preserving union and a good understanding among themselves, and obedience to their generals.

From Cerasus they went to Cotyora, which is at no great distance from it. They there deliberated again upon the proper measures for their return. The inhabitants of the country represented the almost insuperable difficulties of going by land, from the defiles and rivers they had to pass, and offered to supply the Greeks with ships. This seemed the best expedient; and the army embarked accordingly. They arrived the next day at Sinope, a city of Paphlagonia, and a colony of the Milesians. Chirisophus repaired thither with galleys, but without money, though the troops expected to receive some. He assured them that the army should be paid, as soon as they were out of the Euxme sea; and that their retreat was universally celebrated, and the subject of the discourse and admiration of all Greece.

The soldiers, finding themselves near enough to Greece, desired to make some booty before they arrived there, and with that view resolved to nominate a general with full authority; whereas, till then, all affairs were determined in the council of war by the plurality of voices. They cast their eyes upon Xenophon, and caused him to be desired to accept that office. He was not insensible of the honour of commanding in chief; but he foresaw the consequences, and desired time to consider. After having expressed the highest sense of gratitude for an offer so much to his honour, he represented, that to avoid jealousy and division, the success of affairs, and the interest of the army, seemed to require that they should choose a Lacedæmonian for their general; and that the Spartan state which at that time actually governed Greece, would, in consideration of that choice, be disposed to support them. This argument did not please them; and they objected to it, that they were far from intending a servile dependence upon Sparta, or to submit to regulate their enter prises by the pleasure or dislike of that state; and pressed him again to accept the command. He was then obliged to explain himself sincerely, and without evasion; and declared, that having consulted the gods by sacrifice, upon the offer they made him, they had manifested their will by evident signs, from which it appeared that they did not approve their choice. It was surprising to see the impression which the sole mention of the gods made upon the soldiers, otherwise very warm and tenacious; and who besides are commonly but little affected with motives of religion. Their great ardour abated immediately; and without making any reply, they proceeded to elect Chirisophus, though a Lacedæmorian, for their general.

His authority was of no long continuance. Discord, as Xenophon had foreseen, arose among the troops, who were angry that their general prevented their plundering the Grecian cities, by which they passed. This disturbance was principally excited by the Peloponnesians, who composed one half of the army, and could not see Xenophon, an Athenian, in authority without pain. Different measures were proposed; but nothing being decided on, the troops divided themselves into three bodies, of which the Achaians and Arcadians, that is, the Peloponnesians, were the principal, amounting to four thousand five hundred heavy armed foot, with Lycon and Callimachus for their generals. Chirisophus commanded another party of about fourteen hundred men, besides seven hundred light armed infantry. Xenophon had the third, almost equal m number, of which three hundred were light armed soldiers, with about forty horse, which were all the cavalry of the army. The first having obtained ships from the people of Heraclea, a city of Pontus, to whom they had sent to demand them, set out before the rest to obtain some booty, and make a descent in the port of Calpe. Chirisophus, who was sick, marched by land; but without quitting the coast, Xenophon landed at Heraclea, and entered into the heart of the country.

New divisions arose. The imprudence of the troops and their leaders had involved them in difficulties, not without loss; from whence the address of Xenophon extricated them more than once. Being all re-united, after va

rious success, they arrived by land at Chrysopolis 'n Caledonia, opposite to Byzantium, whither they repaired some days after, having passed the small arm of the sea which separates the two continents. They were on the point of plundering that rich and powerful city, to revenge a fraud and injury which had been done them, and from the hope of enriching themselves at once; when Xenophon made all possible haste thither. He admitted the justness of their revenge; but he made them sensible of the fatal consequences which would attend it. "After your plundering this city, and destroying the Lacedæmonians established in it, you will be deemed the mortal enemies of their republic, and of all their allies. Athens, my country, that had four hundred galleys at sea and in the arsenals, when it took up arms against them, great sums of money in its treasury, a revenue of a thousand talents, and was in possession of all the isles of Greece, and of many cities in Europe and Asia, of which this was one, has nevertheless been reduced to yield to their power, and submit to their sway. And do you, who are but a handful of men, hope, without generals, provisions, allies, or any resource, either from Tissaphernes, who has betrayed you, or the king of Persia, whom you have attempted to dethrone; can you hope, I say, in such a condition, to make head against the Lacedæmonians? Let us demand satisfaction from the Byzantines, and not avenge their fault by a much greater of our own, which must draw upon us inevitable ruin." He was believed, and the affair accommodated.

