Shane Brennan and David Thomas’ Landmark edition of Xenophon’s Anabasis is the sixth entry in Robert Strassler’s Landmark series, following Thucydides, Herodotus, Arrian and Julius Caesar, as well as Xenophon’s other historical work, the Hellenika. For anyone encountering Xenophon’s masterpiece for the first time, or even for readers altogether more familiar with the Anabasis, this book will prove an important resource for years to come. The book is equipped not only with Thomas’ translation of the text and Brennan’s learned introduction to Xenophon and the world of the Anabasis, but also some 23 appendices, many authored by leading scholars in the field of Xenophon studies. Eighteen of these contributions constitute short essays covering a range of themes and topics, from Xenophon’s knowledge of Sparta to the legacy of Xenophon’s Anabasis, while four of the final five appendices incorporate translations of a selection of ancient writings that in some way relate to the text. The final appendix (written by Thomas) supplies a set of brief character biographies, valuable starting points for students unfamiliar with the Anabasis’ different personalities. As is customary for the series, the book features several maps, a capacious (50-page) index and selected bibliography for both general and professional readers.

Limitations of space do not permit an exhaustive critique of Thomas’ translation, so I offer here some overarching observations. (1) Thomas’ text is lucid (if somewhat prolix) in style, neatly capturing the smoothness of Xenophon’s Attic Greek (though the translator’s notes on pages 487–506 demonstrate that Xenophon was more of a stylist than many might assume). (2) There are many (overwhelmingly minor) deviations between the Greek text of the 1998 Loeb edition and the Landmark’s implied Greek text. Thomas lists almost 250 of these variations on pages 496–506, studiously calling attention to the manuscript and scholarly authorities that underpin his choices. (3) Thomas’ language at times tends towards the verbose. For example, in Xenophon the character’s speech on Persian abundance, Thomas renders διαθεώμενος αὐτῶν ὅσην μὲν χώραν καὶ οἵαν ἔχοιεν, ὡς δὲ ἄϕθονα τὰ ἐπιτήδεια (3.1.19) thus: ‘I fully saw how extensive and how prosperous is the land they control, how abundant are their food supplies …’ (84). (4) In keeping with the series style, the translation is encumbered by a plurality of paratextual matter. I take pages 190–91, selected at random, by way of example. Alongside Thomas’ translation of 6.1.18–23, readers are furnished with: (a) two maps that depict the Cyreans’ parabasis from Kotyora to Heraclea, (b) an image of a well-known Laconian cup depicting Zeus with an eagle (complementing 6.1.23), (c) a chapter summary in the marginalia and (d) various footnotes which frequently cross-reference either other parts of the Anabasis or the volume’s numerous maps and appendices. These features, each helpful in their own right, nonetheless combine to inhibit a straightforward reading of the text by itself.

Let’s turn, then, to the numerous essays that follow Thomas’ translation, some of which are already set readings in my undergraduate teaching. For instance, Emily Baragwanath’s chapter on non-combatants amongst the Cyreans reveals how Xenophon occasionally enables readers to glimpse the role of different individuals, some free, others unfree, in his story of the army’s march back to Greece. And John Dillery’s essay on Xenophon’s position in the wider corpus of classical historiography offers stimulating evaluations of the Hellenika and the Anabasis, ultimately suggesting that in his focus on individuals’ actions and in his didactic narrative approach, Xenophon ‘can be seen to anticipate important developments later’ (376). Common to many of these contributions, too, is an appreciation of Xenophon the author’s fundamental role in selecting and shaping the narrative for his own purposes; the Anabasis cannot be viewed as a dispassionate account that simply recapitulates events as they unfolded. Even so, Xenophon’s narrative still has the capacity, as John Lee writes, to inform ‘anyone seeking to understand warfare in the Classical world’ (350).

Special commendation should also be reserved for the editors’ salutary inclusion of maps and diagrams that aid readers’ comprehension of the soldiers’ movements over the course of the work’s seven books, not least the final map (Reference map 10), which isolates the 87 ‘halting points’ of the march. After all, while the general route taken by Xenophon and the other soldiers is widely known, Brennan amply shows in appendices P and Q (393–404 and 405–12, respectively) that much remains uncertain about some of the places named by Xenophon and parts of the route taken from one named place to the next.

In sum, the Landmark Xenophon’s Anabasis is a significant achievement. It will appeal primarily, I suppose, to students of Xenophon and ancient Greek, along with other readers who aspire to understand this fascinating yet confounding text. But even those more acquainted with Xenophontic scholarship would do well to peruse the volume’s many pages; for the opportunities are legion to revisit assumptions made on topics as disparate as Xenophon’s attitude to foreign or marginalized peoples to his portrait of ‘alien’ Sparta.