Xenophon/Chapter 3

by Alexander Grant

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CHAPTER III.

THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS
TO THE SHORE OF THE EUXINE.

The Greeks having pursued for about three miles their unprofitable victory over the left wing of the King's army, halted; when they perceived the enemy advancing towards them from the direction of their own lines. They immediately formed, with the Euphrates in their rear, and having sung the pæan, charged. The Persians fled with even greater precipitancy than before. The Greeks followed, without overtaking them, till the sun set, when they stopped and resolved to march back to their tents. On arriving there, they found that the camp had been plundered by the King's troops, and that all their provisions were gone. They lay down fasting, having had neither dinner nor supper during the day. But as yet they had not heard a word of the death of Cyrus. They believed him to be victorious, as they had been, and they looked forward to the morrow to bring them the reward of all their labours.

At sunrise a message came from Ariæus, the Persian general of Cyrus, who had fled back with the native army to the camp from which they had come two days before, saying that Cyrus was dead, and that if the Greeks would join him he would take them back to the coast of Asia Minor, but that he would not wait for them more than twelve hours. To this Clearchus replied, "Would that Cyrus were alive! but since he is no more, tell Ariæus that we have beaten the King's army, and that if he comes to us we will set him on the throne of Persia." While awaiting an answer to this proposal, the Greeks slaughtered the bullocks and asses which had drawn their waggons, and with them made a breakfast.

Ariæus had not heart enough to avail himself of the chance which was offered him. He told the Greeks that the other Persians of higher rank than himself would never let him be king. But he swore solemnly to guide the Greeks in safety back. He said that it would be impossible to return by the route on which they had come, for they would not be able to get provisions for the desert, but that they must go by the northern route, which lay through fertile countries. To begin with, he led them eastwards into the Babylonian territory. This was an alluvial plain, full of villages, and which, under certain circumstances, might have been a trap for an army, for it lay between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and was divided into parallelograms by the wall of Media and four successive ship-canals running across from the one river to the other. No doubt Ariæus was right in saying that escape would be impossible by way of the deserts of Mesopotamia and Arabia. But it is not likely that he really meant to undergo all the difficulties of conducting the Greeks home by way of the Tigris. In all probability he used the offer of the Greeks to intimidate Artaxerxes, and to obtain an amnesty for himself on condition of abandoning his allies, which, in fact, he immediately did.

In the mean time the vacillation of the Persians was wonderful. They not only did not attack the Greeks, but instead of starving them in the barren country, they admitted them within the wall of Media, where they could get plenty of provisions, and where they might have used the canals and rivers as defences, which would have enabled them to hold an almost impregnable position, and where they might have made a military settlement threatening the very existence of the reigning dynasty. Presently this danger appears to have occurred to the Persians, and with it the expediency of "making a golden bridge for a flying enemy." For they sent Tissaphernes the satrap to profess friendly feelings for the Greeks, and to offer to escort them back to Greece. Under his guidance the Greeks crossed two of the canals, and arrived at Sitace, a town on the Tigris a little below Bagdad. Here they received false information that the Persians were going to destroy the bridge over the Tigris. This news was fabricated with the view of hurrying them out of Babylonia, lest at the last moment they should resolve to settle there. The ruse was successful, for the Greeks guarded the bridge during a night, and next morning crossed it with all expedition.

Having been got fairly over the Tigris into the province of Media, they were conducted north-westward, along the river, by Tissaphernes, for ten days, partly through a desert country, and with only two remarkable incidents: first, that they met an illegitimate brother of Artaxerxes bringing up a large army to assist him, and who halted his troops to see the Greeks pass by. Clearchus, being aware of this, made his men march two abreast, so that his line seemed almost interminable, and inspired respect in the minds of the natives. Second, that on arriving at some villages which were the private property of Parysatis (the queen-mother, who had favoured the cause of Cyrus), Tissaphernes allowed the Greeks, instead of purchasing provisions in them, to plunder them.

