Xenophon, an Athenian who served in the ranks, wrote the Anabasis, the homeward march of the Ten Thousand: Greek soldiers who lost their employer deep in Persia, near what is now Iraq, and walked out. This is Book 5. In Book 4 they crossed Armenian snow and, from a ridge, first saw the Black Sea; they shouted, then wept like boys.

They reach Trapezus, a Greek city on that shore (Trabzon in Turkey). It feasts them; they raid the Drilae, a nearby people, in return. Some want to found a city here; Xenophon is suspected of wanting to be its king. Cheirisophus, the Spartan general, goes for ships that do not come. Along the Paphlagonian coast — Cotyora, Sinope — markets, hostages, and quarrels over loot. At Cotyora the Sinopeans lecture them on manners; Xenophon answers with the march they have already made. The army that crossed Armenia together begins to split into its cities. Loot divides them. A fighting retreat becomes a vote.