JUNCTION WITH ARIEUS.-TISSAPHERNES.

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Clearchus, who was inspecting his men, kept the Persian ministers waiting till he had drawn up his forces so as to present the most imposing aspect, and then came up to give them audience, accompanied by his colleagues, in the midst of a guard composed of the handsomest and best equipped sol

mended that they should march that night. | but to conclude a truce. His brother officers adopted both his advice and the precautions which he proposed; and henceforth, by tacit consent-the result of their conviction of his superior discernment and skill-they acknowledged him as their chief. In the evening after sunset they suffered a loss, which at this juncture was deeply felt. Milto-diers in the army. After having heard the procythes, a Thracian, deserted to the king with posal of the envoys, he bade them tell their forty horse-their whole cavalry-and 300 master that the Greeks must fight before they Thracian infantry; the rest arrived about mid- treated; they had nothing to eat, and no one night at the camp of Ariæus, and the Greek of- could venture to propose a truce to them who ficers met in his tent. After the most solemn did not provide them with a meal. With this pledges of mutual good faith had been inter- answer they departed, but soon returned-thus changed, Clearchus asked him whether he in- clearly showing that the king was still near at tended to return by the same or a different | hand-and said that the king consented to asroad. He said that to take the same was im- sign guides to the Greeks, who should lead them possible; for the desert through which they into plentiful quarters as soon as they had conhad marched for seventeen days yielded no cluded a truce with him. This proposal was provisions, and they had none to carry with joyfully received; but before he accepted it, them; they must therefore take a more cir- Clearchus made the envoys wait, until they becuitous route, on which they might find a sup- gan to fear lest he should change his mind. At ply and it would be proper to make some last he concluded the armistice, and ordered forced marches at first, so as to leave the king the guides to lead the army to the villages where two or three days' journey behind them, which it was to find provisions. In the way they had would be sufficient to prevent him from ever to cross several canals and trenches, too deep overtaking them. to be forded, and without bridges. Clearchus suspected that they had been recently filled with water by the king's orders-as it was not now the season for irrigating the plain-for the purpose of trying the courage and patience of the Greeks with a specimen of the obstacles which they were to encounter. But the palm-trees, which grew near in abundance, supplied materials for bridges or rafts; and Clearchus roused the exertions of the men by his exhortations and example. With his spear in one hand, and his staff in the other, he urged the labourers, whose tasks seemed to linger, and taking part in the work with his own hands, excited the emulation of persons of greater age and dignity to contribute their personal aid. The impediment was thus surmounted in a manner which tended to heighten the respect of the barbarians. The villages to which they were led were found well stocked with provisions, especially corn, dates, and palm wine.

With this purpose, which, by whatever words it might be disguised, was, as Xenophon observes, really nothing else than flight, the army began its march the next morning at daybreak. It was a discouraging beginning of such an expedition as they were now undertaking; for they were more than 2000 miles from Ephesus by the road along which they had come. That which they had now before them was certainly much longer, and traversed regions utterly unknown to them. And they were to enter upon it with an attempt to escape from a superior enemy. But as they crossed the plain of Babylon in a southeasterly direction, making for some villages where they expected to arrive about sunset, and to find a supply of provisions, they fell in with some of the beasts of burden belonging to the royal army, and hence concluded that it was not far off. Clearchus, however, did not think proper to seek the enemy, as the hour was late and his men fatigued, and in want of food; but he no less cautiously avoided the appearance of shunning an engagement, and pursuing his line of march without any deviation, halted for the night at the first villages he reached, which he found stripped of everything, even to the timber of the houses, by the king's troops. The two armies were so near each other that the voices of the Greeks, who, arriving successively at their halting-place, called out to one another in the dark, were heard by the enemy, and caused them to decamp in the night. At least the next morning every trace of their presence had disappeared. But the Greeks, too, were disturbed by a nocturnal panic, which, however, was allayed by a stratagem of Clearchus, who ordered his herald-an Elean, gifted with a singularly loud voice-to proclaim a reward for the discovery of the person who had let the ass loose in the part of the camp where the arms were piled.

