Sophaenetus

Sophaenetus was one of the leaders of the Ten Thousand, an army of Greek mercenaries in the service of Cyrus the Younger, in 401–400 BC. A native of Stymphalus, he was an older man when he recruited and led one thousand hoplites to join Cyrus. He led the army back to the Black Sea and from Trapezus to Cerasus by ship. At Cotyora, he was fined 10 minae for mishandling funds. Some modern scholars regard it as a late forgery, composed after the time of Plutarch.

Some scholars who accept the authenticity of the Anabasis Kyrou regard it as the probable source of those elements in Diodorus Siculus' account of the Ten Thousand in his Bibliotheca historica that cannot be found in Xenophon. If the latter are correct, Diodorus probably encountered the Anabasis Kyrou indirectly, through Ephorus and the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia. It has been suggested that it may have been outcompeted by the superior literary quality of Xenophon's Anabasis. By comparison, Ptolemy's account of Alexander the Great's campaigns is also lost, but was used by Arrian in his Anabasis of Alexander centuries after it was written.