, Ionia may have been transferred to Tissaphernes when Cyrus was first summoned back to Babylon (C. J. Tuplin, ‘The Treaty of Boiotios’, in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg and A. Kuhrt (eds.), Achaemenid History II: The Greek Sources (Leiden, 1987), 133–53).
a Spartan exile: see 2.6.2–4 for the circumstances of Clearchus’ exile. His presence in the Thracian Chersonese (the Gallipoli peninsula) suggests that his support for Cyrus may have been sanctioned by Sparta (a Spartan governor is mentioned in the Chersonese at 7.1.13); other sources claim that Clearchus was officially sent by Sparta (Isocrates 8.98, Plutarch, Artaxerxes 6.5) or even (absurdly) that the Spartans persuaded Cyrus to make his expedition (Isocrates 12.104, in a strongly anti-Spartan speech). On Clearchus and his background, see L. Tritle, From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival (London and New York, 2000), 55–78; S. R. Bassett, ‘The Enigma of Clearchus the Spartan’, Ancient History Bulletin, 15 (2001), 1–13; T Braun, ‘Xenophon’s Dangerous Liaisons’, in Lane Fox (ed.), Long March, 97–130, at 97–107.
darics: a Persian gold coin, worth just under 26 Attic drachmas.
guest-friend: Greek xenos, a term that implies ‘a bond of solidarity manifesting itself in an exchange of goods or services between individuals originating from separate social units’ (G. Herman, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge, 1987), 10).
acropolises: the citadels in the Ionian cities had to be protected against Tissaphernes, see 1.1.6.
peltasts: lightly armed troops who carried a crescent-shaped shield (peltē), see Introduction, p. xxix; contrast the ordinary light-armed troops (gumnētes) mentioned just above (but Xenophon sometimes uses ‘peltasts’ to mean light-armed troops more generally).
parasangs: Persian measure of distance, rated by Herodotus (2.6.3) at thirty Greek stades (about three and a third miles), by other Greek authorities at up to or even more than sixty stades (Strabo 11.11.5; Posidonius F 203 Edelstein and Kidd). The later Ottoman and Persian farsang or farsakh was often used as a measure of the distance that can be covered in one hour, but there is no evidence that the Greeks regarded the parasang as a variable unit, and one proposed etymology for the word has suggested the possibility that there were parasang markers (like milestones) along some Persian roads. See C. J. Tuplin, ‘Achaemenid Arithmetic: Numerical Problems in Persian History’, Topoi, Suppl. 1 (1997)404–17 Xenophon’s detailed figures for stages and parasangs probably presuppose some sort of notes kept during the expedition; a written source such as the account of the Persian empire in Ctesias’ Persica, which included stage and parasang figures (FGH 688 F 33) is proposed by G. L. Cawkwell, ‘When, How, and Why did Xenophon Write the Anabasis?’, in Lane Fox (ed.), Long March, 47–67, at 55–9, but it seems unlikely that such sources would have covered the unusual routes taken by Cyrus and subsequently by the Ten Thousand in their retreat.
an inhabited city, prosperous and large: first instance of a formulaic phrase. The meaning of ‘inhabited’ (oikoumenē) is debated: it may indicate particularly large cities, or else imply a contrast with cities that had been deserted. L. Geysels, ‘Polis oikoumenē dans l’Anabase de Xénophon’, Études classiques, 42 (1974), 29–38, argues that it denotes some degree of autonomy.
large park: Greek paradeisos, a loanword from Old Persian (*paradaida), first attested in Xenophon, and source of the English word ‘paradise’. There was at least one paradise in each satrapy (cf. Cyropaedia 8.6.12); some were used for hunting, others for the cultivation of trees and plants. They were part of the royal ideology of the king as bringer of fertility; cf. Oeconomicus 4.4–14. See Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 442–4; C. J. Tuplin, Achaemenid Studies (Stuttgart, 1996), 80–131.
Great King: common Greek title for the king of Persia.
Marsyas . . . had lost: Marsyas challenged Apollo to a contest with the lyre. The story is also mentioned by Herodotus (7.26.3), with a small difference (Apollo puts the skin up in the marketplace, not the cave).
the famous battle: the Battle of Salamis (480 BC).
Cretan bowmen: Cretan archers are also attested in Athenian armies (Thucydides 6.25.2, 43; cf. Aristophanes, Frogs 1346) and in Alexander’s army (Arrian, Anabasis 2.9.3).
Agias: the manuscripts all read ‘Sophaenetus’, but Xenophon probably wrote—or meant to write—‘Agias’, since Sophaenetus has already come with his contingent. The general Agias would otherwise be mentioned only at his death (2.5.31, 2.6.30). No matter whether the manuscript reading or the emendation is adopted, there is a problem with the number of Greek troops Xenophon gives for the battle of Cunaxa (1.7.10).
athletic contest: in honour of Zeus Lycaeus, an important Arcadian deity (Lycaeus is a mountain in Arcadia). There was a close connection between the cult of Zeus Lycaeus and Arcadian ethnic identity (fifth-century BC Arcadian coins depicting Zeus Lycaeus are inscribed Arkadikon): the festival and games here are a sign that the Arcadian mercenaries retained their ethnic identity (T. H. Nielsen, ‘The Concept of Arkadia: The People, their Land, and their Organisation’, in id. and J. Roy (eds.), Defining Ancient Arkadia (Copenhagen, 1999), 16–79). Athletic games at the Lycaea are attested by fourth-century BC inscriptions.
golden crowns: more plausible as prizes than ‘golden strigils’ (used by athletes for wiping off oil and sweat), another possible translation of the Greek. The usual prizes in the Lycaea at home were bronze implements such as tripods that would have been hard to carry on a military expedition: the value of the prizes at these games suggests that they were donated by Cyrus (J. Roy, ‘The Ambitions of a Mercenary’, in Lane Fox (ed.), Long March, 279).
Syennesis: a hereditary title for the rulers of Cilicia: cf. Aeschylus, Persians 326–7; Herodotus 5.118.2. Ctesias (FGH 688 F 16) and Diodorus (14.20.3) claim that Syennesis played a double game by sending a message to Artaxerxes warning of Cyrus’ advance.
by adding wine to the spring water: attracted by the satyr Silenus’ reputation for wisdom, Midas captured him by making him drunk (cf. Theopompus FGH 115 F 75; Pausanias 1.4.5). Silenus then gave Midas the gloomy opinion that it is best for mortals not to have been born (Aristotle fr. 44 Rose; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.48; for another version, see Theopompus). The spring was also placed in Macedonia (Herodotus 8.138.3), at Inna between the Maedi and the Paeonians (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 2.45 G), and at Ancyra in Phrygia (Pausanias).
red cloaks: particularly associated with the Spartan army (Plutarch, Lycurgus 27.2; Aristophanes, Lysistrata 1140): it was alleged that it was the most warlike and least feminine colour (Constitution of the Spartans 11.3). They are also found on allied contingents (Agesilaus 2.7). Note that Xenophon does not mention body armour: the translation ‘cloak’ (rather than ‘tunic’) for the Greek chitōn allows for the possibility that armour was worn under the cloak. Xenophon’s failure to mention the armour can be explained by his stress on the hoplite’s visual effect (M. Whitby, ‘Xenophon’s Ten Thousand as a Fighting Force’, in Lane Fox (ed.), Long March, 218–20). A different view is that the hoplites wore tunics and that many of them did not in fact wear body armour, unlike the cavalrymen, who were not protected by shields (note the vignette at 3.4.47–8, the special provision of cuirasses for the new cavalry unit at 3.3.20, and the infantryman shot through a corslet at 4.1.18; but these passages are not conclusive).
shields uncovered: normally, soldiers on the march would have their shields covered to stop them from tarnishing. Shield-bags are attested at Anacreon F 388.4 Page; Aristophanes, Acharnians 574; Caesar, Gallic War 2.21.5; for a vase illustration, see B. A. Sparkes, ‘Illustrating Aristophanes’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 95 (1975), plate XIII.
the merchants in the market: the Greek troops had to buy their provisions themselves, either from the traders who were among the non-combatants following the army or from local inhabitants.
hostile territory: it was hostile because Cyrus had now crossed the boundary of the area he had been allotted by his father.
royal secretary: an inscription from Cyprus has shown that the rare noun phoinikistēs means ‘scribe’ or ‘secretary’ (the Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician), not ‘wearer of the royal purple’, as it had sometimes been taken; see Lewis, Sparta and Persia, 25 n. 143. Such secretaries are also attested at Herodotus 3.128.3.
triremes: fast-sailing ships. The arrival of Spartan triremes (with 700 hoplites: see 1.4.3) is the only hint Xenophon offers that Cyrus’ expedition had official Spartan backing (see Introduction, p. xxi).
at the king’s court: gift-giving played a fundamental role in Persian royal ideology (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 304–7). A calibrated system of honour determined the king’s gifts of clothes and jewellery: cf. Cyropaedia 8.2.7–8, 8.3.1–3; Herodotus 3.84.1 (annual gift of a Median robe for Otanes and his descendants); Aelian, Various History 1.22, 32 (mentioning robes, horses with gold-studded bridles, bracelets). Cyrus is already assuming for himself the position of king.
the friendship of the barbarians: Clearchus is appealing to the feelings of his Greek audience by claiming that he will put their interests even above his reciprocal attachment with Cyrus. His definition of his relationship with Cyrus in terms of the Greek ethic of reciprocity obscures the imbalance in the relationship: Cyrus’ gift to Clearchus was made specifically with the expedition in mind, and not as a free gift which Clearchus is returning. Clearchus makes it seem more impressive that he is putting the Greeks first. In fact—as Xenophon brings out in what follows—he is manipulating his audience to make them stay with Cyrus.
