Quote Originally Posted by Zizka
na, he is talking about the ten thousand greek hoplites who backed a loosing Persian contender to the empire during a civil war. After their man was killed in battle the ten thousand had to walk back home from the center of a very hostile persian empire.

ha thalassa! ha thalassa!
Yup... And what a trek they made. It is interesting to see how many cultures they pass on their way and how they deal with hostile mountaintribes (I guess we would all be hostile if an army of 10-13 thousand would march pillaging through our rather poor country).
The worst part of it all is that after they backed a rival in Thrace for the throne and Xenophon leaves, the last 6-8000 goes to Persia once again and are defeated in a battle, from there they go back to Greece and hire themselves out to Thebes I think, where they once again are defeated. Bad luck was their game.