Ten Thousand (Greek mercenaries)

The Ten Thousand (Ancient Greek: οἱ Μύριοι) was a force of mercenary units, mainly Greek, employed by Cyrus the Younger to attempt to wrest the throne of the Persian Empire from his brother, Artaxerxes II. Their march to the Battle of Cunaxa and back to Greece (401–399 BC) was recorded by Xenophon (one of their leaders) in his work, The Anabasis.

The "ten thousand" marched inland and fought the Battle of Cunaxa and then marched back to Greece during the years 401 BC to 399 BC. Xenophon stated in The Anabasis that the Greek heavy troops scattered their opposition twice during the battle; only one Greek was even wounded. Only after the battle did they hear that Cyrus had been killed, making their victory irrelevant and the expedition a failure.

The "ten thousand" were in the middle of a very large empire with no food, no employer, and no reliable friends. They offered to make their Persian ally Ariaeus king, but he refused on the grounds that he was not of royal blood and so would not find enough support among the Persians to succeed. They offered their services to Tissaphernes, a leading satrap of Artaxerxes, but he refused them, and they refused to surrender to him. Tissaphernes was left with a problem; a large army of heavy troops, which he could not defeat by frontal assault. He supplied them with food and, after a long wait, led them northwards for home, meanwhile detaching Ariaeus and his light troops from their cause.

The Greek senior officers accepted the invitation of Tissaphernes to a feast, where they were made prisoner, taken up to the king, and decapitated. The Greeks then elected new officers and set out to march northwards to the Black Sea through Corduene and Armenia. Xenophon records the joyful moment when the "ten thousand" (by then actually far fewer) finally saw the sea, signifying their escape, whereupon they shouted Thalatta! Thalatta! ("The Sea! The Sea!").

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