I think of you as my homeland: compare Andromache’s words to her husband Hector (‘you are father and honoured mother and brother to me’, Homer, Iliad 6.429–30), also echoed by Tecmessa at Sophocles, Ajax 518 (‘what homeland would I have without you?’).
defend myself against an adversary: the common Greek ethic of helping friends and harming enemies, often seen as the definition of justice (as by Polemarchus at Plato, Republic 332a–d).
the one for which he was using mercenaries before: his earlier journey to see his father, accompanied by 300 Greek hoplites (1.1.2).
Abrocomas: a Persian general sent by the king to Phoenicia, perhaps in preparation for an expedition to Egypt (Isocrates 4.140 mentions that he was later one of the commanders of an army sent to put down the Egyptian revolt, date uncertain); problems in Egypt may explain why the king was late in responding to Cyrus’ expedition and also why Cyrus chose this time to attack. Diodorus states that Cyrus told the Greeks that he was leading them against a satrap of Syria (14.20.5).
Pythagoras of Sparta: Xenophon elsewhere gives the name of the Spartan admiral as Samius (Hellenica 3.1.1).
300,000 men: Xenophon later states that the Persian king had four commanders in the battle against Cyrus, each with 300,000 troops, but that Abrocomas arrived five days too late (1.7.12).
marching against the king: see 1.3.7.
or doves either: Xenophon is the earliest Greek source to mention the Syrian reverence for fish and doves; it is a standard element in many later Greek accounts of the Syrian goddess, e.g. Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess 14, 54. An explanation is offered by Diodorus: the Syrian goddess Derceto was turned into a fish after jumping into a lake, and her abandoned daughter Semiramis was kept alive by doves (2.4.2–6). The respect for fish and doves is supported by Syrian evidence, though Xenophon is wrong to claim that the Syrians regarded fish as gods; for discussion, see J. L. Lightfoot (ed.), Lucian: On the Syrian Goddess (Oxford, 2003), 65–72 on fish and 513 on doves.
girdle-money: compare also the villages of Parysatis mentioned at 2.4.27; estates belonging to Parysatis are also attested in Babylonian tablets. Such ownership by royal women was surprising to the Greeks (cf. Plato, Alcibiades I I23b5-C3). What the Persian king was granting was in fact part of the revenue from the land, not proper ownership. See M. Brosius, Women in Ancient Persia (559–331 BC) (Oxford, 1996), ch. 5; Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 461–3.
Belesys: the same as the Bēlšunu—earlier a governor of Babylon—known from Babylonian inscriptions. A non-Iranian, he left office between 16 January 401 BC and Cyrus’ arrival that summer (Tuplin, ‘Persian Empire’, 163; M. W. Stolper, ‘Bēlšunu the Satrap’, in F. Rochberg-Halton (ed.), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner (New Haven, 1987), 389–402).
five mnas of silver: a one-off payment (equivalent to about twenty months’ pay at the regular rate), rather than an increase of pay. It has also been suggested that Cyrus started to supply food as part of the terms of service (R. Descat, ‘Marché et tribut: L’approvisionnement des Dix-Mille’, in P. Briant (ed.), Dans les pas des Dix Mille: Peuples et pays du Proche-Orient vus par un grec = Pallas, 43 (1995), 99–108, at 103–4), but the evidence for this new contract is weak (C. J. Tuplin, ‘On the Track of the Ten Thousand’, Revue des études anciennes, 101 (1991), 331–66, at 343–4).
until he got them back to Ionia: another mark of Cyrus’ generosity: normally mercenaries were paid only for the campaign, and would have to make their own way home.
since he was destined to be king: the falseness of the omen suggests that the belief was genuine, not retrospective. Compare how the Pamphylian sea was said to have yielded to Alexander (Arrian, Anabasis 1.26.1–2, and Callisthenes FGH 124 F 31); and stories of the Euphrates falling for the Roman general Lucullus (Plutarch, Lucullus 24.2–3) and rising for Vitellius when he was making an expedition to reinstate Tiridates (Tacitus, Annals 6.37).
Gates: location uncertain, perhaps at Beqaa (‘Gate’ in Arabic) near Ramadhi, where the Euphrates narrows (Manfredi, Strada, 132).
by eating meat: that is, by a diet of meat alone, probably from worn-out pack animals—a mark of their difficulties (cf. Caesar, Gallic War 7.17.3, and Tacitus, Annals 14.24). The price of grain in the Lydian market is equivalent to 120 drachmas per medimnus, forty times the normal price. Cyrus did not use the reserves of flour mentioned at 1.10.18 to ease the position. On the measures used, see Tuplin, ‘Persian Empire’, 172.
bracelets on their arms: the wearing of jewellery in the Persian court was honorific (see note to p. 9). Compare the Spartan general Lysander’s astonishment when he first meets Cyrus and discovers that the bejewelled prince had himself planted some of the trees in his garden (Oeconomicus 4.20–5).
sudden offensive: this statement has sometimes been seen as a sign of the panhellenic orientation of the Expedition of Cyrus: see Introduction, p. xxxi. Xenophon does not explicitly state that Cyrus was marching by a shorter route than usual, even though he does mention that Abrocomas—who had a head-start—arrived at the battlefield five days later than Cyrus.
altar of Artemis: presumably Artemis of Sardis, a goddess attested in fourth-century BC Lydian inscriptions (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 703–4).
I would choose freedom over all my wealth: the Greeks imagined that every Persian apart from the king himself was a slave, using the Greek term doulos to cover the Persian bandaka. See A. Missiou, ‘Δоλоς τо: The Politics of Translation’, Classical Quarterly, 43 (1993), 377–91.
10,400 hoplites and 2,500 peltasts: the numbers do not quite fit the figures Xenophon has given so far (see also note to p. 6).
said to number 1,200,000: an absurd exaggeration, comparable with Herodotus’ figures for Xerxes’ invasion of Greece: the fact that Xenophon was an eyewitness shows how ingrained in the Greek mentality the perception of Persia’s vast resources was (Xenophon does later let Ariaeus make the point that the king’s large forces are slower and face problems with provisions). Ctesias, who was present on the Persian side, numbered the king’s army at 400,000 (FGH 688 F 22), but even that figure is a great exaggeration: modern estimates are closer to 60,000.
Median Wall: described at 2.4.12.
Late in the morning: literally ‘at full-market time’. This is one of the signs that Cyrus’ army set off during the night.
things went well: for the controversy over whether Clearchus was right to disobey Cyrus’ order, see Introduction, p. xxiii. On the progress of the battle, see J. M. Bigwood, ‘The Ancient Accounts of the Battle of Cunaxa’, American Journal of Philology, 104 (1983), 340–57; G. Wylie, ‘Cunaxa and Xenophon’, L’Antiquité classique, 61 (1992), 119–34.
Xenophon of Athens: the first appearance of the author. He always uses third-person forms when describing his own actions as a character.
watchword: a watchword was necessary because enemy troops were not easy to distinguish (the Athenians suffered greatly in the night battle on Epipolae when the enemy learnt their watchword: Thucydides 7.44.4). As at 6.5.25, the watchword has two parts—presumably question and answer. It was passed along the lines and then back to ensure that it was not overheard and that it was correctly communicated (cf. Cyropaedia 3.3.58, 7.1.10). See F. S. Russell, Information Gathering in Classical Greece (Ann Arbor, 1999), 182–5.
paean: a common Greek battle-chant (iō paian).
Enyalius: a god of war, often equated with Ares.
as king: the homage known as proskunēsis. Persian images suggest that this involved bowing slightly while blowing a kiss; the Greeks tended to think that it involved falling to one’s knees, and to take it as a mark of oriental slavishness (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 222–3).
‘table-companions’: an official title denoting courtiers of a high status (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 308); Xenophon also presents them as brave in war at Cyropaedia 7.1.30. The title is found also at Herodotus 3.132.1 and Ctesias FGH 688 F 14 §41.
the authority of Ctesias the doctor: FGH 688 F 21. On Ctesias, see Introduction, pp. xxiv–xxv.
under the eye: Plutarch in his Life of Artaxerxes reports variant accounts of Cyrus’ death (for discussion, see S. R. Bassett, ‘The Death of Cyrus the Younger’, Classical Quarterly, 49 (1999), 473–83). While Xenophon says that Cyrus was bare-headed and struck under the eye, Ctesias reported that Cyrus was wearing a tiara which fell from his head and that he was struck in the temple beside the eye (FGH 688 F 20). Xenophon’s account has been seen as apologetic: ‘Xenophon portrays Cyrus as being wounded where a javelin could have struck if he had been wearing a helmet, rather than being bare-headed because his tiara had fallen off’ (Bassett, p. 477). The fourth-century BC historian Dinon of Colophon (FGH 690 F 17) claimed that Cyrus wounded the king’s horse, not the king himself, and that the king then wounded Cyrus: this account may be derived from Artaxerxes’ propaganda or from Dinon’s own imagination.
