1800 Map of the retreat of the 10,000
From an original plate of The Ancient History by Charles Rollin of 1800, From Wiki: The Ten Thousand (Ancient Greek: οἱ Μύριοι) were a group of mercenary units, mainly Greek, drawn up by Cyrus the Younger to attempt to wrest the throne of the Persian Empire from his brother, Artaxerxes II. Their march to the Battle of Cunaxa and back to Greece (401–399 BC) was recorded by Xenophon (one of its leaders) in his work, The Anabasis. The "ten thousand" marched inland and fought the Battle of Cunaxa and then marched back to Greece during the years 401 BC to 399 BC. Xenophon stated in The Anabasis that the Greek heavy troops scattered their opposition twice during the battle; only one Greek was even wounded. Only after the battle did they hear that Cyrus had been killed, making their victory irrelevant and the expedition a failure. The "ten thousand" were in the middle of a very large empire with no food, no employer, and no reliable friends. They offered to make their Persian ally Ariaeus king, but he refused on the grounds that he was not of royal blood and so would not find enough support among the Persians to succeed. They offered their services to Tissaphernes, a leading satrap of Artaxerxes, but he refused them, and they refused to surrender to him. Tissaphernes was left with a problem; a large army of heavy troops, which he could not defeat by frontal assault. He supplied them with food and, after a long wait, led them northwards for home
Size: 3427px × 2697px
Location: Asia Middle East
Photo credit: © Historical Images Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 000, 10, anabasis, artaxerxes, asia, assyria, babylonia, carduchi, cyrus, diarbek, empire, greek, history, holy, ii, ionia, land, map, media, mercenaries, mesopotamia, minor, natolia, paphlagonia, persian, phoenicia, retreat, superior, ten, thousand, xenophon, younger
