Anabasis
Xenophon's Anabasis (Landmark ed.) I love looking at the Landmark editions, but I'm not so great at actually reading them, unless they are Herodotus. But my sister was here over winter break and she inspired me to pick up something more serious than I've been reading lately, and so I have now read the Anabasis . I enjoyed it a lot, too! I'm not that great at reading about warfare, because I find it tedious, but reading about soldiers stuck in enemy territory and trying to get home is much more interesting. So here's the background: It's 401 BC, and Xenophon, a young and elite Athenian, decides to go along with a company of 10,000 Greek mercenaries to the Persian Empire. He's not actually in the military, but his friend says 'if you get in good with Cyrus, you'll be in great shape for a career!' and so he goes along. Cyrus is challenging his older brother Artaxerxes for the Persian throne, and he's promised good pay to these mercenari...