Cyrus the Elder: Cyrus II, king of Persia 559–530 BC, and subject of Xenophon’s own Cyropaedia.
slave: see above, note to p. 21.
Phocaean concubine: for the presence of Greek concubines in Persian armies, cf. Herodotus 7.83.2, 9.76.1; Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 278–80. Later historians told many stories about Cyrus’ concubine, whose name they give as Aspasia (or Milto): it was said that she won Cyrus over by her modesty and refused extravagant presents from him; that Cyrus changed her name to Aspasia after Pericles’ famous mistress; that she later became a favourite of Artaxerxes, who dressed her up in the clothes of his favourite eunuch when he died; and that when his son asked for her, Artaxerxes made her a priestess of Anaita in Ecbatana (Plutarch, Pericles 24.11–12, Artaxerxes 26.5–27.5; Aelian, Various History 12.1; Justin 10.2.2–4; Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 13.576 D).
the Greek left wing: the left wing in the original battle formation: now that the Greeks had advanced and turned to face the Persians who were moving back along their original line of advance, the original left wing was in fact at the right of the Greek army.
as far as a village: perhaps the village of Cunaxa, after which the battle was named (Plutarch, Artaxerxes 8.2).
a golden spread eagle on a shield: the classical Greeks did not have standards, though Xenophon saw the point of them (Cyropaedia 8.5.13). Xenophon also mentions the Persian royal standard at Cyropaedia 7.1.4 (cf. also Philostratus, Imagines 2.31). The eagle was prominent in Achaemenid royal ideology: Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 12.21, reports a story that Achaemenes had been fed and raised by an eagle. It has been argued that what Xenophon took for an eagle was in fact an image of Ahura Mazda, the god represented on winged discs in Achaemenid reliefs (C. Bonner, ‘The Standard of Artaxerxes II’, Classical Review, 61 (1947), 9–10). See in general C. Nylander, ‘The Standard of the Great King—A Problem in the Alexander Mosaic’, Opuscula Romana, 14 (1983), 19–37.
the evening meal: it was now early evening. The troops would eat two meals a day, in the late morning and the early evening.
Damaratus of Sparta: king of Sparta, exiled in 491 BC. He fled to Persia and appears several times in Herodotus as an adviser of Xerxes during his invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Teuthrania was the name of both a city and a region in Mysia; at Hellenica 3.1.6 Xenophon states that Damaratus had been given Teuthrania and Halicarne as a gift for accompanying Xerxes on his expedition to Greece. Procles appears again at the end of The Expedition of Cyrus, helping Xenophon on a raid (7.8.17); he may well have served with Cyrus as a subordinate ruler in Cyrus’ province (Tuplin, ‘Persian Empire’, 164) and then gone over to Artaxerxes after Cyrus’ death.
deserters from the king’s army: see 1.10.6. Xenophon mentions these deserters only when the Persian king recovers them, not when they originally desert.
a single Greek: contrast Ctesias’ claim that he was one of the envoys (FGH 688 F 23, disbelieved by Plutarch, Artaxerxes 13.5–7).
Theopompus: some manuscripts attribute the reply to Xenophon himself, but this reading was probably a gloss, based on the unnecessary supposition that the name Theopompus (which means ‘god-sent’) was a pseudonym for Xenophon.
if he wanted to use them for a campaign there: Persian control in Egypt was weak (Egypt was in revolt at the time when Cyrus made his expedition, and Persian control was restored only in 343 BC).
signal for rest: Clearchus was exploiting the fact that the enemy could hear the signals; compare 3.4.36 and 4.3.29.
a talent of silver: the same ruse for stopping panic is found in different contexts; see Aeneas Tacticus 27.11, Polyaenus 3.9.4 (used by the Athenian general Iphicrates).
beat him: typically arrogant Spartan behaviour, using the stick carried by Spartan officers; see S. Hornblower, ‘Sticks, Stones, and Spartans: The Sociology of Spartan Violence’, in H. van Wees (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London, 2000), 57–82.
riddled with obstacles: whether Clearchus’ suspicions were justified depends on the time of year: the ditches would often have been filled with water for irrigation and drainage.
the cabbage of the palm: Xenophon’s observation is slightly confused. It is not removing the part that is commonly cut off and eaten that causes the palm to wither, but removing the succulent leaf-bearing part at the top of the trunk—a delicacy that is eaten only when the tree has to be removed anyway (Tuplin, ‘On the Track of the Ten Thousand’, 356).
king’s wife’s brother: by referring to him only by his relationship to the king, and not by name, Xenophon stresses the importance of family links in the Persian royal household. Xenophon’s account is at odds with Ctesias’ claim (FGH 688 F 15) that Artaxerxes had had all of his wife’s brothers executed.
in your camp: this statement is inconsistent with Ctesias’ report that the king withdrew to a hill after he had been wounded (FGH 688 F 20).
hand-tokens: physical objects that took the place of handshakes for parties wanting to make pledges without being in each other’s presence (cf. Agesilaus 3.4). Some examples in the shape of actual hands survive from later in antiquity. See Herman, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City, 50–4.
we won’t be able to save anyone: because cavalry would be used to pursue and kill them if they were defeated.
his wife: Orontas was satrap of Armenia, cf. 3.5.17. His wife’s name was Rhodogyne (Plutarch, Artaxerxes 27.7; W. Dittenberger (ed.), Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (Leipzig, 1903–5), 391–2).
Median Wall: the topography is uncertain: see R. D. Barnett, ‘Xenophon and the Wall of Media’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 83 (1963), 1–26; Tuplin, ‘On the Track of the Ten Thousand’, 351–3.
Sittace: it is often thought that Xenophon got Sittace and Opis (2.4.25) the wrong way round. For discussion, see C. J. Tuplin, ‘Modern and Ancient Travellers in the Achaemenid Empire: Byron’s Road to Oxiana and Xenophon’s Anabasis’, in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg and J. W. Drijvers (eds.), Achaemenid History VII: Through Travellers’ Eyes (Leiden, 1991), 51–4.
He did not ask for Meno: Xenophon hints that Meno was implicated in the attempt to deceive the Greeks.
Physcus river: Xenophon’s account of the rivers between here and the Zab is confused: he omits two of the Diyala, the Adheim, and the Lesser Zab. Physcus is probably the Diyala if Xenophon did not confuse Opis and Sittace (see above), the Adheim if he did confuse them. Sophaenetus (FGH 109 F 3) mentioned a town Physcus as well as a river.
the villages belonging to Parysatis: for such villages, cf. 1.4.9 and note to p. 14; the prohibition on taking slaves may point to the importance of the tribute paid to the king from such villages (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 459–60), but it may just be that ‘human booty would simply mean more mouths to feed’ (Tuplin, ‘Persian Empire’, 170). For the favour shown by Parysatis towards Cyrus, see 1.1.4.
waiting to take us on: Greek ephedros—a wrestling metaphor, used of the competitor who would take on the victor in a bout.
the crown that is in his heart: Tissaphernes is hinting that he may have ambitions himself and so be particularly eager to have the Greeks’ support. It is unlikely that he did have any such ambitions. He is, rather, pandering to the Greeks’ sense of themselves as kingmakers (compare their earlier offer to Ariaeus). See C. J. Tuplin, ‘Treacherous Hearts and Upright Tiaras’, in L. Llewellyn-Jones and M. Harlow (eds.), The Clothed Body in Antiquity (Oxford, forthcoming).
strongly insistent: Ctesias, by contrast, says that Clearchus went to Tissaphernes’ tent against his will (FGH 688 F 27).
murdered: Xenophon presents the arrest and execution of the generals and the killing of their followers as an act of Persian perjury. The Greeks may, however, have placed themselves in the wrong by foraging (they did not have sufficient money to buy all their provisions from the market Tissaphernes was supplying). Tissaphernes seems to have exploited the Greeks’ weakness (as well as the tensions among the Greek generals) and made them swear to terms they would not be able to keep: see S. R. Bassett, ‘Innocent Victims or Perjurers Betrayed? The Arrest of the Generals in Xenophon’s Anabasis’, Classical Quarterly, 52 (2002), 447–61.
