Editing Cyrus the Younger (section)

===Expedition against Artaxerxes II (401 BC)===
[[File:Adrien_Guignet_-_Retreat_of_the_ten_thousand.jpg|thumb|upright=2|[[Jean-Adrien Guignet]], ''Episode in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand'' (1842). The Greek mercenaries of Cyrus (the "[[Ten Thousand (Greek)|Ten Thousand]]"), are shown being encircled.]]

Cyrus managed to gather a large army by beginning a quarrel with Tissaphernes, satrap of [[Caria]], about the [[Ionia]]n towns; he also pretended to prepare an expedition against the [[Pisidia]]ns, a mountainous tribe in the [[Mount Taurus|Taurus]], which was never obedient to the Empire.<ref name= CLB1886>{{cite book | translator= Carleton L. Brownson |author= Xenophon | title= Anabasis |edition=1918 |publisher= Harvard University Press |place= Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages= |url=https://archive.org/details/xenophon03xeno/page/18}}</ref>{{sfn|Meyer|1911|p=708}}

In the spring of 401 BC, Cyrus united all his forces into an army now including Xenophon's "[[Ten Thousand (Greek)|Ten Thousand]]", and advanced from [[Sardis]] without announcing the object of his expedition. By dexterous management and large promises, he overcame the misgivings of the Greek troops over the length and danger of the war; a Spartan fleet of 35 [[trireme]]s under the command of [[Pythagoras the Spartan]] sent to [[Cilicia]] opened the passes of the [[Amanus]] into [[Syria]] and conveyed to him a Spartan detachment of 700 men under Spartan General [[Cheirisophus (general)|Cheirisophus]].{{sfn|Meyer|1911|p=708}} Cyrus the Younger had obtained the support of the Spartans after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war against Athens", in reference to the support he had given the Spartan in the [[Peloponnesian War]] against Athens a few years earlier.<ref>{{cite book | translator= Carleton L. Brownson |author= Xenophon | title= Anabasis |edition= 1918|publisher= Harvard University Press |place= Cambridge, Massachusetts | chapter= I-2-22 | chapter-url= https://archive.org/details/xenophon03xeno/page/20}}</ref>

The king had only been warned at the last moment by Tissaphernes and gathered an army in haste; Cyrus advanced into Babylonia before he met with an enemy. In October 401 BC, the [[battle of Cunaxa]] ensued. Cyrus had 10,400 Greek [[hoplite]]s (citizen-soldiers), 2,500 [[peltast]]s (light infantry), and an Asiatic army of approximately 10,000 under the command of [[Ariaeus]].{{sfn|Meyer|1911|p=708}}

According to Xenophon, Cyrus saw that the outcome depended on the fate of the king; he therefore wanted [[Clearchus of Sparta|Clearchus]], the commander of the Greeks, to take the centre against Artaxerxes. Clearchus, afraid of the army's encirclement, disobeyed and remained on the flank. As a result, the left wing of the Persians under Tissaphernes was free to engage the rest of Cyrus' forces; Cyrus in the centre threw himself upon Artaxerxes but was slain. Tissaphernes claimed to have killed the rebel himself, and Parysatis later took vengeance upon the slayer of her favourite son.{{sfn|Meyer|1911|p=708}}

According to ''[[Plutarch]]'s Life of Artaxerxes'', a young Persian soldier named Mithridates unknowingly struck Cyrus the Younger during the [[Battle of Cunaxa]] ([[Greek language|Greek]]: Κούναξα), making him fall from his horse, dazed.  Some eunuchs found Cyrus and tried to bring him to safety, but a Caunian among the king's camp followers struck a vein behind his knee with a dart, making him fall and strike his head on a stone, whereupon he died. Unwisely, Mithridates boasted of killing Cyrus in the court, and Parysatis had him executed by [[scaphism]]. She likewise got vengeance on Masabates, the king's eunuch, who had cut off Cyrus' hand and head, by winning him from her son Artaxerxes in a game of dice and having him flayed alive.<ref name=Plutarch/>

The Persian troops, instead of attacking the Greeks via a direct assault, decoyed them into the interior, beyond the [[Tigris]], and then attacked through trickery. After their commanders had been taken prisoners, the Greeks managed to force their way to the [[Black Sea]].{{sfn|Meyer|1911|p=708}}