There is some strangely humane aspect about the story of Xenophon's Ten Thousand. Are they thugs, bandits, kidnappers, and murderers? Sure. But they are also husbands, friends, comrades in arms, and often brave in the face of isolation inconceivable in the modern world. You then understand how the Anabasis inspired The Warriors.

Twentieth century warfare was an efficient, mechanized massacre, and the twenty-first's looking to be anonymous, robotic terror from the sky. It makes you wish to return to the innocence of warfare in Xenophon's time, when maybe your village got ransacked by the Hellenes, but if you ran up the nearby hill fast enough, the worst of it would be a harsher winter and a grudge that'd fade out of memory. Or maybe you'd get swept up as a guide, a captive, or a volunteer, and make your way on an adventure into legend.