Callias: A Tale of the Fall of Athens Part 20

The banquet could not fail, under such circ.u.mstances, of being a great success. Everyone was in the highest spirits, and when Cyrus, in thanking his guests for their company, said that though Greece and Persia had been enemies in the past they would be firm friends in the future, he was greeted with a burst of tumultuous applause.

The next day the army set out, their last remaining scruples dispelled by an increase of pay.[68] There was still a certain reserve in speaking about the object of the campaign but every one knew that it was directed against the Great King. Two days' march took them to Issi, a town destined to become famous in later days.[69] The difficult pa.s.s of the Cicilian Gate was found unguarded. About a month later the ford of the Euphrates at Thapsacus[70] was reached. Then all disguise was thrown off. Cyrus was marching against his brother, and he would give each man a bonus of a year's pay when he had reached Babylon.

So the long and tedious march went on. The King made no signs of resistance. Line after line of defense was found unguarded. At last, just ten weeks after the army had marched out of Tarsus, a Persian horseman attached to Cyrus' person, came galloping up with the news, which he shouted out in Greek and Persian, "The King is coming with a great army ready for battle."

Something like a panic followed, for the invaders had almost begun to think that they would not have to fight. Cyrus sprang from the carriage in which he had been riding, donned his corslet, and mounted his charger; the Greeks rushed to the wagons in which they had deposited their armor and weapons, and prepared themselves hastily for battle.

By mid-day all was ready. Clearchus was in command of the right wing, which consisted of the heavy-armed Greeks, and rested on the Euphrates the light-armed Greeks, with some Paphlagonian cavalry, stood in the center; on the left were the Persians under Ariaeus, Cyrus' second in command. The extreme left of all was occupied by Cyrus himself with his body guard of six hundred hors.e.m.e.n. All wore cuira.s.ses, cuisses and helmets; but Cyrus, wishing to be easily recognized, rode bareheaded.

It was afternoon before the enemy came in sight. First, a white cloud of dust became visible; then something like a black pall spread far and wide over the plain, with now and then a spear point or bronze helmet gleaming through the darkness. Silently the huge host advanced, its left on the river, its right far overlapping Cyrus' left, so great was its superiority in numbers. "Strike at the center," said the Prince to Clearchus, as he rode along the line, "then our work will be done."

He knew his countrymen; the King himself was in the center. If he should be killed or driven from the field, victory was a.s.sured.

The hostile lines were only two furlongs apart, when the Greeks raised the battle shout, and charged at a quick pace, which soon became a run.

A few minutes afterwards the Persians broke. Their front line, consisting of scythe-armed chariots, for the most part, turned and drove helter skelter through the ranks of their countrymen; the few that charged the advancing foe did, perhaps attempted to do, no harm. The ranks were opened to let them through, and they took no further part in the battle. Anyhow the Greeks won the victory without losing a single man.

Meanwhile the King, posted, as has been said, in the center, seeing no one to oppose him, advanced as if he would take the Greeks on their flank. Cyrus, seeing this, charged with his six hundred, and broke the line in front of the King. The troopers were scattered in the ardor of pursuit, and the Prince was left alone with a handful of men. Even then all might have been well but for the fit of ungovernable rage which seized him. He spied his brother the King in the throng, and, crying out, "There is the man," pressed furiously towards him. One blow he dealt him, piercing his corslet, and making a slight wound. Then one of the King's attendants struck Cyrus with a javelin under the eye. The two brothers closed for a moment in a hand-to-hand struggle. But Cyrus and his followers were hopelessly overmatched. In a few minutes the Prince and eight of his companions were stretched on the ground. One desperate effort was made to save him. Artapates, the closest of his friends, leaped from his horse, and threw his arms around his body. It did but delay the fatal blow for the briefest s.p.a.ce. The next moment Cyrus was dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] From one daric to one daric and a half per month, $5 to $7.50.

[69] For the second of the great victories of Alexander.

