who under a different government would have remained unknown, obscure, and useless.

Never did any one know how to confer an obligation with a better grace, or to win the hearts of those who could serve him with more engaging behaviour. As he was fully sensible that he stood in need of the assistance of others for the execution of his designs, he thought justice and gratitude required that he should render his adherents all the services in his power. All the presents made him, whether of splendid arms, or rich apparel, he distributed among his friends, according to their several tastes or occasions, and used to say, that the brightest ornament, and most exalted riches of a prince, consisted in adorning and enriching those who served him well. In fact, says Xenophon, to do good to one's friends, and to excel them in liberality, does not seem so admirable in so high a fortune; but to transcend them in goodness of heart and sentiments of friendship and affection, and to take more pleasure in conferring, than receiving obligations; this is what I find in Cyrus truly worthy of esteem and admiration. The first of these advantages he derives from his rank; the other from himself and his intrinsic merit.

By these extraordinary qualities, he acquired the universal esteem and affection as well of the Greeks, as Barbarians. A great proof of what Xenophon here says, is, that none ever quitted the service of Cyrus for the king's; whereas great numbers went over every day to him from the king's party after the war was declared, and even of such as had most credit at the court; because they were all convinced, that Cyrus knew best how to distinguish and reward their services.

It is most certain that young Cyrus was endowed with great virtues, and a superior merit; but I am surprised, that Xenophon, in drawing his character, has described only the most beautiful features, and such as are calculated to excite our admiration of him, without saying the least word of his defects, and especially of that immoderate ambition, which was the soul of all his actions, and which at length put arms into his hands against his elder brother and king. Is it allowable in a historian, whose chief duty is to paint virtue and vice in their proper colours, to relate at large an enterprise of such a nature, without intimating the least dislike or reprobation of it? But with the Pagans, ambition was so far from being considered as a vice, that it often passed for a virtue.

SECT. IV.

The king wishes to compel the Greeks to deliver up their arms. They resolve to die rather than surrender themselves. A treaty is made with them. Tissaphernes takes upon him to conduct them back to their own country. He treacherously seizes Clearchus and four other generals, who are all put to death.

a The Greeks, having learnt, the day after the battle, that Cyrus was dead, sent deputies to Ariaus, the general of the Barbarians, who had retired with his troops to the place from whence they had marched the day before the action, to offer him, as victors, the crown of Persia, in the room of Cyrus. At the same time arrived Persian heralds at arms from the king, to summon them to deliver up their arms; to whom they answered, with a haughty air, that such messages were not to be sent to conquerors; that if the king would have their arms, he might come and take them; but that they would die before they would part with them; that if he would receive them into the number of his allies, they would serve him with fidelity and valour; but if he imagined to reduce them to slavery as conquered, he might know they had wherewithal to defend themselves, and were determined to lose their lives and liberty together. The heralds added, that they had orders to tell them, that if they continued in the place where they were, they would be allowed a suspension of arms, but if they advanced or retired, that they would be treated as enemies. The Greeks agreed, but were asked by the heralds what answer they should take back. "Peace in continuing here, or war in marching," replied Clearchus, without explaining himself farther; in order to keep the king always in suspense and uncertainty.

The answer of Ariæus to the Grecian deputies was, that there were many Persians more considerable than himself, who would not suffer him upon the throne, and that he should set out early the next day to return into Ionia; that, if they would march thither with him, they might join him in the night. Clearchus, with the advice of the officers, prepared to depart. He commanded from thenceforth, as being the sole person of sufficient capacity; for he had not been actually elected general in chief.

When the night came, Miltocythes the Thracian, who commanded 40 horse, and about 300 foot of his own country,

a Xenoph in Exped. Cyr 1. ii. p 272-292. Diod 1 xiv. p. 255-257 b Sin ut victis servitium indiceretur, esse sibi ferrum et juventutem, et promptum libertati aut ad mortem animum, Tacit. Annal. 1. iv. c. 46.

went and surrendered himself to the king; and the rest of the Greeks began their march under the conduct of Clearchus, and arrived about midnight at the camp of Ariæus. After they had drawn up in battle, the principal officers went to wait on him in his tent, where they swore alliance with him; and the Barbarian engaged to conduct the army without fraud. In confirmation of the treaty, they sacrificed a wolf, a ram, a boar, and a bull. The Greeks dipt their swords, and the Barbarians the points of their javelins, in the blood of the victims.

Ariæus did not think it proper to return by the same route they had come, because, as they had found nothing for their subsistence during the last 17 days of their march, they must have suffered much more, had they taken the same way back again. He therefore took another; exhorting them only to make long marches at first; in order to evade the king's pursuit; but this, however, they could not effect. Towards the evening, when they were not far from some villages where they proposed to halt, the scouts came in with advice, that they had seen several equipages and convoys, which made it reasonable to judge, that the enemy were not far off. Upon which they stood their ground, and waited their coming up; and the next day, before sun-rising, drew up in the same order as in the preceding battle. So bold an appearance terrified the king, who sent heralds, not to demand, as before, the surrender of their arms, but to propose peace and a treaty. Clearchus, who was informed of their arrival, whilst he was busy in drawing up his troops, gave orders to bid them wait, and to tell them, that he was not yet at leisure to hear them. He assumed purposely an air of haughtiness and grandeur, to denote his intrepidity, and at the same time to show the fine appearance and good condition of this phalanx. When he advanced with the most gallant of his officers, expressly chosen for the occasion, and had heard what the heralds had to propose; he made answer, that they must begin with giving battle, because the army, being in want of provisions, had no time to lose. The heralds having carried back this answer to their master, returned shortly after; which showed, that the king, or whoever spoke in his name, was not very distant. They said, they had orders to conduct them to villages, where they would find provisions in abundance, and conducted them thither accordingly.

