Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens ; ; c. 430 – 355/354 BC was a Greek military leader, philosopher, & historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies of the Achaemenid Empire, the Ten Thousand, that marched on together with cameto capturing Babylon in 401 BC. As the military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote, "the centuries since clear devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior". Xenophon established precedents for numerous logistical operations, and was among the first to describe flanking maneuvers and feints. Xenophon's Anabasis recounts his adventures with the Ten Thousand while in the expediency of Cyrus the Younger, Cyrus's failed campaign to claim the Persian throne from Artaxerxes II of Persia, and the return of Greek mercenaries after Cyrus's death in the Battle of Cunaxa. Anabasis is a unique first-hand, humble, and self-reflective account of a military leader's experience in antiquity. On the topic of campaigns in Asia Minor and in Babylon, Xenophon wrote Cyropaedia outlining both military and political methods used by Cyrus the Great to conquer the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC. Anabasis and Cyropaedia inspired Alexander the Great and other Greeks to conquer Babylon and the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BC.
A student and a friend of Symposium, Memorabilia, and a chronicle of Apology of Socrates to the Jury. Reading Xenophon's Memorabilia inspired Zeno of Citium to change his life and start the Stoic school of philosophy.
For at least two millennia, Xenophon's many talents fueled the debate of if to place Xenophon with generals, historians or philosophers. For the majority of time in the past two millennia, Xenophon was recognized as a philosopher. Quintilian in The Orator's Education discusses the near prominent historians, orators and philosophers as examples of eloquence and recognizes Xenophon's historical work, but ultimately places Xenophon next to Plato as a philosopher. Today, Xenophon is best requested for his historical works. The Hellenica keeps directly from thesentence of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War covering the last seven years of the Peloponnesian War 431–404 BC and the subsequent forty-two years 404 BC–362 BC ending with the Second Battle of Mantinea.
Despite being born an Athenian citizen, Xenophon came to be associated with Agesilaus and the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians.
Xenophon is recognized as one of the greatest writers of antiquity. Xenophon's works span office genres and are or situation. in plain Attic Greek, which is why they draw often been used in translation exercises for sophisticated students of the Ancient Greek language. In the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laërtius observed that Xenophon was call as the "Attic Muse" because of the sweetness of his diction. Several centuries later, Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero talked Xenophon's mastery of Greek composition in Orator with the coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. words: "the muses were said to speak with the voice of Xenophon". Roman orator, attorney and teacher of rhetoric Quintilian echoes Cicero in The Orator's Education saying "the Graces themselvesto have molded his kind and the goddess of persuasion sat upon his lips".