Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:10:34.893Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

XENOPHON'S ROUTE THROUGH BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

Julian Edgeworth Reade
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Anabasis of the Greek historian Xenophon describes the march of a mercenary army in 401–400 b.c. from the Aegean coast down the Euphrates to Babylonia, and back up the Tigris to the Black Sea and the Aegean. This paper presents the evidence for the army's route through Babylonia and Assyria, and attempts to resolve the main uncertainties.1

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 77 , December 2015 , pp. 173 - 202
Copyright
© The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

When I heard that this volume of Iraq was to be dedicated to Dominique, I thought of her role as wise and indefatigable scholar, mentor, helper, conciliator and administrator, and I would have celebrated our long friendship by writing something about sphragistics, except that she knows all about them already. Fortunately her interests include the Greek writer Xenophon, and she has herself excavated at my favourite site, Nimrud, which he visited in 401 b.c. I hope she may be pleased to read something more about him.

References

Adams, Robert McC. 1965. Land Behind Baghdad: a History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Admiralty, War Staff. 1917. A Handbook of Mesopotamia, Volume III: Central Mesopotamia with Southern Kurdistan and the Syrian Desert. London: Admiralty Intelligence Division.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, William F. 1844. Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks. London: John W. Parker.Google Scholar
Badger, Rev. George Percy. 1852. The Nestorians and their Rituals. 2 vols. London: Joseph Masters.Google Scholar
Barnett, Richard D. 1963. Xenophon and the Wall of Media. Journal of Hellenic Studies 83: 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassett, Sherylee R. 2002. Innocent Victims or Perjurers Betrayed? The Arrest of the Generals in Xenophon's Anabasis. Classical Quarterly, N.S. 52: 447–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behnam, Naser Nu'man. 1976. The discovery of new Babylonian remains in Baghdad, preliminary report. Sumer 32 (Arabic section): 113–19.Google Scholar
Bell, Gertrude Lowthian. 1911. Amurath to Amurath. London: William Heinemann.Google Scholar
Ber, Victor. 2003. Demosthenes Speeches 50–59. Translator. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bewsher, J.B. 1868. On part of Mesopotamia contained between Sheriat-el-Beytha, on the Tigris, and Tell Ibrahim. Paper read, April 8, 1867. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 37: 160–82.Google Scholar
Black, Jeremy A., Hermann Gasche, , Gautier, A., Killick, Robert G., Nijs, R., and Stoops, G. 1987. Ḥabl aṣ-Ṣaḫr 1983–85: Nebuchadnezzar's cross-country wall north of Sippar, (Northern Akkad Project Reports, 1). Ghent: University of Ghent.Google Scholar
Boucher, Arthur. 1913. L'Anabase de Xenophon (retraite des dix mille) avec un commentaire historique et militaire. Paris/Nancy: Berger-Levrault.Google Scholar
Cawkwell, George. 2004. When, how, and why did Xenophon write the Anabasis? In: Lane Fox 2004: 47–67.Google Scholar
Davey, Christopher J. 1985. The Negub tunnel. Iraq 47: 49–55.Google Scholar
Field, Henry. 1940. The Anthropology of Iraq. The Upper Euphrates. Part I, No. 1. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Fiey, Jean M. 1965. Assyrie chrétienne: contribution à l’étude de l'histoire et de la géographie ecclésiastiques et monastiques du nord de l'Iraq, (Recherches, L'Institut des lettres orientales de Beyrouth, 22). 2 vols. Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique.Google Scholar
Gasche, Hermann. 2010. Les défenses avancées de Babylone a l’époque de Nabuchodonosor II. Mesopotamia 45: 113–21, Taf. I–VI.Google Scholar
Gasche, Hermann, David Warburton, R.C., Amandry, Michel, Willem Van Zeist, and Achilles Gautier, . 1989. Abu Qubur 1987–1988, Chantier F. La Résidence Achéménide. Northern Akkad Project Reports 4.Ghent: University of Ghent.Google Scholar
Gibson, McGuire. 1972. The City and Area of Kish. Miami: Field Research Projects.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Ernst Emil. 1907. Untersuchungen über die historische Topographie der Landschaft am Tigris, Kleinen Zab und Gebel Hamrin. Leipzig: Memnon.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Ernst Emil 1948. Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra, Band VI: Geschichte der Stadt Samarra, (Forschungen zur Islamischen Kunst II). Hamburg: Verlag Von Eckardt und Messtorff.Google Scholar
Herzfeld, Ernst Emil 1968. The Persian Empire. Editor, Walser, Gerold. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH.Google Scholar
Hobden, Fiona, and Tuplin, Christopher J.. 2012. Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry, (Mnemosyne Supplements 348). Editors. Leiden and Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Joannès, François. 1995. L'itinéraire des Dix-Mille en Mésopotamie et l'apport des sources cunéiformes. In Dans les pas des Dix-Mille, (Pallas, 43), edited by Briant, P., pp. 173–99. Toulouse: Université.Google Scholar
Jones, James Felix. 1847. Journal of a steam trip to the north of Baghdad. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 16: 301–34.Google Scholar
Jones, James Felix 1851. Researches in the Vicinity of the Median Wall of Xenophon, and along the Old Course of the River Tigris; and Discovery of the Site of Ancient Opis. Submitted to Government on the 10th February 1851. In Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, NS 43 (1857), edited by Hughes Thomas, R., pp. 215–301. Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press.Google Scholar