Soon after this they arrived at the river Zab, which flows into the Tigris. On its banks they rested, and here Clearchus resolved to have a conference with Tissaphernes, in order, if possible, to put a stop to the feelings of mutual suspicion which had evidently been arising between the Greeks and their Persian conductors. The substance of the discussion which took place is put by Xenophon into the form of elaborate speeches on each side; and he represents Tissaphernes, after professing the most pure and beautiful motives, to have wound up with an Oriental compliment to the Greeks, saying that "while the Great King alone was allowed to wear the upright turban^[1] on his head, any other man, who had the Greeks on his side, might wear it in his heart." This inuendo, which was probably used in reality, meant that Tissaphernes had such an admiration for the Greeks that he could not quite relinquish the idea of making himself king by their assistance. It was in allusion to the offer which had been refused by Ariæus; and the delicate compliment seems to have worked so powerfully with Clearchus as to have entirely thrown him off his guard. In spite of all remonstrances of cautious persons, he accepted an invitation to go to a still more confidential interview with Tissaphernes within the Persian lines, and he persuaded four generals, including Proxenus and Meno, and twenty captains, of the Greeks, to accompany him.

No sooner had they arrived at the tent of Tissaphernes than all the captains and the small guard of honour that accompanied them were cut down, and the generals were seized and bound and sent up to the King. Four of them were immediately put to death by beheading. Meno alone had his life granted to him, probably on account of certain traitorous communications which he had previously held with Tissaphernes. Xenophon, after relating these events, sketches in a masterly way the characters of the different generals, and stigmatises Meno as a bad and false man. He records, with apparent satisfaction, that Meno was ultimately put to death with lingering tortures. This nemesis was due to the still powerful influence of the queen-mother, Parysatis, who appears to have played the part of a vindictive Juno towards all who had been hostile or unfaithful to her favourite Cyrus and his Greeks.

In the mean time, one of the guard of honour having escaped, wounded, from the massacre, brought the news of it, and of the arrest of the generals, to the Greek camp. The receipt of this intelligence caused great panic and depression in the little army, who reflected that they were isolated in a hostile and treacherous country, a thousand miles from home, without guides or commissariat, with many large rivers before them, and the enemy's cavalry all round. "Reflecting," says Xenophon, "on these circumstances, and being disheartened at them, few tasted food for that evening, few kindled fires, and many did not come to the place of arms during the night, but lay down to rest where they severally happened to be, unable to sleep for sorrow and longing for their country, their parents, their wives, and their children, whom they never expected to see again." The feelings of the Greeks at this unhappy moment might be compared, to some extent, with those of our own betrayed army at Cabul in 1842, when on the eve of their despairing attempt to regain British India through the mountains, the snow, and the enemy. But the Greeks had better grounds of hope left to them, for their military prestige was quite unimpaired. They had not lost a man except by foul and treacherous murder, and they had never yet found the native troops, in whatever numbers, able to stand up against them.

But it seemed as if there were only one man to whose mind these encouraging thoughts suggested themselves. And that man was Xenophon. But for him, it seemed likely that the Greeks would have abandoned themselves to unresisting despair. Xenophon himself considered that in the hour of panic he received a special inspiration and a divine impulse to act. He tells us that in the dreadful night following the murder of the generals he was visited by a dream. He dreamed that his father's house had been set on fire by lightning. Full of Greek superstition, he asked himself the interpretation of this dream. On the one hand, he thought that it might be interpreted favourably, as indicating "a light from Jupiter." On the other hand, he reflected that, as Jupiter is King, it might portend "destruction from the King of Persia." With practical good sense he adds, in his account of the matter, that a dream can best be interpreted by what follows it; and what actually followed in this case was that Xenophon sprang up, awoke the surviving generals and captains of the Greek force, and in spirited language addressed them.

He reminded his countrymen of their late easy victory over the King's troops at Cunaxa, and of the glorious resistance made by their forefathers to the armies of Darius and Xerxes at Marathon and Salamis. He pointed out the utter perfidy and falseness of every one of the Persians, now that Cyrus was dead, and he earnestly impressed upon them that they must trust to no one but themselves, and to nothing but their own swords for deliverance. The circumstances under which he spoke were peculiar: the removal of Clearchus had reduced the army to a democracy, and in such a body fair reasoning and skilful oratory were sure to be effective. By means of them, Xenophon, in this midnight debate, turned the hearts of all like one man, and they unanimously adopted the arrangements best calculated to secure their retreat.