The next day clear proof appeared of the effect which the approach of the Greeks had made on the king; for at daybreak other envoys came from him, not to demand their arms, VOL. I.-Y Y Y

Here they remained three days, in the course of which they received a visit from Tissaphernes, who was accompanied by the queen's brother and three other Persians, attended by a numerous train. Tissaphernes came to assure them of the friendship which, as a neighbour of Greece in the place of his ordinary residence, he felt for them, and the sympathy with which he had viewed their embarrassing situation. Relying on their gratitude, and on that of their whole nation, he had been exerting all the influence which he had acquired at court by his recent eminent services, to prevail on the king to let him conduct them home in safety. The king had promised to take his request into consideration, and in the mean while had sent him to inquire what was the motive which had engaged them in their expedition against him. To this question he advised them to send a discreet answer, such as might forward his intercession in their behalf. After a private consultation with the other generals, Clearchus, in their name, replied that they had not set out with any hostile intentions against the king, but had been drawn into the service of Cyrus under

Clearchus, however, checked the impetuosity of the men. He bade them reflect that the first movement which they made from their present quarters, before the return of Tissaphernes, would be construed as a breach of the treaty and a signal for war. They would then be without provisions, guides, or friends; for Ariæus would immediately separate himself from them, and openly declare himself their enemy. They would have to cross the Euphrates at least, if not other great rivers, in the presence of a hostile army, which could easily bar their passage. And as they had no horse, while the enemy's strength lay in cavalry, victory would be of lit-Teixn

INTERVIEW WITH TISSAPHERNES.

539

had to encounter. If they should succeed in any hostile design against him, what would they have done but deprive themselves of their most valuable friend, of the man who sheltered them from the king's enmity. For his own part, all his hopes of fortune depended on the favour of Tissaphernes, who was able to gratify all the desires by which he had been drawn into the service of Cyrus. But there were equally strong reasons, which he believed must make Tissaphernes unwilling to forfeit the good-will of the Greek army. It would be able, if it returned safe, to rid him of the troublesome neighbours, such as the Mysians and Pisidians, who

Clearchus to the enemy's real object. He questioned the envoy of Ariæus as to the nature of the region where the Greeks were encamped, and learned that it was an island formed by the Tigris and its canals, highly fertile, and containing many villages and several flourishing towns. It became evident that Tissaphernes was apprehensive lest the Greeks, attracted by the advantages which it offered, should choose to remain and settle there, and had therefore endeavoured to scare them away from it, by a stratagem like that by which Themistocles was said to have hurried Xerxes away from Greece. It was nevertheless deemed advisable to secure the bridge, which they crossed the next morn-infested his province; or it might enable him, ing with great caution, as a report was spread to quell the revolted Egyptians; one of the most that Tissaphernes meant to attack them during acceptable services which he could render to the passage. But this report proved as ground- his master. With this force at his command, less as the message of Ariæus. No enemy ap- which, if it should owe its safe return to his peared during the whole time, except Glous, protection, would serve him, not as mere merone of the officers of Cyrus, with a few attend- cenaries, but with all the zeal of gratitude, he ants, who were evidently watching their move- might make himself feared by all his neighbours. ments, and rode away as soon as he saw them Clearchus thought it so astonishing that, with beginning to go over. They then proceeded such motives for confidence, he should distrust along the left bank of the Tigris. At Opis, a the Greeks, that there was nothing he more delarge town on the Physcus, one of the tributa-sired to know than the name of the person who ries of the Tigris, they met a half brother of had instilled such strange suspicions into his Artaxerxes, who was on his way from Susa and mind. Ecbatana, with a numerous army, which he had brought to the aid of the king. He halted to view the passage of the Greeks, which Clearchus ordered so as to produce the greatest effect on the barbarian spectators, making them defile in a column, two abreast, and lengthening the time of the march by frequent stoppages. Some Median villages belonging to Parysatis were abandoned to the Greeks by Tissaphernes to be plundered, Xenophon says, by way of insult to the memory of Cyrus. But as the affront and the injury were offered immediately to the queen-mother, whose formidable resentment Tissaphernes could scarcely have wished wantonly to provoke, we might rather be inclined to suspect that his real object was to point it against the Greeks.

