Anabasis - Xenophon

Xenophon was a student of Socrates and contemporary of Plato. This is his account of going to Persia, with the disapproval of his teacher, to fight as a mercenary for a want-to-be emperor. He gives a first hand account of his leadership of his fellow Greek mercenaries, after their leaders had been treacherously massacred, from the far side of Arabia back to the Mediterranean. A kind of ancient heart of darkness/apocalypse now.