Xenias of Parrhasia

Xenias of Parrhasia (Gr. Ξενίας) was a Greek military leader who was in the service of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger and who was founded in 401 BC. Took part in his famous campaign against his brother Artaxerxes II . Parrhasia , his homeland, was in southern Arcadia on the Peloponnese peninsula . His exact life dates are not known. The only source about him is the book Anabasis the Greek historian Xenophon ·

Military chief Cyrus the Younger

Xenias was already in the service of Cyrus during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC). He commanded in 405 BC The bodyguard of Cyrus, consisting of 300 hoplites, when Cyrus traveled together with the satrap Tissaphernes to his fatally ill father, the great king Dareios II. , In Susa.

When, after the death of Darius, his brother Artaxerxes II had become the great king and Cyrus had to be content with the rule over the satrapy of Lydia, Xenias was in Cyrus's sphere of influence the commander of the mercenary troops, which he used to protect the cities against attacks by him hostile neighboring satraps Tissaphernes had stationed in the respective city castles. He was thus a kind of army chief of Cyrus and certainly one of his most important military advisers.

Xenias' role in the "Train of the Ten Thousand"

When Cyrus decided to wage war against his brother and to oust him from the throne of the great king, Xenia was ordered to all those of his subordinate mercenaries for the safety of the city castles in Lydia contract were not necessary, and Cyrus to Sardis to to lead. With this mercenary force of 4,000 hoplites (heavily armed) subordinate to him , Xenias was numerically the most important individual commander of Cyrus. However, the Spartan Klearchus received the supreme command of all Greek mercenary contingents in the army of Cyrus .

When the army set out to the east, very few participants knew that a campaign against the great king was intended. When the Greek mercenaries found out about this at Tarsus , they mutinied and wanted to return home. Xenias and his colleague Pasion von Megara were initially loyal to Cyrus. It was precisely because of this that they alienated themselves from their soldiers who wanted to return home. They turned en masse to Klearchus, who pretended to be prepared to return them to Greece even against Cyrus's will. In reality, however, his anti-cryogenic attitude was only feigned and he acted in a secret agreement with the Persian prince. In this way he succeeded in maintaining the mercenaries' trust, gradually overcoming their unwillingness, dissuading them from their mutiny and bringing them back to Cyrus. Cyrus's account had worked out through these maneuvers by Clearchus.

The desertion of Xenias

Xenias was probably dismayed and disappointed by the course of events: first of all, he, too, had apparently not been informed that the campaign was to be directed against the great king. Perhaps he was not convinced of the legitimacy and success of this company. Second, as a result of the mutiny in the army, he had lost most of his soldiers, who had voluntarily placed themselves under the command of the Clarchus. Since Cyrus, as commander in chief, accepted this and was not ready to intervene in favor of Xenias, Xenias saw his authority impaired. He decided to give up his position as strategist and desert. Together with Pasion von Megara and probably with the help of other comrades in arms, he seized several ships in the port city of Myriandros on the Issian Gulf, on which he also had his valuables shipped, and set sail for Greece. This decision could not have been easy for him, as he had left his entire family in Cyrus's sphere of influence in the city of Tralleis (located in Lydia on the Meander ) and he had to reckon that the angry prince would take revenge on him through their murder.

However, Cyrus played the magnanimous - probably also in order not to turn the Greek mercenaries, who had also doubted his enterprise, against him in the precarious situation - and announced that he would leave the family of Xenias unpunished and that he would not let the fugitive Xenias be persecuted wool. However, it remains unclear whether Xenias and Pasion were able to reach their homeland safely. The sources are silent about their further fate.

swell

• Xenophon, anabasis

literature

• Otto Lendle : Commentary on Xenophon's Anabasis . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995.
• Robin Waterfield: Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia and the End of the Golden Age . Cambridge / MA 2006.