Product Description

Winter, 401 BC. When leadership is forced upon Xenophon after the treacherous slaughter of his senior comrades in arms, it is up to him to inspire the few remaining officers of the Greek army to rally their troops. Trapped far from home in hostile Persian territory, they are only ten thousand men against an enemy ten times larger. Months later, ten thousand battered, half-starved Greek soldiers stagger out of the frozen mountains of Armenia into a small Hellenic trading post on the Black Sea. Told from the viewpoint of Theo, Xenophon's battle squire, this is a unique view of the brutality and heroism of 5th-century BC Greek warfare.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #203942 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

About the Author
Michael Ford is 42 years old and is a translator and novelist. He has bachelor's degrees from the University of Washington and a graduate degree from Princeton. He speaks several languages and is an avid reader of the classics. He and his wife educate their two children at home.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful novel from this first time author!
The story depicted in The Ten Thousand, the first book from Michael Curtis Ford, is one that I had heard about and been anxious and curious to learn more about. The romantic notion of a stranded and outnumbered army traveling through unknown and dangerous lands to get home is one that appeals to me greatly. Though I wanted more in the way of battle scenes, the ones depicted are well written and exciting. ( The battle that opens the book is very well written and engrossing. It propels you into the action and gets your juices flowing big time! ) I was reminded of the disastrous Napoleonic withdrawal from Russia in this book, especially during the harsh winter scenes. Mr Ford had me shivering and flexing my fingers and toes to keep warm and ward off frostbite. Though I couldn't find ten thousand reasons to recommend this book, there are certainly a sufficient number to warrant placing this book on your reading list. Like me, I'm sure that you'll want more from this promising new author.

Very Well Written, and Definately Worth a Read
This is a very well written book, containing a lot of information on the March of the Ten Thousand. The author's background information on this epic, yet failed march is shown clearly throughout the book. The book really help's to bring to life what pains and trials Xenophon's Army was going through during it's massive retreat back from Persia.
Anyone who has read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire (and later books) might well find this book interesting and entertaining. The author's impressive description of the battles and sufferings of this legendary army are highly detailed and well written. One of the moments I most remember from his book are when Xenophon's Army stumble upon bee hives, and then procede to indulge on huge amounts of honey. This is after days of starvation. The consequences of this leave many dead from the shock of eating such rich, sweet food after so long on starvation rations. I particularly enjoy the way that the writer allows the characters to wonder whether this is a cruel trick of the gods, and I feel that this cruel and twisted Irony of soldiers dying from over-indulgence, after long periods of starvation, instead of dying in battle, is an interesting twist at the end.
This is definately a book worth getting if you enjoy these sort of Historical Fiction books, or, like me, enjoyed Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield.
Even though this book cannot quite reach the truly excellent standard of Gates of Fire, it comes very close, but unfortunately (in my opinion) a lack of character detail, and a slightly rushed ending to the storyline, holds it back a little too much.

The Ten Thousand - Restored
Michael Curtis Ford's historical novel _The Ten Thousand_ is a faithful and exquisitely written modern-day reworking of one of the most enduring adventure stories from the ancient Greek world, Xenophon's _Anabasis_. The original work by the renegade Athenian cavalry warrior Xenophon is his personal record of his (purportedly) single-handed rescue of a straggling army of ten thousand Greek soldiers stranded deep within the territory of Persia. They came to be so stranded because their leader, the Persian rebel Cyrus who wished to overthrow his brother the King of Persia, fell in battle at Cunaxa, and the Greek generals were subsequently butchered through an act of treachery by the Persian leader Tissaphernes.

Imagine finding yourself in such a state. The year is 401 B.C. You are a wealthy Athenian aristocrat, a hardened equestrian, under the age of thirty. Conditions at home are politically untenable and personally unbearable for you in the aftermath of Athens' defeat in a long war with her adversary the city of Sparta. Consequently, at the insistent appeal of your cousin and childhood friend, you have left your home city to join in the riskiest of operations: a rebellion against none other than the Persian King himself.

But now the uprising has failed. The army is trapped behind enemy lines, ringed by powerful enemies, leaderless, disorganized, demoralized, disconsolate, starving, injured, dying. Suddenly you, up to now a mere spectator, receive a vision that inspires you to take charge of your fellow men and bring them out of Persia and back home to Greece. You are still too young to be a general. But take charge you must - yourself.

This was Xenophon's state, and according to him, writing under the pseudonym of Themistogenes, he did rise to the occasion and lead the Greeks back to the Black Sea.

Mr. Ford has taken the name of Themistogenes to refer to Theo, a slave of Xenophon's father Gryllus, who is charged with the care of the young boy, nicknamed Aedon ("nightingale") for his singing ability. Theo becomes Aedon's (later the grown-up Xenophon's) close confidant who accompanies him to Persia and back, and the events unfold before us in the book in his narrative voice.

Denizens of the ancient world as well as adventure spirits of all kinds will take immense pleasure in this extraordinarily profound and vivid work, with its linguistic undulations of mood and tone; its gripping, often lurid, descriptions of battle scenes and other crises; and its constant level of suspense. There is a burning romance between the narrator and a (sometimes naked) lady of uniquely alluring independent spirit, and all throughout the reader feels the power of friendship ebb and flow, in frequent combat with the forces of military enmity and personal resentment and hostility.

Mr. Ford may justifiably take on a new epithet: either "the second Xenophon" or "the second Themistogenes", whichever he prefers. My only criticism of the work is that it is long - in excess of 350 pages. Readers must apply Herculean efforts in the latter stages to persist through the book's seemingly random and disconnected final scenes. Nonetheless, when they at last prevail to the strikingly unexpected conclusion - as they inevitably will do - their grandiose achievement in reading the book will be manifest.

So readers, beware when purchasing Michael Curtis Ford's _The Ten Thousand_. You must equip yourselves - with numerous bedtime or late-night snacks or what-have-you - to prepare for an odyssey of epic proportions - one unconditionally worthwhile upon its completion.