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 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. 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 follow this thread
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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472 BCE

The Persians

Aeschylus

Classical Greece. Athens. Written in Ancient Greek (Attic).

Tragedy set at the Persian court as news arrives of the defeat at Salamis and Xerxes' army retreats through Thrace.

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

The Persians set the Athenian picture of a Persian king's army in retreat and of Greek freedom against barbarian subjection. Xenophon's speeches to the Ten Thousand draw on the same contrast between free Greek citizens and the king's slaves.

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Aeschylus gave the first literary account of Salamis and of Xerxes' retreat, presented from the Persian court. Herodotus' Book 8 covers the same battle and shares motifs such as Xerxes watching the battle and the hubris of bridging the sea, though how far he used the play is debated.

Where it came from

Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

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Plataea ElegySimonides of Ceos

c. 478 BCE

Plataea Elegy

Simonides of Ceos

Late Archaic Greece. Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

Fragmentary narrative elegy, recovered on papyrus, celebrating the Greek march to and victory at Plataea over the Persians.

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Simonides' Plataea elegy narrated the Greek march and battle within living memory, in epic style. Scholars such as Deborah Boedeker have argued that it shaped Herodotus' account of the Plataea campaign in Book 9.

Where it came from

Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

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Periodos GesHecataeus of Miletus

c. 500 BCE

Periodos Ges (Circuit of the Earth)

Hecataeus of Miletus

Late Archaic Greece. Miletus, Ionia. Written in Ancient Greek (Ionic).

Prose description of the known world, region by region, including the lands of the Persian empire; survives in fragments.

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

Hecataeus' prose survey of the world was Herodotus' main written predecessor; Herodotus mocks circular world maps (4.36) and corrects Hecataeus' Egyptian material. Ancient critics, including Porphyry, said Herodotus copied passages of Book 2 from him.

Where it came from

The line stops here: survives only in fragments; its sources were Ionian travel, sailors' reports and maps rather than identifiable texts.

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Behistun InscriptionDarius I

c. 520 BCE

Behistun Inscription

Darius I

Achaemenid Persia. Persia (Media). Written in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian.

Trilingual rock inscription in which Darius narrates in the first person his seizure of the throne and campaigns against rebel kings; copies circulated in Aramaic.

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Disputed link, probable.

Herodotus' account of Darius' accession, the false Smerdis and the seven conspirators (3.61–88), matches the Behistun narrative in many details, including several conspirators' names. Aramaic copies circulated through the empire, but whether Herodotus drew on a version of the text or on oral Persian tradition is unsettled.

Where it came from

Letter to Ashur (Sargon II's Eighth Campaign), Anonymous (in the name of Sargon II) 714 BCE follow this thread

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PoemsSolon

c. 590 BCE

Poems (elegies and iambics)

Solon

Archaic Greece. Athens. Written in Ancient Greek.

Fragmentary political and moral poems by the Athenian lawgiver on justice, wealth and the limits of human fortune.

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Herodotus cites Solon's poems at 5.113, and his Solon in the Croesus story (1.29–33) voices the moral of Solon's elegies, that no man should be counted happy before his end. The ethics of reversal of fortune that frame the whole Histories come from this archaic poetry.

Where it came from

Works and Days, Hesiod c. 700 BCE follow this thread

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ElegiesTyrtaeus

c. 650 BCE

Elegies (Eunomia and martial exhortations)

Tyrtaeus

Archaic Greece. Sparta. Written in Ancient Greek.

Fragmentary elegiac poems urging Spartan hoplites to hold the line and die well for the city.

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Tyrtaeus' elegies, recited by Spartan armies on campaign, set the terms of exhortation to hold the line and die well. Xenophon, an admirer of Sparta who served with the Spartan Cheirisophus, gives his own battle exhortations the same ethic of shame and courage.

Where it came from

Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

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PoemsArchilochus

c. 650 BCE

Poems (fragments)

Archilochus

Archaic Greece. Paros and Thasos. Written in Ancient Greek.

Elegiac and iambic fragments by a soldier-poet who fought for pay and wrote of throwing away his shield to save his life.

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Archilochus was the first Greek writer to speak in the voice of a soldier who fought for pay and survival rather than glory. The Anabasis is a mercenary's narrative of the same kind, concerned with pay, plunder and getting out alive; the link is one of subject, not documented reading.

Where it came from

Iliad, Homer c. 750 BCE follow this thread

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c. 700 BCE

Works and Days

Hesiod

Archaic Greece. Boeotia. Written in Ancient Greek.

Didactic hexameter poem on justice, labor and the farming year, addressed to the poet's brother Perses.

What it handed down

To Poems (elegies and iambics) (c. 590 BCE)

Thematic kinship, well documented.

Solon's 'Prayer to the Muses' and his Eunomia elegy rework Hesiod's teaching that Zeus' justice punishes the unjust city and that wealth gained wrongly does not last. He uses Hesiod's figures of Dike and Hybris.