The army staid there three days, during which, Tissaphernes arrived from the king, with the queen's brother and three other Persian grandees, attended by a great number of officers and domestics. After having saluted the generals, who advanced to receive him, he told them by his interpreter, that being a neighbour of Greece, and seeing them en

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gaged in dangers, out of which it would be difficult to extricate themselves, he had used his good offices with the king, to obtain permission to reconduct them into their own country; being convinced, that neither themselves, nor their cities, would ever be unmindful of that favour: that the king, without having declared himself positively upon that head, had commanded him to come to them, to know for what cause they had taken arms against him; and he advised them to make the king such an answer, as might not give any offence, and might enable him to do them service. "We "call the gods to witness," replied Clearchus, "that we did "not enlist ourselves to make war with the king, or to march against him. Cyrus, concealing his true motives under "different pretexts, brought us almost hither without explaining himself, the better to surprise you. And when we saw him surrounded with dangers, we thought it infamous to abandon him, after the favours we had received "from him. But as he is dead, we are released from our engagement, and neither desire to contest the crown with “Artaxerxes, nor to ravage his country, nor to give him the "least disquiet; provided he does not oppose our return. "However, if we are attacked, we shall endeavour, with the "assistance of the gods, to make a good defence; and shall "not be ungrateful towards those who render us any ser"vice." Tissaphernes replied, that he would let the king know what they said, and return with his answer. But his not coming the next day gave the Greeks some anxiety: he, however, arrived on the third, and told them, that after much controversy he had at length obtained the king's pardon for them: for that it had been represented to the king, that he ought not to suffer people, to return with impunity into their country, who had been so insolent as to come thither to make war upon him. "In fine," said he, "you may now assure yourselves of not finding any obstacle to your return, and of being supplied with provisions, or suffered to buy them; and you shall swear on your part that you will pass without committing any disorders in your march, and "that you will take only what is necessary; provided you 66 are not furnished with it." These conditions were sworn to on both sides. Tissaphernes and the queen's brother gave their hands to the colonels and captains in token of amity. After which Tissaphernes withdrew, to arrange his affairs; promising to return shortly in order to go back with them into his government.

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16

The Greeks waited for him above 20 days, continuing encamped near Ariaus, who received frequent visits from his brothers, and other relations, as did the officers of his army from the Persians of the different party; who assured them

from the king of an entire oblivion of the past; so that the friendship of Ariaus for the Greeks appeared to cool every day more and more. This change gave them some uneasiness. Several of the officers went to Clearchus and the other generals, and said to them, "What do we here any longer? Are we not sensible, that the king desires to see us all perish, that others may be terrified by our example? Perhaps he keeps us waiting here, till he reassembles "his dispersed troops, or sends to sieze the passes in our way; for he will never suffer us to return into Greece to "divulge our own glory and his shame." Clearchus made answer to this discourse, that to depart without consulting the king, was to break with him, and to declare war by violating the treaty; that they should remain without a conductor in a country where nobody would supply them with provisions; that Ariæus would abandon them; and that even their friends would become their enemies; that he did not know, but there might be other rivers to pass, but that, were the Euphrates the only one, they could not get over it, were the passage ever so little disputed. That if it were necessary to come to a battle, they should find themselves without cavalry against an enemy that had a very numerous and excellent body of horse; so that if they gained the victory, they could make no great advantage of it, and if they were overcome, they were utterly and irretrievably lost. "Besides, why should the king, who has so many "other means to destroy us, engage his word only to violate "it, and thereby render himself execrable in the sight of gods and men!"

Tissaphernes however arrived with his troops, in order to return into his government, and they set forward all together under the conduct of that satrap, who supplied them with provisions. Ariaus with his troops encamped with the Barbarians, and the Greeks separately at some distance, which kept up a continual distrust amongst them. Besides which, there happened frequent quarrels for wood or forage, that augmented their aversion for each other. After three day's march, they arrived at the wall of Media, which is 100 feet high, 20 broad, and 20 leagues in extent, all built of bricks cemented with bitumen, like the walls of Babylon, from which it was not very distant at one of its extremities. When they had passed it, they marched eight leagues in two days, and came to the river Tygris, after having crossed two of its canals, cut expressly for watering the country. They then passed the "Tygris upon a bridge of 27 boats

a Twenty parasangas.

a

The march of the Greeks and the rest of the army, from the day after the battle till the passing of the Tygris, abounds in the text of Xenophon with