Chapter 12

Sec. 22. Xenophon takes leave of the army. Conclusion.

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[116] that portion which had been confided to him as general, of the tenth 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 farthest, after the death of his friend and preceptor Sokrates,[117] 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 Derkyllidas 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 against 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;[118] 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,[119] 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 Selinus, 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 tenth 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, and also excellent hunting-ground near, for deer and other game; advantages not to be found near the Artemision[120] 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 Lacedaemonians 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 having the right of self-government. Every year he made a splendid sacrifice, from the tenth of all the fruits of the property; to which solemnity not only all the Skilluntines, but also all the neighboring 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 neighbors took part if they chose. The produce of the estate, saving this tithe or tenth 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 a little more than two miles from the great temple of Olympia,[121] 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 Skillus 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 fellow-settlers, 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.[122] 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 court of justice, composed by the orator Deinarchus.

On bringing this accomplished and eminent leader to the close of that arduous retreat which he had conducted with so much honor, 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 of 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 Kunaxa; 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[123]--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 Antalkidas 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 or the other of the Grecian parties, and thus becoming artificially strengthened against both. But the Xenophontic Anabasis[124] 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] =Kunaxa=: see Introduction.

[3] =Heralds=: officers who proclaimed war or peace, challenged to battle, and were bearers of messages from the commander-in-chief or king; here, messengers.

[4] =Sacrifice=: it was the custom of the Greeks to examine the entrails of the animals they sacrificed, in order that from their appearance they might learn the will of the gods; and next, that they might gain a knowledge of coming events.

In all important undertakings these signs were carefully consulted, before any decisive action was taken.

[5] =Hellenic=: pertaining to the Hellenes, or Greeks; Grecian.

[6] =Array=: disposition of forces with reference to defence or attack.

[7] =Herald=: here used apparently in the sense of a public crier.

[8] This seems to have been a standing military jest, to make the soldiers laugh at their past panic.

[9] =Talent=: about 57 pounds avoirdupois; or, taking silver at its present value, about $1250.

[10] =Phalanx=: a body of troops in compact array, with their shields joined and their pikes or spears crossing each other, so as to present a firm, unbroken front to the foe.

[11] =Irrigation=: during the long dry summer the crops in this region would have perished from drought if the fields had not been watered. This was done by a system of canals, in which the supply of water, drawn from the overflow of the Tigris and Euphrates during the spring floods, was stored up to be used when needed. So abundant was the growth of grain on this rich soil that Herodotus did not dare state the amount for fear that he would be thought guilty of exaggeration.

[12] =Corn=: any kind of grain used for food.

[13] =Satrap=: the governor of a Persian province.

[14] =Cyreian Greeks=: those Greeks who had engaged in the expedition of Cyrus in his attempt to seize the throne of Persia. See Introduction.

[15] =Covenant=: a solemn agreement or treaty which both parties bound themselves to keep by oath, calling on their respective gods to punish them if they violated the compact.

[16] =Convention=: treaty or agreement.

[17] See note on p. 38.

[18] =Tribute=: this was an annual tax so heavy and so cruelly extorted that it kept the great body of the people in a state little better than that of slavery.

[19] =Cyreian Persians=: those Persians who had espoused the cause of Cyrus in his attempt to seize the throne.

[20] =Amnesty=: pardon.

[21] =Strike our tents=: take down our tents.

[22] =Barbarians=: the Greeks called all foreigners "barbarians." This word, however, did not generally express contempt, or necessarily imply lack of civilization, but was used to designate those who spoke another language than Greek.

[23] =Ionia=: see note on p. 21.

[24] =Wall of Media=: a wall supposed to have extended from the Euphrates to the Tigris. It cannot now be traced with certainty.

[25] =Bitumen=: mineral pitch or asphalt. It is now much used for cement, for making pavements, and for covering flat roofs.

[26] =Pontoons=: light framework or floats on which a platform or roadway is laid for a temporary bridge. Boats or canoes, placed side by side, and covered with planks, are not infrequently so used.

[27] =Inflated skins=: bags or vessels made of the skins of sheep and other animals. They are quite commonly used in the East for carrying wine and other liquids. When inflated they are also employed as above mentioned.

[28] =Mysians and Pisidians=: see note on p. 35.

