Frieze from the palace of Tiglath Pilezer in Nimrud, today in the British Museum. Xenophon may have seen this in his wanderings across Asia.
In 401BC, the Persian prince Cyrus revolted against his brother Artaxerxes, ruler of the ancient Iranian empire. Alas for Cyrus, his rebellion was short lived and his army was defeated in battle outside Babylon. This left 10,000 Greek mercenaries in Cyrus’ service stranded far from home. The victorious Artaxerxes gave the Greeks the option of surrendering, but only on the condition that they laid down their arms. When the Greeks refused, their generals were invited to discuss the matter further, and were promptly murdered. Xenophon was then elected by the men to be one of their new leaders, and he led the Greeks on an epic march to the coast and then back to their homeland.
Xenophon’s account of the expedition, The Anabasis, was written many years later, while he was living in exile. I first encountered it in mutant form as the cult film The Warriors, in which a gang of youths fight their way home from the Bronx to their home turf of Coney Island, and finally experienced the source material when I dedicated 2019 to reading the classics of Ancient Greece. But while Xenophon’s accounts of battles, ritual sacrifices and military maneuvers were interesting enough, I found that I was primarily drawn to his digressions — brief asides about weird cultures, unusual incidents or strange things that he had seen.
These moments illuminated, however briefly, peoples and customs and places otherwise completely vanished from history. It was like staring at the background of an old photograph, hoping to spy some lost details. And yet the subjects of his digressions were the main characters in their own lives, they had their own stories, myths, deities and ways of doing things. To them, Xenophon was the digression.
One of Xenophon’s anecdotes has haunted me ever since I read it, so recently I went back to extract the passage from the text and record it in a notebook, only to find myself collating several other asides, which I present here for your edification and delight.
How not to eat an ostrich
A recurring problem when you are on the march with a large army is finding enough food for all your men. For the Greeks, who begin The Anabasis as invaders before being forced to retreat, access to necessary supplies is always precarious; many of the people they encounter are afraid of them or openly hostile.
In this sequence, Cyrus is still alive and leading the army to their encounter with his brother’s forces. After passing through Syria they discover a new landscape, filled with wild game — including ostriches, which prove difficult to catch…
Thence he marched on through Arabia, keeping the Euphrates on the right, five desert stages—thirty-five parasangs1. In this region the ground was one long level plain, stretching far and wide like the sea, full of absinth; whilst all the other vegetation, whether wood or reed, was sweet scented like spice or sweet herb; there were no trees; but there was wild game of all kinds—wild asses in greatest abundance, with plenty of ostriches; besides these, there were bustards and antelopes. These creatures were occasionally chased by the cavalry. The asses, when pursued, would run forward a space, and then stand still—their pace being much swifter than that of horses; and as soon as the horses came close, they went through the same performance. The only way to catch them was for the riders to post themselves at intervals, and to hunt them in relays, as it were. The flesh of those they captured was not unlike venison, only more tender. No one was lucky enough to capture an ostrich. Some of the troopers did give chase, but it had soon to be abandoned; for the bird, in its effort to escape, speedily put a long interval between itself and its pursuers; plying its legs at full speed, and using its wings the while like a sail. The bustards were not so hard to catch when started suddenly; for they only take short flights, like partridges, and are soon tired. Their flesh is delicious. (Book I Chapter V)
Deserted fortresses
Nowadays we put fences around ruins and charge people to enter but this is a recent custom. The ancient world was filled with abandoned cities, towns and forts, and for millennia those who lived nearby would plunder them as a source of building materials, or live in the shadow of their walls. In some places the tradition continues; when I visited Istanbul in 2012 the authorities were only just getting round to chasing the gypsies out of their little dwellings in the ancient Byzantine city wall. In Turkmenistan, meanwhile, I saw boys grazing goats in the ruins of ancient cities.
