ANABASIS

By Xenophon

Translation by H. G. Dakyns

Dedicated To
Rev. B. Jowett, M.A. 
Master of Balliol College
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford

Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C.  He was a pupil of Socrates.  He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens.  Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth.  He died in 354 B.C.

The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a leading role.  This occurred between 401 B.C. and March 399 B.C.

PREPARER’S NOTE

This was typed from Dakyns’ series, “The Works of Xenophon,” a four-volume set.  The complete list of Xenophon’s works (though there is doubt about some of these) is: 

Work Number of books

The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
The Cyropaedia 8
The Memorabilia 4
The Symposium 1
The Economist 1
On Horsemanship 1
The Sportsman 1
The Cavalry General 1
The Apology 1
On Revenues 1
The Hiero 1
The Agesilaus 1
The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians 2

Text in brackets “{}” is my transliteration of Greek text into English using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.  The diacritical marks have been lost.

ANABASIS

BY

XENOPHON

ANABASIS

BOOK I

Darius and Parysatis had two sons:  the elder was named Artaxerxes, and 1 the younger Cyrus.  Now, as Darius lay sick and felt that the end of life drew near, he wished both his sons to be with him.  The elder, as it chanced, was already there, but Cyrus he must needs send for from the province over which he had made him satrap, having appointed him general moreover of all the forces that muster in the plain of the Castolus.  Thus Cyrus went up, taking with him Tissaphernes as his friend, and accompanied also by a body of Hellenes, three hundred heavy armed men, under the command of Xenias the Parrhasian[1].