After 25 years, what was once an innovation in the approach to ancient historiography has become a valued tradition. The sixth of the Landmark ancient histories, Xenophon's Anabasis lends itself well to the strengths of the series: the close relationship between plot and geography invites the abundant use of maps, and Xenophon's (deceptively) clear writing and ostensibly familiar text deserve continued modern re-visitation of their literary and cultural complexities. The maturation of the series is visible in the enriched contextual and historical content of the more extensive footnotes and the increasing abundance of appendices, now counting in this volume up to the letter W (but not expanding to the levels of the 2017 Landmark Julius Caesar, whose 'web essays' E through UU are available only in digital form). There are also good sectional summaries, a capacious index with glossary-style expansions upon some headwords, and a longer-than-usual section discussing the translation.

B. and T. have collaborated closely on nearly all aspects of the volume (p. lx), although B. takes responsibility for the introduction and T. for the ‘Translator's Notes’. The introduction includes the personal note that B. has himself traversed a version of Xenophon's route (pp. xv–xvi, and see his 2005 In the Tracks of the Ten Thousand). B.'s own photographs appear occasionally in the text (pp. 531–2), although like most of the landscape views in the volume, they generally prove disappointing in black-and-white reproduction, occasionally even blurry. (Perhaps this is an area where online delivery of enriched content would be an asset.) The remainder of the introduction briefly introduces some important themes, although necessarily without tracing in detail the associated scholarly uncertainties, including the influence of Socrates upon Xenophon (B.'s Xenophon is apologetic of both), the political models implied by the behaviours of the Ten Thousand, Xenophon's exile, Greek attitudes towards Persia, and the route and records of the Anabasis.

T.'s ‘Translator's Notes’ treat some of his own decision-making and touch upon Xenophon's literary style (pp. 487–91), but refer readers (p. 488 n. 4a) to L. Huitink and T. Rood's 2019 commentary on Anabasis 3 for further remarks on the latter. It would be good to hear more from T. on both topics, even if at the expense of the expanded treatment of the history of the text (pp. 491–5). The Greekless reader, as the editors acknowledge (p. lv), cannot engage with the table of variants (pp. 496–506); and as not all of the entries are equally worthy of attention (pp. 494–5), it might have been preferable to explain a few consequential choices in detail rather than just listing them all.

We come now to the translation. Since J. Bingham, Historie of Xenophon (1623: cf. p. lxii), the Anabasis has received not a few renderings in English, including in the last 75 years alone at least W. Rouse (1947), R. Warner (1949), C.L. Brownson's Loeb, revised by J. Dillery (1998), R. Waterfield (2005) and W. Ambler (2008). As always, the interest lies in the potential freshness of a new approach. The ‘Translator's Notes’ can necessarily only provide examples of the thoughtful and often subtle decisions made by T. regarding such close features as diction, repetition and particles (pp. 487–91). On a surface impression this Xenophon feels a little on the abundant side, but this is often because T. uses additional words to reflect that one extra feature of the Greek text: a specific shade of meaning, the exact voice of a verb. A brief comparison from Clearchus’ speech in Book 1 to the mutinous soldiers (1.3.5–6) is illustrative:

T. here tops the word-count, thanks in particular to the rendering of the particles. On balance, however, he also hews most closely to the morphology of the Greek, most notably at the impersonal usage in ‘whatever it may be necessary (to suffer)’ (ὅ τι ἂν δέηι) and in the manner of capturing the genitive in the final sentence (ὡς ἐμοῦ οὖν ἰόντος ὅπηι ἂν καὶ ὑμεῖς οὕτω τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε). Some may prefer their Xenophon to move a bit more rapidly, but this one is carefully and respectfully rendered.

Of the 23 appendices, two of them are by B. (Appendices P and Q, on route and chronology, topics in which B. is well versed) and four by T. (including a valuable set of character biographies as Appendix W). The remaining seventeen are of two types: brief essays of about eight pages in length each, mainly by Xenophon experts, and (continuing a feature first introduced in the 2009 Landmark Xenophon's Hellenica) translations of ‘relevant’ passages from other authors, including Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Photius’ synopsis of Ctesias’ Persika and Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Xenophon (Appendices S–V). Amongst the topical essays, Waterfield's treatment of Xenophon and Socrates (Appendix A) easily traverses a wide range of evidence and discusses the Socratic coloration of leadership in the Anabasis; C. Tuplin furnishes a useful introduction to the Persian Empire (Appendix C). V.J. Gray's argument against panhellenism in the Anabasis (Appendix E) stands out in directly addressing a current scholarly problem; J. Lee's discussion of the daily life of a Cyrean (Appendix J) is an engaging cultural presentation; and Rood's essay on a newer area of exploration, ‘The Legacy of Xenophon's Anabasis’ (Appendix R), draws upon material from his 2010 and 2004 books (the latter unfortunately omitted from the volume's bibliography).

The maps are wonderful. From the first departure from Sardis (map 1.2.10), the known or likely route of the Ten Thousand is clearly marked. Places where the army stopped (‘halting places’) are numbered so that they can be cross-referenced with the text, and even non-landmarks (e.g. ‘Army leaves river’, map 4.7.1) are noted to assist in tracing progress as precisely as possible. Zoom-ins are abundant (map 6.4.1 includes three graded levels; the map ad 7.1.1 cites three other maps in its widest view), and the closer maps spare no complexity in showing multiple or circuitous routes (as with the labyrinthine traverse of the Mossynoeci, map 5.4.1). A set of general ‘reference maps’ concludes the volume, with a final visualisation of the entire route of the Ten Thousand, including all halting places listed and marked, serving as the triumphant finish.

How might this volume make one experience the Anabasis differently? Many of the (re-)discoveries here derive from the sum of the project's parts: the comparatively short temporal length of this intense adventure; the level of detail at which one can follow the march, traverse the landscape or study the battle of Cunaxa (diagram 1.8, with T.'s Appendix L and Tuplin's Appendix D); the fluctuating divisiveness within the army itself (made more visible by the paragraph margin-summaries); the experiences of otherness on the part of the travelling Greeks; the complicated nexus of overlapping concerns within which Xenophon the commander had to manoeuvre. Deep gratitude is due to B. and T. for giving us not just an Anabasis, but a three-dimensional experience, a true vade mecum that takes us far beyond the narrow schoolroom stereotypes of this rich text.