On the banks of the Zapatas (the greater Zab) they halted for three days. They had now been marching nineteen days in company with Tissaphernes, and no material ground of complaint had occurred between them. Nevertheless, the suspicions of the Greeks had not subsided, and Clearchus, who placed greater confidence in the satrap's intentions, resolved to try whether more friendly feelings might not be produced by mutual explanations. He therefore sent to request an interview with Tissaphernes; it was readily granted. He came, he said, convinced that there was no foundation for the suspicions which some of the Greeks entertained of Tissaphernes; and as he knew that those which Tissaphernes expressed, rather, indeed, by his actions than his words, of the Greeks were utterly groundless, he wished to remove them by a clear exposure of their unreasonableness. Even if his countrymen were regardless of the Divine wrath, which they would incur by such a breach of faith as Tissaphernes seemed to apprehend, a sense of their own interest would be sufficient to restrain them from it; for to whom but Tissaphernes had they to look for the supply of their daily wants, and for the means of surmounting the various obstacles which they

Tissaphernes, in reply, expressed the pleasure which he felt at seeing that Clearchus took so just a view of his own interests; and begged him to reflect on the absurdity of the suspicions conceived by the Greeks, whether with regard to the king or to himself. If it was the king's wish to destroy them, could they suppose that he was at a loss for means-with so many troops for every kind of warfare at his command-or for opportunities, during a march in which they had so many plains to traverse, so many mountain passes to penetrate, so many rivers to cross, some of which they would be unable to pass, not only against his will, but without his help. But if they considered themselves safe from all open attacks, even under such disadvantages, would not fire still do its office? Would it not be easy for the king to lay waste the whole country round them, and, without risking a man, to let famine fight his battle? Was it credible that, with such resources at his disposal, he should prefer a course which would be impious in the sight of the gods, infamous in the eyes of men? one to which none but the vilest of mankind could be reduced by the hardest necessity? Perhaps, however, they might say: if the king has us in his power, why has he not already destroyed us? It was to the influence of Tissaphernes they owed their safety, to his desire of establish. ing a claim upon their gratitude, and thus of se curing the advantages which Clearchus himself had pointed out, together with one which he had not mentioned, but which any one might enjoy with such a body of auxiliaries-a spirit as erect as the king's tiara.

These arguments convinced Clearchus; for they were not only in themselves extremely specious, but, as we have seen, and as the wily Persian perhaps knew, they were his own. He declared himself perfectly satisfied, and only anxious for the punishment of the persons whose calumnious insinuations had disturbed the harmony of parties so closely united by their

common interest. Tissaphernes declared him- | friend Proxenus. When they were within hear

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE RETURN OF THE GREEKS.

