We now commence a third, act in the history of this memorable body of men. After having followed them from Sardis to Cunaxa as mercenaries to procure the throne for Cyrus—then from Cunaxa to Trapezus as men anxious only for escape, and purchasing their safety by marvellous bravery, endurance, and organization—we shall now track their proceedings among the Greek colonies on the Euxine and at the Bosphorus of Thrace, succeeded by their struggles against the meanness of the Thracian prince Seuthes, as well as against the treachery and arbitrary harshness of the Lacedaemonian commanders, Anaxibius and Aristarchus.

Trapezus, now Trebizond, where the army had recently found repose, was a colony from Sinope, as were also Kerasus and Kotyora farther westward; each of them receiving an harmost or governor from the mother-city, and paying to her an annual tribute. All these three cities were planted on the narrow strip of land dividing the Euxine from the elevated mountain range which so closely borders on its southern coast. At Sinope itself, the land stretches out into a defensible peninsula, with a secure harbour, and a large breadth of adjacent fertile soil. So tempting a site invited the Milesians, even before the year 600 B.C., to plant a colony there, and enabled Sinope to attain much prosperity and power. Farther westward, not more than a long day’s journey for a rowing vessel from Byzantium, was

The native tenants of this line of coast, upon whom the Greek settlers intruded themselves (reckoning from the westward), were the Bithynian Thracians, the Mariandyni, the Paphlagonians, the Tibareni, Chalybes, Mosynoeki, Drilae, and Colchians. Here, as elsewhere, these natives found the Greek seaports useful, in giving a new value to inland produce, and in furnishing the with ornaments and luxuries to which they would have had no access. The citizens of Herakleia had reduced into dependence a considerable portion of the neighbouring Mariandyni, and held them in a relation resembling that of the natives of Esthonia and Livonia to the German colonies in the Baltic. Some of the Colchian villages were also subject in the same manner to the Trapezuntines, and Sinope doubtless possessed a similar inland dominion of greater or less extent. But the principal wealth of this important city arose from her navy and maritime commerce ; from the rich thunny fishery attached to her promontory; from the olives in her immediate neighbourhood, which was a cultivation not indigenous, but only naturalized by the Greeks on the seaboard ; from the varied produce of the interior, comprising abundant herds of cattle, mines of silver, iron, and copper in the neighbouring mountains, wood for shipbuilding, as well as for house furniture, and native slaves. The case was similar with the three colonies of Sinope, more to the eastward—Kotyora, Kerasus, and Trapezus—except that the mountains which border on the Euxine, gradually approaching nearer and nearer to the shore, left to each of them a more confined strip of cultivable land. For these cities the time bad not yet arrived to be conquered and absorbed by the inland monarchies around them, as Miletus and the cities on the western coast of Asia Minor had been. The Paphlagonians were at this time the only indigenous people in those regions who formed a considerable aggregated force, under a prince named Korylas—a prince tributary to Persia, yet half independent, since he had disobeyed the summons of Artaxerxes to come up and help in repelling Cyrus, and now on terms of established alliance with Sinope, though not without secret designs, which he wanted only force to execute, against that city. The other native tribes to the eastward were mountaineers, both ruder and more divided; warlike on their own heights, but little capable of any aggressive combinations.

Though we are told that Pericles had once despatched a detachment of Athenian colonists to Sinope, and had expelled from thence the despot Timesilaus, yet neither that city nor any of her neighbours appear to have taken part in the Peloponnesian War, either for or against Athens, nor were they among the number of tributaries to Persia. They doubtless were acquainted with the upward march of Cyrus, which had disturbed all Asia, and probably were not ignorant of the perils and critical state of his Grecian army. But it was with a feeling of mingled surprise, admiration, and alarm that they saw that army descend from the mountainous region, hitherto only recognized as the abode of Colchians, Makrones, and other analogous tribes, among whom was perched the mining city of Gymnias.

Even after all the losses and extreme sufferings of the retreat, the Greeks still numbered, when mustered at Kerasus, 8600 hoplites, with peltasts or targeteers, bowmen, slingers, &c., making a total of above 10,000 military persons. Such a force had never before been seen in the Euxine. Considering both the numbers and the now acquired discipline and self-confidence of the Cyreians, even Sinope herself could have raised no force capable of meeting them in the field. Yet they did not belong to any city nor receive orders from any established government. They were like those mercenary armies which marched about in Italy during the fourteenth century, under the generals called Condottieri, taking service sometimes with one city, sometimes with another. No one could predict what schemes they might conceive, or in what manner they might deal with the established communities on the shores of the Euxine. If we imagine that such an army had suddenly appeared in Sicily, a little time before the Athenian expedition against Syracuse, it would have been probably enlisted by Leontini and Katana in their war against Syracuse. If the inhabitants of Trapezus had wished to throw off the dominion of Sinope—or if Korylas the Paphlagonian were meditating war against that city—here were formidable auxiliaries to second their wishes. Moreover, there were various tempting sites open to the formation of a new colony, which, with so numerous a body of original Greek settlers, would probably have overtopped Sinope herself. There was no restraining cause to reckon upon, except the general Hellenic sympathies and education of the Cyreian army ; and, what was of not less importance, the fact that they were not mercenary soldiers by permanent profession, such as became so formidably multiplied in Greece during the next generation, but established citizens, who had come out on a special service under Cyrus, with the full intention, after a year of lucrative enterprise, to return to their homes and families. We shall find such gravitation towards home steadily operative throughout the future proceedings of the army. But, at the moment when they first emerged from the mountains, no one could be sure that it would be so. There was ample ground for uneasiness among the Euxine Greeks, especially the Sinopians, whose supremacy had never before been endangered.

An undisturbed repose of thirty days enabled the Cyreians to recover from their fatigues, to talk over their past dangers, and to take pride in the anticipated effect— which their unparalleled achievement could not fail to produce in Greece. Having discharged their vows and celebrated their festival to the gods, they held an assembly to discuss their future proceedings, when a Thurian soldier named Antileon exclaimed—“Comrades, I am already tired of packing up, marching, running, carrying arms, falling into line, keeping watch, and fighting. Now that we have the sea here before us, I desire to be relieved from all these toils, to sail the rest of the way, and to arrive in Greece outstretched and asleep like Odysseus.” This pithy address being received with vehement acclamations and warmly responded to by all, Cheirisophus offered, if the army chose to empower him, to sail forthwith to Byzantium, where he thought he could obtain from his friend the Lacedaemonian admiral Anaxibius sufficient vessels for transport. His proposition was gladly accepted, and he departed to execute the project.

Xenophon then urged upon the army various resolutions and measures, proper for the regulation of affairs during the absence of Cheirisophus. The army would be forced to maintain itself by marauding expeditions during the absence of Cheirisophus his among the hostile tribes in the mountains. Such expeditions accordingly must be put under regulation: neither individual soldiers nor small companies must be allowed to go out at pleasure without giving notice to the generals; moreover, the camp must be kept under constant guard and scouts, in the event of surprise from a retaliating enemy. It was prudent also to take the best measures in their power for procuring vessels; since, after all, Cheirisophus might possibly fail in bringing an adequate number. They ought to borrow a few ships of war from the Trapezuntines, and detain all the merchant ships which they saw; unshipping the rudders, placing the cargoes under guard, and maintaining the crew during all the time that the ships might be required for transport of the army. Many such merchant vessels were often sailing by, so that they would thus acquire the means of transport even though Cheirisophus should bring few or none from Byzantium. Lastly, Xenophon proposed to require the Grecian cities to repair and put in order the road along the coast for a land-march; since, perhaps, with all their efforts, it would be found impossible to get together a sufficient stock of transports.

All the propositions of Xenophon were readily adopted by the army except the last. But the mere mention of a renewed land-march excited such universal murmurs of repugnance, that he did not venture to put that question to the vote. He took upon himself, however, to send messages to the Grecian cities on his own responsibility, urging them to repair the roads in order that the departure of the army might he facilitated. And he found the cities ready enough to carry his wishes into effect as far as Kotydra.

The wisdom of these precautionary suggestions of Xenophon soon appeared, for Cheirisophus not only failed in his object, but was compelled to stay away for a considerable time. A pentekonter (or armed ship with fifty oars) was borrowed from the Trapezuntines and committed to the charge of a Lacedaemonian Perioekus named Dexippus, for the purpose of detaining the merchant vessels passing by. This man having violated his trust, and employed the ship to make his own escape out of the Euxine, a second was obtained and confided to an Athenian, Polycrates, who brought in successfully several merchant vessels. These the Greeks did not plunder, but secured the cargoes under adequate guard, and only reserved the vessels for transports. It became, however, gradually more and more difficult to supply the camp with provisions. Though the army was distributed into suitable detachments for plundering the Colchian villages on the hills, and seizing cattle and prisoners for sale, yet these expeditions did not always succeed; indeed on one occasion, two Grecian lochi or companies got entangled in such difficult ground that they were destroyed to a man. The Colchians united on the hills in increased and menacing numbers, insomuch that a larger guard became necessary for the camp, while the Trapezuntines, tired of the protracted stay of the army, as well as desirous of exempting from pillage the natives in their own immediate neighbourhood, conducted the detachments only to villages alike remote and difficult of access. It was in this manner that a large force under Xenophon himself attacked the lofty and rugged stronghold of the Drilae, the most warlike nation of mountaineers in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, well armed and troublesome to Trapezus by their incursions. After a difficult march and attack, which Xenophon describes in interesting detail, and wherein the Greeks encountered no small hazard of ruinous defeat, they returned in the end completely successful and with a plentiful booty.

At length, after long awaiting in vain the reappearance of Cheirisophus, increasing scarcity and weariness determined them to leave Trapezus. A sufficient number of vessels had been collected to serve for the transport of the women, of the sick and wounded, and of the baggage. All these were accordingly placed on board under the command of Philesius and Sophaenetus, the two oldest generals, while the remaining army marched by land, along a road which had been just made good under the representations of Xenophon. In three days they reached Kerasus, another maritime colony of the Sinopians, still in the territory called Colchian; there they halted ten days, mustered and numbered the army, and divided the money acquired by the sale of their prisoners. Eight thousand six hundred hoplites, out of a total probably greater than eleven thousand, were found still remaining, besides targeteers and various light troops.

During the halt at Kerasus, the declining discipline of the army became manifest as they approached home. Various acts of outrage occurred, originating now, as afterwards, in the intrigues of treacherous officers. A captain named Klearetus persuaded his company co attempt the plunder of a Colchian village near Kerasus, which had furnished a friendly market to the Greeks, and which rested secure on the faith of peaceful relations. He intended to make off separately with the booty in one of the vessels, but his attack was repelled and he himself slain. The injured villagers despatched three eld era as heralds, to remonstrate with the Grecian authorities, but these heralds, being seen in Kerasus by some of the repulsed plunderers, were slain. A partial tumult then ensued, in which even the magistrates of Kerasus were in great danger, and only escaped the pursuing soldiers by running into the sea. This enormity, though it occurred under the eyes of the generals immediately before their departure from Kerasus, remained without inquiry or punishment, from the numbers concerned in it.

Between Kerasus and Kotyora there was not then (nor is there now) any regular road. This march cost the Cyreian army not less than ten days, by an inland track departing from the sea-shore, and through the mountains inhabited by the indigenous tribes Mosynoeki and Chalybes. The latter, celebrated for their iron-works, were under dependence to the former. As the Mosynoeki refused to grant a friendly passage across their territory, the army were compelled to fight their way through it as enemies, with the aid of one section of these people themselves; which alliance was procured for them by the Trapezuntine Timesitheus, who was proxenus of the Mosynoeki and understood their language. The Greeks took the mountain fastnesses of this people, and plundered the wooden turrets which formed their abodes. Of their peculiar fashions Xenophon gives an interesting description, which I have not space to copy. The territory of the Tibareni was more easy and accessible. This people met the Greeks with presents, and tendered a friendly passage. But the generals at first declined the presents, preferring to treat them as enemies and plunder them; which, in fact, they would have done, had they not been deterred by inauspicious sacrifices.

