The Ten Thousand
The Ten Thousand, the 10,000 Greek mercenaries who accompanied Cyrus the Younger on his campaign against Artaxerxes — were led by Xenophon, following the Battle of Cunaxa (401 BC) and the treacherous murder of their commanders by Tissaphernes, out of Mesopotamia, through Armenia, and toward the Black Sea, overcoming immense difficulties along previously unknown routes. Xenophon chronicled this expedition in his Anabasis. (Cf. the literature cited under the entry »Xenophon 1«, as well as Treuenfeld, Der Zug der zehntausend Griechen (Naumburg, 1890).
Source: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, 6. Auflage 1905–1909