MEIDIAS.-GOVERNMENT OF DERCYLLIDAS. nabazus. Meidias now sent presents to the satrap, and applied for the government which his But Pharnabazus recrimes had made vacant. turned his presents with a threatening message "to keep them till he should come, and take the gifts with the giver; he would rather die than leave the murder of Mania unavenged." recovered the booty, and killed nearly 200 In the spring of 399 Dercyllidas quitted Bicus he was joined by three Spartan commisthynia and marched southward. At LampsaSuch was the state of affairs when Dercylli- sioners, Aracus, Navates, and Antisthenes, who While das arrived. After having received the sub- were sent to inspect the state of affairs in Asia, mission of the three maritime towns which and who announced to him that his cominand Mania had conquered, he sent to invite those was to be prolonged for another year. of Eolis to assert their independence, and to they conferred this mark of approbation on himenter into alliance with Sparta. His proposals self, they were charged to communicate to his were immediately accepted by three of them, men the satisfaction which the ephors felt at the where the garrisons, after Mania's death, had amendment which had taken place in their concommitted some disorders. Cebren, a strong duct, and to express a hope that they would place, held out four days, during which Dercyl- persevere in their good behaviour. When these lidas professed to be seeking favourable auspi- general orders were orally delivered before the ces; but the garrison was discontented, and assembled army, the commander of the Cyrean forced its commander to surrender before any troops-probably Xenophon himself took the He then marched opportunity to observe that the praise and the attack had been made. against Scepsis. Meidias, threatened by Phar- blame rested, not with the soldiers, but with the nabazus, and conscious that he was hated by generals who had been set over them. Dercylthe Scepsians, thought it safest to come to lidas escorted the commissioners as far as Epheterms with Dercyllidas, and offered to repair in sus, and then left them to continue their progperson to the Spartan camp on receiving hosta-ress through the Greek cities, which, after havges for his security. Dercyllidas gave him as many as he would; but, when he had him in his power, informed him that he must resign his authority at Scepsis, and Meidias, seeing himself helpless, permitted him to enter the town, turn out the garrison, and proclaim liberty and independence. Meidias begged that he might be allowed to keep Gergis, but he received an evasive answer, and was forced to order his garrison to throw open its gates to the army of Dercyllidas. The Spartan general incorporated the guards of Meidias-as no longer needed for his safety-with his own troops, and then took possession of all the property of Mania, and cheered his men by announcing that it would provide them with regular pay for nearly a year to come. The wretched man, whom he still affected to treat as a guest and a friend, seeing himself stripped of all the fruits of his villany, asked where he was to live. "Where," was the reply, "but in your native To the town, Scepsis, on your patrimony fallen tyrant, the unprotected assassin, it was a prospect of misery, shame, and death. Dercyllidas having thus, within eight days, ing been afflicted with the worst evils of tyran- The supposition that this change was made after the prosperous condition of these cities, is one which was perSpartan commissioners had witnessed the tranquil and haps natural enough for a determined apologist of Lysanward fictions devised to support it may safely be left to fall der, but is in itself so violently improbable, that the awkby their own weight. Compare Xenophon, Hell., in., 4, 2, and Plut., Lys., 21. security had sent one of his confidential servants along with him. Warned by this occurrence, the generals passed a resolution, that so long as they remained in the enemy's territory they would receive no overtures from him. It was time to break off all intercourse with so insidious a foe for some of the men had already been seduced by his artifices to desert; and among the rest, Nicarchus, an Arcadian officer,* went off in the night with twenty soldiers. The army then set out, and crossed the Zabatus without interruption. The retreat which began from this point was the most memorable and brilliant period in Xenophon's life, and the narrative of it, which he drew up after his return, deserves perhaps to be considered as his greatest literary work. The ability which he displayed in his command is the more remarkable, if, as we have reason to believe, it was the first he had ever held, and before this expedition he had had few opportunities of acquiring any military experience. But the qualities which this occasion drew forth were less those of the soldier and the general, than such as had been cultivated by his intercourse