The 33 Strategies Of War - Xenophon
"He that is not with me is against me." -Luke 11:23
In the spring of 401 B.C., Xenophon, a thirty-year-old country gentleman who lived outside Athens, received an intriguing invitation: a friend was recruiting Greek soldiers to fight as mercenaries for Cyrus, brother of the Persian king Artaxerxes, and asked him to go along. The request was somewhat unusual: the Greeks and the Persians had long been bitter enemies. Some eighty years earlier, in fact, Persia had tried to conquer Greece. But the Greeks, renowned fighters had begun to offer their services to the highest bidder, and within the Persian Empire, there were rebellious cities that Cyrus wanted to punish. Greek mercenaries would be the perfect reinforcements in his large army.
Xenophon was not a soldier. In fact, he had led a coddled life, raising dogs and horses, traveling into Athens to talk philosophy with his good friend Socrates, living off his inheritance. He wanted adventure, though, and here he had a chance to meet the great Cyrus, learn war, see Persia. Perhaps when it was all over, he would write a book. He would go not as a mercenary (he was too wealthy for that) but as a philosopher and historian. After consulting the oracle at Delphi, he accepted the invitation.
Some 10,000 Greek soldiers joined Cyrus's punitive expedition. The mercenaries were a motley crew from all over Greece, there for the money and the adventure. They had a good time of it for a while, but a few months into the job, after leading them deep into Persia, Cyrus admitted his true purpose: he was marching on Babylon, mounting a civil war to unseat his brother and make himself king. Unhappy to be deceived, the Greeks argued and complained, but Cyrus offered them more money, and that quieted them.
The armies of Cyrus and Artaxerxes met on the plains of Cunaxa, not far from Babylon. Early in the battle, Cyrus was killed, putting a quick end to the war. Now the Greeks' position was suddenly precarious: having fought on the wrong side of a civil war, they were far from home and surrounded by hostile Persians. They were soon told, however, that Artaxerxes had no quarrel with them. His only desire was that they leave Persia as quickly as possible. He even sent them an envoy, the Persian commander Tissaphernes, to provision them and escort them back to Greece. And so, guided by Tissaphernes and the Persian army, the mercenaries began the long trek home--some fifteen hundred miles.
A few days into the march, the Greeks had new fears: their supplies from the Persians were insufficient, and the route that Tissaphernes had chosen for them was problematic. Could they trust these Persians? They started to argue among themselves.
The Greek commander Clearchus expressed his soldiers' concerns to Tissaphernes, who was sympathetic: Clearchus should bring his captains to a meeting at a neutral site, the Greeks would voice their grievances and the two sides would come to an understanding. Clearchus agreed and appeared the next day with his officers at the appointed time and place--where, however, a large contingent of Persians surrounded and arrested them. They were beheaded that same day.
One man managed to escape and warn the Greeks of the Persian treachery. That evening the Greek camp was a desolate place. Some men argued and accused; others slumped drunk to the ground. A few considered flight, but with their leaders dead, they felt doomed.
That night Xenophon, who had stayed mostly on the sidelines during the expedition had a dream: a lightning bolt from Zeus set fire to his father's house. He woke up in a sweat. It suddenly struck him: death was staring the Greeks in the face, yet they lay around moaning, despairing, arguing. The problem was in their heads. Fighting for money rather than for a purpose or cause, unable to distinguish between friend and foe, they had gotten lost. The barrier between them and home was not rivers or mountains or the Persian army but their own muddled state of mind. Xenophon didn't want to die in this disgraceful way. He was no military man, but he knew philosophy and the way men think, and he believed that if the Greeks concentrated on the enemies who wanted to kill them, they would become alert and creative. If they focused on the vile treachery of the Persians, they would grow angry, and their anger would motivate them. They had to stop being confused mercenaries and go back to being Greeks, the polar opposite of the faithless Persians. What they needed was clarity and direction.
Xenophon decided to be Zeus's lightning bolt, waking the men up and illuminating their way. He called a meeting of all the surviving officers and stated his plan: We will declare war without parley on the Persians--no more thoughts of bargaining or debate. We will waste no more time on argument or accusation among ourselves; every ounce of our energy will be spent on the Persians. We will be as inventive and inspired as our ancestors at Marathon, who fought off a vastly larger Persian army. We will burn our wagons, live off the land, move fast. We will not for one second lay down our arms or forget the dangers around us. It is us or them, life or death, good or evil. Should any man try to confuse us with clever talk or with vague ideas of appeasement, we will declare him too stupid and cowardly to be on our side and we will drive him away. Let the Persians make us merciless. We must be consumed with one idea: getting home alive.
The officers knew that Xenophon was right. The next day a Persian officer came to see them, offering to act as an ambassador between them and Artaxerxes; following Xenophon's counsel, he was quickly and rudely driven away. It was now war and nothing else.
Roused to action, the Greeks elected leaders, Xenophon among them, and began the march home. Forced to depend on their wits, they quickly learned to adapt to the terrain, to avoid battle, to move at night. They successfully eluded the Persians, beating them to a key mountain pass and moving through it before they could be caught. Although many enemy tribes still lay between them and Greece, the dreaded Persian army was now behind them. It took several years, but almost all of them returned to Greece alive.
Interpretation
Life is battle and struggle, and you will constantly find yourself facing bad situations, destructive relationships, dangerous engagements. How you confront these difficulties will determine your fate. As Xenophon said, your obstacles are not rivers or mountains or other people; your obstacle is yourself. If you feel lost and confused, if you lose your sense of direction, if you cannot tell the difference between friend and foe, you have only yourself to blame.
Think of yourself as always about to go into battle. Everything depends on your frame of mind and on how you look at the world. A shift of perspective can transform you from a passive and confused mercenary into a motivated and creative fighter. We are defined by our relationship to other people.
As children we develop an identity by differentiating ourselves from others, even to the point of pushing them away, rejecting them, rebelling. The more clearly you recognize who you do not want to be, then, the clearer your sense of identity and purpose will be. Without a sense of that polarity, without an enemy to react against, you are as lost as the Greek mercenaries. Duped by other people's treachery, you hesitate at the fatal moment and descend into whining and argument.
Focus on an enemy. It can be someone who blocks your path or sabotages you, whether subtly or obviously; it can be someone who has hurt you or someone who has fought you unfairly; it can be a value or an idea that you loathe and that you see in an individual or group. It can be an abstraction: stupidity, smugness, vulgar materialism. Do not listen to people who say that the distinction between friend and enemy is primitive and passe. They are just disguising their fear of conflict behind a front of false warmth. They are trying to push you off course, to infect you with the vagueness that inflicts them. Once you feel clear and motivated, you will have space for true friendship and true compromise. Your enemy is the polar star that guides you. Given that direction, you can enter battle.
