Cunaxa, Battle of

▪ Middle Eastern history

      (401 BC), battle fought between Cyrus The Younger, satrap of Anatolia, and his brother Artaxerxes II over the Achaemenian throne. Attempting to overthrow Artaxerxes, Cyrus massed his forces and marched inland from Sardis against his brother. The two armies met unexpectedly at Cunaxa, on the left bank of the Euphrates River north of Babylon. Greek mercenaries under Clearchus, nearly 13,000 strong and the best trained and equipped troops in Cyrus' army, routed the Persian left with few casualties, while Cyrus himself charged Artaxerxes' centre with 600 cavalry. Cyrus succeeded in wounding his brother but was killed. When the Greeks returned, they found that the rest of Cyrus' troops had been routed and his camp plundered. They formed ranks again, thus discouraging Artaxerxes from attacking them, and, in their famous “Retreat of the Ten Thousand” under Xenophon, they succeeded in marching through hostile country to the Black Sea.

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