Post by Keith Heitmann on Mar 11, 2007 21:42:25 GMT -5
I just finished reading the novel by Michael Curtis Ford, "The Ten Thousand", which is based on the true account of the retreat of some 10,000 Greek mercenaries through Persia to the Black Sea and back to Greece.
The story is told from viewpoint of fictional character that is both friend and protector of main character Xenophon, the hero of the story. It follows them through their harsh childhood, indoctrination in the army, and their hiring out to the Persian prince, Cyrus, that hires his Greek mercenaries them under false pretenses. They were told they would be ridding the Persian empire of marauding hostile tribes, but in reality they will be used to depose the Persian king, Artaxerxes, Cyrus' brother.
After a battle against overwhelming odds of which the Greeks were the masters. They lose their Persian prince and are forced to retreat back to Greece all the while facing Persian deceit and treachery, who despite their assurances are planning to annihilate the Greeks. The Greeks just want to pass peacefully home after explaining that they were not hired to fight the king, and if left alone they would do no damage along their path.
After the Greeks generals are massacred in a trap in the Persian camp, Xenophon rallies the Greeks and assumes command by public acclaim from the Greeks soldiers.
They set out on a long march, short of provisions, facing other hostile tribes, crossing many treacherous rivers often under attack and constantly harrassed. Many men are lost in the process. The men march onward starving, wounded, and dying all along the way.
The first part of the book spends a great deal of time on Xenophon's childhood, it was a bit slow reading, but once the book reaches the point where he's hired out as a mercenary officer, things start to pickup.
Since the story is told from the vantage point a fictional friend and protector, "Theo", his story is also intertwined with the storyline. Theo even falls in love with a Persian girl, but there are no maudlin love scenes in this book. There are scenes where Theo and the girl are together but it doesn't get flowery or slow down the pace of the story. When the Greeks are ordered to leave behind all the wagons and camp followers, some of the young Rhodian slingers take the girl under their wing and smuggle her along on the long march for the sake of Theo.
There are numerous military encounters in the book either between the Persians, or one of the four or five hostile tribes that the Greeks end up facing along the way. The battle sequences are crips and easy to follow.
I managed to burn through the 450 pages of the book in just four days. For me, that's pretty quick.
There are other books out there based on the actual account of the march the Greeks made. Xenophon hiself, as agreed on by most modern scholars, wrote about the march in the book "Anabais" under the pseudonym Thermistogenes. The reals story also inspired the author Harold Coyle, to right his modern war thriller "Ten Thousand", about a battalion of U.S. amor and mechanized infantry and their sub units fighting their way through hostile German forces after raiding a soviet nuclear missile base.
The story is told from viewpoint of fictional character that is both friend and protector of main character Xenophon, the hero of the story. It follows them through their harsh childhood, indoctrination in the army, and their hiring out to the Persian prince, Cyrus, that hires his Greek mercenaries them under false pretenses. They were told they would be ridding the Persian empire of marauding hostile tribes, but in reality they will be used to depose the Persian king, Artaxerxes, Cyrus' brother.
After a battle against overwhelming odds of which the Greeks were the masters. They lose their Persian prince and are forced to retreat back to Greece all the while facing Persian deceit and treachery, who despite their assurances are planning to annihilate the Greeks. The Greeks just want to pass peacefully home after explaining that they were not hired to fight the king, and if left alone they would do no damage along their path.
After the Greeks generals are massacred in a trap in the Persian camp, Xenophon rallies the Greeks and assumes command by public acclaim from the Greeks soldiers.
They set out on a long march, short of provisions, facing other hostile tribes, crossing many treacherous rivers often under attack and constantly harrassed. Many men are lost in the process. The men march onward starving, wounded, and dying all along the way.
The first part of the book spends a great deal of time on Xenophon's childhood, it was a bit slow reading, but once the book reaches the point where he's hired out as a mercenary officer, things start to pickup.
Since the story is told from the vantage point a fictional friend and protector, "Theo", his story is also intertwined with the storyline. Theo even falls in love with a Persian girl, but there are no maudlin love scenes in this book. There are scenes where Theo and the girl are together but it doesn't get flowery or slow down the pace of the story. When the Greeks are ordered to leave behind all the wagons and camp followers, some of the young Rhodian slingers take the girl under their wing and smuggle her along on the long march for the sake of Theo.
There are numerous military encounters in the book either between the Persians, or one of the four or five hostile tribes that the Greeks end up facing along the way. The battle sequences are crips and easy to follow.
I managed to burn through the 450 pages of the book in just four days. For me, that's pretty quick.
There are other books out there based on the actual account of the march the Greeks made. Xenophon hiself, as agreed on by most modern scholars, wrote about the march in the book "Anabais" under the pseudonym Thermistogenes. The reals story also inspired the author Harold Coyle, to right his modern war thriller "Ten Thousand", about a battalion of U.S. amor and mechanized infantry and their sub units fighting their way through hostile German forces after raiding a soviet nuclear missile base.