Battle of Cunaxa Illustration

[Duncan Head]

(A slight side-note Kai: if you look at the Greek of Xenophon's description of the enemy line at Cunaxa, you will find that Tissaphernes' men wore "bright body-armour" rather than the common English translation of "white cuirasses." The adjective can mean "white", but "bright" or "shining" is the core meaning and would make just as much sense in context).

But compare with what Plutarch says in his Life of Artaxerxes:

(In the meantime, some wretched, poverty-stricken Caunians, who in some pitiful employment as camp followers had accompanied the king's army, by chance joined these attendants of Cyrus, supposing them to be of their own party. But when, after a while, they made out that their coats over their breastplates were red, whereas all the king's people wore white ones, they knew that they were enemies.

This makes it more likely that what Xenophon saw and described was indeed Tissaphernes' men wearing white, whether white cuirasses or white tunics over them.