Band on the Run: Xenophon and the First Great Mercenary Army's Epic Escape from Persia

A riveting retelling of one of the great adventure stories of antiquity—when Greek philosopher-warrior Xenophon led a stranded band of the “Ten Thousand” mercenary soldiers on a treacherous escape from the Persians.

400 BC. The Persian prince Cyrus the Younger hires an army of Greek soldiers to oust his brother from the Persian throne. But when Cyrus dies in battle during the army’s trek through the middle east, the army is stranded deep in enemy territory.

Led by Xenophon, a young Athenian philosopher turned solider, the Ten Thousand fought their way home through deserts and mountains, snowstorms, starvation, and relentless attacks, evolving into one of the most fearsome forces of the ancient world. Their journey, chronicled in Xenophon’s Anabasis, is one of history’s greatest military stories.

In Band on the Run, Robert O’Connell not only gives us an exciting and witty retelling of this story, but he has done so with a wise contemporary spin. For in his estimation, this was the battle that established the use of powerful mercenary forces. The attempted conquest of the Ten Thousand begins a historical line through Western history of the use of mercenary armies that has lasted up to our present day. And, as O’Connell shows, much misery and tragedy in human history has been due to this trajectory. This is a brilliant revisionist history with important lessons for our time.