From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides and The
Landmark Herodotus, here is a new edition of Xenophon's Hellenika,
the primary source for the events of the final seven years and aftermath
of the Peloponnesian War.
Hellenika covers the years between 411 and 362 B.C.E., a particularly
dramatic period during which the alliances among Athens, Sparta, Thebes,
and Persia were in constant flux. Together with the volumes of Herodotus
and Thucydides, it completes an ancient narrative of the military and
political history of classical Greece.
Xenophon was an Athenian who participated in the expedition of Cyrus the
Younger against Cyrus' brother, the Perisan King Artaxerces II. Later
Xenophon joined the Spartan army and hence was exiled from Athens. In
addition to the Hellenika, a number of his essays have survived,
including one on his memories of his teacher, Socrates.
Beautifully illustrated, heavily annotated, and filled with detailed,
clear maps, this edition gives us a new, authoritative, and completely
accessible translation by John Marincola, an comprehensive introduction
by David Thomas, sixteen appendices written by leading classics
scholars, and an extensive timeline/chronology to clarify this otherwise
confusing period. Unlike any other edition of the Hellenika, it also
includes the relevant texts of Diodorus Siculus and the Oxyrhynchus
Historian, with explanatory footnotes and a table that correlates
passages of the three works, which is perhaps crucial to an assessment
of Xenophon's reliability and quality as a historian.
Like the two Landmark editions that precede it, The Landmark Xenophon's
Hellenika is the most readable and comprehensive edition available of
an essential history.
