Battle of Cunaxa

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For the fictional princedom named Cunaxa, see Places of Dragon Prince.

Battle of Cunaxa

Date	Summer of 401 BC
Location	On the banks of the Euphrates near present-day Baghdad, Iraq
Result	Tactical Rebel victory Strategic Persian Empire victory

Combatants

Cyrus Loyalists
Greek Mercenaries

Persian Empire

Commanders

Cyrus the Younger †
Clearchus

Artaxerxes II

Strength

A large force of Persian soldiers^[1]
10,400 Mercenary Hoplites
2,500 Mercenary Peltasts
1,000 Paphlagonian Cavalry
600 Bodyguard Cavalry
20 Scythed Chariots

Persian army substantially outnumbered that of Cyrus ^[2]
6,000 Bodyguard Cavalry
200 Scythed Chariots

Casualties

Unknown Allied
Minimal Greek

Heavy

The Battle of Cunaxa was fought in 401 BC between Cyrus the Younger and his elder brother Arsaces, who had seized the Persian throne as Artaxerxes II in 404 BC. Cyrus gathered an army of Greek mercenaries, consisting of 10,400 hoplites and 2,500 peltasts, under the Spartan general Clearchus, and met Artaxerxes at Cunaxa on the left bank of the Euphrates River, 70 kilometres North of Babylon. Artaxerxes had about 200 scythed chariots compared to about 20 available to Cyrus. Something like this same ratio probably applies to the ratio of non-Greek troops available to each side. Artaxerxes certainly enjoyed a superiority in cavalry. The tactical outcome of the battle is disputed but as Cyrus died in the battle it was a political and strategic victory for Arsaces.

On Cyrus’s death Clearchus assumed the chief command and conducted the retreat, until, being treacherously seized with his fellow-generals by Tissaphernes, he was handed over to Artaxerxes and executed. Stranded deep in enemy territory, with most of their generals dead, Xenophon played an instrumental role in encouraging the "Ten Thousand" Greek army to march north to the Black Sea in an epic fighting retreat. This story is recorded in Anabasis by Xenophon who accompanied the "expedition up country".

[edit] Notes

^ All the sources for the battle of Cunaxa wildly inflate the strengths of the combatant armies. The numbers related in the eyewitness account of Xenophon can be trusted only for those forces he actually saw (ie. the Greeks and the allied Persian units closest to his position.)
^ Xenophon gives the strength of the Persian army at an impossible 1,200,000 men, excluding the scythed chariots! (Xen. I.7)

[edit] Further reading

Xenophon, The Persian Expedition, trans. by Rex Warner, Penguin, 1949.
Montagu, John D. Battles of the Greek and Roman Worlds, Greenhill Books, 2000.
Prevas, John. Xenophon's March: Into the Lair of the Persian Lion, Da Capo, 2002.
Waterfield, Robin. Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age, Belknap Press, 2006.