Anabasis IV: The Great Battle

In ancient times the region Cyrus has been traveling through, which is part of Anbar Province today, was called Arabia. Now that he has come into the region that is now Baghdad -- that city was not founded until the Islamic age -- it is known as Babylonia. Babylon itself is quite a bit further south, near the city of Hillah, Iraq. It is in this area of Mesopotamia where Baghdad now stands, at the time a place of villages and farms, that the Battle of Cunaxa ends up happening.

Cyrus believes he is closing on where his brother will meet him, so he holds a midnight muster to order and review his army. He places his Greek mercenaries on the army's right, anchored by the Euphrates. This is an interesting tactical decision. It gives his army an unbreakable core, as the Persian forces have nothing that can crack the Greek hoplites. The river protects them from being enveloped. His own forces in the center end up serving chiefly to cover the flank and rear of the Greek unit, so that as it successfully advances through its opponents it cannot be surrounded from behind.

Yet in doing this he ends up not placing them where they can fight the strongest and most central units of the King's army. He ends up in the center himself with his cavalry, to cover the Greek rear but also to strike as a cavalry reserve if weak points appear. To his left he puts his native troops.

They sleep in position and begin at dawn their advance. The Persian king chooses the stratagem of retreating before them for several days. This leads them to believe that he is choosing not to fight, and thus their army grows increasingly poor at keeping the discipline of their positions. Thus, when on the third day he turns and comes upon them strongly, they are not in order and scramble to get into place.

Cyrus realizes that his best card is not going to be very useful against his brother because it is on the right instead of in the center. He tries to reorder his forces but the Greek mercenary commander, Clearchus, refuses to attempt the ordered maneuver given that it would expose his flanks. Thus, the battle commences as described above. 

The Greeks meet no effective resistance, and exactly as expected press through the Persian army -- which is vastly, vastly larger but not coherent -- until their rear is in danger of being exposed. Cyrus defends their rear with his cavalry until he realizes that he has come close to where the King of Persia actually is, in the center of the Persian formation. Seeing that, he takes his own picked men -- his 'table companions' -- and tries to kill the King.

Cyrus' charge leads to a personal combat between himself and the King, whom Cyrus wounds through his breastplate. However, one of the King's companions kills Cyrus with a javelin through the face. (This Persian is not named at this time, but was one Mithridates who was reportedly later executed for it as he had stolen the honor of the King's kill.)  Cyrus' death leads to the defense of his body by his table companions, who all die in place. The Persians then pass into the camp and plunder all the baggage, leaving the remnants of Cyrus' army without supplies. Only then do they return to the Greek hoplites, who were coming back from a very successful day (so they thought).

When the Greeks meet the King and his reunited forces, they once again drive them with great success. The King's forces retreat before them, unable to resist the hoplite advance. Eventually the Greeks allow the retreat -- they are infantry after all, and have been fighting all day without food -- and return to their camp only to find it plundered. There is no supper to be had. 

And there has been no word from Cyrus. They are completely cut off from command, without clear intelligence about the battle, and hungry. 

Xenophon includes a touching brief biography of Cyrus, whom he apparently admired and considered a genuinely just and good man. Cyrus has the heroic virtues: courage, of course -- he once killed a she-bear in personal combat -- but also love of horses, great generosity, such honor that his word once given was thought completely reliable, and the ability to issue punishments to criminals with great firmness. One would regularly see on the bigger roads in his domain, Xenophon relates, men with amputated hands or feet: and therefore, he tells us, one could travel wherever one liked in Cyrus' domain with anything one choose to take without fear. Maimonides uses a similar argument as a proof of the existence of God; Genghis Khan's reign was reputedly also a place where 'a virgin dressed only in gold jewelry' could travel wherever she liked without fear of being troubled. Xenophon thought that Cyrus was a very good and virtuous man and, in the same way Aristotle would describe a generation later, therefore a good leader. The Greeks were there as his mercenaries, but they fought for him not only for gold but also because they thought he was worth fighting for.