Author Description

'Thalatta! Thalatta!' ('The Sea! The Sea!') was the shout first uttered on a mountain in eastern Turkey by the famous Ten Thousand, the army of Greek mercenaries whose adventures in what are now Turkey, Syria and Iraq were described by the Athenian historian and philosopher Xenophon, himself a participant in their long march to the coast. Their shout has had an extraordinary afterlife, playing a persistent part in Western cultural tradition over the last two hundred years. Here Tim Rood tells its story for the first time, drawing on a wide range of works - literary masterpieces and romantic fiction, tales of travel and adventure, memoirs of childhood and war, a radio play by Louis MacNeice and a cult Hollywood film. Book jacket.