with Socrates. The kind of practical philosophy which he had extracted from his master's discourses was now called into constant exercise, and appears in its most advantageous light. To his presence of mind, his courage, patience, firmness, mildness, and evenness of temper, the army was mainly indebted for its safety. In the hour of danger and the place of difficulty he was always foremost, ready to share the hardships and toils of the soldiers, and to cheer them by the example of his never-failing alacrity. But it is in his own history of the expedition that the proof and illustration of these remarks must be sought. Our object and limits only permit us to follow the outline of his narrative, and to notice a few passages which appear most important, according to the view we have hitherto taken of the subject. They had not advanced far beyond the river when Mithridates again appeared, with about 200 cavalry and 400 bowmen and slingers, and, as soon as he had approached sufficiently near, began to assail them with a shower of missiles. The Greeks now felt, not only their want of cavalry, but the deficiency of their light troops, whose arrows and javelins fell short of the enemy, while they were themselves within his reach. Xenophon was at length induced to charge the assailants with the heavy infantry and the targeteers which he commanded. But he was not able to overtake them, and his troops were both galled by the arrows which the mounted bowmen scattered behind them as they fled, and were still more hotly pressed in their retreat towards the main body. After fighting the whole day the army had advanced little more than three miles, and reached its halting-place tired and dispirited. Xenophon was censured by Cheirisophus and the elder generals for his imprudence in making a hazardous and unavailing charge; and he did not so much endeavour to vindicate his own conduct, as to urge the necessity, which had been so clearly manifested *He must have been a different person from the Arcadian of the same name, and probably of the same rank, who was wounded the day before. Ilis wounds, according to Xenophon's description, must have been mortal, by the events of the day, of immediately forming a body of cavalry and slingers capable of repelling the enemy's assaults. There were a few horses in the camp, some belonging to himself, some which had been left of the squadron of Clearchus, and several which had been taken, and were used for carrying the baggage. He had also learned that there were some Rhodians in the army, who were for the most part very expert slingers, understood the use of leaden bullets, and could send their missiles twice as far as the Persians. Before morning a troop of about fifty horse was raised and equipped with cavalry armour, and 200 Rhodians had been induced to offer their services as slingers. And when Mithridates again appeared with a larger force-1000 cavalry and 4000 bowmen and slingers-which he had obtained from Tissaphernes on a promise that he would deliver the Greeks into his hands, he was repulsed with considerable loss. The Greeks, knowing the character of the enemy whom they had to deal with, to heighten the dread of their valour by a false show of cruelty, mutilated the slain. During the rest of the day they pursued their march without molestation, and halted on the banks of the Tigris, near a great decayed city, surrounded by impregnable walls, which Xenophor calls Larissa. Near it was a pyramid, on the top of which a number of peasants from the vil lages in the plain had taken refuge. The next day they came to another great city, similarly fortified, named Mespila, about which, as about Larissa, Xenophon heard a legend, in the style of the Arabian Nights, relating to the times of the Persian conquest; but they saw no enemy. The day after Tissaphernes came up with a no merous host, composed of his own cavalry and a detachment of the royal army, the troops of Orontes, and those which the king's brother, as we have already mentioned, had brought to join him. He did not, however, venture to charge the Greeks, but only endeavoured to annoy the rear and flanks with his slingers and bowmen But the Rhodians, and a few Scythian archers, who had probably belonged to the division of Clearchus, were found sufficient to ward of these insults, and for the rest of the day Tissa phernes kept following the march of the Greeks without doing them any mischief. Several of the long Persian bows, which fell into their hands, supplied the Cretan archers with weap ons far superior to their own; and they endeav oured by continual practice to acquire the power of reaching a greater distance.