Next day, having burnt their carriages and tents, and all superfluous baggage, and having dined, they formed themselves into a hollow square, with the baggage-bearers in the centre. Cheirisophus, as being a Lacedæmonian, was put in command of the front; four of the captains were chosen to command the flanks; while Xenophon and Timasion, as the two youngest, took charge of the rear. In this order they crossed the Zab, marching so as to follow upwards the left bank of the Tigris. The cowardly Persians did not dare to dispute with them the passage of the Zab; but as soon as they were marching on the other side, two hundred cavalry, and four hundred archers and slingers, came after them to harass their rear. Some Greeks were wounded, and they had no means of retaliation, having neither horsemen nor slingers. Xenophon, however, actually made a sally on foot with a few men against the Persian cavalry, who, instead of cutting him off, turned and fled as soon as he appeared. The Greek army, thus harassed, only marched two and a half miles during the day, when they got to some villages. Here Xenophon set to work to make use of the lesson which, he said, the enemy had given them. With the horses that they had with them he organised a small troop of fifty cavalry, and he got together as many as two hundred Rhodians, skilled in using the sling with leaden bullets instead of stones. During a day's halt these preparations were completed, and then the Greeks, starting very early in the morning, got over a deep ravine which lay in their course before the stupid Persians had taken any measures to stop them. When they were fairly over, the attack on their rear was recommenced, but this time with 1000 cavalry and 4000 archers and slingers. The Greeks, however, did not as before passively endure the annoyances of the enemy. The trumpet sounded, the fifty horsemen charged, the slingers plied their weapons, and the infantry advanced to their support. The natives at once fled in confusion to the ravine, leaving many dead on the fields whose bodies the Greeks mutilated in order to strike terror into the enemy.

They were now allowed without molestation to reach the banks of the Tigris, where they found an ancient deserted city, with massive walls. This the Greeks called Larissa, which was a common name for the ancient Pelasgian towns with Cyclopean masonry in Thessaly and elsewhere. But it has been conjectured that the name really told them was Al Resen, and that the city was the Resen of Scripture. At the present day it is called Nimrúd; and it was here, on the site of the Nineveh of antiquity, that Mr Layard brought to light so many interesting remains of the ancient Assyrian empire. A further march of eighteen miles conducted the Greeks to another deserted city, which they understood to be called Mespila. It was nearly opposite the modem Mossul, and appears to have been originally a continuation of the once colossal Nineveh or Ninus. These cities, or city, had been devastated by Cyrus the Great, and abandoned about one hundred and fifty years before Xenophon came there.

During the next day's march, which was twelve miles, Tissaphernes came upon them in force. He had with him his own cavalry, all the native troops who had served under Cyrus, and who had marched so long as comrades to the Greeks, the division of Orontes, the King's son-in-law, and that additional army which had been brought up by the King's illegitimate brother, and which the Greeks had seen before. These vast masses of men surrounded the Greeks like a cloud on every side except the front. They never charged, however, and only used missiles. The Rhodian slingers and the Greek bowmen immediately answered with the utmost effect, never missing a shot in such dense ranks, and the Persians presently retreated on all sides.

The next day the Greeks altered to some extent the disposition of their force, as the single hollow square was found too inflexible in cases of narrow roads, hills, or bridges. For more easy adaptation to such circumstances, they formed six companies of one hundred men each, subdivided into smaller companies of twenty-five, each under its own officer, with directions to fall behind or close up as the exigencies of the march might require. In this form they marched for four days, and on the fifth came to some hills. On commencing the ascent they found the enemy on the heights above them, and they saw the native officers flogging on their men to attack them with darts, stones, and arrows. Many were wounded, and their advance was hindered, until they had succeeded in sending up a detachment from their right wing to occupy a height above the Persians, who, thus threatened, desisted from the attack, and allowed the Greeks to gain a place which Xenophon describes as "a palace amid villages," which can still be identified^[2] in the modern Zákhú. It was a satrap's palace, "like a baronial castle, surrounded by the cottages of serfs and retainers." Here they stayed three days, tending the wounded, and enjoying the satrap's stores of provisions and wine. As soon as they started again Tissaphernes was upon them. But they reached a village, which served them as a defensive work, and enabled them to keep the enemy off. When night came the Persians drew back for six miles, because their horses were always picketed at night by foot-ropes (just as in India at the present day), and could not be got ready suddenly; so they kept a long way off to avoid surprise. The Greeks took advantage of this, and stole a march upon them in the night, and did not see them for two days.

