VIII

HISTORY: XENOPHON

The Anabasis... exemplifies the discipline, the endurance, the power of self-action and adaptation, the susceptibility of influence from speech and discussion, the combination of the reflecting obedience of citizens with the mechanical regularity of soldiers, which confer such immortal distinction on the Hellenic character.-G. GROTE.

In the late summer of 401 B. C. a Greek army of 10,000 men found itself in the plains of Mesopotamia near Babylon. They were mercenaries, whom Cyrus, the younger brother of the Persian king, had engaged to assist him in an attempt to seize the throne. A battle took place; the Greeks were victorious, but Cyrus was killed, their generals were entrapped and murdered by the Persians, and there was nothing left but somehow to make their way back to Greece. They had lost their leaders: to the west there was desert, and on the north unknown mountains, inhabited by wild and hostile tribes; they had no guides or maps, no knowledge of the country or of its language, no food or proper commissariat arrangements, and winter was coming on. Close by was a huge Persian army, estimated at 400,000 men. They decided to follow the Tigris and try to reach the Black Sea.

Among them was a young Athenian called Xenophon, about twenty-five years of age, who was chosen one of the new generals. In later life he wrote the history of the Ten Thousand, calling it the Anabasis-The March Up Country'. We have several other works from his hand, among which are a continuation of Thucydides (the Hellenica), Memoirs of Socrates, the Education of Cyrus (Cyropaedia), a kind of historical novel with Cyrus the Great for hero, works on taxation, on hunting, on cavalry training, and on household management (Oeconomicus): the last named gives a vivid picture of a Greek household and its mistress. It was also the foundation on which Ruskin built all his studies in Political Economy'. He had it translated for his Bibliotheca Pastorum, and says that it contains, first, a faultless definition of wealth and explanation of its dependence for efficiency on

1 Collected Works, XXXI, p. xv.

the merits and faculties of its possessor;-definition which cannot be bettered; and which must be the foundation of all true Political Economy.1... Secondly, the most perfect ideal of kingly character and kingly government given in literature known to me. . . . Lastly and chiefly, this book contains the ideal of domestic life.' 2

Yet Xenophon was a man of action rather than of letters. After his adventures with the Ten Thousand, he joined the Spartan forces who were fighting the Persians; and on his banishment from Athens settled on a country estate in the Peloponnese, lived the life of a country squire, and spent his time in hunting and writing. In his history and in his writings about Socrates he challenges comparison with Thucydides and Plato, and at once reveals his inferiority to them in imagination and in intellectual power. Yet as a writer he is a master in his own particular way, and remained a model of that natural, unaffected style, so common and characteristic in Greek literature, which has no brilliance to dazzle the reader but which charms him by its perfect lucidity and grace. He has shown that the gravest and most important subjects can be treated by an educated man without any need to raise the voice.' As a man, he is a specimen of an ordinary Greek gentleman with literary interests, and the type, with its union of the active and the intellectual life, has an interest and value for all time. Though in no sense a great historian, in the Hellenica he is a valuable source for the history of his period, in the Anabasis he has left us a picture of a heroic action, and of a band of Greek soldiers of fortune and their leaders.

The following passage from the Anabasis gives scenes from a march in winter through the Armenian mountains. The Greeks had escaped from Mesopotamia. They now force a mountain pass and cross the Murad-su or eastern branch of the Euphrates; what follows describes their adventures in the march to the hills above Trebizond by a route which we cannot now identify.

1 The definition to which Ruskin refers is:

'The very same things are property to a man who knows how to use them, and not property to one who does not. . . . Suppose a man were to use his money to buy something which caused his body to be worse, his soul worse, his household worse, could we say that his money was any benefit to him? . . . We may then exclude money from being counted as property, if it is in the hands of one who does not know how to use it.' Oec. 1. § 10 f.

2 ib., p. 27 f. The whole passage should be read.

