The influences behind Anabasis

AnabasisXenophon

c. 400 BCE

Anabasis

Xenophon

Late Classical Greece. Classical Greece (written in exile at Scillus/Corinth). Written in Ancient Greek.

Xenophon's Anabasis, written probably in the 370s BCE, is a first-person account (told in the third person) of the march of Cyrus the Younger's Greek mercenaries into Mesopotamia in 401 BCE and of their retreat to the Black Sea after Cunaxa. Its tree runs back through Herodotus, Thucydides and Ctesias to Homer, and through Herodotus' Persian and archaic Greek sources to Mesopotamian and Anatolian texts.

Where it came from

Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE
Histories, Herodotus c. 430 BCE follow this thread
Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
The Persians, Aeschylus 472 BCE follow this thread
Elegies (Eunomia and martial exhortations), Tyrtaeus c. 650 BCE follow this thread
Poems (fragments), Archilochus c. 650 BCE follow this thread

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c. 725 BCE

Odyssey

Homer

Archaic Greece. Ionia. Written in Ancient Greek (Homeric).

Hexameter epic of Odysseus' ten-year homecoming from Troy through strange lands and peoples.

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

In his speech at 3.2.25 Xenophon warns that if the Greeks settle among the Persians they may, 'like the Lotus-eaters', forget the way home, quoting the Odyssey's episode. The whole second half of the work is a homecoming through strange peoples to the sea, and the cry 'Thalatta! Thalatta!' at Mount Theches works as an Odyssean landfall.

To Histories

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Odyssey's opening describes a man who 'saw the cities of many men and learned their minds'; Herodotus' travels and ethnographic Book 2 adopt that wandering inquirer's stance. Tales of far peoples at the edges of the world in Books 3 and 4 echo Odysseus' encounters.

Where it came from

Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Babylonian version), Sîn-lēqi-unninni (attributed) c. 1200 BCE

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c. 1200 BCE

Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Babylonian version)

Sîn-lēqi-unninni (attributed)

Middle Babylonian. Mesopotamia. Written in Akkadian.

Twelve-tablet epic of the king of Uruk, his friendship with Enkidu, his journey to the ends of the earth and his failed quest for immortality.

What it handed down

To Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

Disputed link, probable.

Gilgamesh's journey to the edge of the world, his meeting with the goddess Siduri and his crossing of the waters of death parallel Odysseus' stays with Circe and Calypso and his visit to the dead. The resemblances are close, but how the material reached Greece is unsettled.

To Iliad

Disputed link, conjectural.

Achilles' grief for Patroclus, his refusal to accept the burial and his confrontation with mortality closely resemble Gilgamesh's mourning for Enkidu. Scholars including M. L. West have argued for Near Eastern transmission, but no route of reading is documented.

Where it came from

Atrahasis, Anonymous c. 1700 BCE follow this thread
Sumerian Gilgamesh poems (Gilgamesh and Huwawa, Death of Gilgamesh), Anonymous c. 2100 BCE

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Sumerian Gilgamesh poemsAnonymous

c. 2100 BCE

Sumerian Gilgamesh poems (Gilgamesh and Huwawa, Death of Gilgamesh)

Anonymous

Ur III. Sumer. Written in Sumerian.

Separate Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, including the expedition to the Cedar Forest against Huwawa.

What it handed down

To Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Babylonian version) (c. 1200 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

The Akkadian epic incorporates the earlier Sumerian poems: Gilgamesh and Huwawa becomes the Cedar Forest expedition of Tablets II–V. Tablet XII is a close translation of the Sumerian 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld'.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

To Histories

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

To Iliad

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Babylonian version) (c. 1200 BCE)

Where it came from

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