Xenophon & the Anabasis — facts

The man

Xenophon of Athens (Ξενοφῶν): Greek general, historian, and philosopher.
Born c. 430 BC in the deme of Erchia; died 355/354 BC, likely in Corinth, around age 74–75.
Father Gryllus (an aristocratic family); wife Philesia; sons Gryllus and Diodorus.
Studied under Socrates; probably served in the Athenian cavalry.
Wrote in plain Attic Greek; Diogenes Laërtius called him the "Attic Muse." His entire corpus survives.

401 BC: joined Cyrus the Younger's march to take the Persian throne from his brother Artaxerxes II.
Anabasis (Ἀνάβασις, "the going up") is his firsthand account — seven books, composed c. 370 BC.
Battle of Cunaxa, 401 BC, near Babylon: Cyrus was killed; the Greek generals were later lured to a feast and executed by Tissaphernes.
The ~10,000 Greek mercenaries — "the Ten Thousand" — elected new leaders, Xenophon among them.
They retreated north through the Carduchians (SE Turkey), across the Centrites River, and through Armenia in winter.
They reached the Black Sea at Trapezus (modern Trabzon) — Anabasis 4.8.22.

From Mount Theches the vanguard saw the sea and shouted "Θάλαττα! Θάλαττα!" — "The sea! The sea!" — meaning the way home.
The line (Anabasis 4.7.24): καὶ τάχα δὴ ἀκούουσι βοώντων τῶν στρατιωτῶν θάλαττα θάλαττα καὶ παρεγγυώντων — "And soon they hear the soldiers shouting 'The sea! The sea!' and passing the word along." (The Greek is ancient and out of copyright; English is a plain rendering. Full chapter free at Perseus, Anabasis 4.7.)
Thalatta is the Attic Greek word for the sea — the source of the company name.

394 BC: fought for Sparta at the Battle of Coronea; Athens banished him.
Given an estate at Scillus (near Olympia); lived there ~23 years and wrote his short treatises.
371 BC (after Sparta's defeat at Leuctra): the estate was confiscated; he moved to Corinth. Pausanias records his tomb at Scillus.

Anabasis — the march of the Ten Thousand; later a field guide for Alexander the Great.
Cyropaedia — on Cyrus the Great (who took Babylon in 539 BC); archetype of the "mirror of princes" genre.
Hellenica — Greek history, 411–362 BC, continuing Thucydides; ends at the Second Battle of Mantinea.
Memorabilia, Apology, Symposium, Oeconomicus — the Socratic works.
Agesilaus, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Hiero, On Horsemanship, Hipparchikos, Hunting with Dogs, Ways and Means.
Held to be among the first to describe flanking manoeuvres and feints in tactics.