---

In the aftermath of the Peloponnesian war

A young Persian prince with a ruthless aim

Cyrus assembled a vast host of mercenaries

Thinking good pay and rich booty they’d gain

Ten thousand Greek hoplites ready for war

They set out eastward in March 401 B.C.

Expecting to suppress some dissident tribes

The true goal of the endeavour they didn’t see

In a sudden skirmish one hundred were lost

Unrest among the men soon started to grow

Spartan Clearchus managed to keep them in line

But their true purpose they still didn’t know

On the banks of the Euphrates Cyrus did speak

Revealing his plan to overthrow his elder sibling

To forcefully seize the throne of Persia for himself

The army indeed a formidable threat to the king

On towards Babylon

Across Northern Syria into the Arabian desert

Until they were confronted with the king’s might

A cloud of dust first appeared on the horizon

Then helmets and armour flashed in the sunlight

The sides drew up in battle-order near Babylon

Combat was engaged close to Cunaxa on a plain

The Greeks fought against numerical supremacy

But all became irrelevant once Cyrus was slain

Before the Greeks could return a ploy unfolded

Tissaphernes lured their five generals into a tent

And slaughtered them and all their attendants

On vengeance the treacherous satrap was bent

The ten thousand now aimless and leaderless

Seeming to be lost in these vast and hostile lands

But one of the men received an omen from Zeus

Xenophon rose to take matters into his hands

He advised the officers to choose new leaders

To all the forces a rousing speech he made

So they decided not to lay down their arms

But to persist against odds that were great

The retreating army’s progress was slow, arduous

In the mountains of Kardouchia they had to fight

Vulnerable they were to mounted Persian archers

But cavalry and slingers demonstrated their might

In the Armenian mountains the weather was the foe

By hunger and frostbite the troops disheartened

But through personal example Xenophon led on

And upon reaching the sea the men were elated

There were more adventures on the long road home

Before many of them at last to Greece returned

Xenophon was then banished from his city Athens

A friend of Sparta by the democratic rabble spurned

The ten thousand’s march was a significant feat

Their journey showed what the Greeks could gain

The possibility of conquest seen for the first time

The wealth and weakness of the Persian domain