Proxenus and Meno: while there have been hints of Meno’s duplicity (note to p. 44), the unexplained mention of Xenophon’s friend Proxenus is surprising: it could be a Persian attempt to instil distrust among the Greeks, but Ctesias (FGH 688 F 27) states that Proxenus was involved in the plan to trap the other Greek generals.
beheaded: Ctesias (FGH 688 FF 27–8) reports that the generals were taken to Babylon and that he was able to help Clearchus there as a service to Parysatis. If this is true, they were not executed at once (Xenophon does say later that Meno was kept alive for a year). Ctesias also reports that while the other generals’ bodies were torn apart by dogs and birds, a sudden wind caused a mound to rise up over Clearchus’ corpse and a grove of trees later grew on the mound (F 28, reported sceptically by Plutarch, Artaxerxes 18.7). This story (with its hint of the Persian king’s association with fertility) perhaps stems from pro-Cyrus propaganda put out by Parysatis (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 238–9).
at war with the Athenians: the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).
ephors: the five leading officials at Sparta, who served for one year.
Hellespont: Clearchus’ governorship of Byzantium is also attested by Diodorus 14.12.2–7 and Polyaenus 2.2.7.
recorded elsewhere: an unexplained cross-reference: no such account is found in this work. Perhaps Xenophon forgot that he had not been more explicit earlier. Another hypothesis is that Xenophon wrote the obituary notices before the rest of the narrative.
Gorgias of Leontini: famous philosopher and teacher of rhetoric (c. 480–380 BC), whose extant works include The Encomium of Helen and The Defence of Palamedes.
Meno of Thessaly: the hostility of Xenophon’s obituary of Meno was explained in antiquity (Marcellinus, Life of Thucydides 27) as due to rivalry over their links with Plato (this Meno is the eponymous character in Plato’s Meno).
in the bloom of youth: the Greek adjective horaios denotes ‘the age at which one is most attractive and desirable’ (K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978), 69)—for the Greeks, the age just before the beard started to appear. For Aristippus, see 1.1.10, 1.2.1.
mature enough to have a beard: normally it was the older man who had the younger as his ‘boyfriend’ (paidika). Meno’s reversal of the norm was meant to seem shocking (cf. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 87)—and it did shock: it was the one item in Xenophon’s abuse of Meno recalled by Diogenes Laertius in his life of Xenophon (Lives of the Philosophers 2.50).
the famous Socrates of Athens: Xenophon was a pupil of Socrates, and he also wrote Socratic dialogues (Introduction, p. viii).
against the Athenians: Cyrus helped to finance the Spartan fleet after he had been appointed by his father to a special command in western Asia Minor in 407 BC. In the event, Xenophon was exiled by the Athenians, but his exile may have been because he later accompanied Agesilaus rather than because of his support for Cyrus (see Introduction, p. xv).
whether or not he should go: the oracle at Delphi was commonly consulted not just by cities planning to found a colony, for instance, or fight a war, but also by individuals seeking advice on their own problems; questions about journeys were especially common (R. C. T. Parker, ‘One Man’s Piety: The Religious Dimension of the Anabasis’, in Lane Fox (ed.), Long March, 131–53, at 147 with n. 45). Xenophon manipulated the question because he wanted to go anyway.
except Clearchus: Diodorus, by contrast, states that all the generals knew that Cyrus was marching against the king (14.9.19).
Zeus the King: for the comparison between Zeus and the Persian king, compare Gorgias’ description of Xerxes as ‘Zeus of the Persians’ (H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 82 B5a). In the Interpretation of Dreams by Artemidorus (second century AD), a dream of lightning striking a house is thought to foretell exile (2.9 p. 110.20–2 Pack).
How old do I have to be?: Xenophon was probably still under 30 at this time. His question perhaps reflects the fact that in Athens 30 was the age-limit for holding some offices and for jury service (Pseudo-Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 30.2, 63.3).
full brother: translating the Greek adjective homomētrios, literally ‘sharing
the same mother’—a word commonly used to distinguish full brothers from half-brothers.
easier to wound and kill: because the Persians were not as heavily armed as Greek hoplites.
ears pierced, Lydian-style: the Greeks thought it a sign of softness for a man to have his ears pierced, and the Lydians were commonly regarded as a luxurious and soft people (Herodotus 1.155.4). Apollonides was perhaps an ex-slave, like the Macronian peltast at 4.8.4.
someone sneezed: sneezing was regarded as an omen, and here it is a good omen because Xenophon had just uttered the word ‘survival’. Cf. Telemachus’ sneeze at Homer, Odyssey 17.541, after Penelope has just talked of the possibility of Odysseus’ return home.
did homage to the god: the Greek term is proskunēsis; see note to p. 25.
beat them: at Marathon (490 BC). The Athenians did in fact receive help from Plataea, but they later prided themselves on having fought alone.
annual sacrifice: Herodotus puts the number of Persian dead at 6,400 (6.117.1): Xenophon’s allusion implies a much higher figure (compare Plutarch, On the Malice of Herodotus 862 BC, who cites this sacrifice in a criticism of Herodotus’ figure). The sacrifice was held on the sixth day of the Athenian month Boedromion; one later source puts the number of victims at only 300 a year (Aelian, Various History 2.25). Another version was that the Athenians vowed to sacrifice oxen, but changed to goats after the battle (scholia on Aristophanes, Knights 660).
on land and sea: on land at Plataea (479 BC), on sea at Salamis (480 BC).
trophies: at the spot where a battle had turned, victorious Greek armies dedicated trophies (tropaia)—wooden frames on which they hung weapons and armour captured from the enemy.
Lycaonians: see 1.2.19 for the Lycaonians; for other autonomous peoples within the Persian empire, see 2.5.13, and Memorabilia 3.5.26 (Mysians and Pisidians).
as the lotus-eaters were: an allusion to Homer, Odyssey 9.83–104: the lotus-eaters were one of the tribes encountered by Odysseus on his return to Ithaca; those of his companions who ate the lotus plant forgot about their journey home. In the classical era geographers located a tribe of lotus-eaters on the north coast of Africa (Herodotus 4.177).
a Spartan: because the Spartans were the supreme power in Greece at this moment. Chirisophus was also leader of the 700 hoplites sent out by the Spartans (1.4.3). It has been claimed that Xenophon obscures the fact that Chirisophus was elected overall leader (Diodorus 14.27.1). It is more likely that Diodorus is oversimplifying, just as later he contradicts Xenophon by saying that Xenophon was chosen general in Thrace (14.37.1).
Zapatas river: Xenophon does not say how the army crossed this river, some 400 feet in breadth.
men from Rhodes: Rhodians were renowned as slingers. The creation of a unit of slingers has been taken to show the versatility of the hoplite, but the unit may in fact have been formed from the camp followers; this would explain why Xenophon offers a special inducement (Whitby, ‘Xenophon’s Ten Thousand’, 217–18).
Clearchus’ men: the forty horsemen with Miltocythes who deserted to the king (2.2.7).
passed muster: Xenophon uses a verb cognate with dokimasia, the term used at Athens for the examination of magistrates before they entered office.
mutilated the corpses of the dead: in battles between Greeks, by contrast, it was customary to return corpses under treaty.
inhabited by Medes: Larisa is Nimrud, the Calah/Kalhu of Genesis 10: 11. Probably the best explanation for the name Xenophon gives is that it is derived from ‘āl šarrūti’, ‘royal city’, and that Xenophon assimilated what he heard to Larisa, which is also the name of several Greek cities. The physical description matches the site well (C. J. Tuplin, ‘Xenophon in Media’, in G. B. Lanfranchi, M. Roaf, and R. Rollinger (eds.), Continuity of Empire (?): Assyria, Media, Persia (Padua, 2003), 351–89, at 374–6).
The Persian king: Cyrus the Great, who conquered the Median empire in 550 BC. Xenophon obscures the fact that Larisa/Nimrud, like Mespila/Nineveh, mentioned immediately afterwards, was an Assyrian city. Both cities had been conquered and partly destroyed by the Medes in 614–612 BC. The only other evidence for a specific Persian attack on these cities is Amyntas FGH 122 F 2, an account of the conquest of Nineveh by Cyrus. It is likely that the cities were still inhabited after the Median conquest and possible that the Persian conquest of these cities is historical. There is no reason to suppose that Xenophon himself has transferred stories from the Median conquest of Babylon to the Persian defeat of the Medes: he was presumably using local sources who were either ignorant of, or had political reasons for wanting to suppress, the Assyrian past. For a full discussion, see Tuplin, ‘Xenophon in Media’, 379–85.
hid the sun from sight: Xenophon is not referring to an eclipse, but to a meteorological event (like the thunder at Mespila, see below): at some times of the year clouds would be rare. Tuplin, ‘Xenophon in Media’, 381, compares the prophecy against Egypt at Ezekiel 32: 7: ‘I will cover the sun with a cloud.’
the Medes: Mespila is Nineveh: see above on Xenophon’s failure to mention the Assyrians. The name has been connected with Mosul (the city across the river from Nineveh) or with ‘mušpalu’ (‘lower city’). The physical description is slightly less satisfactory than the description of Nimrud (Tuplin, ‘Xenophon in Media’, 376–9).
