Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Me and my man Xenophon

Among the many things I like about the U.S. military, it is one of the few places you can find a good argument nowadays about Xenophon and other ancient notables. I recall, for example, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling giving me a new perspective on Thucydides during a driving cold winter rain in the high desert ...

Among the many things I like about the U.S. military, it is one of the few places you can find a good argument nowadays about Xenophon and other ancient notables. I recall, for example, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling giving me a new perspective on Thucydides during a driving cold winter rain in the high desert outside Tal Afar one night during the winter of 2005-06.

Among the many things I like about the U.S. military, it is one of the few places you can find a good argument nowadays about Xenophon and other ancient notables. I recall, for example, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling giving me a new perspective on Thucydides during a driving cold winter rain in the high desert outside Tal Afar one night during the winter of 2005-06.

The January-February issue of the Army’s official Military Review has an appreciative but rambling review of a new translation of Xenophon’s Anabasis that was published last year by Cornell. Lt. Col. Prisco Hernandez’s essay is most interesting for its closing sentence: "Reading Xenophon’s Anabasis as the tale of how a tactically superior, but numerically small, western force withdraws with their lives and  honor intact from a dubious entanglement of an ancient Middle Eastern civilization is a profitable modern use of Xenophon’s text." 

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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