The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> In Which Xenophon And We Get It Wrong

In Which Xenophon And We Get It Wrong
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Saturday, February 24 2007, 17:32:39 (CET)
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...you wrote:

"Fortunately for you, I have read Anabasis, better known as March Up Country, by Xenephon, and it is nothing more than a diary kept by Xenephon that describes the Peloponesian Wars during the Achaemenid period. It is a description of the battle of Cunaxa, (not sure of the spelling) where Xenephon as a soldier and a mercenary is elected as the new leader of the Ten Thousand Man Army, drawn-up together by Cyrus, to get the throne from his brother Artaxeres, (not sure of the spelling)."

..here is what the University of Liverpool has to say:

note; I`ll hit the major points but you can read them below. It turns out there were two Peloponessian Wars..and neither had anything to do with the events in the Anabasis. The First War was fought before Xenophon was born, the second War started the year Xenophon was born, 431 BC. Therefore your claim that "it is nothing more than a diary kept by Xenephon that describes the Peloponesian Wars during the Achaemenid period...is not accurate. The Peloponessian Wars, as most schoolkids know was fought between Athens and Sparta with Persia assisting Sparta build a fleet of ships in the second War...at no time and nowhere does anyone include the Battle of Cunaxa and the march up country as part of the Peloponessian Wars...but not to fret, I will not call you names or accuse of anything, however, I`m surprised that you got such a basic fact wrong and maybe now you`ll concede that Xenophon also got many things wrong...what is even more surprising is why you didn`t do a simple internet seacrh on "Peloponessian Wars", as I did and get your story straight? Does that say anything about the rest of your "facts" and how "thorough" you`ve been in collecting them?

..Xenophon also said that the Persian king`s army concicted of one million two hundred thousand soldiers...do you believe this too? Because hardly any historian to day does...and if you do, is it the same with everything else you claim to believe...because Xenophon BELIEVED it...as you know you are Assyrian because YOU believe it? Is scholarship that easy a thing for you?

...here is the section I lifted...open to all schoolkids...and you may want to pay especial note to this quote:

"The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia to aid Cyrus..."


The Peloponessian War
The defeat of the Persian army at Plataea in 479 B.C. ended the second Persian invasion of Greece. However, the Persian threat was still great and this led to the formation of the Delian League in 479 B.C. The league was formed by Athens in the void of Spartan leadership following the Persian incursion. Athens advocated the construction of a large fleet as a deterrent to Persia. A large fleet was assembled and put under the control of Athens. Eventually some members of the League began to pay tribute to Athens in lew of providing ships and men.
By 466 B.C. Athens completely controlled the Delian League. The treasury, formerly housed at Delos, was moved to Athens where much of the funds were used by Pericles for his building projects. Attempts to break away from the League, such as Naxos c. 471 B.C. and Thasos in 465 B.C., were crushed.

Starting in 459 B.C. Athens came into a series of conflicts with Corinth, an ally of Sparta as a result of her expansions westward. This instigated the First Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 457-446 B.C. The result was the formation of two rival camps: The Peloponnesian League headed by Sparta, and Athens and her allies.

The Second Peloponnesian War began in 431 B.C. when Athens forced Potidaea, a colony of Corinth, to join the Delian League. Potidaea appealed to Corinth for assistance, who eventually persuaded Sparta to aid them against Athens. Sparta marched an army into Attica in 431 B.C.


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.


From another source on he delightful internet, I took this out of the Anabasis...there is a footnote to explain the section lifted...you may wish to consider it too:


"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[3]. The Medes once dwelt in it. The basement was 10 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[4], 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."

..here is an explanatory note:

[3] Opposite Mosul, the north-west portion of the ancient Nineveh, about eighteen miles above Larissa. The circuit of Nineveh is said to have been about fifty-six miles. It was overthrown by Cyrus in B.C. 558.

...so that in the above paragraph from the Anabasis, Xenophon calls the people in Nineveh "Medes". That he went hme and later wrote other books in which he called them Assyrians says more about Xenophon than the people living in Assyria...there are many such contradictions and difficulties...you simply chose what pleased you and then accused Dr Joseph of adopting your tactics throughout his life...a hard thing to say.

..I believe you said the Kurds had no history...could you explain the following, also from Xenophon`s Anabasis, paying especial attention to the people called "Carduchians":


The prisoners informed them that the regions south, through which they had come, belonged to the district towards Babylon and Media; the road east led to Susa and Ecbatana, where the king is said to spend summer and spring; crossing the river, the road west led to Lydia and Ionia; and the part through the mountains facing towards the Great Bear, led, they said, to the Carduchians[1]. They were a people, so said the prisoners, dwelling up on the hills, addicted to war, and not subject to the king; so much so that once, when a royal army one hundred and twenty thousand strong had invaded them, not a man came back, owing to the intricacies of the country. Occasionally, however, they made truce or treaty with the satrap in the plain, and, for the nonce, there would be intercourse: "they will come in and out amongst us," "and we will go in and out amongst them," said the captives.

...here is the note attached to the above section:

[1] See Dr. Kiepert, "Man. Anc. Geog. (Mr. G. A. Macmillan) iv. 47. The Karduchians or Kurds belong by speech to the Iranian stock, forming in fact their farthest outpost to the west, little given to agriculture, but chiefly to the breeding of cattle. Their name, pronounced Kardu by the ancient Syrians and Assyrians, Kordu by the Armenians (plural Kordukh), first appears in its narrower sense in western literature in the pages of the eye-witness Xenophon as {Kardoukhoi}. Later writers knew of a small kingdom here at the time of the Roman occupation, ruled by native princes, who after Tigranes II (about 80 B.C.) recognised the overlordship of the Armenian king. Later it became a province of the Sassanid kingdom, and as such was in 297 A.D. handed over among the regiones transtigritanae to the Roman empire, but in 364 was again ceded to Persia.

...so, do the Kurds have a history or not..and rememebr that Mesopotamia was part of the Persian Empire...and that means Iraq too. Is Xenophon correct when he says Kurds existed back then...and who knows how much sooner?

...I tried to keep it short and simple because I know you have homework to do. I`m going swimming now...be back to check later



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