On the fourth day from Zákhú they found the enemy in front of them, on an eminence which commanded the road. Cheirisophus halted the men and sent for Xenophon, who came galloping up from the rear. It was obviously necessary to dislodge the Persians from their front, as Tissaphernes with his army was coming up behind. Xenophon offered to take a select detachment from the van and centre of the army, and scale a height which commanded the hill on which the enemy were posted. He proceeded to do so, and the natives, seeing what was intended, detached some of their own troops to occupy the summit before the Greeks. There was thus a perfect race between the two detachments, each struggling to get up the hill before the other, and each cheered on by the shouts of its own army. The Greeks, by great exertions, won the race and occupied the summit, and the natives at once dispersed from their position on the line of march, leaving the passage clear. A little incident which occurred during this operation shows the democratic spirit of the Greek army. While Xenophon was riding up the ascent and encouraging the infantry, one of the soldiers cried out, "It's not fair, Xenophon, for you to be riding, while I have to go on foot and carry my shield." In an instant Xenophon jumped from his horse, seized the man's shield, and took his place in the rank, struggling on with the rest. But his heavy horseman's corselet distressed him; and the other soldiers abused the discontented one, and threw stones at him, till he was glad to resume his shield, and Xenophon remounted. Cheirisophus and the army marched onward to some villages on the Tigris, where Xenophon with his detachment rejoined them. The Greeks were now in perplexity, for before them lay high mountains, and on their left the Tigris was very deep, and they could see cavalry on the other side. The generals held a council of war, and carefully questioned their prisoners as to the different routes. They learned that to go eastwards would lead them to Susa and Ecbatana, the summer residence of Artaxerxes; over the Tigris to the left lay the direct path to Lydia and Ionia; the mountains in front were in the country of the Carduchi (Kurds), a warlike tribe, not subject to the Great King. The route over these mountains would lead into the rich country of Armenia, where the Tigris might easily be forded near its source, and whence the Euxine, leading them to Greece, might be reached. This was the course which it was determined to take, albeit it was now the middle of November, and full late in the year for trying mountain-passes. Starting during the last watch of the night, they got over the intervening plain under the cover of darkness, and thus bade adieu to Tissaphernes and his Persians. All the light-armed men were placed in the front under Cheirisophus, who led them over the first summit before the Kurds had perceived their approach. Marching slowly on, they occupied some villages which lay in the recesses of the mountains, and which the inhabitants evacuated, refusing to listen to all proposals of amity. The rear under Xenophon, consisting of heavy-armed men and baggage, only got up after nightfall, and suffered slightly from an attack of the Kurds, which might have been serious if it had been made in greater force. "Thus," says Mr Ainsworth, "they accomplished their entrance into Kurdistan without opposition, and crossed one of the most defensible passes which they were destined to meet. This is the point where the lofty mountain-chain—now designated as Jebél Júdí, and the same, according to Chaldean, Syriac, and Arabian traditions, as that on which the Ark rested—comes down to the very flood of the Tigris, which it encloses in an almost impassable barrier of rock."

The Greeks quartered themselves for the night in the Kurdish houses, which they found well stocked with provisions, and with an abundance of copper pots. The hills all round were lit up with the watch-fires of the people. In the morning the generals determined to diminish their encumbrances by abandoning the greater part of their baggage-cattle and all their Persian prisoners. Having given an order to this effect, they took their stand at a narrow place on the march, and inspected all that was being taken onwards. They thus turned back whatever was not desirable to be brought, but Xenophon implies that some pretty female captives were smuggled through.

For the next two days the Greeks advanced, through storm and rain and the guerilla attacks of the Kurds, till they came to a place where further progress seemed impossible, as a lofty pass in front was occupied by the enemy. But they had made prisoners of two of the natives, and these were separately questioned as to the existence of any other route. One prisoner denied that there was any, and he was then put to death pour encourager l'autre, who at once offered to conduct them round by another road, but said that there was one height commanding it which must be occupied beforehand. Two thousand Greeks volunteered for this service and started in the evening, while Xenophon made a feint of marching along the direct route, which caused the Kurds to commence rolling down masses of stone upon it from above, an amusement^[3] which they continued harmlessly during the night. In the mean time the party of two thousand effected their operation. They occupied the height pointed out by their guide, and in the morning, under cover of the mist, they stole on the Kurds who were occupying the direct pass, and to the sound of the trumpet, and with a sudden war-cry, they routed them. Cheirisophus and his men at the first trumpet-note came along the direct road to assist, but they found the position already evacuated, and the pass clear. Xenophon, however, went round by the circuitous route, as it was better suited for the baggage-cattle. He had several skirmishes by the way, but at last joined the main body, when Cheirisophus and he parleyed with the natives, who agreed to give up the dead bodies of all slain Greeks in exchange for the prisoner who had served as guide. Funeral-rites were accordingly performed over those of their comrades who had fallen by the formidable arrows of the Kurds. The privilege of discharging this melancholy duty was purchased at the cost of their only guide, a heavy sacrifice in an unknown country. But, nevertheless, they fought their way gallantly through the passes. Whenever the vanguard was opposed, Xenophon ascended the mountains from behind, and outflanked the enemy; and whenever the rear was attacked, Cheirisophus performed a similar service from the front. Thus they painfully advanced; and on the seventh day after first entering the mountains they emerged on an open plain, and saw before them the river Centrites (now called the Buhtánchài), which separated Kurdistan from Armenia. During these seven days they had suffered more miseries than all which the King and Tissaphernes had inflicted put together. But now they joyfully rested in the villages on the plain, and in all comfort recalled the troubles and dangers which they had passed through.