From thence he led them to Salmydessa, to serve Seuthes, prince of Thrace, who had before solicited him by his envoys to bring troops to his aid, in order to re-establish him in his father's dominions, of which his enemies had deprived him. He had made Xenophon great promises for himself and his troops; but when they had done him the service he wanted, he was so far from keeping his word, that he did not give them the pay agreed upon. Xenophon reproached him exceedingly with this breach of faith; imputing his perfidy to his minister Heraclides, who thought to make his court to his master, by saving him a sum of money, at the expense of justice, faith and honesty; qualities which ought to be dearer than all others to a prince, as they contribute the most to his reputation, as well as to the success of affairs and the security of a state. But that treacherous minister, who looked upon honour, probity and justice, as mere chimeras, and that there was nothing real but the possession of much money, had no thought beyond that of enriching himself by any means whatever, and first robbed his master with impunity, and then all his subjects. "However," continued Xenophon, "every wise man, especially when in authority and command, ought to regard justice, probity, and the faith of engagements, as the most precious treasure he can possess, and as an assured resource, and an infallible support, in all the events that can happen." Heraclides was the more in the wrong for acting in this manner with regard to the troops, as he was a native of Greece, and not a Thracian; but avarice had extinguished all sense of honour in him.

While the dispute between Seuthes and Xenophon was warmest, Charminus and Polynices arrived, as ambassadors from Lacedæmon, and brought advice, that the republic had declared war against Tissaphernes and Pharnabasus; that Thimbron had already embarked with the troops, and promised a daric per month to every soldier, two to each officer, and four to the colonels, who should engage in the service. Xenophon accepted the offer; and having obtained from Seuthes, by the mediation of the ambassadors, part of the pay due to him, he went by sea to Lampsacus with the army, which amounted at that time to almost six thousand men. From thence he advanced to Pergamus, a city in the province of Troas. Having met near Parthenia, where ended the expedition of the Greeks, a great nobleman returning into Persia, he took him, his wife and children, with all his equipage, and by that means found bimself in a condition to bestow great liberalities among the soldiers, and to

* Xenoph. 1. vii

make them satisfactory amends for all the losses they had sustained. Thimbron at length arrived, who took upon him the command of the troops, and having joined them with his own, marched against Tissaphernes and Pharnabasus.

Such was the event of the expedition of Cyrus.* Xenophon reckons from the first setting out of the army of that prince from the city of Ephesus, to their arrival where the battle was fought, five hundred and thirty parasangas or leagues, and ninety three days march; and in their return from the place of battle to Cotyora, a city upon the coast of the Euxine or Black Sea, six hundred and twenty parasangas or leagues, and a hundred and twenty days march. And adding both together, he says, the way, going and coming, was eleven hundred and fifty-fivet parasangas or leagues, and two hundred and fifteen days march; and that the whole time occupied by the army in performing that journey, including the days of rest, was fifteen months.

It appears by this calculation, that the army of Cyrus marched daily, on an average, almost six parasangas or leagues in going, and only five in their return. It was natural that Cyrus, who desued to surprise his brother, should use all possible diligence for that purpose.

This retreat of the ten thousand Greeks has always been esteemed among judges in the art of war, as I have already observed, a perfect model in its kind, and without a parallel. Indeed no enterprise could be formed with more valour and bravery, conducted with more prudence, nor executed with more success Ten thousand men, five or six hundred leagues from their own country, who had lost their generals and best officers, and find themselves in the heart of the enemy's vast empire, undertake, in the sight of a victorious and numerous army, with their king at the head of them, to retire through the seat of his empire, and in a manner from the gates of his palace; to traverse a vast extent of unknown countries, almost all in arms against them, without being dismayed by the prospect of the innumerable obstacles and dan gers to which they were every moment exposed; passes of rivers, of mountains and defiles; open attacks; secret ambuscades from the people upon their route; famine, almost inevitable in vast and desert regions; and, above a!', the treachery they had to fear from the troops who seemed to be employed in escorting them, but who in reality had orders to destroy them. For, Artaxerxes, who was sensible how greatly the return of those Greeks into their country would disgrace him, and tarnish the glory of the empire in the sight of all nations, bad left nothing undone to prevent it; and he desired their destruction, says Plutarch, more passionately than to conquer Cyrus himself, or to preserve the sovereignty of his estates. Those ten thousand men, however, notwithstanding so many obstacles, carried their point, and arrived, through a thousand dangers, victorious and triumphant, in their own country. Anthony long after, when pursued by the Parthians almost in the same country, finding himself in like danger, cried out in admiration of their invincible valour, "Oh! the retreat of the ten thousand!"¶

