Xenophon

Xenophon was an Athenian soldier, historian and writer, born about 430 BC and a pupil of Socrates. In 401 BC he joined the Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger in his bid for the Persian throne. When Cyrus fell at Cunaxa and the Greek generals were seized, Xenophon was one of those chosen to lead the survivors, and he brought them through hostile country to the Black Sea and home.

Exiled from Athens, he lived for years on an estate at Scillus given him by Sparta, and later at Corinth. He died about 354 BC. His many works include the Hellenica, which continues Thucydides; the Anabasis, his account of the march of the Ten Thousand; and the Memorabilia, Apology and Symposium, which record Socrates. This archive carries his Anabasis in the English prose of Henry Graham Dakyns (1890).