The next day anxiety returned, for over the river (which was two hundred feet broad) they could see the opposite bank lined with the cavalry and infantry of the satrap of Armenia, and a large body of Kurds was collecting in their rear. The river too seemed to be unfordable. But Xenophon in the night had an encouraging dream:—he dreamed that he had been bound, but that his fetters fell off of their own accord; and next morning, while he was at breakfast, two young men brought him word that they had discovered a ford in a place where the rocks would prevent cavalry from acting. After a libation of gratitude to the gods, the dispositions for crossing were made. Cheirisophus was to lead the vanguard, followed by the baggage, across the ford; while Xenophon with the rearguard was to make a feint of crossing directly opposite the satrap's troops, so as to threaten them and engage their attention. This plan was carried out, and the native troops, seeing two separate forces apparently crossing, were afraid of being surrounded; and hearing the pæan and the shouts of the men under Cheirisophus, swollen by the voices of the Greek women, of whom there were a good many in the army, they were seized with panic, and retreated, leaving the other side of the river clear. Xenophon had now only to make a lively demonstration against the Kurds who had come to attack him, and on their flight he was enabled to lead his men with all speed across the true ford, and then all the Greeks were safe on the other side.

They were now on the table-lands of Armenia, and, pushing on rapidly in a north-easterly direction, soon rounded the springs of the Tigris, and, passing not far to the west of Lake Van, came in five or six days' march to a pretty stream which Xenophon calls Teleboas, the banks of which were studded with villages. Here the satrap Tiribazus came up with them, and inviting a conference with the generals, he gave them leave to pass through the country, on condition of their taking only necessary supplies, without burning the villages. They proceeded accordingly, being constantly followed by the satrap and his troops. In three days they reached the government house of Tiribazas, anxiety about which had probably been the cause of his conciliating them, and they made themselves at home in the surrounding hamlets. They were now about 4000 feet above the sea, and it was near the end of November. The sight of watch-fires in the neighbourhood, and other signs of hostility caused the army to bivouac together in the open air. But vast quantities of snow fell during the night, covering men and beasts, and in the morning they were numbed with cold, and Xenophon had to set the example of rising to cut firewood. Then they lit many fires, and the men anointed themselves with unguents which they found in the villages. After this they sent out a clever Greek captain with some men to reconnoitre, and they succeeded in bringing in a Persian captive. This man, being questioned, told them what troops the satrap had, and that he was preparing to intercept them in a pass which lay upon their line of march.

With the greatest energy the generals determined to sally forth and attack Tiribazus where he was, before he could occupy the pass. They succeeded in doing so. They surprised his camp among the mountains, killed some of his men, dispersed the rest, took his tent, his horses, and his couches with silver feet, and made prisoners of his bakers and cup-bearers. The next day they pushed forward with the utmost expedition, and got through the pass which was to have been held against them. Marching through deep snow for three days, they came to what is now called the Murád-sú, being the easterly branch of the Euphrates, which they forded, the water not coming above their middle.

During the next four days they made about fifty miles over an exposed plain, from the Euphrates to a cluster of villages in the Armenian uplands, at a place now called Khanús. In these four marches they endured great sufferings. The snow was often six feet deep; there was a parching north wind which blew directly in their faces, their provisions were very scanty, and the enemy from time to time harassed their rear. Added to this, when we remember that they had only the ordinary light dress of the Greek—Greek sandals with thongs between the toes, and no stockings—we may well admire the hardihood shown by these sons of the palæstra. But several of them died, as well as slaves, and baggage-cattle in large numbers. Many got snow-blindness, others lost their toes by mortification, and many suffered from what Xenophon calls bulimia (literally ravenous hunger), which, however, does not appear to have been a distinctive disease, but only excessive faintness and inertia from long fasting in the cold. Xenophon had the greatest difficulty in bringing up the stragglers, many of whom wished to be left to their fate. One party of them discovered a hot spring, from which it was difficult to get them to move.