It was the success of this famous retreat which filled the people of Greece with contempt for Artaxerxes, by demonstrating to them, that gold, silver, luxury, voluptuousness, and a numerous seraglio of women, were the only merit

Xenoph. de Exped. Cyr. 1. ii. p. 276.

Ibid. 1. iii. p. 355.

I add five, which are left out in the text, to make the total agree with the two parts. Xenoph. de Exped. Cyr. 1. vii. p. 427. The parasanga is a measure peculiar to the Persians, and consists of three stadia. The stadium is equal with the Greek, and contains, according to the most received opinion, one hundred and twenty five geometrical paces; twenty of which in consequence are required to the common French league. And this has been my rule heretofore; according to which the parasanga is a league and a half.

I observe here a great difficulty. In this calculation we find the ordinary days marches of Cyrus, with an army of more than one hundred thousand men, would have been, one day with another, nine leagues, during so long a time, which, according to judges in military affairs, is absolutely impossible. This is what has determined me to compute the parasanga at no more than a league. Several authors have remarked, and indeed it is not to be doubted, that the stadium, and all the other measures of length of the an esents, have differed widely according to times and places, as they still do among us.

Plut. in Anton. p. 937.

of the grand monarch; but, that as to the rest, his opulence and all his boasted power were only pride and vain ostentation. It was this prejudice, more general than ever in Greece, after this celebrated expedition, that gave birth to those bold enterprises of the Greeks, of which we shall soon treat, that made Artaxerxes tremble upon his throne, and brought the Persian empire to the very brink of destruction.

SECTION VII.-CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEATH OF CYRUS,

SATIS. STATIRA POISONED.

CRUELTY OF PARY

I RETURN to what passed after the battle of Cunaxa, in the court of Artaxerxes.* As he believed that he killed Cyrus with his own hand, and looked upon that action as the most glorious of his life, he desired that all the world should think the same; and it was wounding him in the most tender point to dispute that honour, or endeavour to divide it with him. The Carian soldier, whom we mentioned before, not contented with the great presents the king had made him upon a different pretext, perpetually declared to all that would hear him, that none but himself had killed Cyrus, and that the king did him great injustice in depriving him of the glory due to him. The prince, upon being informed of that insolence, conceived a jealousy equally base and cruel, and had the weakness to cause him to be delivered to Parysatis, who had sworn the destruction of all who had any share in the death of her son. Animated by her barbarous revenge, she commanded the executioners to take the unfortunate wretch, and to make him suffer the most exquisite tortures during ten days ; then, after they had torn out his eyes, to pour melted brass into his ears, till he expired in that cruel misery; which was accordingly executed.

Mithridates also, having boasted in an entertainment where he had become heated with wine, that it was he who gave Cyrus his mortal wound, paid very dear for that sottish and imprudent vanity; he was condemned to suffer the punishment of the troughs, one of the most cruel that was ever invented; and after having languished in torment during seventeen days, died at last in ex cruciating misery.

There only remained for the final execution of her project, and fully to satiate her vengeance, the punishment of the king's eunuch, Mesabates, who, by his master's order, had cut off the head and hand of Cyrus. But as there was nothing to take hold of in his conduct, Parysatis laid the following snare for him. She was a woman of great address, had abundance of wit, and excelled in playing at a certain game with dice. After the war, she was reconciled with the king, played often with him, was of all his parties, had an unbounded complaisance for him, and far from contradicting him in any thing, prevented his desires, did not blush at indulging his passions, and even at supplying him with the means of gratifying them. But she took a special care never to lose sight of him, and to leave Statira as little alone with him as she could, de siring to gain an absolute ascendency over her son.

