On Horsemanship - Xenophon de Xenophon

On Horsemanship - Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C. On Horsemanship advises the reader on how to buy a good horse, and how to raise it to be either a war horse or show horse. Xenophon ends with some words on military equipment for a cavalryman.

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Xenophon of Athens was a Greek military captain, philosopher, and historian who was born in Athens, most likely in 355 or 354 BC. At the age of 30, Xenophon was chosen to lead the Ten Thousand, one of the largest Greek mercenary armies of the Achaemenid Empire, as they advanced into and nearly conquered Babylon in 401 BC. Theodore Ayrault Dodge, a military historian, stated that "nothing has been invented centuries afterward to surpass the ingenuity of this warrior." Xenophon was one of the first to discuss tactical flanking moves and feints in battle, and he created precedents for many logistical operations. In his Anabasis, Xenophon describes his experiences with the Ten Thousand while serving Cyrus the Younger. He also describes Cyrus's unsuccessful attempt to usurp Artaxerxes II of Persia's throne and the Greek mercenaries' subsequent return to Greece following Cyrus's defeat at the Battle of Cunaxa. The first-person, modest, and introspective description of an ancient military commander's experiences is called Anabasis. Xenophon produced Cyropaedia on the subject of wars in Asia Minor and Babylon, explaining the military and political strategies employed by Cyrus the Great to subdue the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC.