midnight had already come. At the request of the Eleian Hieronymos, Xenophon again addressed them.

He told his colleagues that if they had behaved as brave men while they were seeking to place Cyrus on the Persian throne, their duty was increased tenfold now that the safety of the whole army was at stake. They must show the Persians not only that they mean to go home, but that they are fully able to carry out their purpose. Time pressed; they must hasten away. To do so with the greatest chance of success they must have as few incumbrances as possible. The waggons and all superfluous baggage must be burnt, so as to leave the largest number of soldiers available for action. The effect of these energetic counsels was seen, when on the arrival of another Persian deputation the heralds were sent away unheard.

The Greeks now crossed the Zab; but they had not advanced far when they were attacked by a force of slingers and mounted bowmen, whose weapons went much further than those of the archers and javelinmen in the army of the Greeks. An attempt to repel them by an attack of hoplites ended in severe loss; but Xenophon took on himself the full discredit of the defeat, and urged the formation of a new force of Rhodian archers and of cavalry who might be supplied with such horses as could be spared from indispensable service as baggage carriers.

When on the following day the attack was renewed, many of the assailants were slain, and the Greeks, to frighten the enemy more thoroughly, hacked and mutilated their bodies. But the march of the Greeks was still perilous and toilsome; nor could anything have brought them safely through, had not Xenophon acquired over them a moral ascendancy, which called forth an obedience highly creditable to men so situated. The real struggle came when, about fifty miles to the north of the Great Zab river, they approached the rocks and defiles which sheltered the fastnesses of the Kardouchian mountaineers. In these fierce hillmen, still known as Kurds, they encountered enemies very different from the Persians whose despot reigned only over the plains. Here there was nothing to save them from destruction but a swiftness of movement which should put them in possession of one commanding height after another before the barbarians could reach them. In each instance the feat was successfully accomplished. Nor was this the only diffi

culty with which they had to contend. The table lands of Armenia stand high up among the mighty chains of mountains which rise into their most tremendous masses between the Euxine and the Caspian seas. These bare regions are exposed to merciless winds and fearful snowstorms; and the Greeks were crossing them in the depth of winter. But in spite of all obstacles they not only held on, but struck hard blows at their enemies. The successful crossing of the Euphrates, not far from its source, was followed by a terrible tempest.

When the storm subsided, the snow was six feet deep. The enemy was close behind them and might fall at any moment on their sick. By a feigned attack Xenophon frightened off the natives in the rear; and in the headman of a village where they found both food and quarters, he obtained a guide whose services were lost to them a week later by the imprudence of Cheirisophos. The Spartan leader had allowed the man to walk unbound, and had struck him for his failure to bring them to fresh villages. The headman naturally ran off during the night, and the Greeks made their way as they could to a stream which they crossed only to find themselves somewhat further on face to face with the tribesmen, who blocked the pass to the plain beyond. Xenophon, however, found means to carry it without a direct encounter; and five more marches brought them to a stronghold in which the Taochoi had gathered their women, their children, and their cattle. The cattle seized in this fastness supplied the army with food till they reached the river Harpasos, after the passage of which four marches brought them to the large and flourishing city of Gymnias. A guide sent to them by the headman of this place undertook to bring them within five days to the sight of the sea. He kept his word, and on the fifth day the mountain called Thêchês rose before them. As the foremost men reached the summit, they saw far away the waters of the Euxine stretching out into the blue distance. The shout of joy with which they greeted the longed-for sight swelled to tumult as others hurried up after them. To Xenophon the din seemed to betoken a sudden onslaught of enemies. Hurriedly mounting his horse, he spurred on with the cavalry. As he approached the summit, he could distinguish the exulting cry, 'The Sea! the Sea!' which seemed to give the assurance that their long toil was already ended. Officers and men threw themselves weep

ing into each others' arins, and as the baggage train came up and all were now in safety, a sudden impulse drove the soldiers to gather stones, and a mighty cairn was raised to mark the spot where the sea greeted the Ten Thousand on their wonderful march from the plains of Babylon.

