perior merit; but I am surprized that Xenophon, in drawing his character, has described only the most beautiful features, and such as are proper to excite our admiration of him, without saying the least word of his defects, and especially of that immoderate ambition, that 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 an historian, whose chief duty it 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 imputation against it? But with the Pagans, ambition was so far from being considered as a vice, that it often passed for å virtue.

SECTION IV.

THE KING IS FOR COMPELLING THE GREEKS TO DELIVER UP THEIR ARMS.

THE Greeks having learned, the day after the battle, that Cyrus was dead, sent deputies to Ariæus, 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 they talked a strange language to conquerors; that if the king would have their arms, he might come and take them if he could; 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 into 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, and were asked by the heralds what answer they should report. Peace in continuing here, or war in marching, replied Clearchus, without explaining himself further; from the view of keeping 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.

The same night, Milthocytes, the Thracian, who commanded 40 horse, and about 300 foot of his country, went and surrendered himself to the king. The rest of the Greeks began their march under the conduct of Clearcbus, and arrived about midnight at the camp of Arixus. 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 sa

* Xenoph. in exped. Cyr. l. ii. p. 272-292. Diod. I. xiv. p. 255–257.

+ Sin ut victis servitium indiceretur esse sibi ferrum et juventutem, et prompfum libertati aut ad mortem animum. Tacit. annal. 1. iv. c. 46,

crificed a wolf, a ram, a boar, and a bull; the Greeks dipped 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 came, because having found nothing for their subsistence 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; which 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 his phalanx. When he advanced with the most showy of his officers, expressly chosen for the occasion, and 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 his answer to their master, returned immediately; 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 engaged 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 Clearcbus, "that we did not list ourselves to make war "with the king, or to march against him. Cyrus, concealing his true mo"tives under different pretexts, brought us almost hither without explain"ing himself, the better to surprise you; and when we saw him surround"ed with dangers, we thought it infamous to abandon him, after the fa"vours 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; 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 un"grateful in regard to those who render us any service." Tissaphernes replied, that he would let the king know what they said, and return with But his not coming the next day, gave the Greeks some anx

his answer.

:

iety he however arrived on the third, and told them, that after much controversy, he had at length obtained the king's grace 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, 66 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 may "judge that you are to pass without committing any disorders in your "march, and that you are to take only what is necessary; provided you "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 dispose his affairs; promising to return as soon as they would admit, in order to go back with them into his government.

The Greeks waited for him above 20 days, continuing encamped near Ariæus, who received frequent visits from his brothers and other relations, as did the officers of his ariny 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 Ariæus for the Greeks appeared to cool every day more and more. This change gave them cause of 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? Per"haps he keeps us waiting here till he re-assembles his dispersed troops, " or sends to seize 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, and that though the Euphrates were 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

66

men."

Tissaphernes however arrived with his troops, in order to return to his government, and they set forward altogether under the conduct of that sa

trap, who supplied them with provisions. Ariæus with his troops encamped with the barbarians, and the Greeks separately at some distance, which kept up a continual distrust among them: besides which there happened frequent quarrels for wood or forage, that augmented their aversion for each other. After three days 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, of

*

ter having crossed two of its canals, cut expressly for watering the country. They then passed the Tygris upon a bridge of 27 boats near Sitaeum, a very great and populous city. After four days march, they arrived at another city very powerful also, called Opis. They found there a bastard brother of Artaxerxes with a very considerable body of troops, which he was bringing from Susa and Ecbatana to his aid. He admired the fine order of the Greeks. From thence, having passed the deserts of Media, they came after a march of six days, to a place called the lands of Pary satis; the revenues of which appertained to that princess. Tissaphernes, to insult the memory of her son Cyrus, so dearly beloved by her, gave the villages to be plundered by the Greeks. Continuing their march through the desert, on the side of the Tygris, which they had on their left, they arrived at Cænæ, a very great and rich city, and from thence at the river Zabates.

The occasions of distrust increased every day between the Greeks and barbarians. Clearchus thought it incumbent on him to come to an explanation once for all with Tissaphernes. He began with observing upon the sacred and inviolable nature of the treaties subsisting between them. "Can a man," said he, "conscious of the guilt of perjury, be capable of liv"ing at ease? How would he shun the wrath of the gods, the witnesses of "treaties, and escape their vengeance, whose power is universal ?” He added afterwards many things to prove that the Greeks were obliged by their own interest, to continue faithful to him; and that by renouncing his alliance, they must first inevitably renounce not only all religion, but reason and common sense. Tissaphernes seemed to relish this discourse, and spoke to him with all the appearance of the most perfect sincerity; insinuating at the same time that some persons had done him bad offices with him. "If you will bring your officers hither," said he, "I will show "you those who have wronged you in their representations." He kept him to supper, and professed more friendship for him than ever.

