Especially if we remember that there was no unified Greek culture. City-states were quite different.
Mmm, yes, this is also true, but mostly people only care about Athens because that's what we know the most about, and a lot of what we do know about the others comes from Athenians. Athenians never shut up about anything.
I personally think Thebes is underrated. The city was universally credited as the scummiest and most bastard-filled den of wretched villainy for
centuries. But it was a military power that crushed Sparta and a cultural powerhouse that made a great deal of the poems and epics the Athenians stole the credit for, and the most ancient of the Greek city states.
Xenophon's anabasis is 100% a must read for how fun he characterises each citizen of their city state. The Spartan general Clearchus is so war-hungry he got exiled from Sparta, and every piece of gold he acquires he just uses to recruit more soldiers. Everyone loves him. Proxenus the Boeotian is skilled at gaining promotions but utterly indifferent to actually leading his men, and no one respects him. Menon the Thessalian is such a wretched villain, that the only reason he makes friends with anyone is because friends are really easy to rob. Xenophon the Athenian himself, wasn't even supposed to be one of the generals there, essentially going as a student on his gap year abroad (after cheating the oracle by asking
when should I join the expedition rather than
if I should join the expedition). But due to unfortunate circumstances Xenophon ends up winning an election. Each of the Greek city states brings their own specialties to the fore. Guys whose specialties are light infantry peltasts, cavalry specialists - even Rhodian slingers. There's so many brilliant moments.
-A moment Cyrus, the Persian Prince, gets down in the mud to help get the wagons unstuck. His Persian nobles join him, proving they are not like his brother Artaxerces.
-A moment where a Persian noble doesn't get why Cyrus is putting this much effort into recruiting the Greeks. They have 70,000 Persian soldiers with them, so why would 10,000 Greeks matter? One of the Greek generals (I think it's Clearchus, but I may be wrong) gives the signal and the whole mood in camp changes at once. The Greeks immediately form a phalanx and at another signal, begin marching towards their Persian allies in the camp. At another signal
they break into a sprint and all of their allies LEG IT. I don't remember the conversation afterwards but I imagine it had a lot of Cyrus going "I told you so lmao."
-A moment where Xenophon gets reported to the council of elected-officers to explain why he threatened to murder one of his fellow soldiers. Xenophon confesses and says he would absolutely murder him, because he caught the man trying to leave one of their wounded for dead. The elected council side with Xenophon and fine the man who accused him.
-One of the most legendary speeches ever. Spoilers:
The battle goes well, but the war is lost when Cyrus is killed. The Greeks won their side of the battle so their army is intact, but they now have to contend with the issue. Artaxerces is the undisputed ruler of the Persian Empire now that Cyrus is dead, and their Persian allies have all defected to Artaxerces, meaning they're all alone.
The Greek commanders all get together to decide what their best course of action is. Xenophon is not one of the commanders; he was just invited to come along and meet Cyrus, and was essentially just an observer. But they hold an assembly, in which everyone is allowed to speak. Xenophon tells them they cannot negotiate, because there is 0% chance Artaxerces can allow an army of foreign mercenaries to march on his capital unpunished (Prigozhin take notes).
Clearchus however notes the military impossibility of their successful retreat. They cannot cross the Tigris or Euphrates without Artaxerces's permission, due to him now controlling both sides of the great rivers. They have 10,000 men, but Artaxerces has 2,300,000 men. The whole mission's chances of success relied on their ability to strike Artaxerces before he could rally his forces and raise an army; now that their allies had joined Artaxerces, they no longer had the forces to win a pitched battle and the more time they spent in the field, the more men Artaxerces would be able to rally.
Clearchus and the other officers agree and go to negotiate with Artaxerces. They are betrayed, and all tortured to death.
When the Greeks hear about this they are crestfallen and think about surrendering. But Xenophon leads a full on war-speech and says Artaxerces is used to terrorising slaves, for he has never fought free-men before. He thinks by killing Clearchus he will strike fear into the hearts of the Greeks, not realising by killing one Clearchus, he has created 10,000 Clearchuses. The entire Greek camp goes full DOOM music and you can tell the Persian emissary is probably watching this whole thing like oh for fucks sakes.
Needless to say, the Greeks look at the impossible and think: I can work with this. Every time they run into a problem they consult their own for ideas. And they always do it democratically, selecting people based on their specialties, listening to anyone regardless of rank. When Clearchus is slain they elected a new Spartan to be the commander, because the Spartans do war. When they are attacked by Persian mounted archers, the Greeks purchase everyone's lead trinkets and melt them down to make lead shot. Then they purchase everyone's horses, including the late Clearchus's horse. With these they then equip an athenian cavalry unit and a battalion of Rhodian slingers. When the Persian mounted archers next attack, they find themselves outranged by the rhodian slingers and surprised by a charge of Athenian light cavalry - as far as they were aware, the Greeks didn't have these units before, but now they did.
-Sometimes you get really cute moments where someone proposes a really good idea. Like one lad proposed using inflatable bladders to cross the Euphrates and they all nod, doing feasibility and agreeing it could work. Then someone points out the Persians would just wait for half the army to cross and then attack, and they'd be in great danger, so they moot the idea. But I like that the Greeks are always coming with out of the box solutions, coming up with pragmatic testing of those solutions, and they're always willing to listen to literally anyone in their army because the hierarchy is very loose and even the top commander and basic soldier is just an equal amongst equals.
-The diversity of the Greeks' specialties and personalities makes their 10,000 strong army incredibly tenacious, resourceful and adaptive. No matter what problem they come up against, they always have the perspectives of soldiers, criminals, merchants, philosophers, thinkers, rulers, diplomats and tradesmen pooling all their brains together to come up with the most straightforward/cunning/decisive/fair ways to deal with a problem.
There's a brilliant part where the Greeks come upon a pontic kingdom, having fought non-stop against the Persians and mountain ambushes from the Kurds. The pontics array their army and it's looking like the Greeks will have to fight their way through again, when one of their soldiers breaks ranks and begins running between the lines. He begins shouting to get everyone's attention and says "everyone stop, wait, I know this place. This is my hometown."
Turned out the man had been enslaved by pirates as a kid, then sold to one of the Greek city states. In Greece he was granted his freedom and became a successful citizen, before enlisting as a soldier in the army of 10,000. As he still remembers how to speak the local language, he offers to negotiate. He goes over to the pontic king and explains the situation: they are literally just passing through and want to go home.
The pontic king is naturally relieved as hell, as he was like "you guys are fucking nuts. I thought this was an invasion. You seriously just show up on someone's doorstep with 10,000 soldiers? Ahahaha you crazy bastards. I'll set up a market outside the city where you guys can buy food and I'll provision you ships to get home. Don't invade me though."
DEMOCRATIC FRIENDSHIP ENDING ACHIEVED
THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
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