* The abundance of provisions which they found in the villages where they halted induce them to rest there the next day. As they pu sued their march across the plain, Tissapher nes still hovered on their rear; and though t general he kept at a safe distance, he seems to have found some opportunities of annoyes them; for the experience of this day's march! taught them that the dispositions which tal I been adopted on Xenophon's proposal were convenient in a retreat, when an enemy was so close behind. Yet Xenophon does not ! that any other form was substituted for the hol- | low square in which they had hitherto been moving, but only that six battalions of 100 men each were detached from the main body, and placed under separate officers, to serve as any emergency might arise, to remedy the irreguJarity which the various accidents of the road produced from time to time in the flanks of the column, and to preserve order in the fording of streams and the crossing of bridges, or any other difficult and dangerous passage. In this way they marched four days, continually threatened, but little harmed, by the enemy's cavalry. On the fifth day they were attracted by the prospect of a palace, the residence of a satrap in the midst of a cluster of villages at the foot of a mountain, from which they were parted by several ranges of lower hills. They at first hoped that the inequalities of the ground would relieve them from the assaults of the cavalry. But when they began to descend from the top of the first ridge which they had to cross, they found themselves galled more than ever by the shower of missiles which was poured upon them from above, and which compelled their own archers and slingers to take refuge behind the ranks of the heavy infantry. The enemy, indeed, was soon dislodged from his vantage ground by a charge of the heavy-armed. But the troops employed on this service suffered as before, when they descended to rejoin the rest; and the annoyance was repeated in the crossing of the next ridge, so that when they reached the top of the third it was thought advisable to halt, and to send a body of targeteers to occupy the higher ground on the right. Their appearance prevented the enemy's approach, and moving on a line with the main body along the skirts of the mountain, they secured it from all farther annoyance until it reached its halting-place in the villages near the satrap's palace. Here they rested three days, as well on account of the wounded, for whom eight physicians or surgeons were appointed, as to take advantage of the large store of provisions which had been laid up in the villages for the satrap's use. On the fourth, when they descended into the plain, Tissaphernes overtook them, and harassed them so much, that they halted at the first village they saw; for the number of the wounded was so great that, with the hands which were required to bear them, and to carry the arms of the bearers, it sensibly diminished the disposable force of the army. They were, however, able easily to repel an attack which the enemy made upon them in their quarters, and by a night march left him so far behind, that they did not see him again for three days. This relief they owed chiefly to the distancenever much less than eight miles at which the Persians encamped, to avoid a surprise in the night, for which, Xenophon observes, a Persian army, consisting mainly of cavalry, was peculiarly unprepared.* But on the fourth day they found that Tissaphernes, who had The same reason is assigned, nearly in the same terms, in the passage of the Cyropædia referred to in a preceding mote (p. 533) for the practice there mentioned. The horses in a barbarian camp, Xenophon observes, being shackled at their mangers, are, in case of attack, to be loosened, bridled, and saddled; and then the rider has to arm himself, and, when he is mounted, he can move but slowly through the crowd of the camp. VOL. 1-2 z z passed them in the night, had occupied a point of the mountain which commanded the road. He was, however, dislodged from the position by Xenophon, who, with a detachment of the heavy infantry, by dint of great exertions, gained a higher part of the ridge. The Greeks then came down upon a rich plain stretching to the Tigris, studded with villages, in which they found abundant supplies. In the afternoon Tissaphernes, who had taken a different road, suddenly appeared again, and cut off some of their stragglers. And now, for the first time, he began to try another mode of attack, and set fire to some of the villages. It was a confession, Xenophon said, on the part of the enemy, that the land was not his own, but was in their power. But notwithstanding this encouragement, it would seem that not only the army, but the generals were alarmed by the new attempt, which, as we have seen, had been before threatened by Tissaphernes, but which he seems to have reserved as a last expedient for the time when the Greeks should be enclosed, as they now were, between the mountains and the river; for at the north end of the plain, precipitous cliffs, descending into the bed of the Tigris, stopped their passage: the stream was unfordable, and it became necessary to change the line of march. An ingenious Rhodian proposed to