Near Kotyora, which was situated on the coast of the Tibareni, yet on the borders of Paphlagonia, they remained forty-five days, still awaiting the appearance of Cheirisophus with the transports to carry them away by sea. The Sinopian Harmost or governor did not permit them to be welcomed in so friendly as at Trapezus. No market was provided for them, nor were their sick admitted within the walls. But the fortifications of the town were not so constructed as to resist a Greek force, the like of which had never before been seen in those regions. The Greek generals found a weak point, made their way in, and took possession of a few houses for the accommodation of their sick; keeping a guard at the gate to secure free egress, but doing no further violence to the citizens. They obtained their victuals partly from the Kotyorite villages, partly from the neigbouring territory of Paphlagonia, until at length envoys arrived from Sinope to remonstrate against their proceedings.

These envoys presented themselves before the assembled soldiers in the camp, when Hekatonymus, the chief and most eloquent ammong them, began by coplimenting the army upon their gallant exploits and retreat. He then complained of the injury which Kotyora, and Sindpe as the mother-city of Kotyora, had suffered at their hands, in violation of common Hellenic kinship. If such proceedings were continued, he intimated that Sinope would be compelled in her own defence to seek alliance with the Paphlagonian prince Korylas, or any other barbaric auxiliary who would lend them aid against the Greeks. Xenophon replied that if the Kotyorites had sustained any damage, it was owing to their own ill will and to the Sinopian Harmost in the place; that the generals were under the necessity of procuring subsistence for the soldiers, with house-room for the sick, and that they had taken nothing more; that the sick men were lying within the town, but at their own cost, while the other soldiers were all encamped without; that they had maintained cordial friendship with the Trapezuntines, and requited all their good offices; that they sought no enemies except through necessity, being anxious only again to reach Greece; and that as for the threat respecting Korylas, they knew well enough that that prince was eager to become master of the wealthy city of Sinope and would speedily attempt some such enterprise if he could obtain the Cyreian army as his auxiliaries.

This judicious reply shamed the colleagues of Hekatonymus so much that they went the length of protesting against what he had said, and of affirming that they had come with propositions of sympathy and friendship to the army, as well as with promises to give them an established hospitable reception at Sinope, if they should visit that town on their way home. Presents were at once sent to the army by the inhabitants of Kotyora, and a good understanding established.

Such an interchange of goodwill with the powerful city of Sinope was an unspeakable advantage to the army—indeed, an essential condition to their power of reaching home. If they continued their march by land, it was only through Sinopian guidance and mediation that they could obtain or force a passage through Paphlagonia; while for a voyage by sea, there was by no chance of procuring a sufficient number of vessels except from Sinope, since no news had been received of Cheirisophus. On the other hand, that city had also a strong interest in facilitating their transit homeward, and thus removing formidable neighbours, for whose ulterior purposes there could be no guarantee. After some preliminary conversation with the Sinopian envoys, the generals convoked the army in assembly, and entreated Hekatonymus and his companions to advise them as to the best mode of proceeding westward to the Bosphorus. Hekatonymus, after apologizing for the menacing insinuations of his former speech, and protesting that he had no other object m view except to point out the safest and easiest plan of route for the army, began to unfold the insuperable difficulties of a march through Paphlagonia. The very entrance into the country must be achieved through a narrow aperture in the mountains, which it was impossible to force if occupied by the enemy. Even assuming this difficulty to be surmounted, there were spacious plains to be passed over, wherein the Paphlagonian horse, the most numerous and bravest in Asia, would be found almost irresistible. There were also three or four great rivers, which the army would be unable to pass—the Thermodon and the Iris, each 300 feet in breadth; the Halys, two stadia, or nearly a quarter of a mile in breadth; the Parthenius, also very considerable. Such an array of obstacles (he affirmed) rendered the project of marching through Paphlagonia impracticable; whereas the voyage by sea from Kotyora to Sinope, and from Sinope to Herakleia, was easy; and the transit from the latter place, either by sea to Byzantium or by laud across Thrace, yet easier.

Difficulties like these, apparently quite real, were more than sufficient to determine the vote of the army, already sick of marching and fighting, in favour of the sea voyage, though there were not wanting suspicions of the sincerity of Hekatonymus. But Xenophon, in communicating to the latter the decision of the army, distinctly apprised him that they would on no account permit themselves to be divided; that they would either depart or remain all in a body; and that vessels must be provided sufficient for the transport of all. Hekatonymus desired them to send envoys of their own to Sinope to make the necessary arrangements. Three envoys were accordingly sent—Ariston, an Athenian; Kallimachus, an Arcadian; and Samolas, an Achaean, the Athenian, probably, as possessing the talent of speaking in the Sinopian senate or assembly.

During the absence of the envoys, the army still continued near Kotyora, with a market provided by the town, and with traders from Sinope and Herakleia in the camp. Such soldiers as had no money wherewith to purchase subsisted by pillaging the neighbouring frontier of Paphlagonia. But they were receiving no pay—every man was living on his own resources; and instead of carrying back a handsome purse to Greece as each soldier had hoped when, he first took service under Cyrus, there seemed every prospect of their returning poorer than when they left home. Moreover, the army was now moving onward without any definite purpose, with increasing dissatisfaction and decreasing discipline; insomuch that Xenophon foresaw the difficulties which would beset the responsible commanders when they should come within the stricter restraints and obligations of the Grecian world.

It was these considerations which helped to suggest to him the idea of employing the army on some enterprise of conquest and colonization in the Euxine itself—an idea highly flattering to his personal ambition, especially as the army was of unrivalled efficiency against an enemy, and no such second force could ever be got together in those distant regions. His patriotism as a Greek was inflamed with the thoughts of procuring for Hellas a new autonomous city, occupied by a considerable Hellenic population, possessing a spacious territory, and exercising dominion over many indigenous neighbours. He seems to have thought first of attacking and conquering some established non-Hellenic city — an act which his ideas of international morality did not forbid, in a case where he had contracted no special convention with the inhabitants, though he (as well as Cheirisophus) strenuously protested against doing wrong to any innocent Hellenic community. He contemplated the employment of the entire force in capturing Phasis or some other native city; after which, when the establishment was once safely effected, those soldiers who preferred going home to remaining as settlers might do so without imperilling those who stayed, and probably with their own purses filled by plunder and conquest in the neighbourhood. To settle as one of the richest proprietors and chiefs,—perhaps even the recognized Oekist, like Agnon at Amphipolis,—of a new Hellenic city such as could hardly fail to become rich, powerful, and important, was a tempting prospect for one who had now acquired the habits of command. Moreover the sequel will prove how correctly Xenophon appreciated the discomfort of leading the army back to Greece without pay and without certain employment.

It was the practice of Xenophon, and the advice of his master Socrates, in grave and doubtful cases where the most careful reflection was at fault, to recur to the inspired authority of an oracle or a prophet, and to offer sacrifice, in full confidence that the gods would vouchsafe to communicate a special revelation to such persons as they favoured. Accordingly Xenophon, previous to any communication with the soldiers respecting his new project, was anxious to ascertain the will of the gods by a special sacrifice; for which he invoked the presence of the Ambrakiot Silanus, the chief prophet in the army. This prophet (as I have already mentioned), before the battle of Cunaxa, had assured Cyrus that Artaxerxes would not fight for ten days—and the prophecy came to pass, which made such an impression on Cyrus, that he rewarded him with the prodigious present of 3000 darics or ten Attic talents. While others were returning poor, Silanus, having contrived to preserve this sum throughout all the hardships of the retreat, was extremely rich, and anxious only to hasten home with his treasure in safety. He heard with strong repugnance the project of remaining in the Euxine, and determined to traverse it by intrigue. As far as concerned the sacrifices, indeed, which he offered apart with Xenophon, he was obliged to admit that the indications of the victims were favourable. Xenophon himself being too familiar with the process to be imposed upon. But he at the same time tried to create alarm by declaring that a nice inspection disclosed evidence of treacherous snares laid for Xenophon; which latter indications he himself began to realize, by spreading reports among the army that the Athenian general was laying clandestine plans for keeping them away from Greece without their own concurrence.

Thus prematurely and insidiously divulged, the scheme found some supporters, but a far larger number of opponents; especially among those officers who were jealous of the ascendency of Xenophon. Timasion and Thorax employed it as a means of alarming the Herakleotic and Sinopian traders in the camp ; telling them that unless they provided not merely transports, but also assembly of pay for the soldiers, Xenophon would find means to detain the army in the Euxine, and would employ the transports, when they arrived, not for the homeward voyage, but for his own projects of acquisition. This news spread so much terror, both at Sinope and Herakleia, that large offers of money were made from both cities to Timasion, on condition that he would ensure the departure of the army, as soon as the vessels should be assembled at Kotyra. Acoordingly these officers, convening an assembly of the soldiers, protested against the duplicity of Xenophon in thus preparing momentous schemes without any public debate or decision. And Timasion, seconded by Thorax, not only strenuously urged the army to return, but went so far as to promise to them, on the faith of the assurances from Herakleia and Sinope, future pay on a liberal scale, to commence from the first new moon after their departure, together with a hospitable reception in his native city of Dardanus on the Hellespont, from whence they could make incursions on the rich neighbouring satrapy of Pharnabazus.

It was not, however, until these attacks were repeated from more than one quarter—until the Achaeans Philesius and Lykon had loudly accused Xenophon of underhand manoeuvring to cheat the army into remaining against their will—that the latter rose to repel the imputation; saying, that all that he had done was to consult the gods whether it would be better to lay his project before the army or to keep it in his own bosom. The encouraging answer of the gods, as conveyed through the victims and testified even by Silanus himself, proved that the scheme was not ill-conceived; nevertheless (he remarked) Silanus had begun to lay snares for him, realizing by his own proceedings a collateral indication which he had announced to be visible in the victims. “If (added Xenophon) you had continued as destitute and unprovided as you were just now, I should still have looked out for a resource in the capture of some city which would have enabled such of you as chose to return at once, while the rest stay behind, to enrich themselves. But now there is no longer any necessity; since Herakleia and Sinpe areo sending transports, and Timasion promises pay to you from the next new moon. Nothing can be better: you will go back safely to Greece, and will receive pay for going thither. I desist at once from my scheme, and call upon all who were favourable to it to desist also. Only let us all keep together until we are on safe ground, and let the man who lags behind or runs off be condemned as a wrong-doer.”

Xenophon immediately put this question to the vote, and every hand was held up in its favour. There was no man more disconcerted with the vote than the prophet Silanus, who loudly exclaimed against the injustice of detaining any one desirous to depart. But the soldiers put him down with vehement disapprobation, threatening that they would assuredly punish him if they caught him running off. His intrigue against Xenophon thus recoiled upon himself for the moment. But shortly afterwards, when the army peached Herakleia, he took his opportunity for clandestine flight, and found his way back to Greece with the 3000 darics.