Medea, the king’s wife: the last Median king was Astyages. The name Medea means ‘Median woman’.
section commanders under them: the Greek terms are lochagoi (leading 100 men), pentēkontēres (leading 50), and enōmotarchoi (leading 25). Both the terms and the principle of subdivision are specifically Spartan (cf. Constitution of the Spartans 11.4; Thucydides 5.68.3), but the exact relation to the organization of the Spartan army is unclear (there is nothing to correspond to the Spartan mora, and in any case the evidence for the Spartan army is hard to interpret). On one view, the arrangement corresponds to Spartan practice (‘Presumably Chirisophus knew how the various technical terms were actually used at Sparta, and this is not therefore a case of professional soldiers wanting to sound like Spartans but not really understanding the Spartan military vocabulary’, J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley, 1970), 234); others hold that the Spartan pentēkontēr was not a group of fifty soldiers (like the units set up in the Ten Thousand), but a fiftieth part of the army (e.g. J. F. Lazenby, The Spartan Army (Warminster, 1985), 5–10).
section by section: the solution to the disruption caused by narrowing of the path was to identify ‘six companies of a hundred men each who would drop behind the square whenever the flanks were compressed and then fill up any size of gap which might appear as the formation spread out’ (Whitby, ‘Xenophon’s Ten Thousand’, 233).
urged on by whips: the Greeks liked to contrast the enforced obedience in the Persian army with their own willing obedience to authority (cf. Herodotus 7.223.2, whips at Thermopylae).
eight doctors: ‘Presumably only orderlies, who did what they could in the way of bandaging’ (Anderson, Military Theory, 70). They were probably slaves.
Two thousand skins: the Rhodian seems to have learnt from the native inhabitants whom the Greeks had seen crossing rivers in this way: cf. i.5.10, 2.4.28. In asking for a talent he was asking for a very large sum.
spring and summer residences: Greek sources present the Persian king migrating between his residences at Persepolis, Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana according to the season (Cyropaedia 8.6.22; Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 12.513 F; Dio Chrysostom 6.1; Plutarch, Moral Essays 78 D, 499 AB, 604 c; Aelian, On the Nature of Animals 3.13, 10.6; scholia on Aristophanes, Knights 1089); they differ as to the details, but one constant is that Ecbatana (in mountainous Media) was the king’s summer residence. See C. J. Tuplin, ‘The Seasonal Migration of Achaemenid Kings: A Report on Old and New Evidence’, in M. Brosius and A. Kuhrt (eds.), Studies in Persian History: Essays in Memory of David M. Lewis (Leiden, 1998), 63–114.
Carduchians: often thought to be the Kurds, who live in the same area—but who also now inhabit a much wider area than Xenophon’s Carduchians.
when it seemed right to do so: normally the sacrifice would be performed immediately before departure.
the final watch: it is not certain how many watches the night was divided into. Divisions between three and five watches are attested; the length of watch may have varied by season or else different cities at different times may have had their own conventions. Stars were used to determine the time at night (cf. Memorabilia 4.7.4). See Russell, Information Gathering in Classical Greece, 28–9.
shield-bearer: Greek hupaspistēs, probably a slave; hoplites were regularly accompanied by such attendants.
loops: the Greeks were improvising javelins for throwing: the loop would be wound around the index and middle fingers (as shown on some Greek vase-paintings) to give the javelin more force when thrown and also to stabilize the flight of the javelin by causing it to rotate around its own axis.
seven days: the narrative has explicitly covered only five days so far: Xenophon seems to have included the two days to come.
Chaldean: a name normally used of the priestly caste of the Babylonians, but also used of a tribe in the Black Sea region. Strabo (12.3.19) says that the Chaldeans were previously known as the Chalybians, but both tribe-names are found in Xenophon.
whatever length of stride he wanted: the verb for ‘stride’, diabainein, also means ‘cross’, and so the dream is a good omen.
pour a libation: of wine. Some wine would be poured from a hand-held jug before a prayer was made.
a wreath on his head: sacrifices were offered before armies crossed rivers, seas, and boundaries, and garlands were regularly worn by the officiator at a sacrifice. Here, the Greeks follow a Spartan custom of putting on wreaths before going into battle (Constitution of the Spartans 13.8; Plutarch, Lycurgus 22.4–5).
kept women: Greek hetairai. Hetairai were more respectable than pornai, ‘prostitutes’: their dealings were conceived in terms of gift-giving, not in terms of cash payment for sex, and some of them lived in monogamous relationships (like Aspasia, the hetaira of the Athenian politician Pericles).
ritual cry: Greek ololugē, a shrill cry uttered by women at the climax of animal sacrifices and some other religious occasions.
governor: Greek huparchos, a more general term regularly used by Herodotus for ‘satrap’. Xenophon has already referred to Orontas as satrap of Armenia (3.5.17). His phrasing here could mean either that there was a separate satrapy of Western Armenia or that Tiribazus was governor of a sub-district within a single satrapy of Armenia. Tiribazus is mentioned mounting the king on his horse in Dinon’s account of the battle of Cunaxa (FGH 690 F 17).
greasing their bodies: for warmth and suppleness. Greeks also greased themselves before athletic exercise.
Amazons: a legendary tribe of women, localized to the north of the Black Sea, who were often depicted wielding a type of axe (sagaris).
hunger faintness: Greek boulimia (‘ox-hunger’), used of an extreme hunger that caused faintness, not (as now) of an eating disorder. It was particularly thought to occur in cold weather (Aristotle, Problems 887b37–888a22).
to take to the camp: Xenophon subsequently beat a man who tried to bury one of the invalids while he was still alive—an incident he mentions only when he has to defend himself against the charge of violence (5.8.1–11).
tribute for the king: Strabo (11.14.9) reports that during the Achaemenid period the satrap had to send 20,000 colts each year at the time of the festival of Mithras.
diluted with water: the Greeks generally diluted their wine with water; drinking unmixed wine was regarded as a mark of savageness.
Sun God: the Greeks tended to regard Mithras as the Sun God (Strabo 15.3.13); there was certainly a close relation between Mithras and the Sun, but they were probably not assimilated (Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 250–3). For horse sacrifices to the Sun, cf. Cyropaedia 8.3.12, 24; also Herodotus 1.216.4 (among the Scythians). Horse sacrifice was uncommon in Greece itself, as was cult of the Sun: the Sun received cult only in Rhodes, and Aristophanes could joke that the Sun would favour the barbarians rather than the Greeks (Peace 406–13).
Phasis river: probably the Araxes (which flows into the Caspian Sea). It has sometimes been thought that the Ten Thousand mistook this river for the Phasis that flows into the Black Sea.
from a very early age: the Similars are the Homoioi, the elite at Sparta who were put through a famously demanding system of education, the agōgē, that included thieving and flogging for those who were caught (Constitution of the Spartans 2.6–9; Plutarch, Lycurgus 17.5–6). The thieving metaphor is also applied to war in a speech by the Spartan general Brasidas at Thucydides 5.9.5; in general, the use of ruses and deception in warfare was much more common than many ideologically slanted representations of hoplite fighting suggest (P. Krentz, ‘Deception in Archaic and Classical Greek Warfare’, in van Wees, War and Violence, 167–200).
the thieves who were following us: that is, the native inhabitants: Xenophon alludes occasionally to their attacks on the rearguard.
Eurylochus of Lusi: for an earlier act of heroism by this soldier, see 4.2.21. Here, as later (7.1.32, 7.6.40), he is mentioned together with captains: he may have been promoted in the meantime.
Chalybian territory: Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 714–15, places the Chalybians to the north-east of the Scythians, that is, north of the Black Sea, but the ethnographic tradition places them, as Xenophon does, on the south coast (Hecataeus FGH 1 F 203; Herodotus 1.28; Strabo 11.14.5). They were famous among the Greeks as iron-workers, a reputation supported by modern archaeological finds.
twisted cords instead of flaps: Xenophon contrasts the Chalybians’ armour with the Greek corslet, which at its lower edge was cut into a sort of skirt formed of narrow vertical flaps (pteryges, literally ‘wings’) which provided protection without impeding movement. Asiatic troops were often described or portrayed wearing stiffened and padded linen corslets (compare the Mossynoecian dress at 5.4.13); they were also used by Greek troops. In other respects the Chalybians’ armour is strikingly similar to Greek hoplite armour.
a Laconian dirk: Greek xyēlē, a sickle-shaped tool used by the Spartans (inhabitants of Laconia). A sickle is mentioned by Plutarch in an anecdote about a fight between boys (Spartan Sayings 233 F), but the xyēlē is not shown in representations of Spartan adults fighting.
fifteen cubits long: about twenty feet long—probably an exaggeration.
first men got there: after these words some manuscripts have the phrase ‘and saw the sea’, but the addition of this clause destroys the suspense in the famous description that follows. The modern reception of this scene is discussed by T C. B. Rood, The Sea! The Sea! The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination (London, 2004).
from the right wing: the rear of the army formed the left wing during battle while the vanguard formed the right wing. So Xenophon is crossing from Chirisophus’ position on the (more honoured) right wing to his own position on the left.
on the point of death: taking apothneiskousi as dative participle rather than present indicative (which would imply that some men actually died). The poisonous honey in the area around Trebizond became famous (Pliny, Natural History 21.77), and it affected other armies too: Strabo reports that a local tribe, the Heptacometae, which he equates with a tribe Xenophon mentions, the Mossynoecians, used the poisonous honey to trap three of Pompey’s squadrons (12.3.18). A toxic compound, andromedotoxin, was identified in the honey by a German scientist in 1889; the toxin occurs in the local yellow-flowered Rhododendron luteum, and is particularly a problem when the honey is very fresh. The time of the incident is fixed by the fact that the rhododendron flowers in the Pontic mountains in late May and early June; the high route along which the Ten Thousand were marching would also have been impossible much earlier in the year because of snow. A date in late May for this episode suggests that there may be a gap of up to three months in Xenophon’s account. See A. Mayor, ‘Mad Honey!’, Archaeology, 48 (1995), 32–40, on the honey, and R. Lane Fox, ‘Introduction’, in id. (ed.), Long March, 1–46, at 36–46, on the ‘snow lacuna’ (developing the hypothesis of Manfredi, Strada, 211–15).
the sacrifice they had vowed to make: see 3.2.9, where Xenophon proposed to sacrifice to Zeus the Saviour when they reached a friendly land, and the vow just mentioned (4.8.16). The Greeks must have made other vows as well.
