retreat of the Ten Thousand
E372847
The retreat of the Ten Thousand was the famous march of a large Greek mercenary force through hostile Persian territory back to Greece after the death of their employer Cyrus the Younger in 401 BCE, later chronicled by Xenophon in his Anabasis.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| March of the Ten Thousand | 1 |
| Retreat of the Ten Thousand | 1 |
| expedition of the Ten Thousand | 1 |
| march of the Ten Thousand | 1 |
| retreat of the Ten Thousand canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3591110 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: retreat of the Ten Thousand Context triple: [army of Cyrus the Younger, notableEvent, retreat of the Ten Thousand]
-
A.
Alexander’s Asian campaign
Alexander’s Asian campaign was the series of military conquests led by Alexander the Great that overthrew the Persian Empire and extended Macedonian rule across much of Asia.
-
B.
Impresa di Fiume
Impresa di Fiume was the 1919–1920 nationalist occupation of the city of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) by Italian irregulars led by poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio, often seen as a precursor to European fascist movements.
-
C.
Long March
The Long March was the epic 1934–1935 strategic retreat of the Chinese Red Army that cemented Mao Zedong’s rise and became a founding myth of the Chinese Communist revolution.
-
D.
Hannibal's crossing of the Alps
Hannibal's crossing of the Alps was a daring military campaign in 218 BC in which the Carthaginian general led his army, including war elephants, over the Alpine mountains to launch a surprise invasion of Roman Italy.
-
E.
Pioneer Column expedition
The Pioneer Column expedition was an 1890 British colonial venture that led a force of settlers and police north from South Africa to occupy and establish white rule over what became Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: retreat of the Ten Thousand Target entity description: The retreat of the Ten Thousand was the famous march of a large Greek mercenary force through hostile Persian territory back to Greece after the death of their employer Cyrus the Younger in 401 BCE, later chronicled by Xenophon in his Anabasis.
-
A.
Alexander’s Asian campaign
Alexander’s Asian campaign was the series of military conquests led by Alexander the Great that overthrew the Persian Empire and extended Macedonian rule across much of Asia.
-
B.
Impresa di Fiume
Impresa di Fiume was the 1919–1920 nationalist occupation of the city of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) by Italian irregulars led by poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio, often seen as a precursor to European fascist movements.
-
C.
Long March
The Long March was the epic 1934–1935 strategic retreat of the Chinese Red Army that cemented Mao Zedong’s rise and became a founding myth of the Chinese Communist revolution.
-
D.
Hannibal's crossing of the Alps
Hannibal's crossing of the Alps was a daring military campaign in 218 BC in which the Carthaginian general led his army, including war elephants, over the Alpine mountains to launch a surprise invasion of Roman Italy.
-
E.
Pioneer Column expedition
The Pioneer Column expedition was an 1890 British colonial venture that led a force of settlers and police north from South Africa to occupy and establish white rule over what became Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
campaign of the Greco-Persian Wars period
ⓘ
historical event ⓘ military retreat ⓘ |
| accountTitle |
Anabasis
ⓘ
surface form:
Anabasis of Xenophon
|
| alsoKnownAs |
Anabasis
ⓘ
surface form:
Anabasis of the Ten Thousand
retreat of the Ten Thousand ⓘ
surface form:
March of the Ten Thousand
|
| chronicledIn | Anabasis ⓘ |
| chronologicalRelation | preceded the campaigns of Alexander the Great ⓘ |
| commandStructure |
initially commanded by Clearchus of Sparta
ⓘ
later led by elected Greek officers including Xenophon ⓘ |
| culturalImpact | became a classic text in Greek and later Western education ⓘ |
| endDate | circa 399 BCE ⓘ |
| famousExclamation | Thalatta! Thalatta! ⓘ |
| famousExclamationMeaning | The sea! The sea! ⓘ |
| genreOfAccount | historical memoir ⓘ |
| hasApproximateStrength | 10000 Greek mercenaries ⓘ |
| hasBelligerent |
Achaemenid Empire
ⓘ
surface form:
Achaemenid Persian Empire
Greek mercenary army ⓘ |
| hasCause | death of Cyrus the Younger at the Battle of Cunaxa ⓘ |
| hasDestination |
Northern Black Sea Greek colonies
ⓘ
surface form:
Black Sea Greek cities
Byzantium ⓘ |
| hasLocation |
Anatolia
ⓘ
Armenia ⓘ Black Sea coast ⓘ Mesopotamia ⓘ |
| hasParticipant |
Artaxerxes II
ⓘ
surface form:
Artaxerxes II of Persia
Cyrus the Younger ⓘ Greek mercenaries ⓘ Xenophon ⓘ |
| hasStartingPoint | Cunaxa ⓘ |
| involvedUnitType |
Greek hoplites
ⓘ
peltasts and light troops ⓘ |
| languageOfPrimarySource | Ancient Greek ⓘ |
| militaryContext | failed campaign of Cyrus the Younger against Artaxerxes II ⓘ |
| militaryType | long-distance fighting retreat ⓘ |
| notableEvent |
Battle of Cunaxa
ⓘ
treacherous seizure and execution of Greek generals by Tissaphernes ⓘ |
| opposedBy |
Persian royal forces
ⓘ
various local tribes ⓘ |
| primarySourceAuthor | Xenophon ⓘ |
| routeFeature |
crossing of Armenian highlands
ⓘ
crossing of the Tigris region ⓘ descent to the Black Sea ⓘ |
| significance |
demonstrated vulnerability of the Achaemenid Empire to Greek hoplite forces
ⓘ
important source for Greek and Near Eastern military geography ⓘ influenced later Greek and Macedonian views on invading Persia ⓘ |
| startDate | 401 BCE ⓘ |
| tookPlaceDuring | reign of Artaxerxes II ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: retreat of the Ten Thousand Description of subject: The retreat of the Ten Thousand was the famous march of a large Greek mercenary force through hostile Persian territory back to Greece after the death of their employer Cyrus the Younger in 401 BCE, later chronicled by Xenophon in his Anabasis.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
expedition of the Ten Thousand
subject surface form:
Retreat of the Ten Thousand
this entity surface form:
March of the Ten Thousand
this entity surface form:
march of the Ten Thousand
this entity surface form:
Retreat of the Ten Thousand