If Silanus gained little by his manoeuvre, Timasion and his partners gained still less. For so soon as it became known that the army had taken a normal resolution to go back to Greece, and that Xenophon himself had made the proposition, the Sinopians and the Herakleots felt at their ease. They sent the transport vessels, but withheld the money which they had promised to Timasion and Thorax. Hence these officers were exposed to dishonour and peril; for, having positively engaged to find pay for the army, they were now unable to keep their word. So keen were their apprehensions, that they came to Xenophon and told him that they had altered their views, and that they now thought it best to employ the newly arrived transports in conveying the army, not to Greece, but against the town and territory of Phasis, at the eastern extremity of the Euxine. Xenophon replied that they might convene the soldiers and make the proposition, if they chose, but that he would have nothing to say to it. To make the very proposition themselves, for which they had so much inveighed against Xenophon, was impossible without some preparation; so that each of them began individually to sound his captains, and get the scheme suggested by them. During this interval the soldiery obtained information of the manoeuvre, much to their discontent and indignation; of which Neon (the lieutenant of the absent Cheirisophus) took advantage to throw the whole blame upon Xenophon, alleging that it was he who had converted the other officers to his original project, and that he intended, as soon as the soldiers were on shipboard, to convey them fraudulently to Phasis, instead of to Greece. There was something so plausible in this glaring falsehood, which represented Xenophon as the author of the renewed project, once his own; and something so improbable in the fact that the other officers should spontaneously have renounced their own strong opinions to take up his, that we can hardly be surprised at the ready credence which Neon’s calumny found among the army. Their exasperation against Xenophon became so intense that they collected in fierce groups, and there was even a fear that they would break out into mutinous violence, as they had before done against the magistrates of Kerasus.

Well knowing the danger of such spontaneous and informal assemblages, anil the importance of the habitual solemnities of convocation and arrangement, to ensure either discussion or legitimate defence, Xenophon immediately sent round the herald to summon the army into the regular agora, with customary method and ceremony. The summons was obeyed with unusual alacrity, and Xenophon then addressed them, refraining, with equal generosity and prudence, from saying anything about the last proposition which Timasion and others had made to him. Had he mentioned it, the question would have become one of life and death between him and those other officers.

“Soldiers (said he), I understand that there are some men here calumniating me, as if I were intending to cheat you and carry you to Phasis. Hear me, then, in the name of the gods. If I am shown to be doing wrong, let me not go from hence unpunished; but if, on the contrary, my calumniators are proved to be the wrong-doers, deal with them as they deserve. You surely well know where the sun rises and where he sets; you know that if a man wishes to reach Greece he must go westward—if to the barbaric territories, he must go eastward. Can any one hope to deceive you on this point, and persuade you that the sun rises on this side, and sets on that? Can any one cheat you into going on shipboard with a wind which blows you away from Greece? Suppose even that I put you aboard when there is no wind at all? How am I to force you to sail with me against your own consent—I being only one ship, you in a hundred and more ? Imagine, however, that I could even succeed in deluding you to Phasis. When we land there, you will know at once that we are not in Greece, and what fate can I then expect—a detected impostor, in the midst of ten thousand men with arms in their hands? No : these stories all proceed from foolish men, who are jealous of my influence with you; jealous, too, without reason—for I neither hinder them, from outstripping me in your favour, if they can render you greater service ; nor you from electing them commanders, if you think fit. Enough of this now: I challenge any one to come forward and say how it is possible either to cheat or to be cheated in the manner laid to my charge”.

Having thus grappled directly with the calumnies of his enemies, and dissipated them in such manner as doubtless to create a reaction in his own favour, Xenophon made use of the opportunity to denounce the growing disorders in the army, which he depicted the army as such, that if no corrective were applied, disgrace and contempt must fall upon all. As he paused after this general remonstrance, the soldiers loudly called upon him to go into particulars; upon which he proceeded to recall, with lucid and impressive simplicity, the outrages which had been committed at and near Kerasus— the unauthorized and unprovoked attack made by Klearetus and his company on a neighbouring village which was in friendly commerce with the army—the murder of the three elders of the village, who had come as heralds to complain to the generals about such wrong—the mutinous attack made by disorderly soldiers even upon the magistrates of Kerasus, at the very moment when they were remonstrating with the generals on what had occurred, exposing these magistrates to the utmost peril, and putting the generals themselves to ignominy. “If such are to be our proceedings (continued Xenophon), look you well into what condition the army will fall. You, the aggregate body, will no longer be the sovereign authority to make war or peace with whom you please: each individual among you will conduct the army against any point which he may choose. And even if men should come to you as envoys, either for peace or for other purposes, they may be slain by any single enemy; so that you will be debarred from all public communications whatever. Next, those whom your universal suffrage shall have chosen commanders will have no authority, while any self-elected general who chooses to give the word, Cast, Cast (ie. darts or stones), may put to death, without trial, either officer or soldier as it suits him ; that is, if he finds you ready to obey him, as it happened near Kerasus. Look now what these self-elected leaders have done for you. The magistrate of Kerasus, if he was really guilty of wrong towards you, has been enabled to escape with impunity; if he was innocent, he has been obliged to run away from you, as the only means of avoiding death without pretence or trial. Those who stoned the heralds to death have brought matters to such a pass, that you alone, all Greeks, cannot enter the town of Kerasus in safety, unless in commanding force; and that we cannot even send in a herald to take up our dead (Klearetus and those who were slain in the attack on the Kerasuntine village) for burial, though at first those who had slain them in self-defence were anxious to give up the bodies to us. For who will take the risk of going in as herald from those who have set the example of putting heralds to death? We generals were obliged to entreat the Kerasuntines to bury the bodies for us.”

Continuing in this emphatic protest against the recent disorders and outrages, Xenophon at length succeeded in impressing his own sentiment, heartily and unanimously, upon the soldiers. They passed a vote that the ringleaders of the mutiny at Kerasus should be punished , that if any one was guilty of similar outrages in future he should be put upon his trial by the generals, before the lochages or captains as judges, and if condemned by them, put to death; and that trial should he had before the same persons for any other wrong committed since the death of Cyrus. A suitable religious ceremony was also directed to be performed, at the instance of Xenophon and the prophets, to purify the army.

This speech affords an interesting specimen of the political morality universal throughout the Grecian world, though deeper and more predominant among its better sections. In the miscellaneous aggregate and temporary society, now mustered at Kotyora, Xenophon insists on the universal suffrage of the whole body, as the legitimate sovereign authority for the guidance of every individual will; the decision of the majority, fairly and formally collected, as carrying a title to prevail over every dissentient minority; the generals chosen by the majority of votes as the only persons entitled to obedience. This is the cardinal principle to which he appeals, as the anchorage of political obligation in the mind of each separate man or fraction; as the condition of all success, all safety, and all conjoint action; as the only condition either for punishing wrong or protecting right; as indispensable to keep up their sympathies with the Hellenic communities, and their dignity either as soldiers or as citizens. The complete success of his speech proves that he knew how to touch the right chord of Grecian feeling. No serious acts of individual insubordination occurred afterwards, though the army collectively went wrong on more than one occasion. And what is not less important to notice, the influence of Xenophon himself, after his unreserved and courageous remonstrance, seems to have been sensibly augmented, certainly noway diminished.

The circumstances which immediately followed were indeed well calculated to augment it. For it was resolved, on the proposition of Xenophon himself, that the generals themselves should be tried before the newly-constituted tribunal of the lochages or captains, in case any one had complaint to make against them for past matters; agreeably to the Athenian habit of subjecting every magistrate to a trial of accountability on laying down his office. In the course of this investigation, Philesius and Xanthikles were fined twenty minae, to make good an assignable deficiency of that amount in the cargoes of those mer­chantmen which had been detained at Trapezus for the transport of the army : Sophaenetus, who had the general superintendence of this property, but had been negligent in that duty, was fined ten minae. Next, the name of Xenophon was put up, when various persons stood forward to accuse him of having beaten and ill-used them. As commander of the rear-guard, his duty was by far the severest and most difficult, especially during the intense cold and deep snow; since the sick and wounded, as well as the laggards and plunderers, all fell under his inspection. One man especially was loud in complaints against him, and Xenophon questioned him as to the details of his case before the assembled army. It turned out that he had given him blows because the man, having been entrusted with the task of carrying a sick soldier, was about to evade the duty by burying the dying man alive. This interesting debate (given in the Anabasis at length) ended by a full approbation on the part of the army of Xenophon’s conduct, accompanied with regret that he had not handled the man yet more severely.

The statements of Xenophon himself give us a vivid idea of the internal discipline of the army, even as managed by a discreet well-tempered officer. “I acknowledge (said he to the soldiers) to have struck many the men for disorderly conduct—men who were content to owe their preservation to your orderly march and constant fighting, while they themselves ran about to plunder and enrich themselves at your cost. Had we all acted as they did, we should have perished to a man. Sometimes, too, I struck men who were lagging behind with cold and fatigue, or were stopping the way so as to hinder others from getting forward: I struck them with my fist, in order to save them from the spear of the enemy. Tou yourselves stood by, and saw me : you had arms in your hands, yet none of you interfered to prevent me. I did it for their good as well as for yours, not from any insolence of disposition; for it was a time when we were all alike suffering from cold, hunger, and fatigue; whereas I now live comparatively well, drink more wine and pass easy days, and yet I strike no one. You will find that the men who failed most in those times of hardship are now the most outrageous offenders in the army. There is Bolskus, the Thessalian pugilist, who pretended sickness during the march, in order to evade the burthen of carrying his shield; and now, as I am informed, he has stripped several citizens of Kotydoa of their clothes. If (he concluded) the blows which I have occasionally given, in cases of necessity, are now brought in evidence, I call upon those among you also, to whom I have rendered aid and protection, to stand up and testify in my favour.”

Many individuals responded to this appeal, insomuch that Xenophon was not merely acquitted, but stood higher than before in the opinion of the army. We learn f from his defence that for a commanding officer to strike a soldier with his fist, if wanting in duty, was not considered improper—at least under such circumstances as those of the retreat. But what his notice still more is the extraordinary influence which Xenophon’s powers of speaking gave him over the minds of the army. He stood distinguished from the other generals, Lacedaemonian, Arcadian, Achaean, tec., by having the power of working on the minds of the soldiers collectively; and we see that he had the good sense, as well as the spirit, not to shrink from telling them unpleasant truths. In spite of such frankness—or rather, partly by means of such frankness—his ascendency as commander not only remained unabated, as compared with that of the others, but went on increasing. For whatever may be said about the flattery of orators as a means of influence over the people, it will be found that though particular points may be gained in this way, yet wherever the influence of an orator has been steady and long-continued (like that of Pericles or Demosthenes), it is owing in part to the fact that he has an opinion of his own, and is not willing to accommodate himself constantly to the prepossessions of his hearers. Without the oratory of Xenophon, there would have existed no engine for kindling or sustaining the sensus communis of the ten thousand Cyreians assembled at Kotyora, or for keeping up the moral authority of the aggregate over the individual members and fractions. The other officers could doubtless speak well enough to address short encouragements or give simple explanations to the soldiers: without this faculty, no man was fit for military command over Greeks. But the oratory of Xenophon was something of a higher order. Whoever will study the discourse pronounced by him at Kotyora will perceive a dexterity in dealing with assembled multitudes—a discriminating use sometimes of the plainest and most direct appeal, sometimes of indirect insinuation or circuitous transitions to work round the minds of the hearers—a command of those fundamental political convictions which lay deep in the Grecian mind, but were often so overlaid by the fresh impulses arising out of each successive situation, as to require some positive friction to draw them out from their latent state—lastly, a power of expansion and varied repetition, such as would be naturally imparted both by the education and the practice of an intelligent Athenian, but would rarely be found in any other Grecian city. The energy and judgment displayed by Xenophon in the retreat were doubtless not less essential to his influence than his power of speaking; but in these points we may be sure that other officers were more nearly his equals.

The important public proceedings above described not only restored the influence of Xenophon, but also cleared off a great amount of bad feeling, and sensibly abated the bad habits, which had grown up in the army. A scene which speedily followed was not without effect in promoting cheerful and amicable sympathies. The Paphlagonian prince, Korylas, weary of the desultory warfare carried on between the Greeks and the border inhabitants, sent envoys to the Greek camp with of horses and fine robes, and with expressions of a wish to conclude peace. The Greek generals accepted the presents, and promised to submit the proposition to the army. But first they entertained the envoys at a banquet, providing at the same time games and dances, with other recreations amusing not only to them but also to the soldiers generally. The various dances, warlike and pantomimic, of Thracians, Mysians, Aenianes, Magnates, &c., are described by Xenophon in a lively and interesting manner. They were followed on the next day by an amicable convention con­cluded between the army and the Paphlagonians.