carry the army across the river upon a new kind of raft composed of inflated hides and skins. But the project was deemed im practicable in the face of the enemy's cavalry, who were seen in great numbers on the opposite bank. They therefore returned, having burned the villages which they left, to their last quarters, and examined their prisoners as to the road which they were to take. To continue their march northward, without crossing the Tigris, it was necessary that they should enter the mountainous region on their right, which was inhabited by the fierce Carduchians, who had maintained their independence against the Great King, and had once totally destroyed an army of 120,000 men which he had sent to invade their territories. This, however, appeared to be the only practicable course, and was adopted. Tissaphernes, who had watched their retrograde movement, as if with surprise and curiosity, from a distance, when he saw them strike into the Carduchian mountains, gave up all farther pursuit. They had crossed the plain to the foot of the hills in the dark, during the last watch of the night, and found the pass unguarded. But the people fled from their villages at their approach, and, though the Greeks at first spared their property as much as possible, could not be induced to listen to any pacific overtures. They, perhaps, felt both their honour and their safety concerned to preserve their territory inviolate, and, having recovered from their first surprise, and collected a part of their forces, fell upon the rear of the Greeks, and with their missiles made some slaughter among the last troops, which issued, in the dusk of the evening, from the long and narrow defile. In the night the watchfires of the Carduchians were seen blazing on the peaks of the surrounding hills-signals which warned the Greeks that they might expect to be attacked by the collected forces of their tribes. They felt that much would depend HISTORY OF GREECE. on the rapidity of their movements, and resolv- through the mountains on the western side of ed to leave behind them their weaker cattle and Armenia. This intelligence enabled them to their captives, who retarded their march, con- disconcert his plans. Leaving a body of troops sumed their provisions, and employed many to guard their camp, they not only secured the hands to keep guard over them. Nevertheless, pass, but, falling suddenly on the camp of Teriduring the next day's march the enemy hung bazus, dispersed his forces, and made themupon their rear, compelling the heavy-armed selves masters of his tent, with all his furniture from time to time to make sallies against them, and a part of his household. They were thus and had occupied the summit of the only pass released from the fear of the enemy; and this which seemed to cross the rugged mountains in front of them. Their situation would have been them during their retreat by the power of Perwas the last show of obstruction opposed to almost desperate if Xenophon had not taken sia. But in their march through the Armenian two of the natives in an ambush, one of whom, highlands they had to struggle with the inclemafter he had seen his fellow put to death, under-ency of the season and the climate, which a took to guide them to another pass. discovery a detachment of volunteers was ena- for their destruction. The snow lay six feet By this more active enemy might perhaps have used bled, after a hard struggle, to dislodge the ene-deep on their road, and several of the men permy from his first position. Xenophon still en-ished through the intensity of the cold, which deavoured, by means of his interpreter, to nego- was sometimes sharpened by a fierce north tiate a truce with them, for the purpose of bury- wind. This, indeed, abated, after a sacrifice ing the slain. But he soon discovered that they which the soothsayers prescribed to Boreas; listened only to cover their hostile inclinations; but the men suffered so much from the frost and, though the slain were restored in exchange and the snow that it was often with great diffifor the guide, the army, during its march through culty, and not without violence, that Xenophon the Carduchian territory, which lasted seven could induce them to proceed. Their harddays, was forced to contest every pass. The ships, however, were but little aggravated by barbarians were light of foot, so that they could any attempts of the enemy; for though they approach securely within a short distance, and were followed by some hostile bands, it seems they discharged their arrows with such force as to have been only for the sake of plunder, and to pierce both shield and corslet. The Greeks these marauders were easily checked. suffered more from their resistance than from preparation had been made to arrest their progall the efforts which the king and Tissaphernes ress, that, in some of the villages which they had made to arrest their progress, and were passed through, they made the