I am fascinated by the glimpses Xenophon gives of these empty cities and settlements. In some cases their abandonment appears to be recent: the inhabitants are fleeing the Greeks — in others, the cities have been unoccupied for a longer period. Xenophon’s descriptions of these sites tend to be very brief, no doubt because his focus was on survival rather than tourism. For instance:
As the army wended its way through this region, they reached the river Mascas, which is one hundred feet in breadth. Here stood a big deserted city called Corsote, almost literally environed by the stream, which flows round it in a circle. Here they halted three days and provisioned themselves. (Book I chapter V)
Sometimes, however, he does provide a little historical background. For instance, while fighting their way through what is now Iraq, Xenophon’s men pause to indulge in a spot of corpse mutilation in order to terrify their enemies. Then they stumble upon a city called“Larissa”:
So fared the foe and so fell back; but the Hellenes, continuing their march in safety for the rest of that day, reached the river Tigris. Here they came upon a large deserted city, the name of which was Larissa: a place inhabited by the Medes in days of old; the breadth of its walls was twenty-five feet, and the height of them a hundred, and the circuit of the whole two parasangs. It was built of clay-bricks, supported on a stone basis twenty feet high. This city the king of the Persians besieged, what time the Persians strove to snatch their empire from the Medes, but he could in no wise take it; then a cloud hid the face of the sun and blotted out the light thereof, until the inhabitants were gone out of the city, and so it was taken. By the side of this city there was a stone pyramid in breadth a hundred feet, and in height two hundred feet; in it were many of the barbarians who had fled for refuge from the neighbouring villages.
And then a little after that he discovers another abandoned city:
From this place they marched one stage of six parasangs to a great deserted fortress (which lay over against the city), and the name of that city was Mespila. The Medes once dwelt in it. The basement was made of polished stone full of shells; fifty feet was the breadth of it, and fifty feet the height; and on this basement was reared a wall of brick, the breadth whereof was fifty feet and the height thereof four hundred; and the circuit of the wall was six parasangs. Hither, as the story goes, Medea, the king's wife, betook herself in flight what time the Medes lost their empire at the hands of the Persians. To this city also the king of the Pesians laid siege, but could not take it either by length of days or strength of hand. But Zeus sent amazement on the inhabitants thereof, and so it was taken. (Book III Chapter IV)
The first time I read these passages, I didn’t pay much attention to the dimensions Xenophon provided, and just assumed that they were mysterious places, lost to time. However, when I re-read it and saw that he was describing a city with 100 foot tall walls and a radius of seven miles, I realized that this was no simple fortress in the middle of nowhere. Looking up the names, I discovered that Xenophon had actually stumbled upon some extremely significant ruins indeed.
“Larissa” was the Assyrian city of Nimrud, which appears in Genesis 10:11 under the name “Calah”. Nimrud was founded about 1000 years before Xenophon turned up and was the second capital of Assyrian empire. I myself have seen reliefs from the palace in the British Museum (see above), which were excavated in the 1840s by Henry Layard. As late as the 1980s, archaeologists were digging up royal tombs full of treasures. And then, in 2015, it was all razed to the ground by Isis.
Mespila, meanwhile is Nineveh, which today is known as Mosul. This was the oldest city of the Assyrian empire; the earliest known settlement on the site dates as far back as the 7th millennium BC. Nineveh was redesigned and rebuilt around 700BC, and a few decades after that King Ashurbanipal established his great library there, where he housed his vast collection of texts from across the Assyrian empire. It is to Ashurbanipal’s efforts that we owe our knowledge of the epic of Gilgamesh, as well as alternative versions of the flood myth and much else besides.
The Assyrians ruled their empire from Nineveh until 612BC when the city was sacked following a revolt by subject peoples. Xenophon does not mention the Assyrians, only the Medes and Persians who would occupy it later. Within 200 years, the mighty kings who had hunted lions and collected the heads of their enemies had already been forgotten.