Not long afterwards—a number of transports, sufficient for the whole army, having been assembled from Herakleia and Sindpe—all the soldiers were conveyed by sea to the latter place, passing by the mouth of the rivers Thermodon, Iris, and Halys, which they would have found impracticable to cross in a land-march through Paphlagonia. Having reached Sinope after a day and a night of sailing with a fair wind, they were hospitably received, and lodged in the neighbouring seaport of Armene, where the Sinopians sent to them a large present of barley-meal and wine, and where they remained for five days.

It was here that they were joined by Cheirisophus whose absence had been so unexpectedly prolonged. But he came with only a single trireme, bringing nothing except a message from Anaxibius, the Lacedaemonian admiral in the Bosphorus, who complimented the army, and promised that they should be taken into pay as soon as they were out of the Euxine. The soldiers, severely disappointed on seeing him arrive thus empty-handed, became the more strongly bent on striking some blow to till their own purses before they reached Greece. Feeling that it was necessary to the success of any such project that it should be prepared not only skilfully but secretly, they resolved to elect a single general in place of that board of six (or perhaps more) who were still in function. Such was now the ascendency of Xenuphon, that the general sentiment of the army at once turned towards him; and the loch ages or captains, communicating to him what was in contemplation, intimated to him their own anxious hopes that he would not decline the offer. Tempted by so flattering a proposition, he hesitated at first what answer he should give. But at length the uncertainty of being able to satisfy the exigences of the army, and the fear of thus compromising the reputation which he had already realized, outweighed the opposite inducements. As in other cases of doubt, so in this, he offered sacrifice to Zeus Basileus; and the answer returned by the victims was such as to determine him to refusal. Accordingly, when the army assembled, with predetermination to choose a single chief, and proceeded to nominate him, he respectfully and thankfully declined, on the ground that Cheirisophus was a Lacedaemonian, and that he himself was not; adding that he should cheerfully serve under any one whom they might name. His excuse, however, was repudiated, especially by the lochages. Several of these latter were Arcadians; and one of them, Agasias, cried out, with full sympathy of the soldiers, that, if that principle were admitted he, an Arcadian, ought to resign his command. Finding that his former reason was not approved, Xenophon acquainted the army that he had sacrificed to know whether he ought to accept the command, and that the gods had peremptorily forbidden him to do so.

Cheirisophus was then elected sole commander, and undertook the duty, saying that he would have willingly served under Xenophon, if the latter had accepted the office, but that it was a good thing for Xenophon himself to have declined, since Dexippus had already poisoned the mind of Anaxibius against him, though he (Cheirisophus) had emphatically contradicted the calumnies.

On the next day the army sailed, forward, under the command of Cheirisophus, to Herakleia; near which town they were hospitably entertained, and gratified with a present of meal, wine, and bullocks, even greater than they had received at Sinope. It now appeared that Xenophon had acted wisely in declining the sole command; and also that Cheirisophus, though elected commander, yet having been very long absent, was not really of so much importance in the eyes of the soldiers as Xenophon. In the camp near Herakleia, the soldiers became impatient that their generals (for the habit of looking upon Xenophon as one of them still continued) took no measures to procure money for them. The Achaean Lykon proposed that they should extort a contribution of no less than 3000 staters of Cyzicus (about 60,000 Attic drachmae, or 10 talents) from the inhabitants of Herakleia; another man immediately outbid this proposition, and proposed that they should require 10,000 staters—a full month’s pay for the army. It was moved that Cheirisophus and Xenophon should go to the Herakleots as envoys with this demand. But both of them indignantly refused to be concerned in so unjust an extortion from a Grecian city which had just received the army kindly and sent handsome presents. Accordingly Lykon with two Arcadian officers undertook the mission, and intimated the demand, not without threats in case of non-compliance, to the Herakleots. The latter replied that they would take it into consideration. But they waited only for the departure of the envoys, and then immediately closed their gates, manned their walls, and brought in their outlying property.

The project being thus baffled, Lykon and the rest turned their displeasure upon Cheirisophus and Xenophon, whom they accused of having occasioned its miscarriage. And they now began to exclaim that it was disgraceful to the Arcadians and Achaeans, who formed more than one numerical half of the army and endured all the toil, to obey as well as to enrich generals from other Hellenic cities; especially a single Athenian who furnished no contingent to the army. Here again it is remarkable that the personal importance of Xenophon caused him to be still regarded as a general, though the sole command had been vested by formal vote in Cheirisophus. So vehement was the dissatisfaction, that all the Arcadian and Achaean soldiers in the army, more than 4500 hoplites in number, renounced the authority of Cheirisophus, formed themselves into a distinct division, and chose ten commanders from out of their own numbers. The whole army thus became divided into three portions—first, the Arcadians and Achaeans ; secondly, 1400 hoplite and 700 Thracian peltasts, who adhered to Cheirisophus; lastly, 1700 hoplites, 300 peltasts, and 40 horsemen (all the horsemen in the army), attaching themselves to Xenophon, who, however, was taking measures to sail away individually from Herakleia and quit the army altogether, which he would have done had he not been restrained by unfavourable sacrifices.

The Arcadian division, departing first in vessels from Herakleia, landed at the harbour of Kalpe, an untenanted promontory of the Bithynian or Asiatic Thrace, midway between Herakleia and Byzantium. From thence they marched at once into the interior of Bithynia, with the view of surprising the villages and acquiring plunder. But through rashness and bad management, they first sustained several partial losses, and ultimately became surrounded upon an eminence by a large muster of the indigenous Bithynians from all the territory around. They were only rescued from destruction by the unexpected appearance of Xenophon with his division, who had left Herakleia somewhat later, but heard by accident, during their march, of the danger of their comrades. The whole army thus became re-assembled at Kalpe, where the Arcadians and Achsaans, disgusted at the ill-success of their separate expedition, again established the old union and the old generals. They chose Neon in place of Cheirisophus, who, afflicted by the humiliation put upon him in having been first named sole commander and next deposed within a week, had fallen sick of a fever and died. The elder Arcadian captains further moved a resolution that if any one henceforward should propose to separate the army into fractions he should be put to death.

The locality of Kalpe was well suited for the foundation of a colony, which Xenophon evidently would have been glad to bring about, though he took no direct measures tending towards it; while the soldiers were so bent on returning to Greece, and so jealous lest Xenophon should entrap them into remaining, that they almost shunned the encampment. It so happened that they were detained there tor some days without being able to march forth even in quest of provisions, because the sacrifices were not favourable. Xenophon refused to lead them out, against the warning of the sacrifices—although the army suspected him of a deliberate manoeuvre for the purpose of detention. Neon however, less scrupulous, led out a body of 2000 men who chose to follow him, under severe distress for want of provisions. But being surprised by the native Bithynians, with the aid of some troops of the Persian satrap Pharnabazus, he was defeated with the loss of no less than 500 men—a misfortune which Xenophon regards as the natural retribution for contempt of the sacrificial warning. The dangerous position of Neon with the remainder of the detachment was rapidly made known at the camp; upon which Xenophon, unharnessing a waggon-bullock as the only animal near at hand, immediately offered sacrifice. On this occasion, the victim was at once favourable; so that he led out without delay the greater part of the force, to the rescue of the exposed detachment, which was brought back in safety to the camp. So bold had the enemy become, that in the night the camp was attacked. The Greeks were obliged on the next day to retreat into stronger ground, surrounding themselves with a ditch and palisade. Fortunately a vessel arrived from Herakleia, bringing to the camp at Kalpe a supply of barley-meal, cattle, and wine, which restored the spirits of the army, enabling them to go forth on the ensuing morning, and assume the aggressive against the Bithynians and the troops of Pharnabazus. These troops were completely defeated and dispersed, so that the Greeks returned to their camp at Kalpe in the evening, both safe and masters of the country.

At Kalpe they remained some time, awaiting the arrival of Kleander from Byzantium, who was said to be about to bring vessels for their transport. They were now abundantly provided with supplies, not merely from the undisturbed plunder of the neighbouring villages, but also from the visits of traders who came, with cargoes. Indeed the impression that they were preparing, at the instance of Xenophon, to found a new city at Kalpe became so strong that several of the neighbouring native villages sent envoys to ask on what terms alliance would be granted to them. At length Kleander came, but with two triremes only.

Kleander was the Lacedaemonian harmost or governor of Byzantium. His appearance opens to us a new phase in the eventful history of this gallant army, as well as an insight into the state of the Grecian world under the Lacedaemonian empire. He came attended by the Lacedaemonian Dexippus, who had served in the Cyreian army until their arrival at Trapezus, and who had there been entrusted with an armed vessel for the purpose of detaining transports to convey the troops home, but had abused the confidence reposed in him by running away with the ship to Byzantium.

It so happened that at the moment when Kleander arrived, the whole army was out on a marauding excursion. Orders had been already promulgated that whatever was captured by every one when the whole army was out should be brought in and dealt with as public property; though on days when the army was collectively at rest, any soldier might go out individually and take to himself whatever he could pillage. On the day when Kleander arrived, and found the whole army out, some soldiers were just coming back with a lot of sheep which they had seized. By right, the sheep ought to have been handed into the public store. But these soldiers, desirous to appropriate them wrong­fully, addressed themselves to Dexippus, and promised him a portion if he would enable them to retain the rest. Accordingly the latter interfered, drove away those who claimed the sheep as public property, and denounced them as thieves to Kleander, who desired him to bring them before him. Dexippus arrested one of them, a soldier belonging to the lochus or company of one of the best friends of Xenophon—the Arcadian Agasias. The latter took the man under his protection, while the soldiers around, incensed not less at the past than at the present conduct of Dexippus, broke out into violent manifestations, called him a traitor, and pelted him with stones. Such was their wrath that not Dexippus alone, but the crew of the triremes also, and even Kleander himself, fled in alarm; in spite of the intervention of Xenophon and the other generals, who on the one hand explained to Kleander that it was an established army-order which these soldiers were seeking to enforce, and on the other hand controlled the mutineers. But the Lacedaemonian harmost was so incensed as well by his own fright as by the calumnies of Dexippus, that he threatened to sail away at once, and proclaim the Cyreian army enemies to Sparta, so that every Hellenic city should be interdicted from giving them reception. It was in vain that the generals, well knowing the formidable consequences of such an interdict, entreated him to relent. He would consent only on condition that the soldiers who had begun to throw stones, as well as Agasias, the interfering officer, should be delivered up to him. This latter demand was especially insisted upon by Dexippus, who, hating Xenophon, had already tried to prejudice Anaxibius against him, and believed that Agasias had acted by his order.

The situation now became extremely critical, since the soldiers would not easily be brought to surrender their comrades, who had a perfectly righteous cause, though they had supported it by undue violence, to the vengeance of a traitor like Dexippus. When the army was convened in assembly, several of them went so” far as to treat the menace of Kleander with contempt. But Xenophon took pains to set them right upon this point. “Soldiers (said he), it will be no slight misfortune if Kleander shall depart, as he threatens to do, in his present temper towards us. We are here close upon the cities of Greece : now the Lacedaemonians are the imperial power in Greece, and not merely their authorized officers, hut even each one of their individual citizens, can accomplish what he pleases in the various cities. If then Kleander begins by shutting us out from Byzantium and next enjoins the Lacedaemonian harmosts in the other cities to do the same, proclaiming us lawless and disobedient to Sparta— if, besides, the same representation should be conveyed to the Lacedaemonian admiral of the fleet, Anaxibius—we shall be hard pressed either to remain or to sail away, for the Lacedaemonians are at present masters both on land and at sea. We must not, for the sake of any one or two men, suffer the whole army to be excluded from Greece. We must obey whatever the Lacedaemonians command, especially as our cities, to which we respectively belong, now obey them. As to what concerns myself, I understand that Dexippus has told Kleander that Agasias would never have taken such a step except by my orders. Now, if Agasias himself states this, I am ready to exonerate both him and all of you, and to give myself up to any extremity of punishment. I maintain, too, that any other man whom Kleander arraigns ought in like manner to give himself up for trial, in order that you collectively may be discharged from the imputation. It will be hard indeed if, just as we are reaching Greece, we should not only be debarred from the praise and honour which we anticipated, but should be degraded even below the level of others and shut out from the Grecian cities.”