Dracontius the Spartiate: the Spartiates were the highest rank within the regimented Spartan society (see the note to p. 96 about Similars). The circumstances of Dracontius’ exile recall Homer, Iliad 23.85–8 (Patroclus exiled for accidentally killing another child in a quarrel over a game). The implement used by Dracontius was the sickle-shaped xyēlē.
the animal skins: skins from the victims, presumably to be given as prizes (cf. Homer, Iliad 22.159–60).
more painful for the one who is thrown: a suitably laconic remark. Wrestling bouts were won by inflicting three falls on the opponent.
a long-distance race: Greek dolichos—known examples ranged from seven
to twenty-four stades (between one and a half and four kilometres). The Cretans were renowned runners.
pancratium: a combat event involving boxing, wrestling, and kicking. See M. Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World (New Haven, 1987), 54–63.
with their friends watching: the Greek could also mean with their ‘kept women’ (hetairai) watching—in which case the Ten Thousand were ‘the first known beneficiaries of female cheer-leaders in the history of athletic sport’ (R. Lane Fox, ‘Sex, Gender and the Other in Xenophon’s Anabasis ’, in id. (ed.), Long March, 184–214, at 203).
like Odysseus: an allusion to Odysseus’ deep sleep on board the Phaeacian ship that carries him back to Ithaca (Homer, Odyssey 13.79–80).
naval commander of Sparta: Greek nauarchos, an annual command. Chirisophus’ proposal must be connected with the Spartans’ official support for Cyrus’ expedition (a fact which Xenophon obscures, see Introduction, p. xxi).
a free Laconian: Greek perioikos (literally ‘one who lives around’), used of a class of Spartans who were not full Spartan citizens and lived in Laconia in the villages and towns surrounding Sparta.
spearmen: Xenophon has not mentioned this category of fighter before. It may be that they are camp followers who have armed themselves with spears.
trying to outdo one another in bravery: see their behaviour in the attack on the citadel of the Taochians at 4.7.11–12.
Paphlagonian helmets: Paphlagonia was a province further to the west along the Black Sea coast; the helmets resemble those worn by the Mossynoecians (‘leather helmets in the Paphlagonian style, with the leather tufted around the middle so that it looked like nothing so much as a tiara’, 5.4.13).
the oldest of the generals: Xenophon seems to be inconsistent: at the meeting of the Greek generals after the battle of Cunaxa, Cleanor is described as oldest (2.1.10), though Sophaenetus was presumably present (Philesius was elected general only later, 3.1.47). At 6.5.13 Sophaenetus is described as the oldest.
the prisoners of war: in wars against non-Greeks, prisoners of war were commonly sold as slaves.
Apollo and Artemis of Ephesus: it was customary in the Greek world to offer a tenth of the spoils of war to the gods. Ephesus was an important cult centre of Artemis, marked by strong influence from Asia Minor (see below, notes to p. 113 on Megabyzus and the golden one in Ephesus).
Neon of Asine: Asine was a town in Laconia—the description marks Neon out as a perioecus rather than a Spartiate.
the Athenian treasury in Delphi: from the sixth century BC onwards, Greek cities set up at the major panhellenic sanctuaries of Olympia and Delphi separate treasuries, thēsauroi, in the form of small temples to house offerings to the gods. Xenophon presumably made his offering before he was exiled from Athens. The Athenian treasury has been reconstructed by modern archaeologists.
the expedition against Boeotia: in 394 BC. Xenophon served with Agesilaus in Asia from 396 BC: it may have been his presence with Agesilaus at the battle of Coronea (when the Athenians were on the anti-Spartan side) that led to his exile.
Megabyzus: a cult-title given to the eunuch priest of Artemis at Ephesus (Strabo 14.1.23; Pliny, Natural History 35.93). The name is Persian, the Greek rendering of Bagabuxša, ‘who serves the god’. For Persian respect for Artemis of Ephesus, cf. Hellenica 1.2.6; Thucydides 8.109.1; Strabo 14.1.5; Tacitus, Annals 3.61; Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 701–2.
After Xenophon became an exile: for the date and circumstances of Xenophon’s exile, see Introduction, p. xv.
as a spectator: Greek theōrēsōn, also implying that he was a theōros, an official envoy sent by his home city to the festival.
the god: Apollo’s oracle at Delphi.
joined in the feast: public festivals were commonly marked by the distribution of sacrificial meat (one of the few occasions on which Greeks would eat meat). Xenophon seems to have gained personal prestige from the festival he set up.
the golden one in Ephesus: remarkable marble statues of Artemis of Ephesus survive from the Roman era: the goddess is decorated with figures of animals and endowed with a pectoral of breast-shaped protrusions. It is not certain that the goddess’s statue in Ephesus had the same appearance in Xenophon’s day. For discussion of Xenophon’s sanctuary, see C. J. Tuplin, ‘Xenophon, Artemis and Scillus’, in T. Figueira (ed.), Spartan Society (Swansea, 2004), 258–81.
Mossynoecians: the name means ‘those who live in mossynoi (wooden towers)’.
the job of representing Mossynoecian interests: Greek proxenos, a word used of a citizen who looked after the interests of another state in his own city (the Greeks did not have consulates).
like the two halves of a chorus: not referring to theatrical or lyric choruses, but to dancers arranged in opposing lines (cf. Symposium 2.20). Xenophon also uses an analogy between an army and dancers at Cyropaedia 1.6.18.
because they were after booty: a sign of the growing indiscipline among the Ten Thousand as they got nearer to Greece: see Introduction, p. xxxiii.
the wooden tower: Xenophon writes ‘the’ wooden tower even though it has not been mentioned before, perhaps because the name ‘Mossynoecians’ itself means ‘wooden-tower dwellers’.
their own religious processions: compare the Arcadian celebration of the Lycaea at 1.2.10. The ethnic splintering here perhaps anticipates the later Arcadian breakaway (6.2.16).
what the saying describes as ‘‘sacred counsel’‘: there was a proverb ‘counsel is a sacred thing’ (Plato, Theages 122 b2–3).
this idea of his: ‘Xenophon had consulted the gods before consulting the people, whereas the principle in a democracy or even a broad oligarchy was that, where matters of collective concern were at issue, the decision to consult the gods was itself collective; otherwise the decision might be pre-empted’ (Parker, ‘One Man’s Piety’, in Lane Fox (ed.), Long March, 152).
the truth about the ten days: see 1.7.18.
one Cyzicene stater: common currency in the Black Sea region (Cyzicus was a city on the Asian shore of the Propontis), worth about 26 Attic drachmas. The pay offered is close to the average pay of a drachma a day. Pharnabazus’ domain: Pharnabazus was satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, a satrapy that had been held by his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. He had supported the Spartans in the Ionian War (the final part of the Peloponnesian War), when he had been a rival of Tissaphernes.
Dercylidas: Spartan general who had worked with Pharnabazus in the Ionian War, and later led the Spartan army (including the remnants of the Ten Thousand) in Asia, when he attacked Pharnabazus (Hellenica 3.1.8–2.20).
plenty of abundantly rich land in Greece: a paradox for most Greeks, who saw their own land as poor and Asia as rich. The proposal to settle in the Chersonese (the Gallipoli Peninsula) was unrealistic: there had been Athenian settlers in the Chersonese down to end of the Peloponnesian War, but it is scarcely likely that the Spartans would have simply let the Ten Thousand take it (Xenophon later mentions a Spartan officer there, 7.1.13).