[29] =Ionia=: the central part of the western coast of Asia Minor. Here, at a very early period, flourishing Greek colonies were planted, and Ionia became celebrated for its art, its literature, and its cities, such as Ephesus and Miletus. But the country could not maintain its independence against the Eastern kings, and was at this period tributary to Persia. If the Ten Thousand could reach Ionia they would be among fellow-countrymen and friends, and within easy sail of all parts of Greece.

[30] =Tiara=: a flexible cap worn by the Persians. The king alone had the right to wear it erect and high, as a badge of royal authority. Some suppose that when Tissaphernes says that though he cannot openly place the high tiara on his head, but shall wear it on his heart (feeling like a king if not looking like one), that he purposely uses the language "the better to blind Klearchus," and make him think that if the Greeks will aid him with their arms, he will revolt and aspire to become king in fact.

[31] =Philhellenic=: Greek-loving.

[32] =Miletus=: a city of Ionia, subject in a measure to Athens, revolted in 412 B.C. The next year the Lacedaemonians, or Spartans, who were the enemies of Athens, sent over a fleet to aid the people of Miletus. Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, desiring to see the power of Athens completely overthrown, promised to pay the Spartan soldiers (of whom Klearchus was one), but afterwards made up his mind not to do so, and left them to fight at their own expense.

[33] =Arcadian=: an inhabitant of Arcadia, a district of the Peloponnesian peninsula, Greece.

[34] =Democrat and philosopher=: Xenophon (431?-355 B.C.) belonged to that party in Athens that maintained the principle of government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," in opposition to the party that, like the Spartans, believed that all political power should be monopolized by a favored few. Xenophon was also the disciple and friend of Socrates the philosopher, of whom some account will be given later on.

[35] =Oneirus=: the god of dreams and messenger of Zeus (Jupiter), father of gods and men, sometimes called Zeus the Preserver, Saviour, or Deliverer.

[36] =Zeus=: see note above on Oneirus.

[37] =Boeotian dialect=: the inhabitants of the Greek province of Boeotia were considered by the Athenians to be a dull and unprogressive people. They spoke a broad, coarse dialect.

[38] =Cashier=: to dismiss from service.

[39] =Ears bored=: this was an Eastern (Lydian) custom, which the Greeks despised as only befitting slaves, since with them it was a mark of servitude. Agasias intimates that Apollonides either had been a slave or at least ought to be one.

[40] =Kilikia= (also spelled Cilicia): Asia Minor.

[41] =Sneeze=: any sudden, involuntary outburst, like sneezing, was considered a sign of the divine will for good or evil. As it occurred here just as Xenophon pronounced the auspicious word "preservation," it was regarded as a favorable omen sent by Zeus himself. The accustomed invocation was like the old English custom of crying "God bless you" when one sneezed.

[42] =Paean=: war-song, song of triumph; originally addressed to the god Apollo.

[43] =Mysians and Pisidians=: rude tribes inhabiting mountainous districts of Asia Minor, and maintaining their independence in spite of the efforts of the Persian kings to subjugate them.

[44] =Lotos-eaters=: the lotos is a date-like fruit, fabled by Homer in the "Odyssey" to be so delicious and possessed of such marvellous properties that those who once tasted it forgot home and friends and wished only to remain where they might continue to eat it forever. See "Odyssey," Book IX., and compare Tennyson's poem of the "Lotos-Eaters."

[45] =Achaeans=: inhabitants of Achaia, in the Peloponnesian peninsula.

[46] =Peloponnesians=: inhabitants of the Greek peninsula of the Peloponnesus (or so-called Island of Pelops), now known as the Morea. They were considered the best soldiers in Greece. Sparta, the rival and enemy of Athens, was the ruling city of this district.

[47] =Athenian catastrophe=: in 415 B.C. the Athenians sent out a powerful expedition to conquer Syracuse in Sicily. They met with a disastrous defeat, both by land and sea, many thousands being taken captive and sold as slaves. Alkibiades, an Athenian who had taken refuge in Sparta, now urged the Spartans to attack Athens, their old rival and enemy. His vehement eloquence was eventually successful.

[48] =Perikles=: leader of the party of the people in Athens, and for a long time governor of the city; he was perhaps the greatest statesman that Greece produced.