After this speech from the philo-Laconian Xenophon—so significant a testimony of the unmeasured ascendency and interference of the Lacedaemonians throughout Greece—Agasias rose, and proclaimed that what he had done was neither under the orders nor with the privity of Xenophon; that he had acted on a personal impulse of wrath, at seeing his own honest and innocent soldier dragged away by the traitor Dexippus; but that he now willingly gave himself up as a victim, to avert from the army the displeasure of the Lacedaemonians. This generous self-sacrifice, which at the moment promised nothing less than a fatal result to Agasias, was accepted by the army; and the generals conducted both him and the soldier whom he had rescued as prisoners to Kleander. Presenting himself as the responsible party, Agasias at the same time explained to Kleander the infamous behaviour of Dexippus to the army, and said that towards no one else would he have acted in the same manner; while the soldier whom he had rescued, and who was given up at the same time, also affirmed that he had interfered merely to prevent Dexippus and some others from overruling, for their own individual benefit, a proclaimed order of the entire army. Kleander, having observed that if Dexippus had done what was affirmed, he would be the last to defend him, but that no one ought to have been stoned without trial, desired that the persons surrendered might be left for his consideration, and at the same time retracted his expressions of displeasure as regarded all the others.

The generals then retired, leaving Kleander in possession of the prisoners, and on the point of taking his dinner. But they retired with mournful feelings, and Xenophon presently convened the army to propose that a general deputation should be sent to Kleander to implore his lenity towards their two comrades. This being cordially adopted, Xenophon, at the head of a deputation comprising Drakontius the Spartan as well as the chief officers, addressed an earnest appeal to Kleander, representing that his honour had been satisfied with the unconditional surrender of the two persons required; that the army, deeply concerned for two meritorious comrades, entreated him now to show mercy and spare their lives; that they promised him, in return, the most implicit obedience, and entreated him to take the command of them, in order that he might have personal cognizance of their exact discipline, and compare their worth with that of Dexippus. Kleander was not merely soothed, but completely won over by this address, and said in reply that the conduct of the generals belied altogether the representations made to him (doubtless by Dexippus), that they were seeking to alienate the army from the Lacedaemonians. He not only restored the two men in his power, but also accepted the command of the army, and promised to conduct them back into Greece.

The prospects of the army appeared thus greatly improved; the more so as Kleander, on entering upon his new functions as commander, found the soldiers so cheerful and orderly, that he was highly gratified, and exchanged personal tokens of friendship and hospitality with Xenophon. But when sacrifices came to be offered, for beginning the march homeward, the signs were so unpropitious for three successive days, that Kleander could not bring himself to brave such auguries at the outset of his career. Accordingly, he told the generals that the gods plainly forbade him, and reserved it for them to conduct the army into Greece; that he should therefore sail back to Byzantium, and would receive the army, in the best way he could, when they reached the Bosphorus. After an interchange of presents with the soldiers, he then departed with his two triremes.

The favourable sentiment now established in the bosom of Kleander will be found very serviceable hereafter to the Cyreians at Byzantium ; but they had cause for deeply regretting the unpropitious sacrifices which had deterred him from assuming the actual command at Kalpe. In the request preferred to him by them, that he would march as their commander to the Bosphorus, we may recognize a scheme, and a very well-contrived scheme, of Xenophon, who had before desired to leave the army at Herakleia, and who saw plainly that the difficulties of a commander, unless he were a Lacedaemonian of station and influence, would increase with every step of their approach to Greece. Had Kleander accepted the command, the soldiers would have been better treated, while Xenophon himself might either have remained as his adviser, or might have gone home. He probably would have chosen the latter course.

Under the command of their own officers, the Cyreians now marched from Kalpe across Bithynia to Chrysopolis (in the territory of Chalcedon on the Asiatic edge of the Bosphorus, immediately opposite to Byzantium, as Scutari now is to Constantinople), where they remained seven days, turning into money the slaves and plunder which they had collected. Unhappily for them, the Lacedaemonian admiral Anaxibius was now at Byzantium, so that their friend Kleander was under his superior command. And Pharnabazus, the Persian satrap of the north-western regions of Asia Minor, becoming much alarmed lest they should invade his satrapy, despatched a private message to Anaxibius, whom he prevailed upon, by promise of large presents, to transport the army forthwith across to the European side of the Bosphorus. Accordingly, Anaxibius, sending for the generals and the lochages across to Byzantium, invited the army to cross, and gave them his assurance that as soon as the soldiers should be in Europe he would provide pay for them. The other officers told him that they would return with this message and take the sense of the army; but Xenophon, on his own account, said that he should not return, that he should now retire from the army, and sail away from Byzantium. It was only on the pressing instance of Anaxibius that he was induced to go back to Chrysopolis and conduct the army across, on the understanding that he should depart immediately afterwards.

Here at Byzantium he received his first communication from the Thracian prince Seuthes, who sent Medosades to offer him a reward if he would bring the army across. Xenophon replied that the army would cross; that no reward from Seuthes was needful to bring about movement; but that he himself was about to depart, leaving the command in other hands. In point of fact, the whole army crossed with little delay, landed in Europe, and found themselves within the walls of Byzantium. Xenophon, who had come along with them, paid a visit shortly afterwards to his friend the harmost Kleander, and took leave of him as about to depart immediately. But Kleander told him that he must not think of departing until the army was out of the city, and that he would be held responsible if they stayed. In truth, Kleander was very uneasy so long as the soldiers were within the walls, and was well aware that it might be no easy matter to induce them to go away. For Anaxibius had practised a gross fraud in promising them pay, which he had neither the ability nor the inclination to provide. Without handing to them either pay or even means of purchasing supplies, he issued orders that they must go forth with aims and baggage, and muster outside of the gates, there to be numbered for an immediate march; any one who stayed behind being held as punishable. This proclamation was alike unexpected and offensive to the soldiers, who felt that they had been deluded, and were very backward in obeying. Hence Kleander, while urgent with Xenophon to defer his departure until he had conducted the army outside of the walls, added—“Go forth as if you were about to march along with them : when you are once outside you may depart as soon as you please ”. Xenophon replied that this matter must be settled with Anaxibius, to whom accordingly both of them went, and who repeated the same directions, in a manner yet more peremptory. Though it was plain to Xenophon that he was here making himself a sort of instrument to the fraud which Anaxibius had practised upon the army, yet he had no choice but to obey. Accordingly, he as well as the other generals put themselves at the head of the troops, who followed, however, reluctantly, and arrived most of them outside of the gates. Eteonikus (a Lacedaemonian officer of consideration, noticed more than once in my last preceding volume), commanding at the gate, stood close to it in person, in order that, when all the Cyreians had gone forth, he might immediately shut it and fasten it with the bar.

Anaxibius knew well what he was doing. He fully anticipated that the communication of the final orders would occasion an outbreak among the Cyreians, and was anxious to defer it until they were outside. But when there remained only the rearmost companies still in the inside and on their march—all the rest having got out—he thought the danger was over, and summoned to him the generals and captains, all of whom were probably near the gates superintending the march through. It seems that Xenophon, having given notice that he intended to depart, did not answer to this summons as one of the generals, but remained outside among the soldiers. “Take what supplies you want (said Anaxibius) from the neighbouring Thracian villages, which are well furnished with wheat, barley, and other necessaries. After thus providing yourselves, march forward to the Chersonesus, and there Kyniskus will give you pay.”

This was the first distinct intimation given by Anaxibius that he did not intend to perform his promise of finding pay for the soldiers. Who Kyniskus was we do not know, nor was he probably known to the Cyreians; but the march here enjoined was at least 150 English miles, and might be much longer. The route was not indicated, and the generals had to inquire from Anaxibius whether they were to go by what was called the Holy Mountain (that is, by the shorter line, skirting the northern coast of the Propontis), or by a more inland and circuitous road through Thrace; also whether they were to regard the Thracian prince, Seuthes, as a friend or an enemy.

Instead of the pay which had been formally promised to them by Anaxibius if they would cross over from Asia to Byzantium, the Cyreians thus found themselves sent away empty-handed to a long march, through another barbarous country, with chance supplies to be ravished only by their own efforts, and at the end of it a lot unknown and uncertain; while, had they remained in Asia, they would have had at any rate the rich satrapy of Pharnabazus within their reach. To perfidy of dealing was now added a brutal ejectment from Byzantium, without even the commonest manifestations of hospitality, contrasting pointedly with the treatment which the army had recently experienced at Trapezus, Sinope, and Herakleia, where they had been welcomed not only by compliments on their past achievements, but also by an ample present of flour, meat, and wine. Such behaviour could not fail to provoke the most violent indignation in the bosoms of the soldiery; and Anaxibius had, therefore, delayed giving the order until the last soldiers were marching out, thinking that the army would hear nothing of it until the generals came out of the gates to inform them, so that the gates would be closed, and the walls manned to resist any assault from without. But his calculations were not realized. Either one of the soldiers passing by heard him give the order, or one of the captains forming his audience stole away from the rest, and hastened forward to acquaint his comrades on the outside. The bulk of the army, already irritated by the inhospitable way in which they had been thrust out, needed nothing further to inflame them into spontaneous mutiny and aggression. While the generals within (who either took the communication more patiently, or, at least, looking further forward, felt that any attempt to resent or resist the ill-usage of the Spartan admiral would only make their position worse) were discussing with Anaxibius the details of the march just enjoined, the soldiers without, bursting into spontaneous movement, with a simultaneous and fiery impulse, made a rush back to get possession of the gate. But Eteonikus, seeing their movement, closed it without a moment’s delay, and fastened the bar. The soldiers, on reaching the gate and finding it barred, clamoured loudly to get it opened, threatened to break it down, and even began to knock violently against it. Some ran down to the sea­coast, and made their way into the city round the line of stones at the base of the city wall, which protected it against the sea; while the rearmost soldiers, who had not yet marched out, seeing what was passing, and fearful of being cut off from their comrades, assaulted the gate from the inside, severed the fastenings with axes, and threw it wide open to the army. All the soldiers then rushed up, and were soon again in Byzantium.

Nothing could exceed the terror of the Lacedaemonians, as well as of the native Byzantines, when they saw the excited Cyreians again within the walls. The town seemed already taken and on the point of being plundered. Neither Anaxibius nor Eteonikus took the smallest means of resistance, nor stayed to brave the approach of the soldiers, whose wrath they were fully conscious of having deserved. Both fled to the citadel—the former first running to the sea-shore, and jumping into a fishing-boat, to go thither by sea. He even thought the citadel not tenable with its existing garrison, and sent over to Chalcedon for a reinforcement. Still more terrified were the citizens of the town. Every man in the market-place instantly fled—some to their houses, others to the merchant vessels in the harbour, others to the triremes or ships of war, which they hauled down to the water, and thus put to sea.