natives believe So little glad when, descending from the mountains, that they were in the king's service, and marchthey encamped on the banks of the Centrites, ing to join the satrap. The chief of a village, which flowed at about a mile from their foot, who was taken by Xenophon, both served them and divided the land of the Carduchians from as a guide, and procured a hospitable reception Armenia, the satrapy of Orontes. til a hasty blow, which he received from Chearisophus, provoked him to make his escape. for them in many of the Armenian villages, aaThey, however, arrived in safety on the banks of a river which Xenophon calls the Phasis, and pursued their march without interruption until they were stopped before a pass which they found guarded by three warlike tribes, the Chalybes, Taochians, and Phasians. obstacle had been surmounted by a detachment which gained a higher point in the ridge and drove the enemy from his position, they had to After this encounter a still more formidable resistance from the Taochians, who defended their almost impregnable fortresses with desperate valour, and in their last retreat flung themselves, with their wives and children, down from the rocks, to avoid falling into the power of the victorious enemy. The opposite bank of the river was lined with hostile troops, infantry and cavalry, which had been collected by Orontes from his own satrapy, and from some of the neighbouring independent tribes, among which the Chaldeans were accounted the most warlike. The Greeks found that the river was too deep to be forded with safety in the face of such an enemy; and, as they saw the Carduchians assembled in great numbers behind them, apparently with the intention of attacking their rear when they began to cross, they felt themselves to be in imminent danger. But in the second night Xenophon had another encouraging dream, and the next morning he received information of a ford about half a mile off, at a place which was not accessible to the enemy's cavalry. They were thus enabled to effect their passage in spite of the threats of the Carduchians, who, though formidable in their mountains, when they came down they forced their way through the land of the into the plain, were put to flight by the charge Chalybes, the most warlike of all the tribes It was in like manner, sword in hand, that of a small body of the heavy infantry. No ene- whose countries they traversed. They were my now appeared until, having passed the sour-armed nearly after the Greek fashion, and the ces of the Tigris, they came to the River Teleboas, on the frontier of the Western Armenia, the satrapy of Teribazus. to the Greek camp, attended by a few horseinen He himself came up and an interpreter, and proposed a truce, on condition that the Greeks, in their passage through his province, should do no unnecessary damage. These terms were accepted; but it was soon discovered that he was watching their movements with an army, and designed to occupy a pass which was their only outlet towns, in which they had collected all the provisions, were so strongly fortified that the superable difficulties if they had not been able Greeks would have been detained by almest inAmong the next people whose land they entered, the Scythinians, they met with no opposition, to subsist on the plunder of the Taochians and even with an appearance of good-will; for the chief sent a guide to them, who promised in the course of five days to lead them to s place within view of the sea. He led them 547 FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA.-TRANSACTIONS AT COTYORA. through the territory of a hostile tribe, and in-zantium; and Cheirisophus lingered so long, vited them to ravage it, and thus disclosed the that the Greeks-after a dangerous expedition motive of the chief's friendly behaviour. But on which they were led by the Trapezuntians he fulfilled his engagement. On the fifth day, against a neighbouring tribe, the Drilæ, one of as the army was ascending Mount Theche, a the most warlike on the Euxine, whose hostile lofty ridge distinguished by the name of the Sa- inroads frequently annoyed Trapezus-found cred Mountain, Xenophon and the rear-guard themselves compelled, by the want of provisobserved a stoppage and an unusual clamour in ions, to shift their quarters. The men above the foremost ranks, which had reached the sum- forty, with the women-of whom a great nummit; and they supposed at first that they saw ber had followed the army-the children and an enemy before them; but when Xenophon the sick, were embarked in the vessels which rode up to ascertain the cause, the first shouts had been procured; the rest proceeded by land that struck his ear were, "The Sea! the Sea!" to Cerasus, also a colony of Sinope in the land The glad sound ran quickly till it reached the of the Colchians. Here they reviewed their hindmost, and all pressed forward to enjoy the forces, and it was found that of about 10.000 cheering