Ubu dance party
In Paphlagonia, Xenophon’s men conduct raids while the locals conduct retaliatory kidnappings. Eventually the two parties arrange a meeting to see if they can put a stop to the mutually destructive hostilities. These discussions culminate in a dance party, in which all the moves are simulations of ultra violence:
“…as soon as the libation was ended and they had sung the hymn, up got first some Thracians, who performed a dance under arms to the sound of a pipe, leaping high into the air with much nimbleness, and brandishing their swords, till at last one man struck his fellow, and every one thought he was really wounded, so skilfully and artistically did he fall, and the Paphlagonians screamed out. Then he that gave the blow stripped the other of his arms, and marched off chanting the "Sitalcas (1)," whilst others of the Thracians bore off the other, who lay as if dead, though he had not received even a scratch.
After this some Aenianians and Magnesians got up and fell to dancing the Carpaea, as it is called, under arms. This was the manner of the dance: one man lays aside his arms and proceeds to drive a yoke of oxen, and while he drives he sows, turning him about frequently, as though he were afraid of something; up comes a cattle-lifter, and no sooner does the ploughman catch sight of him afar, than he snatches up his arms and confronts him. They fight in front of his team, and all in rhythm to the sound of the pipe. At last the robber binds the countryman and drives off the team. Or sometimes the cattle-driver binds the robber, and then he puts him under the yoke beside the oxen, with his two hands tied behind his back, and off he drives.
After this a Mysian came in with a light shield in either hand and danced, at one time going through a pantomime, as if he were dealing with two assailants at once; at another plying his shields as if to face a single foe, and then again he would whirl about and throw somersaults, keeping the shields in his hands, so that it was a beautiful spectacle. Last of all he danced the Persian dance, clashing the shields together, crouching down on one knee and springing up again from earth; and all this he did in measured time to the sound of the flute. After him the Mantineans stepped upon the stage, and some other Arcadians also stood up; they had accoutred themselves in all their warlike finery. They marched with measured tread, pipes playing, to the tune of the 'warrior's march'; the notes of the paean rose, lightly their limbs moved in dance, as in solemn procession to the holy gods.
The locals are unaccustomed to such relentlessly macho dancing:
The Paphlagonians looked upon it as something truly strange that all these dances should be under arms; and the Mysians, seeing their astonishment persuaded one of the Arcadians who had got a dancing girl to let him introduce her, which he did after dressing her up magnificently and giving her a light shield. When, lithe of limb, she danced the Pyrrhic, loud clapping followed; and the Paphlagonians asked, "If these women fought by their side in battle?" to which they answered, "To be sure, it was the women who routed the great King, and drove him out of camp." So ended the night. (Book IV Chapter I)
Following the successful conclusion of the dance party, the Greeks and the Paphlagonians agree to leave each other alone.
Going underground
In Armenia, one of Xenophon’s men discovers some subterraneans:
It was here that Polycrates, an Athenian and captain of a company, asked for leave of absence—he wished to be off on a quest of his own; and putting himself at the head of the active men of the division, he ran to the village which had been allotted to Xenophon. He surprised within it the villagers with their headman, and seventeen young horses which were being reared as a tribute for the king, and, last of all, the headman's own daughter, a young bride only eight days wed. Her husband had gone off to chase hares, and so he escaped being taken with the other villagers. The houses were underground structures with an aperture like the mouth of a well by which to enter, but they were broad and spacious below. The entrance for the beasts of burden was dug out, but the human occupants descended by a ladder. In these dwellings were to be found goats and sheep and cattle, and cocks and hens, with their various progeny. The flocks and herds were all reared under cover upon green food. There were stores within of wheat and barley and vegetables, and wine made from barley in great big bowls; the grains of barley malt lay floating in the beverage up to the lip of the vessel, and reeds lay in them, some longer, some shorter, without joints; when you were thirsty you must take one of these into your mouth, and suck. The beverage without admixture of water was very strong, and of a delicious flavour to certain palates, but the taste must be acquired. (Book IV Chapter V)
Although the Greeks were no doubt perplexed by people who chose to live underground, Xenophon ultimately befriends the head of the village, which means the Greeks don’t have to kill anyone and steal their supplies.
