Xenophon's Defile

Xenophon was the first known general who established in the rear of a phalanx a reserve from which he could feed and protect weaker parts of his line. The 10,000 eventually passed by some massive fortifications, bigger than anything they had in Greece. These were the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities of Nimrod and Nineveh. From there, they made their way into the mountainous land of their Carducoi, or Carduchians - a wild tribe inhabiting the mountains of modern eastern Turkey and southern Armenia. Xenophon related a story about how one Persian king had sent an army of 120,000 men into these mountains to subdue the Carduchians, but