SASA Mini Reading Group: Gifts, Leadership, and Survival: A Journey Through the Persian Empire with Xenophon
الخميس، 14 يناير
|Zoom Meeting
3-Week Text-In-Translation Reading Group Thursdays @ 5pm EST Led by John Haberstroh, PhD Candidate @ University of California, Riverside
Time & Location
14 يناير 2021، 5:00 م – 6:00 م
Zoom Meeting
About the Event
Previous participation and previous knowledge not required.
Xenophon of Athens wrote about his experiences serving under the Persian dynast Cyrus the Younger in his attempt to overthrow his brother Artaxerxes for the Persian throne. Cyrus was killed in the fighting despite the success of his troops. In the wake of this disaster, Xenophon finds himself in the middle of the hostile Persian Empire with the remnants of the “Ten Thousand”. How were the Greek mercenaries able to escape and return to Greece? Or did they?
In this reading group, we will journey with Xenophon through the Persian Empire by reading his exciting Anabasis, sometimes translated in English as The March Up Country. We will focus in particular on episodes of gift-giving, lessons on leadership, and how the Ten Thousand survived. The Anabasis is a sophisticated text that has been many things to many people. Michael Flower (2012, 40) recently summed…