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The Anabasis of Xenophon: Volume 4, Book IV
Published in 1898 as part of the Cambridge Elementary Classics series, this edition of the fourth book of Xenophon's Anabasis was originally intended for use in schools. Edited by G. M. Edwards, the volume contains substantial supplementary material to assist with the Greek text, including an English introduction covering the seven books of the Anabasis and the life of Xenophon, textual notes, a substantial glossary, and indices for the proper names and grammatical constructions found in the work.
148 pages, Paperback
First published November 18, 2011
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March 1, 2026
Book IV of the Anabasis is perhaps the most action-packed, and certainly the most detailed and vividly told, so far. At the end of the preceding book Xenophon’s Greek mercenaries, hounded by the Persians and prevented from any straight route home to Greece, are forced to ascend into the mountains of what is now northern Iraq and southern Turkey. As this book opens, we find that this leads not only into difficult clashes with the indigenous people of these parts, the Carduchians, but also extreme cold and privation. There are quite a lot of dramatic events here, and that’s before the reader even gets to the iconic moment when the Greeks, near Trabzon, shout “The sea, the sea!” (and shortly thereafter stumble onto some narcotic honey).
One of the ways Book IV is particularly interesting is in depicting more frankly the predations to which the Ten Thousand subjected the local people. The Greek army was sustained during this long march from the Tigris to the Black Sea only by plundering local villages, many of whose inhabitants were hapless women, children, and old men who posed no threat to them militarily. In one passage, a local person unwilling to serve as a guide is slain in front of his friend, in order to encourage the latter to cooperate. Another way in which the curtain is peeled back on how the army actually functioned is the mention of a large throng of campfollowers, including many women.
A commentary is so important for Greek texts not only for notes on grammatically difficult passages (fortunately few here, Book IV has easier Greek than the preceding books) but also for giving the whole historical and cultural context, and Xenophon certainly traveled through some exotic places. I enjoyed reading Book III in a recent Cambridge “Green and Yellow” edition that had a very detailed commentary in that regard.
It is therefore a pity that for Book IV I had only G. M. Edwards’ edition for British schoolboys, first published in 1898, kept in print for a least a whopping 61 years, and even now available as a digital reprint from Cambridge University Press. Edwards wrote his commentary before much modern scholarship had been done on this part of the world and on identifying more securely the route the Ten Thousand took. We don’t get much information at all about the varied peoples – Armenians, Colchians, Macrones, etc. – that inhabited these regions. Victorian prudishness means that Edwards skips right over the sentence mentioning the presence of women among the army, as otherwise he would be forced to explain that these were prostitutes.
One of the ways Book IV is particularly interesting is in depicting more frankly the predations to which the Ten Thousand subjected the local people. The Greek army was sustained during this long march from the Tigris to the Black Sea only by plundering local villages, many of whose inhabitants were hapless women, children, and old men who posed no threat to them militarily. In one passage, a local person unwilling to serve as a guide is slain in front of his friend, in order to encourage the latter to cooperate. Another way in which the curtain is peeled back on how the army actually functioned is the mention of a large throng of campfollowers, including many women.
A commentary is so important for Greek texts not only for notes on grammatically difficult passages (fortunately few here, Book IV has easier Greek than the preceding books) but also for giving the whole historical and cultural context, and Xenophon certainly traveled through some exotic places. I enjoyed reading Book III in a recent Cambridge “Green and Yellow” edition that had a very detailed commentary in that regard.
It is therefore a pity that for Book IV I had only G. M. Edwards’ edition for British schoolboys, first published in 1898, kept in print for a least a whopping 61 years, and even now available as a digital reprint from Cambridge University Press. Edwards wrote his commentary before much modern scholarship had been done on this part of the world and on identifying more securely the route the Ten Thousand took. We don’t get much information at all about the varied peoples – Armenians, Colchians, Macrones, etc. – that inhabited these regions. Victorian prudishness means that Edwards skips right over the sentence mentioning the presence of women among the army, as otherwise he would be forced to explain that these were prostitutes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review