Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T13:18:03.967Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - THE PERSIAN ENEMY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Waldemar Heckel
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Get access

Summary

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

At the end of the fifth century, the rebellious brother of Artaxerxes II, known as Cyrus the Younger to differentiate him from the great founder of the dynasty, led a mixed force of barbarians and Greeks into the heart of the Persian Empire. The troops that confronted the armies of the Great King included more than 10,000 Greek mercenaries, drawn from many parts of European Greece, each contingent with its own commander. Although their leader and paymaster, Cyrus, was killed on the battlefield of Cunaxa, not far from Babylon, the Greeks (whose own generals had treacherously been slain by the satrap Tissaphernes) managed to escape the victorious army and fight their way back through the mountains of Armenia to the Greek settlements on the Black Sea. Their story is told vividly by Xenophon, the man who claimed to have assumed command of the force after the murder of the generals. His Anabasis or “March Up Country” was known to educated Greek and Macedonian youths, and there is no doubt that Alexander, as a boy, was held spellbound by the adventures of the Ten Thousand and the exotic world of Persia. But the Anabasis also played no small part in contributing to the view of the Achaemenid empire as decadent and “ripe for the picking.” This picture of Persia in decline, so long accepted by modern writers, has now been revised through the efforts of Achaemenid scholars.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • THE PERSIAN ENEMY
  • Waldemar Heckel, University of Calgary
  • Book: The Conquests of Alexander the Great
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611407.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • THE PERSIAN ENEMY
  • Waldemar Heckel, University of Calgary
  • Book: The Conquests of Alexander the Great
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611407.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • THE PERSIAN ENEMY
  • Waldemar Heckel, University of Calgary
  • Book: The Conquests of Alexander the Great
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611407.008
Available formats
×