Anabasis

Xenophon c. 370 BCE

This firsthand account follows Greek soldiers fighting in Persia and struggling to return home. One famous scene captures the soldiers shouting with joy as they glimpse the Black Sea after crossing hostile mountains.

302 pages 5h 51m reading time

One of the most famous war memoirs ever written, and one of the earliest by a soldier who was there.
Shows how about ten thousand stranded Greek soldiers, after their generals were killed, chose new leaders by vote and governed themselves like a city on the march.
Argues that a good leader wins trust by sharing hardships, speaking honestly, and persuading people rather than simply giving orders.
For centuries it was one of the first books students read when learning ancient Greek, thanks to its clear and simple style.
Its story of a small Greek army marching deep into Persia and getting out alive is said to have helped convince Alexander the Great that Persia could be conquered, and the word "anabasis" (a march up into a country) still names long military journeys.

Published under a fake name

Xenophon may have first released it under the name "Themistogenes of Syracuse," as he hints elsewhere.
Written in exile

Xenophon wrote it decades after the march, while banished from Athens and living on an estate near Olympia.
Partly a self-defense

Many scholars think he wrote it partly to answer critics and show his own role in a good light.
A rival account existed

Another general on the march, Sophaenetus, apparently wrote his own version, but it is now lost.