had powerful attractions for a man of adventurous spirit, even if he was strongly attached to his native city. To Xenophon, perhaps, the most tempting part of the prospect was a long absence from Athens, or a permanent settlement in a foreign land. He seems-though it may be unconsciously-to have determined on accepting the proposal of Proxenus, when he communicated it to Socrates, as if for his advice. Socrates was immediately struck with the effect which such a step was likely to produce on the minds of the Athenians, who could not, without some feelings of jealousy, see one of their citizens seeking his fortune in the patronage of the man who had shown himself their implacable enemy, and had been the chief author of their late calamities and degradation. It seems, however, that he did not otherwise attempt to dissuade his young friend from following the bent of his inclination than by pointing to these consequences, and by advising that, before he decided, he should consult the Delphic oracle, which by its authority might either put an end to the project, or give a better colour to the proceedings. Xenophon, however, instead of submitting his plan to the decision of the oracle, only inquired about the religious ceremonies by which the adventure which he meditated might be brought to a happy issue. On his return to Athens, Socrates gently censured his disciple for having shown more concern about the success of the enterprise than about its expediency or fitness, but opposed no farther hinderance to it; and Xenophon, having observed the rites which the oracle had prescribed, embarked for Asia, and found Proxenus at Sardis, with the troops which he had collected for the pretended expedition against the Pisidians, and on the point of setting out. Proxenus introduced him to Cyrus, and both pressed him to accompany them on their march; the prince assuring him that he should be at liberty to depart as soon as the expedition was ended. We must believe that he was deceived by the professions of Cyrus, since he asserts it himself. He does not inform us when the truth, which had from the beginning been evident to Tissaphernes, first dawned upon his mind. On the arrival of the army in Cilicia, when no farther doubt could remain as to the prince's intentions, he was, according to his own account, one of those whom a sense of honour induced relucex-tantly to proceed. The expedition was, perhaps, in no respect more useful to him than in the opportunity it afforded him of studying the character Cyrus-one of that class which he especially admired; and the time had now come for applying the lessons with which his observations had furnished him.

THE despondency with which the Greeks viewed the situation in which they were left by the loss of their generals can only be estimated, if we consider not only its real dangers, but the reluctance with which they had been induced to follow Cyrus on to the goal of his enterprise, and the opinion which Clearchus himself had expressed, on the desperate difficulty of making good their retreat against the will of the enemy, who had just given such a proof of his implacable hostility, as utterly precluded all farther attempts at negotiation, and all possibility of compromise. On the other hand, the whole amount of the loss which had been actually sustained through the perfidy of Tissaphernes might be looked upon as confined to the person of Clearchus, Yet this loss might well seem irreparable; for he was the only man who had hitherto displayed the abilities and acquirements requisite for the station which he had filled among his colleagues, whose deference was a tacit acknowledgment of their own incapacity. Even he had despaired of conducting them home in defiance of the Persian power. They were now in the case which he had described, left, at the distance of at least 1200 miles from Greece, without provisions, without guides, without a single horseman, to find and fight their way through an enemy's country, across unfordable rivers, with a hostile army watching their movements, and ready to seize every opportunity of falling upon them with advantage; and, besides all this, they were without a chief. The night which followed this change in their prospects was, as may casily be imagined, with most of them, a sleepless one. Few could find heart to taste food or light a fire; and many, instead of coming to the ordinary resting-place near their arms, threw themselves on the ground, wherever else they chanced to be, not to sleep, but to call up the images of their homes, parents, wives, and children, whom they no longer expected ever to see again. Hope, however, was not universally stifled, and the emergency called forth a man-such as among 10,000 Greeks could scarcely ever have been wanting-endowed with all the qualities needed for meeting it. Xenophon, the Athenian, whose name has already occurred more than once in our narrative, had accompanied the pedition, as a private adventurer, without any military rank. He had spent a great part of his youth at Athens, in familiar and habitual intercourse with Socrates, who, struck, it is said, by his promising physiognomy, had drawn him, by a gentle constraint, into his society. It was probably at Athens, also, that he had formed his intimacy with Proxenus, who is said to have been a disciple of Gorgias, and may have been drawn to Athens by pursuits congenial to those of his Athenian friend. Proxenus, after he had entered the service of Cyrus, wrote from the court of Sardis to Xenophon, offering to introduce him to the prince, whose favour he said he himself valued above anything that his country had to offer. Such an invitation would have

extract of Photius, c. 60, compared with Plut., Artax., 18, that he only related that Meno was not put to death with the other generals-throws considerable doubt on the fact.

He had spent a part of the night in gloomy reflection, such as occupied the minds of most of his comrades, and having at length dropped into a short slumber, saw a dream such as might naturally occur to a Greek who, like Xenophon, was deeply conversant with the interpretation of omens. According to the rules of divination, as he himself expounds them, it was of an ambiguous aspect, and he seems to think that on this very account the impression which it left upon his mind when he awoke proved that it was immediately sent by the god, from whom, according to the Homeric theology, all dreams