Xenophon's Anabasis, or March Back

Xenophon's work consists of 15 chapters. The first 13 enumerate the practices in civil and military institutions that ostensibly show how Sparta became a powerful city-state. While the last two focus instead on Sparta's decline, as a rebuke of contemporary Spartans for being untrue to their own ideals. Xenophon ends the treatise by telling how, despite its declining state, Sparta has remained faithful to its monarchy. His most famous work is his Anabasis, or March Back, which records his experience fighting in Persia as a mercenary. Written in 7 books, it provides the history of Cyrus, and of the retreat of the Greek mercenaries across Mesopotamia and Asia Minor from 405