[49] =The war=: the Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C. This was a desperate struggle for supremacy between the two chief powers of Greece, Sparta and Athens. The Spartans were a rough, military people, despising all intellectual culture and maintaining a narrow and tyrannical form of government from which the body of the people was wholly excluded. The Athenians, on the contrary, wished to maintain a republic in which all citizens should take part; they represented the highest civilization of Greece, and were in one sense the schoolmasters of the world.

[50] =Sophists=: a class of philosophers or teachers who gave instruction in rhetoric and the art of disputation. They went about from city to city, and, contrary to the general custom of Greek philosophers, took fees from their pupils. "What the Sophists, among other things conducive to success in life, really taught the people, was the art of conducting their own cases before the great citizen-juries, where every man was forced to be his own advocate." [See Myers's "Outlines of Ancient History."]

[51] =Javelin=: a light spear.

[52] =Carbines=: short muskets, or rifles.

[53] =Rhodian=: pertaining to the island of Rhodes, off the southwest coast of Asia Minor.

[54] =Nineveh=: "an exceeding great city" (Jonah iii. 3), larger, says Strabo, than Babylon, having walls with 1500 towers 200 feet high. (Diodorus.)

[55] =Cuirass=: defensive armor, covering the body from the neck to the girdle.

[56] =Sacrificed=: not only to propitiate the gods, but to obtain omens or signs for their future guidance.

[57] =Cubit=: a measure of length; the distance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about eighteen inches.

[58] =Corselet=: armor covering the front of the upper part of the body.

[59] =Reins=: the small of the back, or the kidneys.

[60] =Burial=: the Greeks believed that so long as the corpse remained unburied the spirit would roam about restlessly in the dreary under-world or common abode of departed souls.

[61] =Kretan=: or Cretan (from Crete).

[62] =Augury=: omen or sign.

[63] =Libations=: wine or liquor poured out on the ground or on a victim in honor of the gods.

[64] =Bivouac= (biv-wak'): an encampment without tents or shelter, or one in which the whole army is on guard against surprise; here, the former is probably meant.

[65] =Sesame=: an Eastern plant from whose seeds an oil is obtained, which is used for food and other purposes.

[66] =Boreas=: the god of the north wind.

[67] =Demagogues=: leaders of the people, popular orators. (The word now means those who mislead the people or who pretend to be interested in public affairs and reforms merely to gain their own ends.) In Greece these orators usually addressed assemblies or bodies of citizens who acted as judges.

[68] =Judges= (dicasts): these sometimes, as in the case of the trial of Socrates, numbered five and six hundred persons, who acted as judge and jury combined.

[69] =Greaves=: armor for the front of the lower part of the leg.

[70] =Daric=: a Persian gold coin worth about $5.00.

[71] =Herakles= (Hercules): the exploits of this god in his numerous encounters with wild beasts and robbers led to his worship on perilous journeys.

[72] =The altar=: probably that where they had been sacrificing.

[73] Xenophon.

[74] =Mercenaries=: hired soldiers.

[75] =Milesians=: inhabitants of Miletus, Asia Minor.

[76] =Megarian=: pertaining to Megara, a district of Greece northwest of Athens. It was famous for its commerce.

[77] =Thunny fishery=: the thunny, or tunny, a large fish abundant in the Mediterranean and highly esteemed both for food and for the oil which it yields.

[78] =Thurian=: an inhabitant of Thurii, a city of Lower Italy, founded by a colony from Athens.

[79] =Odysseus=: as Homer in the "Odyssey" represents Odysseus, or Ulysses, to have done.

[80] =Byzantium=: the modern Constantinople.

[81] =Merchant ships=: small, one-masted vessels, not larger than our fishing-smacks.

[82] =Kerasus=: this place is the native home of the cherry, and the origin of its name. The fruit was introduced into Italy from Kerasus about 70 B.C., and thence to England, France, and other countries conquered by the Romans.

[83] =Targeteers=: troops carrying a light target, or shield.

[84] =Turrets= (or small towers): the name of the people--Mosynoeki--means the "tower-dwellers."

[85] =Paphlagonian horse=: meaning the Paphlagonian cavalry.

[86] =Hellas=: Greece.