spectacle. The Euxine spread its wa- men who had set out from Sardis or from Cuters before their eyes-waters which rolled on naxa, 8600 had survived. The money taken by to the shores of Greece, and which washed the the sale of the captives was here distributed; walls of many Greek cities on the nearest coast and a tenth, which was reserved for Apollo and of Asia. Officers and men embraced one an- the Ephesian Artemis, was divided among the other with tears of joy. A pile of stones was generals, to be laid out at their discretion in reared on the summit of the Sacred Mountain, honour of those deities. and crowned with captive arms and other offerings. Then, having dismissed their guide with suitable presents, they followed the road which he had pointed out to them towards the coast. At Cerasus they remained ten days; and before their departure the generals experienced an alarming proof of the difficulty of maintaining discipline among a body of troops so composed when they were no longer restrained by It brought them to the confluence of two riv-the sense of a common danger. A neighbourers, one of which divided the Scythinians from the Macrones, who were strongly posted on the opposite bank, and threatened, by their hostile gestures and mutual exhortations, to dispute the passage. Their shouts struck one of the Greek soldiers as a familiar sound. It was the land of his birth, from which he had been torn in his youth, to live as a slave at Athens. Through his mediation his countrymen were induced to lay aside their hostility, and even to afford the most friendly aid to the Greeks, whom they conducted to the borders of Colchis. After another hard struggle with the barbarians, who were in possession of a difficult pass of their mountains, they descended to the coast, and reached the friendly walls of Trapezus, a colony of Sinope, on Colchian ground, where they were hospitably entertained, and celebrated their deliverance with votive sacrifices and solemn games. ing tribe of friendly barbarians was treacherously attacked by a party of volunteers, led against them by an officer who hoped to enrich himself with the booty, but fell, with many of his followers, in the assault; and their envoys, who came to Cerasus for satisfaction, were stoned to death by some of the survivers. This outrage was perpetrated after the main body had resumed its march; but when the Cerasuntians proceeded to the camp to complain of it, they there witnessed another tumult, in which an officer belonging to what we should call the commissariat, was threatened with death by the soldiers. These occurrences seem to have excited alarm at Cotyora, where the army next arrived, after having traversed the territory of the savage Mosyn@cians, and the citizens refused either to afford it a market or to admit the sick within their walls. But the Greeks, having forced their way into the town, The prevailing desire of the whole army was compelled them to receive the sick into their now to return as soon as possible to Greece; houses, and plundered the circumjacent counbut the Greek cities on the south coast of the try. Cotyora was a colony of Sinope, planted Euxine were interspersed over the territories in the land of the Tibarenes, and both paid tribof many fierce and independent tribes, and after ute to the parent city, and was governed by a the toils and hardships of the march which Sinopian hartnost. The Sinopians were alarmthey had just ended, having the sea immediate-ed for their subjects, and sent envoys to exly before them, the men were extremely averse to the thought of pursuing their journey by land. They would, as one of them said, have done with the watches, and labours, and dangers of the camp and the field, and be carried home, like Ulysses, stretched asleep on the deck. Cheirisophus, being acquainted with Anaxibius, who was at this time Admiral of Sparta, and was stationed at Byzantium, was commissioned to obtain transports to fetch them away from The envoys were next consulted on the best Trapezus. During his absence, Xenophon ad-mode of proceeding towards Greece; they devised that they should borrow some galleys scribed the obstacles which the army would from the Trapezuntians, and force as many ves-have to encounter if it attempted to force its scls as they could into their service; but Dex-way through Paphlagonia, as insuperable; and ippus, a Laconian, who was sent out with a so strong was their anxiety to get rid of their penteconter for this purpose, instead of discharging his commission, sailed away to By. postulate with the Greeks on their hostile proceedings. Xenophon defended them on the plea of necessity, and repelled the threats thrown out by the chief of the embassy-who talked of calling in the aid of the Paphlagonian king, Corylas, against them-in a manner which induced him to change his tone, and to exert his authority to procure a more hospitable reception for them at Cotyora. • Αγορανόμος. |