Stranger things
On another occasion, Xenophon encounters a people who fatten their kids and like to have sex in public:
When, in the course of their march, they came upon a friendly population, these would entertain them with exhibitions of fatted children belonging to the wealthy classes, fed up on boiled chestnuts until they were as white as white can be, of skin plump and delicate, and very nearly as broad as they were long, with their backs variegated and their breasts tattooed with patterns of all sorts of flowers. They sought after the women in the Hellenic army, and would fain have laid with them openly in broad daylight, for that was their custom. The whole community, male and female alike, were fair-complexioned and white-skinned.
It was agreed that this was the most barbaric and outlandish people that they had passed through on the whole expedition, and the furthest removed from the Hellenic customs, doing in a crowd precisely what other people would prefer to do in solitude, and when alone behaving exactly as others would behave in company, talking to themselves and laughing at their own expense, standing still and then again capering about, wherever they might chance to be, without rhyme or reason, as if their sole business were to show off to the rest of the world. (Book V Chapter IV)
Burned alive
Whenever possible, Xenophon prefers to negotiate rather than fight with the peoples whose territory his army is passing through. Yet he and his men are capable of extreme cruelty if need be. In the land of the Mossynoecians — people who live in “mossyns” or wooden towers — they form an alliance with one group that is feuding with another. The results for those on the losing side are grim, although even while committing atrocities, Xenophon retains an eye for the picturesque local detail:
But when the Hellenes, instead of giving way, kept massing together more thickly, the barbarians fled from this place also, and in a body deserted the fortress. Their king, who sat in his wooden tower or mossyn, built on the citadel (there he sits and there they maintain him, all at the common cost, and guard him narrowly), refused to come forth, as did also those in the fortress first taken, and so were burnt to a cinder where they were, their mossyns, themselves, and all. The Hellenes, pillaging and ransacking these places, discovered in the different houses treasures and magazines of loaves, pile upon pile, "the ancestral stores," as the Mossynoecians told them; but the new corn was laid up apart with the straw-stalk and ear together, and this was for the most part spelt. Slices of dolphin were another discovery, in narrow-necked jars, all properly salted and pickled; and there was blubber of dolphin in vessels, which the Mossynoecians used precisely as the Hellenes use oil. Then there were large stores of nuts on the upper floor, the broad kind without a division. This was also a chief article of food with them—boiled nuts and baked loaves. Wine was also discovered. This, from its rough, dry quality, tasted sharp when drunk pure, but mixed with water was sweet and fragrant. (Book V Chapter IV)
I confess I am curious to know what pickled dolphin tastes like.
A mass suicide
In the land of the Taochians, Xenophon discovers people living in a fortress with their animals. They attempt to drive the Greeks away by hurling rocks at them, but the Greeks wait until they have exhausted their supply and then seize the fortress. Such is the Taochians’ fear of invading armies, however, that they opt for an extreme solution:
And here a terrible spectacle displayed itself: the women first cast their infants down the cliff, and then they cast themselves after their fallen little ones, and the men likewise. In such a scene, Aeneas the Stymphalian, an officer, caught sight of a man with a fine dress about to throw himself over, and seized hold of him to stop him; but the other caught him to his arms, and both were gone in an instant headlong down the crags, and were killed. Out of this place the merest handful of human beings were taken prisoners, but cattle and asses in abundance and flocks of sheep. (Book IV Chapter VII)
Given Xenophon’s preference for negotiation over violence this seems like an extreme and extremely tragic failure of communication. The women and their children were leading ordinary lives right up until the moment that the Greeks turned up on their doorstep; they didn’t have to die. Was anything left of the population? Or did the fortress become yet another abandoned settlement in Asia?