The

HE next day they resolved to march without delay before the enemy could rally their forces, and seize the pass. So they packed their baggage, and set forward through deep snow with many guides; that same day they passed the heights where Teribazus1 designed to attack them, and encamped. Thence they made three marches through a desert, and came to the Euphrates, which they passed, the water coming up to the waist. It was said that the sources of the river were not far off. From here they made forty-five miles in three days, over a plain covered with deep snow. The last day's march was very hard, for the north wind, blowing full in their faces, wore the men out and benumbed them. One of their priests advised them to sacrifice to the wind; this was done, and its violence visibly lessened. The snow was six feet deep, so that many of the slaves and baggage horses died, and about thirty soldiers. They made fires all night, for they found plenty of wood in the place where they encamped; and those who came late having no wood, the others whohad arrived earlier, and had made fires, would not allow them to warm themselves till they had given them a share of the wheat, or of the other provisions they had brought with them. By this exchange they relieved one another's wants. In the places where the fires were made, the snow melted, and large pits were formed which reached down to the earth; this afforded an opportunity of measuring the depth of the snow.

They marched all the next day through the snow, and many of them began to suffer from ravenous hunger. Xenophon, who commanded the rear, saw men on the ground, but did not know what was wrong with them. Those who knew about the disease told him that it was clearly bulimy, and that, if they ate anything, they would recover; so he went to the baggage, and distributed all the food he found there, giving it to those who could walk, and telling them to divide among the sick. As soon as they had eaten something, they got up and continued their 1 The Persian governor of Western Armenia.

Lit. Ox-hunger.

march. So proceeding, Cheirisophus1 came to a village just as it was dark, and at a fountain outside the walls he found some women and girls of the place carrying water. These inquired who they were. The interpreter answered in Persian, that they were going to the satrap from the King. The women replied that he was not there, but at a place about three miles away. As it was late, they entered the walls, together with the women, and went to the mayor of the town. Here Cheirisophus encamped with all the able-bodied men. The rest, who were unable to continue their march, passed the night without victuals or fire, and some of them died. A party of the enemy following our march, took some of the baggage-horses that could not keep pace with the rest, and fought with one another about them. Some of the men who had lost their sight by the snow, or whose toes were frostbitten through the intenseness of the cold, were left behind. The men protected their eyes against the snow by wearing black bandages; they protected their feet against the cold by incessant motion, and by pulling off their shoes in the night. If a man slept with his shoes on, the laces lacerated his feet, and the shoes stuck to them, for when their old shoes were worn out, the men wore brogues made of raw hides. These accidents compelled us to leave some of our men behind; and they, seeing a piece of ground that appeared black, because there was no snow upon it, concluded it was melted; and melted it was by steam that rose from a fountain in a valley near the place. Thither they betook themselves, and sitting down, refused to march any farther. Xenophon, who had charge of the rear, as soon as he was informed of this, did his very best to persuade them not to stay behind, telling them that the enemy had collected in great force, and were close behind. At last he grew angry. But they told him to kill them, if he wished, for they were not able to go on. Upon this, he thought the best thing he could do was, if possible, to create a panic among the enemy

1 A colleague of Xenophon.

2 The King of Persia. The satrap is the Persian governor.

who were pursuing, to prevent them attacking these worn-out stragglers. It was now dark, and the enemy came on, making a great noise and quarrelling with one another about their booty. Upon this, such of the rear-guard as were well rose and fell upon them; while those who were ill shouted out as loud as they could, and struck their shields with their pikes. The enemy, alarmed at this, threw themselves into the valley through the snow, and were no more heard of.

Xenophon and his troops then resumed their march, assuring the sick men, that the next day some people should be sent to them; but before they had gone half a mile, they found others resting in the snow, and covered with it, and no watch kept. Xenophon forced these to rise, and was told by them that the men in front would not move forward. Xenophon, hearing this, went on, and sending the fittest of the light-armed troops in advance, ordered them to see what had caused the halt. They reported that the whole army was resting. So Xenophon and his men, after setting such a watch as they could, passed the night there without either fire or food. When it was near day, Xenophon sent the youngest of his men to oblige the sick to get up and resume their march.

They managed to reach some villages, where they encamped.

H

ERE, Polycrates of Athens, one of the captains, asked leave of absence, and taking with him some active men,

advanced at the double to the village allotted to Xenophon, where he surprised all the inhabitants, together with their mayor, in their houses. He found here seventeen colts, that were bred as a tribute for the King; and also the mayor's daughter, who had not been married above nine days: her husband, however, having gone to hunt hares, was not captured. The houses were under ground; the mouth resembling that of a well, and widening out below; there was an entrance dug for the cattle, but the inhabitants descended by ladders. In these houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with their young. All the cattle