In concluding let us return to the triple threads of lived experience, logistics, and community. The blood and violence of combat are more exciting and immediate – probably one reason why the face of battle approach is so popular – but only by examining their campaign in its totality can we fully grasp the Cyreans' experience. Reconstructing what it might have been like to march in lochos column or set up a suskenia encampment enables us to imagine the physical and spatial dimensions of ordinary soldiers' worlds. In doing so we comprehend the range of challenges they endured and the kinds of decisions they had to make. We can see, for example, why men would stay loyal to lochos and captain, but also sympathize with the dilemma of the mule driver, forced to choose between carrying a dying stranger and safeguarding irreplaceable supplies and gear. We discover not only the agonizing dangers – stress fractures, gangrene, and hypothermia – but also the mundane tasks – shaving, bathing, going to the latrine – that comprised the army's life.

Combining the personal angle of vision with an emphasis on supply and feeding offers a visceral handle on Cyrean reality. We prosperous modern urban-dwellers, safe at home, can perform our logistical routines, from turning up the heat to reaching into the refrigerator, almost effortlessly. Understanding the skill and energy it took the mercenaries simply to build a fire highlights how much more difficult mere daily survival was for them.