Cyrus the Younger was a Persian prince, son of Darius II, who rebelled against his brother Artaxerxes II. He died at the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BC, after hiring Greek mercenaries later described by Xenophon.
Achaemenid prince and satrap (d. 401 BC)
An illustrative reconstruction based on historical context. It is not a photograph or documentary likeness. Image policy
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Cyrus the Younger was a Persian prince, son of Darius II, who rebelled against his brother Artaxerxes II. He died at the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BC, after hiring Greek mercenaries later described by Xenophon.
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Cyrus the Younger was born into the Achaemenid royal family, a son of Darius II and brother of Artaxerxes II.
Cyrus held authority in western Anatolia, where Persian satrapal power met Greek military and political networks.
Cyrus died at the Battle of Cunaxa near Babylon, ending his bid for the throne even though his Greek soldiers survived.
Cyrus's revolt became famous through Xenophon's account of the Greek mercenaries who marched home through Persian territory.
Follow Cyrus the Younger from western satrap to failed claimant and catalyst for a Greek march through Persia.
Cyrus the Younger belonged to the highest level of Achaemenid politics. As a royal prince, he had access to court prestige, provincial command, and the dangerous ambitions that surrounded succession. His name itself evoked Cyrus the Great, the founder of the empire. But a famous name did not guarantee the throne. In the Achaemenid world, royal brothers could become rivals when armies, nobles, and provincial resources gathered behind different futures.
Cyrus's western base mattered because Anatolia sat between Persian administration and the Greek world. Satraps in this region could command wealth, troops, diplomacy, and relationships with Greek cities and soldiers. Cyrus cultivated connections that later helped him hire Greek mercenaries. His position shows both the strength and risk of the Persian system: powerful provincial figures could defend royal interests, but they could also gather the means to challenge the king.
In 401 BC, Cyrus moved from ambition to rebellion. He marched from western Anatolia toward the imperial heartland with a mixed force that included Greek mercenaries. The campaign depended on secrecy, money, loyalty, and speed. It was not a small local revolt. It was a direct challenge by a royal prince to the Great King, made possible by the empire's own provincial structures.
At Cunaxa, Cyrus confronted the army of Artaxerxes II. The battle became famous because Cyrus was killed while the Greek mercenaries on his side remained undefeated in their part of the field. His death decided the political outcome. A living claimant might have transformed victory into kingship; a dead prince left his army stranded deep inside the empire. The failed rebellion became a different story: the long retreat of the Greeks.
Cyrus the Younger is remembered partly because Xenophon turned the aftermath into one of the most influential Greek accounts of Persian space and military endurance. The march of the Ten Thousand did not prove that Persia was defenseless, but it did shape Greek perceptions of imperial vulnerability. Cyrus's failed bid for power therefore had consequences beyond his own death. It gave later Greek and Macedonian readers a story about moving through the empire and surviving.
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This profile is written for educational use and connects to related Stories of History pages. The main portrait is an AI-assisted historical reconstruction, included as an illustrative aid rather than documentary evidence. Image policy
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