Aeëtes: the same name as the mythical ruler of Colchis (the father of Medea).
back to Phasis: contrast the proposal ‘to sail to Phasis’: the addition of ‘back’ perhaps created the mistaken impression that the proposal was to sail back to the Phasis river in Armenia (4.6.4) rather than to the Phasis river in Colchis.
to escape to the sea: the incident is described by Xenophon in the speech that follows.
the official representatives of their village: Greek presbeis, who were conventionally protected (though not so strongly as heralds).
treating the army abominably: market officials (Greek agoranomoi) whose responsibilities would have included keeping order in the market (or agora) and collecting market dues.
where we expected to win praise from everyone: Greece.
purified: techniques of purification included sprinkling, fumigation, and sacrifice: in Macedonia, before the start of each campaigning season a dog was sacrificed and cut in half, and the army then marched between the two halves. The purification was a ‘reassertion of the army’s corporate identity as a disciplined unit’ (R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983), 23); similar acts of purification are attested after instances of civil discord, and also in Alexander’s army after a period of indiscipline (Curtius Rufus 10.9.11).
the merchant cargoes: see 5.1.16.
had been elected: see 5.3.1.
they framed the charge as one of assault: a charge of hybris, that is, malicious and violent assault designed to demean the victim.
the snow lay very deep on the ground: in Armenia (4.5).
singing the Sitalces: a Thracian war-song (Sitalces was a Thracian royal name).
karpaia: this is the only reference to this dance. The name is derived from karpos, ‘fruit’ or ‘produce’.
Persian dance: Duris of Samos (FGH 76 F 5) reports that this was a vigorous dance thought to be useful for developing physical strength, and that during the festival of Mithras only the king was allowed to dance it. Cf. Cyropaedia 8.4.12; Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 252–3.
Pyrrhic dance: a famous war-dance, originally from Sparta.
the oracle he had been given at Delphi: see 3.1.5–8 (where the god is not named).
managing the army: the dream is recounted at 3.1.11–12.
anything you might want from them: for the importance of having a Spartan leader, cf. 3.2.37, with note to p. 66.
angry with both you and me: a clear hint at the Spartan Chirisophus.
symposiarch: the leader of a symposium, also sometimes known as the basileus (‘king’) or prytanis (‘president’). His duties were to make sure that guests at the symposium were neither too sober nor too drunk (Plato, Laws 640c4–5).
from being company commanders: these Arcadian sensitivities soon lead to a short-lived Arcadian breakaway. There had been anti-Spartan feeling in Arcadia during the Peloponnesian War, and after the Spartan defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC the Arcadians achieved independence.
where the Argo is said to have landed: on Jason’s voyage to Colchis to fetch the golden fleece.
Parthenius: in fact, the Parthenius is the only one of these rivers that lies to the west of Sinope. It has sometimes been suspected that the passage is an interpolation (prompted perhaps by the Sinopean Hecatonymus’ remarks on these rivers at 5.5.9), but it is quite possible that Xenophon himself made the mistake.
to fetch the hound Cerberus: Heracles’ descent was also located here by a contemporary writer, the mythographer Herodorus, himself an inhabitant of Heraclea (FGH 31 F 31); cf. also Euphorion fr. 35 Scheidweiler. An etymology of the city name Heraclea is implied. For the entrance to the underworld, cf. also Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.353–6. More commonly, the entrance to the underworld where Heracles descended was located at Taenarum in the southern Peloponnese (Euripides, Heracles 23–5; Apollodorus 2.5.12; Pausanias 3.25.4).
harmost: the Spartan term used for the governors installed in Greek cities by the Spartans after the end of the Peloponnesian War.
since he was not well: the first mention of Chirisophus’ illness.
who begin with the gods: that is, by taking omens and sacrificing. The phrase is proverbial.
cavalry: Timasion is again in charge of the cavalry at 7.3.46, but earlier an Athenian, Lycius, has been the cavalry commander (3.3.20, 4.3.22, 25, 4.7.24). Xenophon does not explain whether Lycius had died or left the army or been demoted for some reason.
Calpe Harbour: the description that follows hints at the site’s suitability for colonization.
Greece: this account of the motivation of the Greek mercenaries (which strictly refers only to those who had set sail, and not to those recruited in Ionia) seems strongly apologetic (see Introduction, pp. xxvi–xxvii).
Spithridates: he later revolted from Pharnabazus and joined the Spartans when Pharnabazus wanted to make his daughter a concubine and not a wife (Hellenica 3.4.10; Agesilaus 3.3); but he was mistreated and left the alliance (Hellenica 4.1.20–8).
Everyone agreed that this was a good idea: use of reserves had been uncommon in fifth-century BC hoplite battles; reserves are mentioned at the battle of Amphipolis in 422 BC and the first battle at Syracuse in 415 BC (Thucydides 5.9.8, 6.67.1), but these units were not as mobile as the reserve troops Xenophon sets up here. Xenophon’s tactics anticipate future developments in Greek warfare.
the oldest of the generals: see note to p. 112.
to have our weapons reversed: it would probably have been hard for the hoplite to sling across his back his shield, with its double grip, its diameter of about 3 feet, and its weight of about 15 pounds (some earlier shields shown on Greek vases have a strap around the neck that would have made this possible).
broke off their pursuit early: rough ground was difficult for cavalry, so it would normally be sought by troops being pursued by cavalry, not by cavalry in flight. Xenophon implies that the Greeks could have inflicted heavier casualties had they kept on with their pursuit.
see these envoys: Xenophon is stressing either the measures he took to avoid suspicion or the fact that he respected due process by bringing the envoys before assembly.
Dexippus: for his earlier behaviour, see 5.1.15, 6.1.32. If Xenophon’s hostile presentation is correct, the fact that he dared to return shows his trust in the power of Sparta and in his own slanders against the Ten Thousand.
in violation of the decree: see 6.6.2.
Dracontius the Spartiate: See 4.8.26.
By the Twin Gods: the Tyndarids, Castor and Pollux, who were important deities at Sparta (they were carried on military campaigns by the two Spartan kings, Herodotus 5.75.2). Xenophon characterizes the Spartan speaker by using the Doric form tō siō.
to be each other’s guest-friend: xenoi, see note to p. 4.
Anaxibius asked: the relations that ensue between the Ten Thousand and the Spartan leaders in the Hellespont are confused. First, the Spartans seek to gratify the satrap Pharnabazus by arranging for the Ten Thousand to cross the Hellespont. The Spartans are themselves afraid for the safety of the strategic city of Byzantium, and keen for the Ten Thousand to leave Byzantium and either serve in the Chersonese or else disband (the promise of pay if the Ten Thousand marched to the Chersonese may have been a ruse). Anaxibius makes Xenophon stay with the Ten Thousand, presumably because he wants to use Xenophon’s influence over the mercenaries to achieve his own plans. It is only when the Ten Thousand have left Byzantium and his own term of office is over that Anaxibius lets Xenophon accompany him on his journey home. Complications arise when Pharnabazus goes back on his promises to Anaxibius. Xenophon claims that Anaxibius then reverses his policy and tries to keep the Ten Thousand together in the hope that they may be able to harm Pharnabazus’ interests. It is because Xenophon lets himself be used by Anaxibius in this move away from official Spartan policy that he incurs the displeasure of the new Spartan governor of Byzantium, Aristarchus. For discussion, see J. Roisman, ‘Anaxibios and Xenophon’s Anabasis’, Ancient History Bulletin, 2 (1988), 80–7.
Seuthes of Thrace: a Thracian prince who had been brought up by the king, Medocus, and was now seeking to recover land previously controlled by his father (see n. to p. 165). References to Seuthes as a king at this period (Diodorus 13.105.3; Nepos, Alcibiades 7.5, 8.3) are anachronistic: it was only later that he established himself as a rival to Medocus. After his death in 383 BC, his son Cotys reunited the Odrysian kingdom. See Z. H. Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked (Oxford, 1998).
he had recently become: see 6.6.35; for ‘harmost’, see note to p. 140.
Eteonicus: a prominent Spartan general in the later stages of the Peloponnesian War, with experience in northern Greece as harmost of Thasos in 410 BC (Hellenica 1.1.32) and as an admiral in Thrace (Hellenica 2.2.5).
Sacred Mountain: on the north coast of the Propontis, on the immediate route between Byzantium and the Chersonese. Strabo (7 F 55 (56)) calls the mountain ‘a sort of acropolis of the country’.
1,000 talents: at the start of the Peloponnesian War Pericles claimed that the Athenians’ income from their allies amounted to 600 talents (Thucydides 2.13.3). As the state also had other sources of income, Xenophon’s statement is reasonable.
the first Greek city we’ve come to: in fact, Trapezus was the first Greek city the Ten Thousand came to (4.8.22), and they had also been to Cerasus, Cotyora, Sinope, Heraclea, and Chrysopolis. Xenophon’s rhetoric separates the Greek cities on the Black Sea coast (which intermingled strongly with the native populations) from Byzantium, closer to mainland Greece and the Greek cities along the shores of the Propontis and along the Aegean coast of Asia Minor.
Coeratadas of Thebes: a military specialist like Phalinus (2.1.7), cf. Memorabilia 3.1.1 and Plato, Laches 181e-183d for other such military experts. He is probably the same as the Coeratadas who was leader of the Boeotian force helping Clearchus as harmost of Byzantium in 408 BC: in charge of the city at the time of its betrayal to the Athenians, he was taken prisoner, but escaped on landing at Athens (Hellenica 1.3.15–22). Later he returned to Thebes and is found on the pro-Spartan side in 395 BC (Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 20.1).
Delta: the triangular region between the Black Sea and the Bosporus, to the north of Byzantium.
