The Ten Thousand are the quota of Mercenaire S Greek recruited by Cyrus the Young person at the time of his revolt against his/her older brother, the sovereign achéménide Artaxerxès II Mnèmon. Forwarding is reported by Xénophon in its Anabase .

The projection in Persian territory

To died of Darius II, king de Perse, in 404, Artaxerxès II, his son, goes up on the throne. His/her younger brother, Cyrus the Young person, plots then to gain the crown, but is denounced by the satrap Tissapherne. Protected by his mother Parysatis, it is restored in its command of Sardes. There, it uses its Greek hosts to recruit an army of Greek mercenaries. The thing is of as much less difficult than many Hoplite S is demobilized at the end of the Peloponnesian War. Moreover, Cyrus receives in writing pad the assistance of Sparte. In fact, he specifically asks to resort to of Péloponnésiens, famous for their bravery, and with which he itself had helped during the war.

Cyrus initially hides with its troops the reality of its objective: he announces to them that it is a question of subjecting the Cilicie. Once the army arrived on the edges of the Euphrate, it is not possible any more to dissimulate the truth: the soldiers are indignant initially, then calm down thanks to promises of generosities.

With the battle of Counaxa (401), the troops of Cyrus face those of Artaxerxès. The Greek mercenaries easily put in rout the Persian army, but Cyrus finds death during the combat. The Greeks are isolated in immense Persian Empire.

The retirement

The army of mercenaries concludes initially a truce with Artaxerxès. Accompanied by the troops by Tissapherne, the Greeks turn back to the edges of the Tigre. There, Tissapherne tightens with the Greek chiefs an ambush, and massacres them, leaving the Ten Thousand without chief. The soldiers has a presentiment of then the young person Xénophon to take the head of the rear-guard to carry out the retirement.

They cross initially the desert of Syria, the Babylonia, then the Arménie covered with snow, to join their fatherland. Lastly, after several months of walk, and many confrontations with the people of the territories which they cross, they arrive at the Black Sea to Trébizonde. It is then the famous cry “θάλασσα! θάλασσα! /Thalassa! Thalassa! ” (" Sea! Sea! ") paid by Xénophon in its Anabase (IV, 7,21-27). There still however remain to them 1000 km to be traversed.

For as much, the Greeks are not drawn from business: they is necessary boats for them. Chirisophe, commander-in-chief, share with Byzance to get some, while the Greeks take again their walk in direction of the Paphlagonie. Mow, the Greek cities of the littoral, far from accommodating them, maintain them remote, of fear of plunderings - it is true that the majority of the Greeks refuse to return on their premises without spoils. The rebellion deaf person in the row, and the Arcadie NS and the Achaens end up making secession; the army failed to yield to panic when spreads the rumor according to which Xénophon wishes to go to found a colony in Asia. He challenges it itself in front of the army made up in assembly.

Given up by the Spartans, from now on combined Persians, the Greeks are rented then with a small sovereign Thrace. In 400, one refuses to pay them. A general Spartan, Thibron, urge them then to fight against the Tissapherne satraps and Pharnabaze, which tyrannizes the Greek cities of Ionie. The Ten Thousand, which is then hardly than 5.000, go then until Lampsaque, then Pergame, where Xénophon gives up the command with Thibron.

Consequences of the adventure of the Ten Thousand

The tour successful of the Greek quota through the Persian empire struck rightly the contemporaries of Xénophon. It was the first time that a group of Greeks managed to escape from the " heart of the ténèbres" of an empire hitherto a41dernier $c-b1, e,10 $c-b26 ce $c-b16 $c-b43, bn,84 inviolate. The forwarding of the Greeks showed indeed that the Persian empire, which had broken by twice on Greece at the time of the medic Guerres, was perhaps in the final analysis not so frightening only that.

A small troop of mercenaries - certainly aguerris and determined - makes a success of without too much breakage the unthinkable one: to escape the revenge on Artaxèrxès and its armies in the middle same of its kingdom? Their success, in addition to showing an undeniable military superiority of the Greeks on Persians, showed that a forwarding on the same grounds of the Large King was possible. This lesson could be retained by the Macedonians.

Another consequence of the forwarding of the Ten Thousand, significant evolution of the mercenariat in particular among Greeks: the initial quotas engaged by Cyrus answered a traditional logic of supply and in armed wings. Cyrus was indeed the employer and the Ten Thousand did not correspond then to any other reality but the number (approximate) Greek mercenaries who composed - to some extent - the troops that it raised against his brother. However, after the battle, these same Greeks find themselves delivered to themselves, their employer killed with the combat, in full heart of an enemy territory. They are welded then, give each other chiefs and decide to go up towards north, towards the Black Sea, worms of the Greek cities which they then believe happy to accommodate them.

A trick of Tissaphernes, one saw it, lack of little to put an end to the tour but the Greeks do not give up and give each other new chiefs: it is as from this moment that they become truly the Ten Thousand. Their arrival in front of the Greek coastal cities then shows a new facet of these mercenaries. Small disparate quotas (which did not hesitate to fight sometimes between them) agglomerated by Cyrus and held by its only will (and of the fallacious promises), the ancient world discovers a whole mercenaries, organized, tested and especially autonomous army…

Indeed, if the surprise is worth only with half for Persians which pursue them since Counaxa and which see the slow gestation of this army corps, the Greeks of the cities are terrorized when, vis-a-vis the Ten Thousand which beg to eat or what to return to the country, they realize abruptly that they are in fact at the thank you of an army of soldiers of fortune camping placidly in front of their walls and who can decide to plunder them without them not being able to react.

It is this report which explains the attitude of the various Greek cities vis-a-vis the companions of Xénophon. But the Ten Thousand do not realize that they frighten from now on with their compatriots and in particular the Spartans. Sparte, whose hegemony continues little by little on the Greek cities - logical consequence of the recent victory over Athens - is then vis-a-vis a thorn-bush problem: how to get rid of as cumbersome compatriots, as they want neither nor the means of fighting immediately? The policy of the rallying of the chiefs to the sights Spartans (Xénophon in is an example) prevails finally and the regional geopolitical reversal, when the allies of yesterday become from now on the enemies, settles the question when Thibron incorporates the last elements of the Ten Thousand.

See too

Retirement (military)