Jongerdem, Joost, and Verheij, Jelle. 2012. Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870–1915. Editors. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Lane Fox, Robin. 2004. The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand. Editor. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Layard, Austen Henry. 1853. Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Lendle, Otto. 1986. Xenophon in Babylonien: Die Marsche der Kyreer von Pylai bis Opis. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie NF 129: 193–222.Google Scholar
Lendle, Otto 1995. Kommentar zu Xenophons Anabasis (Bücher 1–7). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Le Strange, Guy. 1905. The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate. Cambridge: University Press. Reprinted 1966 (Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, London).Google Scholar
Lobdell, Rev. Henry. 1857. Notes on the Anabasis of Xenophon in the Region of Nineveh. The Bibliotheca Sacra 54 and American Biblical Repository 106: 229–57.Google Scholar
Manfredi, Valerio Massimo. 1986. La Strada dei Diecimila: Topografia e Geografia del'Orient di Senofonte. Milano: Jaca Book. Non vidi.Google Scholar
Moberly, F. J. 1927. The Campaign in Mesopotamia 1914–1918, vol. IV. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Mühl, Simone. 2012. Human landscape – Site (Trans-)formation in the Transtigris area. In: Tells: Social and Environmental Space (Proceedings of the International Workshop “Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 12,000 Years: the Creation of Landscapes II, 14th–18th March 2011” in Kiel, Vol. 3, [Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie 207]), edited by Hofmann, Robert, Moetz, Fevzi-Kemal and Müller, Johannes, pp. 79–92. Bonn: Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH.Google Scholar
Mühl, Simone, and Sulaiman, Burhan S.. 2011. The Makhul Dam Project. In Between the Cultures: The Central Tigris Region from the 3rd to the 1st Millennium BC, Conference at Heidelberg, January 22nd-24th, 2009, (Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 14), edited by Miglus, Peter A. and Mühl, Simone, pp. 371–84. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag.Google Scholar
Munir, Y. Taha. 1973. The authenticity of a Sumerian statue. Iraq 35: 151–53.Google Scholar
Musil, Alois. 1927. The Middle Euphrates: A Topographical Itinerary, (Oriental Explorations and Studies, 3). New York: American Geographical Society.Google Scholar
Oates, David. 1968. Studies in the Ancient History of Northern Iraq. London: British Academy.Google Scholar
Oates, David, and Oates, Joan. 1958. Nimrud 1957: the Hellenistic settlement. Iraq 20: 114–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradeisopoulos, Iordanis K. 2014. Routes and parasangs in Xenophon's Anabasis. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 54: 220–54.Google Scholar
Parpola, Simo, and Porter, Michael. 2001. The Helsinki Atlas of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Editors. Casco Bay/Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.Google Scholar
Radner, Karen. 2007. Šabirešu. Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 11 (5/6): 474–78. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Reade, Julian E. 1964. El-Mutabbaq and Umm Rus. Sumer 20: 83–89.Google Scholar
Reade, Julian E. 1978. Studies in Assyrian geography, I: Sennacherib and the waters of Nineveh; II: notes on the inner provinces. Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archéologie orientale 73: 47–72; 157–80.Google Scholar
Reade, Julian E. 2010. How many miles to Babylon? In Your Praise is Sweet: a Memorial Volume for Jeremy Black from Students, Colleagues and Friends, edited by Baker, Heather D., Robson, Eleanor and Zólyomi, Gábor, 281–90. London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq.Google Scholar
Reitlinger, Gerald. 1951. Unglazed relief pottery from northern Mesopotamia. Ars Islamica 15–16: 11–22.Google Scholar
Rood, Tim. 2010. Xenophon's parasangs. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 130: 51–66.Google Scholar
Ross, John. 1839. Notes on two journeys from Baghdad to the ruins of Al-Hadhr, in Mesopotamia, in 1836 and 1837. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 9: 443–70.Google Scholar
Ross, John 1841. A journey from Baghdád to the ruins of Opis, and the Median Wall, in 1834. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 11: 121–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salman, Isa. 1970. Archaeological Sites in Iraq. Baghdad: Ministry of Information, Directorate General of Antiquities.Google Scholar
Salman, Isa 1976. Atlas of the Archaeological Sites in Iraq. Baghdad: Ministry of Information, Directorate General of Antiquities.Google Scholar
Simpson, St John. 2013. Rams, stags and crosses from Sasanian Iraq: elements of a shared visual vocabulary from Late Antiquity. In Animals, Gods and Men from East to West: Papers on Archaeology and History in Honour of Roberta Venco Ricciardi (BAR International Series 2516), edited by Peruzzetto, Alessandra, Dorna Metzger, Francesca and Dirvem, Lucinda, pp. 103–17. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Stronach, David B. 1961. Excavations at Ras al ’Amiya. Iraq 23: 95–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuplin, Christopher J. 1991. Modern and ancient travellers in the Achaemenid Empire: Byron's Road to Oxiana and Xenophon's Anabasis. In Through Traveller’ Eyes: European Travellers on the Iranian Monuments (Achaemenid History 7), edited by Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen and Willem Drijvers, Jan, pp. 37–57. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten.Google Scholar
Tuplin, Christopher J. 1999. On the track of the ten thousand. Review of Briant, P., Editor, Dans les pas des Dix-Mille (Pallas, 43). Revue des Études Anciennes 101: 331–66.Google Scholar
Tuplin, Christopher J. 2003. Xenophon in Media. In Continuity of Empire(?): Assyria, Media, Persia (History of the Ancient Near East/Monographs 5), edited by Lanfranchi, Giovanni B., Roaf, Michael, and Rollinger, Robert, pp. 351–89. Padova: S.a.r.g.o.n Editrice e Libreria.Google Scholar
Wootton, J.E. 1965. A Sumerian statue from Tell Aswad. Sumer 21: 113–18.Google Scholar