Cheirisophus and the vanguard of course got first to the villages, where they made themselves comfortable in the underground houses of the inhabitants, and where, according to the custom of the country, they sucked "barley-wine" through reeds out of tubs, which had the grains of barley floating about in them. This "barley-wine" is in general considered to have been beer, but the terms in which Xenophon describes it would seem more applicable to whisky.^[4] He says, "The liquor was very strong, unless one mixed water with it, and a very pleasant drink when one was accustomed to it."

The rear came up by degrees, and fared equally well, feasting on all kinds of meat which the villagers, who had not retreated, hospitably served up to them. They found many horses which were being bred as a tribute for the Great King, and Xenophon and the other officers got a remount. They remained for a week restoring their exhausted energies, and then set forth, taking the head-man of one of the villages as their guide; but after a day or two this man, having been struck by Cheirisophus, ran away.

Owing to this they did not make a very straight course during their next nine days' march, which brought them to the foot of a formidable pass, guarded, as they could see, by the people of the country. Here a council of war was held, in which some lively banter occurred between Cheirisophus and Xenophon. The former was for marching straight at the enemy, and cutting their way through; Xenophon recommended that in the night they should send a detachment to occupy the heights above the enemy. "But this," he added, "would be stealing a march, and in any question about stealing I am diffident in speaking before Lacedæmonians, who, it is well known, are trained in this art from their boyhood." To this Cheirisophus retorted that "he understood the Athenians also were pretty skilful in stealing the public money. Their men in office invariably did so, and doubtless Xenophon himself was well skilled in the accomplishment: he had better now give them a specimen of his powers." Xenophon justified the ambiguous compliment by producing two natives whom he had caught by an ambush, and who would serve as guides in scaling the mountains. A night expedition was organised, which was perfectly successful. They occupied a height, and in the morning descended on the flank of the enemy, while Cheirisophus attacked them in front, so that they were speedily routed with slaughter. After erecting a trophy on the pass, they marched over it to some well-provisioned villages.

Their next adventure was with the Taochians, a people of Georgia, who lived not in villages but in hill-forts, in which all their provisions and cattle were stored. The Greeks, after five days' march, when their stores were exhausted, came to one of these strongholds, which necessity compelled them to wish to enter. The only access to this place was guarded by the natives, who rolled down masses of rock from above. A system, however, of judicious feints made by the Greek captains caused the enemy to exhaust their ammunition, and then the Cyreians gained the ascent, which was no longer defended by the natives. But a dreadful scene ensued, for the Taochian women first threw their children over the precipice, and then leapt to destruction themselves, being followed by the men. One of the Greeks, trying to hold back a native chief dressed in a rich garment, was drawn after him, and both were dashed to pieces. This wholesale and determined suicide prevented the army taking many prisoners, but they got plenty of cattle and sheep.

From this they passed into the country of the Chalybes, another Georgian tribe. This people was famed in antiquity for traffic in the iron which they found abundantly in their mountains. They have thus given their name to the "chalybeate springs" of modern watering-places. Xenophon says that these were the bravest warriors that they had encountered in their march. They carried immense spears, twenty-two feet long, and short curved knives (like the kookaries of the Goorkhas), with which they cut off, the heads of all whom they could overpower. For seven days they harassed the rear of the Greeks, who, as they also kept all their provisions in hill-forts, could get nothing in their country.

But the beginning of the end was now come in the retreat of the Ten Thousand, for in a few days they arrived at the large and wealthy city of Gymnias, thought by some to correspond to the Erzerum of modern times. Here the governor sent out a guide to conduct them through a country with which his own people were at war. And the guide told them that in five days he would lead them to a place whence they could see the Euxine, and that if he failed in this they might kill him. As soon as they had entered the hostile country, he exhorted them to burn and plunder, which doing, they marched on. And on the fifth day they came to the mountain called Theches, held sacred in the neighbourhood; and when the front ranks had reached the summit and caught sight of the sea, they raised a great-shout. Xenophon and the rear-guard, hearing it, thought that the army was being attacked in front, for the people whose country they had devastated were hanging about them. But the noise continually increased, as fresh men kept getting to the top and immediately joined in the shouts of the others, and Xenophon thought something extraordinary must have happened. So, mounting his horse, he took the cavalry with him, and galloped forward to give aid, when presently they made out that the soldiers were shouting "Thalatta! Thalatta!"—"The Sea! The Sea!" and cheering one another. Then all began to run, rear-guard and all; and the baggage-cattle and horses were put to their speed. And when all had got to the top, the men embraced each other, and embraced their generals and captains, weeping. And on a sudden impulse they brought stones, and raised a mighty mound, and made on it a trophy decorated with the hacked shields of their enemies, to commemorate their deliverance. And then, to reward their guide for fulfilling his promise, they loaded him with presents from the public stock, while many soldiers pulled the rings off their fingers and gave them to him, and thus sent him away rejoicing.