To the deception and harshness of the Spartan admiral there was thus added a want of precaution in the manner of execution, which threatened to prove the utter ruin of Byzantium. For it was but too probable that the Cyreian soldiers, under the keen sense of recent injury, would satiate their revenge, and reimburse themselves for the want of hospitality towards them, without distinguishing the Lacedaemonian garrison from the Byzantine citizens; and that, too, from mere impulse, not merely without orders, but in spite of prohibitions, from their generals. Such was the aspect of the case when they became again assembled in a mass within the gates, and such would probably have been the reality had Xenophon executed his design of retiring earlier, so as to leave the other generals acting without him. Being on the outside along with the soldiers, Xenophon felt at once, as soon as he saw the gates forced open and the army again within the town, the terrific emergency which was impending; first, the sack of Byzantium; next, horror and antipathy throughout all Greece towards the Cyreian officers and soldiers indiscriminately; lastly, unsparing retribution inflicted upon all by the power of Sparta. Overwhelmed with these anxieties he rushed into the town along with the multitude, using every effort to pacify them and bring them into order. They on their parts, delighted to see him along with them, and conscious of their own force, were eager to excite him to the same pitch as themselves, and to prevail on him to second and methodize their present triumph. “Now is your time, Xenophon (they exclaimed), to make yourself a man. You have here a city, you have triremes, you have money, you have plenty of soldiers. Now then, if you choose, you can enrich us, and we in return can make you powerful.” “You speak well (replied he): I shall do as you propose; but if you want to accomplish anything, you must fall into military array forthwith.” He knew that this was the first condition of returning to anything like tranquillity; and by great good fortune the space called the Thrakion, immediately adjoining the gate inside, was level, open, and clear of houses, presenting an excellent place of arms or locality for a review. The whole army—partly from their long military practice, partly under the impression that Xenophon was really about to second their wishes, and direct some aggressive operation—threw themselves almost of their own accord into regular array on the Thrakion—the hoplites eight deep, the peltasts on each flank. It was in this position that Xenophon addressed them as follows :—

“Soldiers, I am not surprised that you are incensed, and that you think yourselves scandalously cheated and ill-used. But if we give way to our wrath—if we punish these Lacedaemonians now before us for their treachery, and plunder this innocent city—reflect what will be the consequence. We shall stand proclaimed forthwith as enemies to the Lacedaemonians and their allies; and what sort of a war that will be, those who have witnessed and who still recollect recent matters of history may easily fancy. We Athenians entered into the war against Sparta with a powerful army and fleet, an abundant revenue, and numerous tributary cities in Asia as well as Europe—among them this very Byzantium in which we now stand. We have been vanquished in the way that all of you know. And what then will be the fate of us soldiers, when we shall have as united enemies, Sparta with all her old allies and Athens besides—Tissaphernes and the barbaric forces on the coast—and most of all, the Great King whom we marched up to dethrone and slay, if we were able? Is any man fool enough to think that we have a chance of making head against so many combined enemies? Let us not plunge madly into dishonour and ruin, nor incur the enmity of our own fathers and friends, who are in the cities which will take arms against us—and will take arms justly, if we, who abstained from seizing any barbaric city, even when we were in force sufficient, shall nevertheless now plunder the first Grecian city into which we have been admitted. As far as I am concerned, may I be buried ten thousand fathoms deep in the earth rather than see you do such things! and I exhort you too, as Greeks, to obey the leaders of Greece. Endeavour while thus obedient to obtain your just rights; but if you should fail in this, rather submit to injustice than cut ourselves off from the Grecian world. Send to inform Anaxibius, that we have entered the city, not with a view to commit any violence, but in the hope, if possible, of obtaining from him the advantages which he promised us. If we fail, we shall at least prove to him that we quit the city, not under his fraudulent manoeuvres, but under our own sense of the duty of obedience.”

This speech completely arrested the impetuous impulse of the army, brought them to a true sense of their situation, and induced them to adopt the proposition of Xenophon. They remained unmoved in their pos tion on the Thrakion, while three of the captains were sent to communicate with Anaxibius. While they were thus waiting, a Theban named Koeratadas approached, who had once commanded in Byzantium under the Lacedaemonians during the previous war. He had now become a sort of professional condottiero or general, looking out for an army to command wherever he could find one, and offering his services to any city which would engage him. He addressed the assembled Cyreians, and offered, if they would accept him for their general, to conduct them against the Delta of Thrace (the space included between the north-west corner of the Propontis and the south-west corner of the Euxine), which he asserted to be a rich territory presenting great opportunity of plunder : he further promised to furnish them with ample subsistence during the march. Presently the envoys returned, bearing the reply of Anaxibius, who received the message favourably, promising that not only the army should have no  cause to regret their obedience, but that he would both report their good conduct to the authorities at home, and do everything in his own power to promote their comfort. He said nothing further about taking them into pay, that delusion having now answered its purpose. The soldiers, on hearing his communication, adopted a resolution to accept Koeratadas as their future commander, and then marched out of the town. As soon as they were on the outside, Anaxibius, not content with closing the gates against them, made public proclamation that if any one of them were found in the town, he should be sold forthwith into slavery.

There are few cases throughout Grecian history in which an able discourse has been the means of averting so much evil as was averted by this speech of Xenophon to the army in Byzantium. Nor did he ever, throughout the whole period of his command, render to them a more signal service. The miserable co­sequences which would have ensued had the army persisted in their aggressive impulse—first, to the citizens of the town, ultimately to themselves, while Anaxibius, the only guilty person, had the means of escaping by sea, even under the worst circumstances—are stated by Xenophon rather under than above the reality. At the same time no orator ever undertook a more difficult case, or achieved a fuller triumph over unpromising conditions. If we consider the feelings and position of the army at the instant of their breaking into the town, we shall be astonished that any commander could have arrested their movements. Though fresh from all the glory of their retreat, they had been first treacherously entrapped over from Asia, next roughly ejected by Anaxibius; and although it may be said truly that the citizens of Byzantium had no concern either in the one or the other, yet little heed is commonly taken, in military operations, to the distinction between garrison and citizens in an assailed town. Having arms in their hands, with consciousness of force arising out of their exploits in Asia, the Cyreians were at the same time inflamed by the opportunity both of avenging a gross recent injury and enriching themselves in the process of execution; to which we may add the excitement of that rush whereby they had obtained re-entry, and the further fact, that without the gates they had nothing to expect except poor, hard, uninviting service in Thrace. With soldiers already possessed by an over­powering impulse of this nature, what chance was there that a retiring general, on the point of quitting the army, could so work upon their minds as to induce them to renounce the prey before them? Xenophon had nothing to invoke except distant considerations, partly of Hellenic reputation, chiefly of prudence—considerations indeed of unquestionable reality and prodigious magnitude, yet belonging all to a distant future, and therefore of little comparative force, except when set forth in magnified characters by the orator. How powerfully he worked upon the minds of his hearers, so as to draw forth these far-removed dangers from the cloud of present sentiment by which they were overlaid—how skilfully he employed in illustration the example of his own native city—will be seen by all who study his speech. Never did his Athenian accomplishments, his talent for giving words to important thoughts, his promptitude in seizing a present situation and managing the sentiments of an impetuous multitude, appear to greater advantage than when he was thus suddenly called forth to meet a terrible emergency. His pre-established reputation and the habit of obeying his orders were doubtless essential conditions of success. But none of his colleagues in command would have been able to accomplish the like memorable change on the minds of the soldiers, or to procure obedience for any simple authoritative restraint; nay, it is probable that if Xenophon had not been at hand, the other generals would have followed the passionate movement, even though they had been reluctant—from simple inability to repress it. Again, whatever might have been the accomplishments of Xenophon, it is certain that even ha would not have been able to work upon the minds of these excited soldiers, had they not been Greeks and citizens as well as soldiers—bred in Hellenic sympathies and accustomed to Hellenic order, with authority operating in part through voice and persuasion, and not through the Persian whip and instruments of torture. The memorable discourse on the Thrakion at Byzantium illustrates the working of that persuasive agency which formed one of the permanent forces and conspicuous charms of Hellenism. It teaches us that if the orator could sometimes accuse innocent defendants and pervert well-disposed assemblies—a part of the case which historians of Greece often present as if it were the whole—he could also, and that in the most trying emergencies, combat the strongest force of present passion, and bring into vivid presence the half­obscured lineaments of long-sighted reason and duty.

After conducting the army out of the city, Xenophon sent, through Kleander, a message to Anaxibius, requesting that he himself might be allowed to come in again singly, in order to take his departure by sea. His request was granted, though not without much difficulty; upon which he took leave of the army under the strongest expressions of affection and gratitude on their part, and went into Byzantium along with Kleander; while on the next day Koeratadas came to assume the command according to agreement, bringing with him a prophet, and beasts to be offered in sacrifice. There followed in his train twenty men carrying sacks of barley­meal, twenty more with jars of wine, three bearing olives, and one man with a bundle of garlic and onions. All these provisions being laid down, Koeratadas proceeded to offer sacrifice, as a preliminary to the distribution of them among the soldiers. On the first day, the sacrifices being unfavourable, no distribution took place ; on the second day, Koeratadas was standing with the wreath on his head at the altar, and with the victims beside him, about to renew his sacrifice, when Timasion and the other officers interfered, desired him to abstain, and dismissed him from the command. Perhaps the first unfavourable sacrifices may have partly impelled them to this proceeding. But the main reason was the scanty store, inadequate even to one day’s subsistence for the army, brought by Koeratadas, and the obvious insufficiency of his means.

On the departure of Koeratadas, the army marched to take up its quarters in some Thracian villages not far from Byzantium, under its former officers, who, however, could not agree as to their future order of march. Kleanor and Phryniskus, who had received presents from Seuthes, urged the expediency of accepting the service of that Thracian prince: Neon insisted on going to the Chersonese, to be under the Lacedaemonian officers in that peninsula (as Anaxibius had projected), in the idea that he, as a Lacedaemonian, would there obtain the command of the whole army; while Timasion, with the view of re-establishing himself in his native city of Dardanus, proposed returning to the Asiatic side of the strait.

Though this last plan met with decided favour among the army, it could not be executed without vessels. These Timasion had little or no means of procuring; so that considerable delay took place, during which the soldiers, receiving no pay, fell into much distress. Many of them were even compelled to sell their arms in order to get subsistence; while others got permission to settle in some of the neighbouring towns, on condition of being disarmed. The whole army was thus gradually melting away, much to the satisfaction of Anaxibius, who was anxious to see the purposes of Pharnabazus accomplished. By degrees it would probably have been dissolved altogether, had not a change of interest on the part of Anaxibius induced him to promote its reorganization. He sailed from Byzantium to the Asiatic coast, to acquaint Pharnabazus that the Cyreians could no longer cause uneasiness, and to require his own promised reward. It seems, moreover, that Xenophon himself departed from Byzantium by the same opportunity. When they reached Cyzicus they met the Lacedaemonian Aristarchus, who was coming out as newly-appointed harmost of Byzantium, to supersede Kleander, and who acquainted Anaxibius that Polus was on the point of arriving to supersede him as admiral. Anxious to meet Pharnabazus and make sure of his bribe, Anaxibius impressed his parting injunction upon Aristarchus to sell for slaves all the Cyreians whom he might find at Byzantium on his arrival, and then pursued his voyage along the southern coast of the Propontis to Parium. But Pharnabazus, having already received intimation of the change of admirals, knew that the friendship of Anaxibius was no longer of any value, and took no further heed of him; while he at the same time sent to Byzantium to make the like compact with Aristarchus against the Cyreian army.

Anaxibius was stung to the quick at this combination of disappointment and insult on the part of the satrap. To avenge it he resolved to employ those very soldiers whom he had first corruptly and fraudulently brought across to Europe, cast out from Byzantium, and lastly, ordered to be sold into slavery, so far as any might yet be found in that town. He now resolved to bring them back into Asia for the purpose of acting against Pharnabazus. Accordingly he addressed himself to Xenophon, and ordered him without a moment’s delay to rejoin the army, for the purpose of keeping it together, of recalling the soldiers who had departed, and transporting the whole body across into Asia. He provided him with an armed vessel of thirty oars to cross over from Parium to Perinthus, sending over a peremptory order to the Perinthians to furnish him with horses in order that he might reach the army with the greatest speed. Perhaps it would not have been safe for Xenophon to disobey this order under any circumstances. But the idea of acting with the army in Asia against Pharnabazus, under Lacedaemonian sanction, was probably very acceptable to him. He hastened across to the army, who welcomed his return with joy, and gladly embraced the proposal of crossing to Asia, which was a great improvement upon their forlorn and destitute condition. He accordingly conducted them to Perinthus, and encamped under the walls of the town, refusing, in his way through Selymbria, a second proposition from Seuthes to engage the services of the army.