The next day Clearchus proposed in the assembly to go with the several commanders of the troops to Tissaphernes. He suspected Menon in particular, whom he knew to have had a secret conference with the satrap in the presence of Ariæus; besides which they had already differed several times with each other. Some objected that it was not proper that all the generals should go to Tissaphernes, and that it did not consist with prudence to rely implicitly upon the professions of a barbarian. But Clearchus continued to insist upon what he had moved, till it was agreed that the four other commanders, with 20 captains, and about 200 soldiers, under the pretext of buying provisions in the Persian camp, where there was a market, should be sent along with him. When they came to the tent of Tissaphernes, the five commanders, Clearchus, Menon, Proxenes, Agias, and Socrates, were suffered to enter, but the captains remained without at the door. Immediately, on a certain signal before agreed on, those within were seized, and the others put to the sword. Some Persian horse afterwards scoured the country, and killed all the Greeks they met, whether freemen or slaves. Clearchus, with the other generals, was sent to the king, who ordered their heads to be struck off. Xenophon describes with sufficient extent the characters of those officers.

*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 very great obscurities, to explain which fully requires a long dissertation. My plan does not admit me to enter into such discussions, which I must therefore refer to those who are more able than myself.

Clearchus was valiant, bold, intrepid, and of a capacity for forming great enterprises. His courage was not rash, but directed by prudence, and he retained all the coolness of his temper and presence of mind in the midst of the greatest dangers. He loved the troops, and let them want for nothing. He knew how to make them obey him ; but out of fear. His mien was awful and severe; his language rough; his punishments instant and rigorous: he gave way sometimes to passion, but presently came to himself, and always chastised with justice. His great maxim was, that nothing could be done in an army without a severe discipline; and from him came the saying, that a soldier ought to fear his general more than the enemy. His troops * esteemed his valour, and did justice to his merit; but they were afraid of his humour, and did not love to serve under him. In a word, says Xenophon, the soldiers feared him as scholars do a severe pedagogue. We may say of him with Tacitus, that by an excess of severity he made what had otherwise been well done by him, unamiable; "+ Cupidine severitatis in his etiam, quæ rite faceret, acerbus."

Proxenes was at Boeotia. From his infancy he aspired at great things, and was industrious to make himself capable of them. He spared no means for the attainment of instruction, and was the disciple of Gorgias the Leontine, a celebrated rhetorician, who sold his lectures at a very high price. When he found himself capable of commanding, and of doing good to his friends, as well as of being served by them, he entered into Cyrus' service with the view of advancing himself. He did not want ambition, but would take no other path to glory than that of virtue. He had been a perfect captain, had he had to do with none but brave disciplined men, and it had been only necessary to be beloved. He was more apprehensive of being in his soldiers displeasure, than his soldiers in his. thought it sufficient for a commander to praise good actions, without punishing bad ones; for which reason he was beloved by the worthy; but those of different character abused his facility. He died at 30 years of

age.

He

Could the two great persons we have here drawn after Xenophon have been moulded into one, something perfect might have been made of them, retrenching their several defects, and retaining only their virtues; but it rarely happens that the same man. as Tacitus says of Agricola, behaves according to the exigency of times and circumstances, sometimes with gentleness, and sometimes with severity, without lessening his authority by the former, or the people's affection by the latter.

Menon was a Thessalian, avaricious and ambitious, but ambitious only from the motive of avarice, pursuing honour and estimation for the mere lucre of money. He courted the friendship of the great, and of persons in authority, that he might have it in his power to commit injustice and oppression with impunity. To obtain his ends, all means with him were virtue; falsehood, fraud, perjury; whilst sincerity, and integrity of heart, stood in his scheme for weakness and stupidity. He loved nobody; and if he professed friendship, it was only to deceive. As others made their glory consist in religion, probity and honour, he valued himself upon in

* Manebat admiratio viri et fama; sed oderunt. Tacit. Hist. 1. ii. c. 68. Tacit. Annal. c. lxxv.

† Egregium principatus temperamentum, si, demptis utriusque vitiis, solæ virtutes miscerentur. Tacit. histor. 1. ii. c. 5.

Pro variis temporibus ac negotiis severus et comis-nec illi, quod est rarissimum, aut facilitas auctoritatem, aut severitas amorem, diminuit." Tacit. in Agriç. c. ix.