Mad honey
As we have seen, Xenophon is interested in food beyond mere survival, and records in some detail the varieties of culinary experience he encountered on his long march back to Greece. But nothing compares to the strange honey his men discover by the Black Sea:
…the Hellenes scaled the hill and found quarters in numerous villages which contained supplies in abundance. Here, generally speaking, there was nothing to excite their wonderment, but the numbers of bee-hives were indeed astonishing, and so were certain properties of the honey. The effect upon the soldiers who tasted the combs was, that they all went for the nonce quite off their heads, and suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, with a total inability to stand steady on their legs. A small dose produced a condition not unlike violent drunkenness, a large one an attack very like a fit of madness, and some dropped down, apparently at death's door. So they lay, hundreds of them, as if there had been a great defeat, a prey to the cruellest despondency. But the next day, none had died; and almost at the same hour of the day at which they had eaten they recovered their senses, and on the third or fourth day got on their legs again like convalescents after a severe course of medical treatment. (Book IV Chapter VIII)
Although this may read like a mythical substance from Homer’s Odyssey, “mad honey” exists; Xenophon’s men were suffering from a bad case of grayanotoxin poisoning. Perhaps the bees had been feasting on the pollen of Rhododendron ponticum? A bonus detail is that 340 years later Mithridates, ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in Anatolia, tricked the Roman general Pompey’s army into eating “mad honey” — and then attacked. He was a reader of The Anabasis.
What is home?
Lastly, although Xenophon’s army was mostly Greek, it was not exclusively so. The scene I referred to in the introduction above, the sequence that sent me back to The Anabasis, is the story of an ex-slave raised in Athens who suddenly hears the language of his people, and realizes that this must be where he comes from.
From this point the Hellenes marched through the country of the Macrones three stages—ten parasangs, and on the first day they reached the river, which formed the boundary between the land of the Macrones and the land of the Scythenians. Above them, on their right, they had a country of the sternest and ruggedest character, and on their left another river, into which the frontier river discharges itself, and which they must cross. This was thickly fringed with trees which, though not of any great bulk, were closely packed. As soon as they came up to them, the Hellenes proceeded to cut them down in their haste to get out of the place as soon as possible. But the Macrones, armed with wicker shields and lances and hair tunics, were already drawn up to receive them opposite the crossing. They were cheering one another on, and kept up a steady pelt of stones into the river, though they failed to reach the other side or do any harm.
At this juncture one of the light infantry came up to Xenophon; he had been, he said, a slave at Athens, and he wished to tell him that he recognised the speech of these people. "I think," said he, "that this must be my native country, and if there is no objection I will have a talk with them." "No objection at all," replied Xenophon, "pray talk to them, and ask them first, who they are." In answer to this question they said, "they were Macrones." "Well, then," said he, "ask them why they are drawn up in battle and want to fight with us." They answered, "Because you are invading our country." The generals bade him say: "If so, it is with not intention certainly of doing it or you any harm: but we have been at war with the king, and are now returning to Hellas, and all we want is to reach the sea." The others asked, "Were they willing to give them pledges to that effect?" They replied: "Yes, they were ready to give and receive pledges to that effect." Then the Macrones gave a barbaric lance to the Hellenes, and the Hellenes a Hellenic lance to them: "for these," they said, "would serve as pledges," and both sides called upon the gods to witness.
After the pledges were exchanged, the Macrones fell to vigorously hewing down trees and constructing a road to help them across, mingling freely with the Hellenes and fraternising in their midst, and they afforded them as good as market as they could, and for three days conducted them on their march, until they had brought them safely to the confines of the Colchians. (Book IV Chapter VIII)
What must it have been like for this man to suddenly hear the language he had spoken as a child, to suddenly realize he was “home” — only it wasn’t home at all? What was it like to have a secret language, to be isolated by your own language, and then to stumble upon a place where everybody speaks it?
The man drops out of the narrative after this brief appearance, so we never learn if he stayed behind (I doubt it very much) or what emotions he felt to be in the land of his forefathers, only to leave it behind almost immediately. Did he feel a strange nostalgia for unknown customs, flavors and landscapes? How often did he think about this place after he left this? Did he even make it back to Athens, or did he die on the way?
Since reading this passage, I have several times attempted to imagine myself into his position, but imagining is all I can do. Xenophon doesn’t even give him a name.
All translations from 1890 Henry Graham Dakyns works of Xenophon, available at Project Gutenberg here.
One parasang=approximately 3.5 miles.
Wonderful. Especially the pale people with fat kids who are prone to sexual displays in public. The past is always returning to us.