Where it came from

Theogony, Hesiod c. 700 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 (c. 700 BCE)

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 follow this thread

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Letter to AshurAnonymous

714 BCE

Letter to Ashur (Sargon II's Eighth Campaign)

Anonymous (in the name of Sargon II)

Neo-Assyrian. Assyria. Written in Akkadian.

Long literary report addressed to the god Ashur describing Sargon II's march through the Zagros mountains against Urartu, stage by stage.

What it handed down

To Behistun Inscription (c. 520 BCE)

Structural model, probable.

Achaemenid royal inscriptions took over the conventions of Mesopotamian royal inscriptions such as Sargon's campaign reports: a first-person king, a sequence of named campaigns and enemies, and dated victories. Behistun's Babylonian version is written directly in that Akkadian tradition.

Where it came from

The line stops here: draws on the conventions of Assyrian royal annals, a genre of formulaic inscriptions rather than single identifiable works.

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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 (c. 430 BCE)

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 follow this thread

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c. 750 BCE

Iliad

Homer

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

Hexameter epic of the wrath of Achilles in the tenth year of the Trojan War, built on assemblies, speeches and battles.

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Xenophon's rise in Book 3, a sleepless night, a dream, then rousing the leaderless captains and speaking to the assembled army, is modeled on Iliadic assembly scenes and on Nestor's and Odysseus' rallying speeches. Scholars read the generals' debates and Xenophon's self-portrait as a young leader against the Iliad's councils.

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

Herodotus frames the Persian Wars as a successor to the Trojan War, opening with abductions that culminate in Helen, and discusses the Iliad directly at 2.116–117. His speeches, catalogue of Xerxes' army and battle narratives follow Homeric models, which is why ancient critics called him 'most Homeric'.

To The Persians (472 BCE)

Structural model, probable.

The play's chanted catalogues of Persian commanders and contingents imitate the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships. The messenger's battle narrative uses Homeric diction for the fighting at Salamis.

To Plataea Elegy (c. 478 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

The Plataea elegy opens with a hymn to Achilles and compares the fallen at Plataea to the heroes of Troy. Simonides presents the recent battle as a new Iliad, with Homer's fame as the model for the Greeks' fame.

To Elegies (Eunomia and martial exhortations) (c. 650 BCE)

Direct source, well documented.

Tyrtaeus fragment 10 adapts Priam's speech at Iliad 22.71–76 on the shame of an old man lying dead in the front line while the young look on. His elegies are written in Homeric vocabulary recast for the hoplite phalanx.

To Poems (fragments) (c. 650 BCE)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Archilochus writes in Homeric diction while overturning Homeric values: his poem on abandoning his shield to a Thracian answers the Iliadic ideal of the warrior who dies rather than flees. He calls himself 'servant of Lord Enyalios', using the Iliad's name for Ares.

To Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

Structural model, well documented.

The Odyssey assumes the Iliad's story and characters and is composed in the same hexameter diction. Its nostos takes up the aftermath of the war, and Odysseus' visit to the underworld reunites him with Achilles and Ajax.

Where it came from

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

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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 follow this thread

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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 (c. 750 BCE)

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 follow this thread

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Song of KumarbiAnonymous

c. 14th–13th century BCE

Song of Kumarbi (Kingship in Heaven)

Anonymous

Hittite New Kingdom. Hattusa, Anatolia. Written in Hittite.

Hittite version of a Hurrian myth of successive divine kings, in which Kumarbi castrates Anu and is overthrown by the storm god.

What it handed down

To Theogony (c. 700 BCE)

Structural model, probable.

The Hittite Song of Kumarbi tells a succession of sky gods in which a father is castrated by his son and a storm god finally rules. Hesiod's sequence of Ouranos, Kronos and Zeus has the same pattern and the same motif of a swallowed stone, and most scholars accept a route from Anatolia to Greece.

Where it came from

The line stops here: translated from lost Hurrian oral and written sources.

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c. 1700 BCE

Atrahasis

Anonymous

Old Babylonian. Mesopotamia. Written in Akkadian.

Babylonian epic of the creation of humankind and the gods' attempt to destroy it by flood, survived by Atrahasis.

What it handed down

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

Direct source, well documented.

The flood story Utnapishtim tells in Tablet XI is taken from Atrahasis, sometimes nearly line for line. At one point the Standard Babylonian text even calls Utnapishtim 'Atrahasis'.

Where it came from

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

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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 follow this thread

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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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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)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Poems (elegies and iambics) (c. 590 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

To Works and Days (c. 700 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Behistun Inscription (c. 520 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Anabasis (c. 400 BCE)

To Histories (c. 430 BCE)

To The Persians (472 BCE)

To Plataea Elegy (c. 478 BCE)

To Elegies (Eunomia and martial exhortations) (c. 650 BCE)

To Poems (fragments) (c. 650 BCE)

To Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Theogony (c. 700 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Odyssey (c. 725 BCE)

To Iliad (c. 750 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Theogony (c. 700 BCE)

Where it came from

What it handed down

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

What it handed down

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

Where it came from

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