While Xenophon was exerting himself to procure transports for the passage of the army at Perinthus, Aristarchus the new harmost arrived there with two triremes from Byzantium. It seems that not only Byzantium, but also both Perinthus and Selymbria, were comprised in his government as harmost. On first reaching Byzantium to supersede Kleander, he found there no less than 400 of the Cyreians, chiefly sick and wounded; whom Kleander, in spite of Anaxibius, had not only refused to sell into slavery, but had billeted upon the citizens, and tended with solicitude, so much did his good feeling towards Xenophon and towards the army now come into play. We read with indignation that Aristarchus, immediately on reaching Byzantium to supersede him, was not even contented with sending these 400 men out of the town, but seized them—Greeks, citizens, and soldiers as they were—and sold them all into slavery.1 Apprised of the movements of Xenophon with the army, he now came to Perinthus to prevent their transit into Asia, laying an embargo on the transports in the harbour, and presenting himself personally before the assembled army to prohibit the soldiers from crossing. When Xenophon informed him that Anaxibius had given them orders to cross, and had sent him expressly to conduct them, Aristarchus replied, “Anaxibius is no longer in functions as admiral, and I am harmost in this town. If I catch any of you at sea, I will sink you.” On the next day he sent to invite the generals and the captains (lochages) to a conference within the walls. They were just about to enter the gates, when Xenophon, who was among them, received a private warning, that if he went in Aristarchus would seize him, and either put him to death or send him prisoner to Pharnabazus. Accordingly Xenophon sent forward the others, and remained himself with the army, alleging the obligation of sacrificing. The behaviour of Aristarchus—who, when he saw the others without Xenophon, sent them away, and desired that they would all come again in the afternoon—confirmed the justice of his suspicions as to the imminent danger from which he had been pre­served by this accidental warning. It need hardly be added that Xenophon disregarded the second invitation no less than the first; moreover a third invitation, which Aristarchus afterwards sent, was disregarded by all.

We have here a Lacedaemonian harmost, not scrupling to lay a snare of treachery as flagrant as that which Tissaphemes had practised on the banks of the Zab to entrap Klearchus and his colleagues; and that, too, against a Greek, and an officer of the highest station and merit, who had just saved Byzantium from pillage, and was now actually in execution of orders received from the Laceda­monian admiral Anaxibius. Assuredly, had the accidental warning been withheld, Xenophon would not have escaped falling into this snare; nor could we reasonably have charged him with imprudence, so fully was he entitled to count upon straightforward conduct under the circumstances. But the same cannot be said of Klearchus, who manifested lamentable credulity, nefarious as was the fraud to which he fell a victim.

At the second interview with the other officers, Aristarchus, while he forbade the army to cross the water, directed them to force their way by land through the Thracians who occupied the Holy Mountain, and thus to arrive at the Chersonese, where (he said) they should receive pay. Neon the Lacedaemonian, with about 800 hoplites who adhered to his separate command, advocated this plan as the best. To be set against it, however, there was the proposition of Seuthes to take the army into pay; which Xenophon was inclined to prefer, uneasy at the thoughts of being cooped up in the narrow peninsula of the Chersonese, under the absolute command of the Lacedaemonian harmost, with great uncertainty both as to pay and as to provisions. Moreover, it was imperiously necessary for these disappointed troops to make some immediate movement, for they had been brought to the gates of Perinthus in hopes of passing immediately on shipboard : it was midwinter; they were encamped in the open field, under the severe cold of Thrace ; they had neither assured supplies, nor even money to purchase, if a market had been near. Xenophon, who had brought them to the neighbourhood of Perinthus, was now again responsible for extricating them from this untenable situation, and began to offer sacrifices, according to his wont, to ascertain whether the gods would encourage him to recommend a covenant with Seuthes. The sacrifices were so favourable, that he himself, together with a confidential officer from each of the generals, went by night and paid a visit to Seuthes, for the purpose of understanding distinctly his offers and purposes.

Maesades, the father of Seuthes, had been apparently a dependent prince under the great monarchy of the Odrysian Thracians, so formidable in the early years of the Peloponnesian war. But intestine commotions had robbed him of his principality over three Thracian tribes, which it was now the ambition of Seuthes to recover, by the aid of the Cyreian army. He offered to each soldier one stater of Cyzicus (about 20 Attic drachmae, or nearly the same as that which they originally received from Cyrus) as pay per month, twice as much to each lochage or captain, four times as much to each of the generals. In case they should incur the enmity of the Lacedaemonians by joining him, he guaranteed to them all the right of settlement and fraternal protection in his territory. To each of the generals, over and above pay, he engaged to assign a fort on the sea-coast, with a lot of land around it, and oxen for cultivation. And to Xenophon, in particular, he offered the possession of Bisanthe, his best point on the coast. “I will also (he added, addressing Xenophon) give you my daughter in marriage ; and if you have any daughter, I will buy her from you in marriage, according to the custom of Thrace. Seuthes further engaged never on any occasion to lead them more than seven days’ journey from the sea at farthest.

These offers were as liberal as the army could possibly expect; and Xenophon himself, mistrusting the Lacedaemonians as well as mistrusted by them, seems to have looked forward to the acquisition of a Thracian coast-fortress and territory (such as Miltiades, Alcibiades, and other Athenian leaders had obtained before him) as a valuable refuge in case of need. But even if the promise had been less favourable, the Cyreians had no alternative; for they had not even present supplies, still less any means of subsistence throughout the winter; while departure by sea was rendered impossible by the Lacedaemonians. On the next day, Seuthes was introduced by Xenophon and the other generals to the army, who accepted his offers and concluded the bargain.

They remained for two months in his service, engaged in warfare against various Thracian tribes, whom they enabled him to conquer and despoil; so that, at the end of that period, he was in possession of an extensive dominion, a large native force, and a considerable tribute. Though the suffering from cold was extreme during these two months of full winter, and amidst the snowy mountains of Thrace, the army were nevertheless enabled by their expeditions along with Seuthes to procure plentiful subsistence, which they could hardly have done in any other manner. But the pay which he had offered was never liquidated; at least, in requital of their two months of service, they received pay only for twenty days and a little more. And Xenophon himself, far from obtaining fulfilment of those splendid promises which Seuthes had made to him personally, seems not even to have received his pay as one of the generals. For him the result was singularly unhappy, since he forfeited the good­will of Seuthes by importunate demand and complaint for the purpose of obtaining the pay due to the soldiers; while they on their side, imputing to his connivance the non-fulfilment of the promise, became thus in part alienated from him. Much of this mischief was brought about by the treacherous intrigues and calumny of a corrupt Greek from Maroneia, named Herakleides, who acted as minister and treasurer to Seuthes.

Want of space compels me to omit the narrative given by Xenophon, both of the relations of the army with Seuthes, and of the warfare carried on against the suspect the hostile Thracian tribes—interesting as it is from the juxtaposition of Greek and Thracian manners. It seems to have been composed by Xenophon under feelings of acute personal disappointment, and probably in refutation of calumnies against himself as if he had wronged the army. Hence we may trace in it a tone of exaggerated querulousness and complaint that the soldiers were ungrateful to him. It is true that a portion of the army, under the belief that he had been richly rewarded by Seuthes. while they had not obtained their stipulated pay, expressed virulent sentiments and falsehoods against him. Until such suspicions were refuted, it is no wonder that the army were alienated; but they were perfectly willing to hear both sides, and Xenophon triumphantly disproved the accusation. That in the end their feelings towards him were those of esteem and favour stands confessed in his own words, proving that the ingratitude of which he complains was the feeling of some indeed, but not of all.

It is hard to say, however, what would have been the fate of this gallant army, when Seuthes, having obtained from their arms in two months all that he desired, had become only anxious to send them off without pay, had they not been extricated by a change of interest and policy on the part of all-powerful Sparta. The Lacedaemonians had just declared war against disappearance and Pharnabazus, sending Thimbron into Asia to commence military operations. They then became extremely anxious to transport the satraps. Cyreians across to Asia, which their harmost Aristarchus had hitherto prohibited, and to take them into permanent pay; for which purpose two Lacedaemonians, Charminus and Polynikus, were commissioned by Thimbron to offer to the army the same pay as had been promised, though not paid, by Seuthes, and as had been originally paid by Cyrus. Seuthes and Herakleides, eager to hasten the departure of the soldiers, endeavoured to take credit with the Lacedaemonians for assisting their views. Joyfully did the army accept this offer, though complaining loudly of the fraud practised upon them by Seuthes, which Charminus, at the instance of Xenophon, vainly pressed the Thracian prince to redress. He even sent Xenophon to demand the arrear of pay in the name of the Lacedaemonians, which afforded to the Athenian an opportunity of administering a severe lecture to Seuthes. But the latter was not found so accessible to the workings of eloquence as the Cyreian assembled soldiers. Nor did Xenophon obtain anything beyond a miserable dividend upon the sum due, together with civil expressions towards himself personally, an invitation to remain in his service with 1000 hoplites, instead of going to Asia with the army, and renewed promises, not likely now to find much credit, of a fort and a grant of lands.

When the army, now reduced by losses and dispersions to 6000 men, was prepared to cross into Asia, Xenophon desirous of going back to Athens, but was persuaded to remain with them until the junction with Thimbron.  He was at this time so poor, having scarcely enough to pay for his journey home, that he was obliged to sell his horse at Lampsakus, the Asiatic town were the army landed. Here he found Eukleides, a Phliasian prophet with whom he had been wont to hold intercourse and offer sacrifice at Athens. This man, having asked Xenophon how much he had acquired in the expedition, could not believe him when he affirmed his poverty. But when they proceeded to offer sacrifice together, from some animals sent by the Lampsakenes as a present to Xenophon, Eukleides had no sooner inspected the entrails of the victims, than he told Xenophon that he fully credited the statement. “ I see (he said) that even if money shall be ever on its way to come to you, you yourself will be a hindrance to it, even if there be no other (here Xenophon acquiesced): Zeus Meilichios (the Gracious) is the real bar. Have you ever sacrificed to him, with entire burnt offerings, as we used to do together at Athens?” “Never (replied Xenophon), throughout the whole march.” “Do so now, then (said Eukleides), and it will be for your advantage.” The next day, on reaching Ophrynium, Xenophon obeyed the injunction, sacrificing little pigs entire to Zeus Meilichios, as was the custom at Athens during the public festival called Diasia. And on the very same day he felt the beneficial effects of the proceeding; for Biton and another envoy came from the Lacedaemonians with an advance of pay to the army, and with dispositions so favourable to himself, that they bought back for him his horse, which he had just sold at Lampsakus for fifty darics. This was equivalent to giving him more than one year’s pay in hand (the pay which he would have received as general being four darics per month, or four times that of the soldier), at a time when he was known to be on the point of departure, and therefore would not stay to earn it. The shortcomings of Seuthes were now made up with immense interest, so that Xenophon became better off than any man in the army; though he himself slurs over the magnitude of the present, by representing it as a delicate compliment to restore to him a favourite horse.

Thus gratefully and instantaneously did Zeus the Gracious respond to the sacrifice which Xenophon, after a long omission, had been admonished by Eukleides to offer. And doubtless Xenophon was more than ever confirmed in the belief, which manifests itself throughout all his writings, that sacrifice not only indicates, by the interior aspect of the immolated victims, the tenor of coming events, but also, according as it is rendered to the right god and at the right season, determines his will, and therefore the course of events, for dispensations favourable or unfavourable.