One day seeing the king entirely unemployed, and with no thoughts but of diverting himself, she proposed playing at dice with him for a thousand darics,‡ to which he readily consented. She suffered him to win, and paid down the money. But affecting regret and vexation, she pressed him to begin again, and to play with her for an eunuch. The king, who suspected nothing, complied, and they agreed to except five of the favourite eunuchs on each side, that the winner should take their choice out of the rest, and the loser be bound to deliver him. Having made these conditions, they sat down to play. The queen was all attention to the game, and made use of all her skill and address in it; besides which, the dice favoured her. She won, and chose Mesabates, for he was not one of the excepted. As soon as she got him into her hands, and before the king could have the least suspicion of the revenge she medi

Pat. in Artax. p. 1018-1021.

† See the description of this torture in Page 97 of this volume The daric was worth one dollar eighty seven and a half cents.

tated, she delivered him to the executioners, and commanded them to flea him alive, to lay him afterwards upon three cross bars,* and to stretch his skin at large before his eyes upon two stakes prepared for that purpose, which was performed accordingly. When the king knew this, he was very sorry for it, and violently angry with his mother. But without giving herself any farther trouble about it, she told him with a smile, and in a jesting way, "really you are a great loser, and must be highly in the right, to be so much out of humour for a decrepit wretch of a eunuch, when I, who lost a thousand good darics, and paid them down upon the spot, do not say a word, and am satisfied."

All these cruelties seem to have been only essays and preparations for a greater crime, which Parysatis meditated. She had retained at heart a violent hatred for queen Statira, which she had suffered to escape her upon many occasions. She perceived plainly, that her influence with the king, her son, was only the effect of his respect and consideration for her as his mother; whereas that for Statira was founded in love and confidence, the best security of credit with bim. What is the jealousy of an ambitious woman incapable of? She resolved to rid herself, whatever it might cost her, of so formidable a rival.

For the more certam attainment of her ends, she feigned a reconciliation with her daughter-in-law, and treated her with all the exterior marks of sincere friendship and real confidence. The two queens appearing therefore to have forgot their former suspicions and differences, lived well together, saw one another as before, and eat at each other's apartments. But as both of them knew how much the friendships and caresses of the court were to be relied upon, especially among the wom n, they were neither of them deceived in the other; and the same fears always subsisting, they kept upon their guard, and never eat but of the same dishes and pieces. Could one believe it possible to deceive so attentive and cautious a vigilance? Parysatis one day, when he daughter-in-law was at table with her, took an exquisitely delicious bird, that had been served up, cut it in two parts, gave one half to Statira, and eat the other herself. Statira soon after was seized with sharp pains, and having quitted the table, died in the most dreadful convulsions, not without inspiring the king with the most violent suspicions of his mother, of whose cruelty and implacable and revengeful spirit, ne was sufficiently sensible before. He made the strictest inquiry into the crime. All his mother's officers and domestics were siezed and put to the question; when Gygis, one of the women and confidants of Parysatis, confessed the whole. She had caused one side of a knife to be rubbed with poison; so that Parysatis having cut the bird in two, put the sound part into her own mouth directly, and gave Statira the other that was poisoned. Gygis was put to death after the manner in which the Persians punished poisoners, which was to lay their heads upon a great and very broad stone, and beat upon it with another till they were entirely crushed, and had no remains of their former figure. As for Parysatis, the king contented himself with confining her to Babylon, where she demanded to retire, and told her that he would never set his foot within it while she was there.

CHAPTER III.

THE principal contents of this chapter are, the enterprises of the Lacedæ. monians in Asia Minor, their defeat at Cnidos, the re-establishment of the walls and power of Athens, the famous peace of Antalcides prescribed to the Greeks by Artaxerxes Mnemon, the wars of that prince against Evagoras, king of Cyprus, and the Cadusians. The persons who are most conspicuous in this interval are, Lysander and Agesilaus, on the side of the Lacedæmonians, and Conon on that of the Athenians.

Plutarch explains this circumstance no farther.