Even when they had reached the sea, and were fairly sheltered in the Hellenic city of Trapezous (the modern Trebizond), their troubles were not at an end. The feeling of disgust at longcontinued hardships broke out in the passionate exclamation of the Thourian Antileon. 'I am sick of running, drilling, keeping guard and fighting. I will have no more of these worries: what I want is to lay myself down in a ship and be carried to Hellas stretched out in the slumber of Odysseus.' His words were received with shouts of applause: but ships were not forthcoming, and Cheirisophos undertook to go and get them from his friend Anaxibios, the harmost of Byzantion. His departure left to Xenophon the task of regulating the whole army. To all his counsels about the discipline of the camp and the arrangement of foraging expeditions they gave unanimous assent: but when he urged the need of insisting that the inhabitants of the maritime cities should put the roads in good order, his proposal was met by angry and even wrathful murmurs. Time passed on. Their wants were supplied chiefly by inroads into the lands of hostile tribes; but Cheirisophos did not return, and the hated march by land was seen to be inevitable for all who could not be taken into the merchant ships which they had seized. Room could be found in these only for the sick, for the women and children, and the men who might be over forty years of age. These were accordingly embarked, and three days later the fleet and the army reached Kerasous. During the ten days spent here, a review showed that they could still muster 8,600 heavy-armed men, making up with the light-armed troops a total exceeding a myriad. No such Greek force had been seen in the countries bordering on the Black Sea, and no Greek force had performed with so little loss an exploit altogether unparalleled in the history of Hellenic warfare. The fame of this great achievement preceded them from one Hellenic city to another; but admiration for the skill of the leaders and the endurance of the men had a hard struggle with the stronger feelings of suspicion and fear, and the citizens were generally anxious to be rid of guests at once so burdensome and so formidable.

At the city of Kotyora, after a toilsome and perilous journey through the lands of barbarous tribes, the Cyreians ended their land march but not their troubles. Eight months had passed since the prince who had lured them to the great Mesopotamian plain had flung away his life on the field of Kunaxa, and during those months they had worked or fought their way over not less than 2,300 miles. The tidings of their arrival at Kotyora roused at Sinôpê feelings of fear, bordering on dismay, which found vent in angry remonstrances. As spokesman of their envoys, Hekatonymos charged the Cyreian generals with forcing their way into an Hellenic city and plundering its territories, and threatened to bring on them the forces of the Paphlagonian chief Korylas. The Sinopeans had made a false move. 'If the men of Kotyora,' replied Xenophon, 'have suffered any hurt at our hands, it is they who are to blame. They shut their gates against us, and would not admit us to market. We insisted, it is true, that they should receive our sick, and when they refused we forced an entrance for them; but the men so brought in are living at their own charges. As to Korylas, your threats are thrown away. We know that there is nothing which would please him more than to become master of your city and of the sea coast; and we can easily gain his friendship by promising to help him.'

Knowing that there was but too much truth in these words, the colleagues of Hekatonymos hastened to disclaim all complicity in his unfriendly speech. On the following day when the Cyreian generals consulted the Sinopean envoys on the course which they ought to take, Hekatonymos himself apologised for his intemperate threats, and hastened to give his disinterested advice. The land journey, he insisted, was not merely difficult but impossible; but to Sinôpê and thence to Herakleia they could go by sea, and at the latter place they would find no lack of vessels to take them wherever they might choose to go.

When at length the army landed at Sinôpê, they were received with some show of hospitality; but the corn and wine which refreshed their bodies could not make them forget that their purses were empty. Here they were, fast approaching the boundaries of the Hellenic world, and they were no richer than when they had left Sardeis. The mischief of having many masters seemed to be the cause of their poverty; the remedy

therefore lay in giving absolute power to a single general, and their choice fell upon Xenophon. He received the invitation with a natural feeling of pleasure; but his habitual caution warned him that he might pay dearly for this pre-eminence, and he therefore contented himself with telling the Cyreians that as an Athenian he could not presume to take the supreme command over the representatives of the imperial city which had humbled Athens in the dust. In his place the soldiers chose the Spartan Cheirisophos, who had returned, not, as they had hoped, with a fleet, but in a single trireme, charged with specious compliments from the Byzantine harmost Anaxibios.

At Chrysopolis Xenophon in reply to proposals from the Thrakian chief Seuthes answered that he himself meant to leave the army, and that Seuthes might make what agreements he pleased with those who remained behind him. The Cyreians reached Byzantion (400 B.C.) cheered with the hope that their troubles were ended; but they were never more mistaken. The harmost Anaxibios had promised them pay from the moment of their landing: his only anxiety, when they entered the city, was to get them out again with the utmost speed. Xenophon was accordingly charged to summon them to a muster without the walls; and Anaxibios was explaining to the generals the arrangements which he had made for their payment on their reaching the Chersonesos, when by some means or other the soldiers who were without the city learnt how they were to be again cheated. With cries of anger they seized their arms and hurried back to the gate only to see the ponderous doors closed in their faces and hear the bolt shot home. Their threats were seconded effectually by other Cyreians who, not having yet left the city, split the bars with hatchets and let their comrades in. In wild terror Anaxibios ran to the sea and getting into a boat made his escape to the Akropolis, while the indignant soldiers besought Xenophon to avail himself of the golden opportunity. 'Now,' they said, 'you can help us indeed, and we can make you great. You have a city, you have triremes, you have money, you have an army.' With a presence of mind which probably no other of the generals could have maintained, Xenophon, pretending to throw himself into their humour, commanded them to resume at once their strict military array. His order was obeyed, and he then went on to show them the desperate straits to which successful