But the favours of Zeus the Gracious, though begun, were not yet ended. Xenophon conducted the army through the Troad. and across Mount Ida, to Antandrus; from thence along the coast of Lydia, through the plain of Thebe and the town of Adramyttium, leaving Atarneus on the right hand, to Pergamus in Mysia—a hill town overhanging the river and plain of Kaikus. This district was occupied by the descendants of the Eretrian Gongylus, who, having been banished from embracing the cause of the Persians when Xerxes invaded Greece, had been rewarded (like the Spartan king Demaratus) with this sort of principality under the Persian empire. His descendant, another Gongylus, now occupied Pergamus, with his wife Hellas and his sons Gorgion and Gongylus. Xenophon was here received with great hospitality. Hellas acquainted him that a powerful Persian, named Asidates, was now dwelling, with his wife, family, and property, in a tower not far off on the plain, and that a sudden night march, with 300 men, would suffice for the capture of this valuable booty, to which her own cousin should guide him. Accordingly, having sacrificed and ascertained that the victims were favourable, Xenophon communicated his plan after the evening meal to those captains who had been most attached to him throughout the expedition, wishing to make them partners in the profit. As soon as it became known, many volunteers, to the number of 600, pressed to be allowed to join. But the captains repelled them, declining to take more than 300, in order that the booty might afford an ampler dividend to each partner.

Beginning their march in the evening, Xenophon and his detachment of 300 reached about midnight the tower of Asidates. It was large, lofty, thickly built, and contained a considerable garrison. It served for protection to his cattle and cultivating slaves around, like a baronial castle in the Middle Ages; but the assailants neglected this outlying plunder, in order to be more sure of taking the castle itself. Its walls, however, were found much stronger than was expected; and although a breach was made by force about daybreak, yet so vigorous was the defence of the garrison, that no entrance could be effected. Signals and shouts of every kind were made by Asidates to procure aid from the Persian forces in the neighbourhood, numbers of whom soon began to arrive, so that Xenophon and his company were obliged to retreat. And their retreat was at last only accomplished, after severe suffering and wounds to nearly half of them, through the aid of Gongylus with his forces from Pergamus, and of Prokles (the descendant of Denial at us) from Halisarna, a little farther off seaward.

Though his first enterprise thus miscarried, Xenophon soon laid plans for a second, employing the whole army, and succeeded in bringing Asidates prisoner to Pergaums, with his wife, children, horses, and all his personal property. Thus (says he, anxious above all things for the credit of sacrificial prophecy) the “previous sacrifices (those which had promised favourably before the first unsuccessful attempt) now came true”. The persons of this family were doubtless redeemed by their Persian friends for a large ransom, which, together with the booty brought in, made up a prodigious total to be divided.

In making the division, a general tribute of sympathy and admiration was paid to Xenophon, in which all the army—generals, captains, and soldiers—and the Lacedaemonians besides, unanimously concurred. Like Agamemnon at Troy, he was allowed to select for himself the picked lots of horses, mules, oxen, and other items of booty; insomuch that he became possessor of a share valuable enough to enrich him at once, in addition to the fifty darics which he had before received. “Here then Xenophon (to use his own language) had no reason to complain of the god” (Zeus Meilichios). We may add—what he himself ought to have added, considering the accusations which he had before put forth— that neither had he any reason to complain of the ingratitude of the army.

As soon as Thimbron arrived with his own forces, and the Cyreians became a part of his army, Xenophon took his leave of them. Having deposited in the temple at Ephesus that portion which had been confided to him as general, of the tithe set apart by the army at Kerasus for the Ephesian Artemis, he seems to have executed his intention of returning to Athens. He must have arrived there, after an absence of about two years and a half, within a few weeks at furthest, after the death of his friend and preceptor Sokrates, whose trial and condemnation have been recorded in my last volume. That melancholy event certainly occurred during his absence from Athens; but whether it had come to his knowledge before he reached the city, we do not know. How much grief and indignation it excited in his mind, we may see by his collection of memoranda respecting the life and conversations of Sokrates, known by the name of Memorabilia, and probably put together shortly after his arrival.

That he was again in Asia, three years afterwards, on military service, under the Lacedaemonian king Agesilaus, is a fact attested by himself; but at what precise moment he quitted Athens for his second visit to Asia we are left to conjecture. I incline to believe that he did not remain many months at home, but that he went out again in the next spring to rejoin the Cyreians in Asia, became again their commander, and served for two years under the Spartan general Derbyllidas, before the arrival of Agesilaus. Such military service would doubtless be very much to his taste; while a residence at Athens, then subject and quiescent, would probably be distasteful to him, both from the habits of command which he had contracted during the previous two years, and from feelings arising out of the death of Sokrates. After a certain interval of repose, he would be disposed to enter again upon the war aga in at his old enemy, Tissaphernes; and his service went on when Agesilaus arrived to take the command.

But during the two years after this latter event, Athens became a party to the war against Sparta, and entered into conjunction with the king of Persia, as well as with the Thebans and others; while Xenophon, continuing his service as commander of the Cyreians, and accompanying Agesilaus from Asia back into Greece, became engaged against the Athenian troops and their Boeotian allies at the bloody battle of Koroneia. Under these circumstances, we cannot wonder that the Athenians passed sentence of banishment against him—not because he had originally taken part in aid of Cyrus against Artaxerxes, nor because his political sentiments were unfriendly to democracy, as has been sometimes erroneously affirmed, but because he was now openly in arms and in conspicuous command against his own country.  Having thus become an exile, Xenophon was allowed by the Lacedaemonians to settle at Skillus, one of the villages of Triphylia, near Olympia, in Peloponnesus, which they had recently emancipated from the Eleians. At one of the ensuing Olympic festivals, Megabyzus, the superintendent of the temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, came over as a spectator, bringing with him the money which Xenophon had dedicated therein to the Ephesian Artemis. This money Xenophon invested in the purchase of lands at Skillus, to be consecrated in permanence to the goddess, having previously consulted her by sacrifice to ascertain her approval of the site contemplated, which site was recommended to him by its resemblance in certain points to that of the Ephesian temple. Thus, there was near each of them a river called by the same name—Selmfts—having in it fish and a shelly bottom. Xenophon constructed a chapel, an altar, and a statue of the goddess made of cypress-wood : all exact copies, on a reduced scale, of the temple and golden statue at Ephesus. A column placed near them was inscribed with the following words: “This spot is sacred to Artemis. Whoever possesses the property and gathers its fruits must sacrifice to her the tithe every year, and keep the chapel in repair out of the remainder. Should any one omit this duty, the goddess herself will take the omission in hand.”

Immediately near the chapel was an orchard of every description of fruit-trees, while the estate around comprised an extensive range of meadow, woodland, and mountain, with the still loftier mountain called Pholoe adjoining. There was thus abundant pasture for horses, oxen, sheep, &c,, and excellent hunting-ground near for deer and other game—advantages not to be found near the Artemision at Ephesus. Residing hard by on his own property, allotted to him by the Lacedaemonians, Xenophon superintended this estate as steward for the goddess— looking, perhaps, to the sanctity of her name for protection from disturbance by the Eleians, who viewed with a jealous eye the Lacedaemonian settlers at Skillus, and protested against the peace and convention promoted by Athens after the battle of Leuktra, because it recognized that place, along with the town­ships of Triphylia, as autonomous. Every year he made a splendid sacrifice from the tithe of all the fruits of the property, to which solemnity not only all the Skilluntines, but also all the neighbouring villages, were invited. Booths were erected for the visitors, to whom the goddess furnished (this is the language of Xenophon) an ample dinner of barley-meal, wheaten loaves, meat, game, and sweetmeats, the game being provided by a general hunt, which the sons of Xenophon conducted, and in which all the neighbours took part if they chose. The produce of the estate, saving this tithe, and subject to the obligation of keeping the holy building in repair, was enjoyed by Xenophon himself. He had a keen relish for both hunting and horseman­ship, and was among the first authors, so far as we know, who ever made these pursuits, with the management of horses and dogs, the subject of rational study and description.

Such was the use to which Xenophon applied the tithe voted by the army at Kerasus to the Ephesian Artemis; the other tithe, voted at the same time to Apollo, he dedicated at Delphi in the treasure-chamber of the Athenians, inscribing upon the offering his own name and that of Proxenus. His residence being only at a distance of twenty stadia from the great temple of Olympia, he was enabled to enjoy society with every variety of Greeks, and to obtain copious information about Grecian politics, chiefly from philo-Laconian informants, and with the Lacedaemonian point of view predominant in his own mind, while he had also leisure for the composition of his various works. The interesting description which he himself gives of his residence at Skillus implies a state of things not present and continuing, but past and gone ; other testimonies, too, though confused and contradictory, seem to show that the Lacedaemonian settlement at Skillu lasted no longer than the power of Lacedaemon was adequate to maintain it. During the misfortunes which befell that city after the battle of Leuktra (371 B.C.), Xenophon, with his family and his fellow­settlers, was expelled by the Eleians, and is then said to have found shelter at Corinth. But as Athens soon came to be not only at peace, but in intimate alliance, with Sparta, the sentence of banishment against Xenophon was revoked, so that the latter part of his life was again passed in the enjoyment of his birthright as an Athenian citizen and Knight. Two of his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, fought among the Athenian horsemen at the cavalry combat which preceded the battle of Mantineia, where the former was slain, after manifesting distinguished bravery; while his grandson, Xenophon, became, in the next generation, the subject of a pleading before the Athenian Dikastery, composed by the orator, Demarchus.

On bringing this accomplished and eminent leader to the close of that arduous retreat which he had conducted with so much honour, I have thought it necessary to anticipate a little on the future in order to take a glance at his subsequent destiny. To his exile (in this point view not less useful than that of Thucydides) we probably owe many of those compositions from which so much of our knowledge of Grecian affairs is derived. But to the contemporary world, the retreat which Xenophon so successfully conducted afforded a far more impressive lesson than any of his literary compositions. It taught in the most striking manner the impotence of the Persian land, force, manifested not less in the generals than in the soldiers. It proved that the Persian leaders were unfit for any systematic operations, even under the greatest possible advantages, against a small number of disciplined warriors resolutely bent on resistance; that they were too stupid and reckless even to obstruct the passage of rivers, or destroy roads, or cut off supplies. It more than confirmed the contemptuous language applied to them by Cyrus himself, before the battle of Cunaxa, when he proclaimed that he envied the Greeks their freedom, and that he was ashamed of the worthlessness of his own countrymen. Against such perfect weakness and disorganization, nothing prevented the success of the Greeks along with Cyrus, except his own paroxysm of fraternal antipathy. And we shall perceive hereafter the military and political leaders of Greece—Agesilaus, Jason of Pherae, and others, down to Philip and Alexander—firmly persuaded that with a tolerably numerous and well-appointed Grecian force, combined with exemption from Grecian enemies, they could succeed in overthrowing or dismembering the Persian empire. This conviction, so important in the subsequent history of Greece, takes its date from the retreat of the Ten Thousand. We shall indeed find Persia exercising an important influence, for two generations to come—and at the peace of Antalcidas an influence stronger than ever—over the destinies of Greece. But this will be seen to arise from the treason of Sparta, the chief of the Hellenic world, who abandons the Asiatic Greeks, and even arms herself with the name and the force of Persia, for purposes of aggrandizement and dominion to herself. Persia is strong by being enabled to employ Hellenic strength against the Hellenic cause; by lending money or a fleet to one side of the Grecian intestine parties, and thus becoming artificially strengthened against both. But the Xenophontic Anabasis betrays her real weakness against any vigorous attack; while it at the same time 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. The importance of this expedition and retreat, as an illustration of the Hellenic qualities and excellence, will justify the large space which has been devoted to it in this History.