Such was the famous incident which has so struck the fancy of the world, that the shout of the Greeks on this occasion has become a household word for subsequent ages. Xenophon records the scene in the most simple terms, merely as an outward fact, without adding a single sentiment or reflection of his own. On the one hand, this may be regarded as a stroke of high art, which would dictate simplicity in relating what was in itself so touching; on the other hand, it was a part of that Greek reserve and concentration of style which forms so great a contrast to the Gothic sentimentalism of modern times, and which led Xenophon to narrate the march through so many wild and impressive mountain-passes without a word of allusion to the grandeur of the scenery. But he doubtless felt instinctively, without developing into words, all that was implied to his comrades in their first returning glimpse of the sea. Universally to the Greeks the sea was the emblem of home, or of easy access to their home. To be taken far up country, deep into the continent of Asia, had always hitherto been a thought of vague fear to the Greek soldier, while he was ready for anything within a short distance of the coast. No Greek force before the Ten Thousand had ever ventured anything like so far away from the Ægean; and they had gone not of deliberate purpose, but being lured on gradually under the influence of Cyrus. The silver gleam of the distant Euxine was to them the restoration of the object of long yearnings, and sudden relief and ecstasy found a vent in the spontaneous shout of Thalatta! and in passionate tears.

Full of the thoughts of fatherland, and "of child and wife and slave," all which had hitherto seemed so far but now so near, the Greeks pursued their course, and arrived at a stream separating them from the country of the Macrones, where they found a hostile array drawn up to oppose their crossing. But in the army was a soldier who belonged to this very tribe, from which he had been taken when a boy as a slave to Athens. He had not forgotten his native tongue, and was able to assure his people that the Greeks meant them no harm. So after mutual pledges of amity, the Macrones conducted them for three days through their land, to the boundaries of the Colchians.

Here on the pass over a lofty range a native force was stationed to meet them. The generals took counsel together as to the best means of conducting the attack; and it was decided not to attack in line, but in a series of columns extending by short intervals over the whole of the enemy's line. When the men had been put into this form, Xenophon rode along the front, and addressed to them the following pithy exhortation: "Soldiers, these men whom we have before us are the only obstacle in the way of our being where we have so long been striving to be. If possible, we must eat them alive." The soldiers, after hearing these words, made vows of sacrifices to the gods in case of success; and having sung the pæan, they commenced the charge in eighty columns, with archers and skirmishers on their flanks. The enemy, seeing their wings threatened, drew off men to the right and left, and actually left a gap in their centre, at which the Greeks dashed at full speed. The sight of the Greeks running was too much for the Colchians, who now fled in all directions; while the Greeks, rejoicing in their bloodless victory, marched over the pass into some abandoned villages.

In these villages their last adventure occurred. It consisted in their finding a quantity of bee-hives, from which they ate the honey abundantly. But the honey was of a kind common to this day in Asia Minor, made from a species of rhododendron, or from the common rose laurel (nerium oleander), and having intoxicating and poisonous qualities. From the effects of this honey large numbers of the soldiers fell stupefied or maddened to the ground, and for two or three days they were hors de combat, but at the end of that time all recovered.

Two more marches brought them down to the sea, at Trapezus (now Trebizond), a large Greek city on the coast of the Colchian territory. Here they remained for a month, being hospitably entertained, resting from their toils, and from time to time plundering the native villages on the neighbouring hills. Here they sacrificed to Jupiter the Preserver, Hercules the Conductor, and other gods, in fulfilment of vows which they had made in different crises of their march. After the sacrifices they celebrated games, of which Xenophon gives a comical account. A steep hill-side was chosen for the race-course, down which horses had to gallop, and, turning round in the sea, to come up again to the altar on the top. "In the descent many rolled over; but in coming back against the stiff ascent, the horses could hardly get along at a walk. There was consequently great shouting and laughter and cheering from the people."

