This article gives an account of the Greek warrior-historian Xenophon and his Anabasis (The March Up-Country), one of the most famous events in military history. It includes a description of how the Greek soldiers, after reaching apparent safety near the south-eastern Black Sea, were felled by a strange honey that rendered them as if dead for a day. Modern understanding of the toxicology of this honey is given, then an epilogue summarizing the rest of Xenophon's life.
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References
1.
DurantW. The Story of Civilization. Vol. II: The Life of Greece. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1939: pp. 437–56.
2.
The years of Xenophon's birth and death are not known with certainty and must be inferred from historical events near those times. Durant (op. cit. ref. 1) dates his life from 445 to 355 BC, a span of 90 years. More recent scholarship (op. cit. ref. 3) notes that his friend and battle companion Proxenus died at about age 30 and Xenophon made comments implying he was then younger than Proxenus. Thus, he would have been in his late 20s in 401 BC, giving a probable birth year of about 428 BC and almost certainly between 430 and 425 BC. Similarly, from his last writings, we know that he lived at least until the end of the so-called Social War in 355 BC. Another writing referred to an event that occurred around 357–353 BC. Thus, an assumed life of 428–355 BC has Xenophon dying at age 73. Reflective of his turbulent times, Xenophon lived as a mercenary or soldier-of-fortune, but is remembered now as a military historian; in antiquity he was known mainly as a philosopher and secondarily as a historian.
OnatFYegenBLawrenceROktayAOktayS. Mad honey poisoning in man and rat. Reviews on Environmental Health1991;9:3–9.
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Food-Borne Pathogenic Micro-organisms and Natural Toxins 1992 (Bad Bug Book). US Food & Drug Administration Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/%nov/chap44.html (downloaded 26 September 2003).
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OnatFYegenBLawrenceROktayAOktayS. Site of action of grayanotoxins in mad honey in rats. Journal of Applied Toxicology1991;11:199–201.
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SutlupinarAMatASatganogluY. Poisoning by toxic honey in Turkey. Archives of Toxicology1993;67:148–50.
At first glance marching 3800 miles in 215 days seems amazing, but in fact is realistic. Part of the Greeks' journey home across northern Turkey and through the Bosphorus was by ship; I estimate this distance at 450 miles. If about 3350 miles were on foot, this is 16 miles per day over a terrain ranging from flat desert to rugged mountains. Earlier in the Anabasis, Xenophon states that they marched through Lydia (south-west Turkey), covering 73 miles in three stages, about 24 miles per day, and this accounting of time and distance is kept up throughout the story. Thus, the information is probably accurate but, considering all the conditions of the ordeal, no less heroic. For comparison, modern elite infantry can manage 0.3–1.2 miles/h in mountains or 3 miles/h on plains; on extreme operations, 4–6 miles/h with 20 kg of equipment for shorter periods. My source is a physician colleague who in his youth served several years in the US Army Special Forces Command, the American army's commando service. In the Afghan-Russian war of 20 years ago, he was present on the Pakistan border (and perhaps elsewhere at times).