Neon of Asine . . . Timasion of Dardanus: an incomplete list. Cleanor has been left out, presumably by mistake. Also missing is Sophaenetus of Stymphalus, who was last mentioned at Calpe Harbour (6.5.13). Phryniscus of Achaea, who is mentioned here for the first time, seems to have replaced Sophaenetus as general, but Xenophon has not mentioned whether Sophaenetus was deposed, left the army, or (if the memoir of the expedition written in his name is a later forgery) died.
asking him to honour their agreement: see the vague formulation at 7.1.1, ‘he promised to do anything Anaxibius asked’.
Teres: the founder of the Odrysian kingdom (see note to p. 165 below). Seuthes was probably his grandson: for a reconstruction of his family tree, see Archibald, Odrysian Kingdom, 104.
night-fighting: cf. their night attack at 7.4.14–18; Polyaenus 2.2.6.
he and the Athenians were related: a bond of kinship forged through myth: the Thracian king Tereus (regarded as an ancestor of Teres) was said to have married Procne, the daughter of the Athenian king Pandion. See Thucydides 2.29.
When things turned bad for the Odrysians: for the Odrysians’ former power, see Thucydides 2.97. Their kingdom had been founded by Teres, probably in the 470s BC, after the Persian defeat in Greece; Teres was succeeded by his son Sitalces, who on his death in 424 BC was succeeded by his nephew Seuthes I (died c. 410 BC). At its utmost, the kingdom stretched between the coasts of the Black Sea and Propontis to the east and south, the Danube to the north, and the Strymon and the Oescus (Isker) to the west. Towards the end of the fifth century BC the Odrysian king’s control over this area became weaker, and local despots like Seuthes became powerful. It is possible, however, that Seuthes is referring only to the Odrysians’ loss of control over the area that his father had ruled, a small corner of their kingdom, and that this does not reflect the position in the rest of the kingdom.
in Thrace: compare Herodotus’ account of Thracian marriage customs (5.6.1).
the Sacred Mountain: Xenophon has not previously mentioned that the Spartans wanted the troops to march across this difficult route; his claim here may be devious.
some of your fellow countrymen: an allusion to the Athenian politician Alcibiades, who gained influence with Medocus and Seuthes (Diodorus 13.105.3) when he was exiled from Athens in 406 BC. His possessions in Thrace are mentioned at Hellenica 1.5.17; Nepos, Alcibiades 74 (Bisanthe and New Fort—two of the places said at 7.5.8 to have been offered to Xenophon—and Orni).
the last drops of wine: the Thracian custom of sprinkling the last drops of wine on the clothes of other guests is mentioned by Plato, Laws 637e2–5 and Suda s.v. kataskedazein, where this passage is cited.
like a magadis: a Thracian harp (Duris FGH 76 F 28), used for octave concord (M. L. West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 72–3). Xenophon means that the trumpets were played in both a high and a low pitch.
long cloaks: Thracian patterned cloaks (zeirai) are depicted on Greek vases; compare also Herodotus 7.75.1.
attracted to boys: Greek paiderastes—an unusual instance of the Greeks’ characterizing a man by his sexual preferences. Xenophon has earlier mentioned another Episthenes who was a lover of boys (4.6.1), from Amphipolis, close to Olynthus: it is possible that this is the same man and that Xenophon made a mistake about his home city. But it should be noted that the earlier Episthenes is named Plisthenes in some MSS.
light shield: the peltē, regarded by the Greeks as a Thracian shield in origin.
who had just reached the period of bloom: see note to p. 53.
from these villages either: it is odd that Seuthes did not simply gather the villagers’ food stores and leave. Perhaps he was setting them a trap.
as is their custom: the Thracians’ shields, which could easily be swung behind their backs, by contrast with the less mobile hoplite shields (see note to p. 149).
Hieronymus of Epitalium: this is the Hieronymus of Elis mentioned three times earlier, assuming that the emendation ‘of Epitalium’ (a town in Elis) is correct.
Teres the Odrysian: not the same as the Teres mentioned earlier (7.2.22), but a local ruler who had lost control of the area he ruled (note how Xenophon separates it from that of Seuthes’ father, who had also lost his domain). He may be the Teres mentioned by a scholion on Aristophanes, Acharnians 145, a son of Sitalces and so grandson of the earlier Teres.
written scrolls: this is the earliest evidence for large-scale trade in books.
to take charge of the war effort: Hellenica 3.1.4; the key change in Spartan policy, as the Spartans turned against their former paymasters with the goal of ‘liberating’ the Greek cities in Asia Minor. Thibron was later banished for maltreating Sparta’s allies (Hellenica 3.1.8), but he was in command again in 391 BC, when he was killed by the Persian general Struthas (Hellenica 4.8.18–19).
panders to their wishes: the Greek verb is dēmagōgein, ‘to be a demagogue’: the term ‘demagogue’ evidently had a hostile sense for the anti-democratic Spartans.
to help you: Xenophon in fact returned because he had been sent back by the Spartans (7.2.8–9), as he acknowledges below.
messages: only two messages have been mentioned earlier (7.1.5, 7.2.10).
let alone the other generals: referring to the distribution of mules and oxen at 7.5.2–4.
Perinthus: for the Ten Thousand’s arrival, see 7.2.11. Xenophon has not mentioned previously that the gates were shut against them.
organized units of cavalry or peltasts: Xenophon has not previously mentioned that the separate units had disbanded during his absence from the army: the usual unit of forty cavalry is attested at 7.3.46. His claim here is probably a rhetorical exaggeration to make the army’s plight seem greater.
trophies: only two have been mentioned in the narrative (4.6.27, 6.5.32).
put to death by Thibron: compare the earlier hint of a threat to Xenophon from the Spartans at 7.2.14, and the later hint at 7.7.51.
6,000 men: they had been 8,600 when counted at Cerasus, but many had been killed or left since then, and 6,000 is in fact an exaggeration of their current numbers, which were probably about 5,300. Isocrates referred to the army as 6,000 in number (4.146).
thirty talents: this figure suggests that the army numbered about 5,300 at this stage (see above).
everything else I promised you: Seuthes has earlier promised to make the Greeks his companions, to give them land and oxen, and to give Xenophon his daughter (7.2.36–8).
unfair tactics against you: referring to the night attack described at 7.4.12–24.
who shall I say the talent is from?: Xenophon’s worry is that producing any money from Seuthes—even for distribution—would raise suspicions that he had hidden away some of Seuthes’ money for himself. He also implies that Seuthes would be laying himself open to suspicion: previously Heraclides has been blamed for not giving out in full the money gained from selling booty, but now Seuthes appears to have some money in reserve himself. One talent was in any case too paltry a sum to meet the troops’ grievances. The sum is not mentioned again: it seems that Xenophon did not take it.
to watch out for stones when I leave here: see 7.6.10.
Thanks to you: see 7.6.39. Xenophon is eager to gratify the Spartans.
officially banished: on the circumstances of Xenophon’s exile, see Introduction, p. xv. This sentence need not imply that Xenophon was banished soon after the expedition came to an end.
the murals in the Lyceum: the Lyceum was a famous sanctuary outside the city walls of Athens, containing a temple of Apollo Lyceius, a gymnasium, and a parade ground; it was frequented by Socrates and other philosophers. Nothing else is known of the painter Cleagoras—if he was indeed a painter: the verb graphein can mean ‘write’ or ‘paint’, and ‘murals’ (entoichia) is an emendation; some manuscripts read enupnia, which gives the sense ‘who wrote The Dreams in the Lyceum’.
Zeus the Compassionate: Zeus Meilichius, the chthonic (subterranean) Zeus, who was sometimes worshipped in the form of a snake; the most important festival of Zeus at Athens, the Diasia, was held in his honour.
fifty darics: the price (about 1,300 Attic drachmas) suggests an especially fine horse (an ordinary horse would have cost about 300 drachmas).
Hellas: her name means ‘Greece’. It has been argued that she was descended from the Athenian general Themistocles and the Spartan king Damaratus (Wiedersich, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, Stuttgart, 1924, Supplement IV, cols. 728–9), both exiles in Persia, but this is implausible.
Gongylus of Eretria: in the Hellenica (3.1.6), Xenophon mentions a Gongylus who was given four cities in Asia Minor by the Persian king because he was the only citizen of Eretria (in Euboea) to medize; the medism must refer to his service as commander in Byzantium in the 470s BC, when he collaborated with the medizing Spartan regent Pausanias and sent some noble Persian prisoners back to Persia (Thucydides 1.128.5–6). It is often thought that the Gongylus married to Hellas was the son of this medizing Gongylus, but he is more likely to be the same man (note that Xenophon calls him an Eretrian). His two sons mentioned here went over to the Spartan army in Asia Minor under Thibron.
Damaratus: see n. on p. 33. Like the two sons of Gongylus, Procles later went over to the Spartans (Hellenica 3.1.6). One of his descendants married into the family of Gongylus (an early third-century BC inscription from Delos honours a Damaratus son of Gorgion: W. Dittenberger (ed.), Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (3rd edn.; Leipzig, 1915–24), 381).