With these words of light-hearted good-humour, Xenophon concludes his account of the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks from Babylonia to Trebizond, on the Euxine. The retreat itself had occupied five months, and it was now the month of February, in the year 400 B.C. Additional difficulties and troubles awaited them in their return through the outlying Greek colonies; these were partly of their own creation, and partly owing to the selfishness of their countrymen. A whole year elapsed before the remnant of the Cyreian force was incorporated with the Lacedæmonian army in Asia Minor, and before Xenophon left them. These subsequent events, and with them the later personal career of Xenophon, the chief leader and the historian of the march, will form the subject of our next chapter. The preceding pages have reflected a brilliant episode of Greek military history. It is true that the Cyreian force encountered no enemies who combined bravery of spirit with the arts of war. Their opponents were effeminate Orientals or half-savage mountaineers. Yet the Greeks had always the odds of either overwhelming numbers, or of difficulties of the ground, against them. Through these their untiring energy and courage, and the prestige created by their bold front and their élan, alone carried them. They were favoured, of course, by fortune, and also by the errors and the backwardness of their foes. After the affair of Cunaxa, it would seem easy for the King to have wasted the country with his cavalry, to have kept them outside the Median wall, and to have starved them into submission. Again, after Tissaphernes had murdered their officers, it is difficult to see why he did not hold the passage of the Zab against them, or why in the succeeding days he did not attack them in force. Doubtless he would have done so if their march through the plain had continued longer, because his troops were gradually getting accustomed to the idea of encountering Greeks. But from this danger, to which they must ultimately have succumbed, the mountains of Kurdistan opportunely saved them. After that point the difficulties were of a different kind, and such as their Greek versatility and buoyancy of spirit were able to cope with.

The graphic memoir in which Xenophon recorded the fortunes of the Ten Thousand divulged a secret to the world: this was the secret of the essential weakness of the Persian empire. Henceforth, as Mr Grote observes,^[5] all the military and political leaders of Greece—Agesilaus, Jason of Pheræ, and others, down to Philip and Alexander—were firmly persuaded that, with a tolerably numerous force, they could at any moment succeed in overthrowing the Persian power. This conviction waited for time and opportunity to give it effect. For two generations Persia maintained an influence over the affairs of Greece by subsidising one state against another. But when all the Greek states had fallen under the rule of Macedonia, then the hour struck. Alexander the Great went forth to conquer Persia, and in so doing he changed the face of the world and the course of history. But nothing is more clear than that the revelations of Xenophon had taken hold of his mind, and that the idea of the expedition of Alexander sprang originally from the 'Anabasis' of Xenophon.

1. One of the insignia of royalty in ancient Persia.
2. Mr Ainsworth's 'Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks,' p. 144.
3. Stone-rolling as a mode of attacking the traveller seems still in vogue among the Kurdish mountain-passes. Major Millingen, in his 'Wild Life among the Koords' (1870), records that in a difficult road near Lake Van, while admiring the beauties of the landscape, "several stones began to roll upon us from the side of the mountain. This seeming at first accidental, we hastened our paces with the view of getting clear of a dangerous spot; but no sooner had we advanced a hundred yards farther on than more stones began to fall all round us, while voices could distinctly be heard from the heights above. Alarmed at the prospect of being lapidated to death before the journey was at an end, I shouted to Beheram, showing him a little creek towards which we both made a rush, and where we succeeded in finding shelter. The stones continued to fall, but, fortunately for us, the rocky canopy under which we were admirably protected us. Not knowing what might happen, I resolved, as we could see nothing of the caravan, on firing two shots of my revolver, which our people would take as signals of distress. The signal was soon answered by our men, and several detonations of fire-arms announced a speedy relief."
4. Major Millingen, in his 'Wild Life among the Koords,' p. 131, &c., mentions many customs still existing among the Kurdish and Armenian villages, exactly corresponding with the descriptions of Xenophon. He says, "My researches have, I think, put beyond doubt the accuracy of Xenophon's statements, and are of a nature to show the historical, geographical, and ethnological importance which is to be attached to the accounts handed down to posterity by that illustrious writer. Every phrase, every word of his, is found, after an interval of twenty-three centuries, to be of the most scrupulous exactitude, leaving no room for doubt and controversy." Finding in one house a cemented cistern, Major Millingen (p. 128) inquired its use. "The answer was, that almost every family throughout the country had those things. The Mussulmans make use of the cistern to extract from barley a liquor known all through the East by the name of 'bozat,' a fermented sort of malt liquor. The Armenian giaours, my interlocutors said humorously, employ their cisterns to make wine and 'raki' (whisky)."
5. History of Greece, vol. ix. p. 248.