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 follow this thread
Histories, Herodotus c. 430 BCE
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. 430 BCE

Histories

Herodotus

Classical Greece. Ionia and Athens. Written in Ancient Greek (Ionic).

Inquiry into the Persian Wars and their background, mixing campaign narrative with ethnography and geography of the Persian empire.

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

Herodotus measured the Persian Royal Road in stages and parasangs (5.52–54); Xenophon structures the march of Book 1 the same way, logging each stage and parasang count. His digressions on the Carduchians, Chalybes and Mossynoeci follow Herodotus' habit of pausing the march for the customs of the peoples met.

Where it came from

Periodos Ges (Circuit of the Earth), Hecataeus of Miletus c. 500 BCE follow this thread
Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread
Theogony, Hesiod c. 700 BCE
The Persians, Aeschylus 472 BCE follow this thread
Plataea Elegy, Simonides of Ceos c. 478 BCE follow this thread
Poems (elegies and iambics), Solon c. 590 BCE follow this thread
Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE follow this thread
Behistun Inscription, Darius I c. 520 BCE follow this thread

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c. 700 BCE

Theogony

Hesiod

Archaic Greece. Boeotia. Written in Ancient Greek.

Hexameter poem on the birth of the gods and the succession of divine kings from Ouranos to Zeus.

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

At 2.53 Herodotus credits Homer and Hesiod with giving the Greeks their theogony, naming the gods and their titles. He uses this as the basis for his argument about the Egyptian origin of Greek gods.

To Works and Days

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Works and Days opens by correcting the Theogony: there is not one Eris (Strife) but two, a destructive and a productive one. Its Prometheus and Pandora story retells the Theogony's version with a different emphasis.

Where it came from

Song of Kumarbi (Kingship in Heaven), Anonymous c. 14th–13th century BCE follow this thread
Enuma Elish, Anonymous c. 1100 BCE

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c. 1100 BCE

Enuma Elish

Anonymous

Middle Babylonian. Babylon. Written in Akkadian.

Babylonian creation epic in which Marduk defeats Tiamat and becomes king of the gods.

What it handed down

To Theogony (c. 700 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Enuma Elish moves from primordial waters through generations of gods to a young warrior god who defeats a monster and is made king. Hesiod's Zeus, who defeats Typhoeus and is acclaimed king, follows that pattern, which M. L. West traced to Near Eastern models.

Where it came from

Epic of Anzu, Anonymous c. 1800 BCE

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Epic of AnzuAnonymous

c. 1800 BCE

Epic of Anzu

Anonymous

Old Babylonian. Mesopotamia. Written in Akkadian.

Epic in which the warrior god Ninurta recovers the Tablet of Destinies from the bird-monster Anzu.

What it handed down

To Enuma Elish (c. 1100 BCE)

Direct source, probable.

Marduk's victory over Tiamat is modeled on Ninurta's victory over Anzu: in both a younger god accepts a challenge the older gods refuse and recovers the Tablet of Destinies. Enuma Elish reassigns Ninurta's role to Babylon's god.

Where it came from

Lugal-e (The Exploits of Ninurta), Anonymous c. 2100 BCE

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Lugal-eAnonymous

c. 2100 BCE

Lugal-e (The Exploits of Ninurta)

Anonymous

Ur III. Sumer. Written in Sumerian.

Sumerian poem of Ninurta's campaign into the mountains against the demon Asag and his ordering of the stones.

What it handed down

To Epic of Anzu (c. 1800 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Lugal-e established Ninurta as the warrior god who marches into the mountains and defeats a monstrous enemy. The Anzu epic builds a new Ninurta exploit on that model in Akkadian.

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)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

To Works and Days

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Theogony (c. 700 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Enuma Elish (c. 1100 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Epic of Anzu (c. 1800 BCE)

Where it came from

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