Xenophon's Anabasis from Character to Narrator

Abstract

Xenophon participated in the March of the Ten Thousand, but in the Anabasis, instead of parading his autopsy, he keeps his narratorial persona separate from his character. This separation, however, is subtly blurred when, on the one hand, the narrator adopts the perspective of the character, who is by far the most prominent focalizing instance in the narrative, and, on the other hand, the character appropriates narratorial functions: Xenophon the character comes to the fore as embedded narrator and commentator of the events. Furthermore, his references to the past can be read as meta-historical, i.e. they shed light on the commemorative act of the Anabasis. While the choice of a hetero-diegetic narrator helps Xenophon to enhance the credibility of the account of his deeds, the intricate entanglement of narrator and character contributes to the characterization of himself as the privileged agent in the March of the Ten Thousand.