[70] Thipsach or "The Pa.s.sage."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE RETREAT.

Seven weeks have pa.s.sed since the catastrophe recorded in my last chapter.[71] Curiously enough the Greeks had returned to their camp after their easily won victory without any suspicion of what had happened on the other side of the battle field. They wondered, indeed, that Cyrus neither came nor sent to congratulate them on their success, but the news of his death which was brought to them next morning by an Ionian Greek, who had been in the service of Cyrus, came upon them like a thunderclap. Then had followed a period of indecision and perplexity.

So long as they had to answer insolent messages from the King or Tissaphernes, bidding them give up their arms and be content with such chance of pardon as they might have, their course was plain. To such demands only one answer was possible. "We will die sooner than give them up," had been the reply which Cleanor the Arcadian, the senior officer, had made. But when the Persians began to treat, when they agreed upon a truce, and even allowed the Greeks to provision themselves, the course to be followed became less plain. Tissaphernes made indeed the most liberal offers. "We will lead you back to Greece," he said, "and find you provisions at a fair price. If we do not furnish them, you are at liberty to take them for yourselves, only you must swear that you will behave as if you were marching through the country of friends." There were some who roundly said that the Greeks had best have no dealings with the man; he was known to be treacherous and false; this was only his way of luring them on to their death. On the other hand it was difficult to refuse terms so advantageous. It was possible that the satrap, though not in the least friendly, was genuinely afraid, and would be glad to get rid at any price of visitants so unwelcome. This was the common opinion. If the army could find its way home without fighting, it would be madness to reject the chance. For many days past, every thing had gone smoothly; relations between the Greeks and Tissaphernes seemed to become more and more friendly. Clearchus, the general, commanding in chief, had even dined with the satrap, had been treated in the most friendly fashion, and was now come back to the camp with a proposition from him for a formal conference at which the Greeks were to be represented by their princ.i.p.al generals. Some voices were raised against this proposal. "No one ever trusted Tissaphernes without repenting it," was the sentiment of not a few, Xenophon amongst the number. But the opposition was overruled. Five generals and twenty inferior officers proceeded to the tent of Tissaphernes, followed by a troop of stragglers, who availed themselves of the favorable opportunity, as they thought it, of marketing within the enemy's lines.

"Callias," said Xenophon to his friend on the morning of this eventful day, "my mind misgives me. The soothsayer tells me that, though the sacrifices have been generally favorable, there have always been some sinister indications. And certain it is that we have never put ourselves so completely in the enemy's power as we have this day. Tissaphernes has only to say the word and our most skillful leaders are dead men. But, hark, what is that?"

A cry of surprise and wrath went up from the camp, and the two Athenians rushed out of the tent in which they had been sitting, to ascertain the cause. One glance was enough. The stragglers were hurrying back at the top of their speed with the Persians in hot pursuit. Among the foremost of the fugitives was an Arcadian officer, who, fearfully wounded as he was, managed to make his way to the camp. "To arms!" he cried, "Clearchus and the rest are either dead or prisoners." Instantly there was a wild rush for arms. Everyone expected that the next moment would bring the whole Persian army in sight. But the King and his satraps knew how formidable the Greeks really were. As long as they had a chance of succeeding by fraud, they would not use force.

Fraud was immediately attempted. Ariaeus, who by this time had made his peace with the King, rode up to within a short distance of the camp, and said, "Let the Greeks send some one that is in authority to bear a message from the King." The veteran Cleanor accordingly went forward.

"Let me go with you," cried Xenophon, "I am eager to hear what has become of my friend Proxenus. Come you, too," he whispered to Callias.

Ariaeus addressed them: "Thus saith the King; Clearchus, having forsworn himself and broken the truth, has been put to death. Proxenus and Medon are honorably treated. As for you, the King demands your arms, seeing that they belonged to Cyrus, who was his slave."

Cleanor's answer was brief and emphatic, "Thou villain, Ariaeus, and the rest of you, have you no shame before G.o.ds or men, that you betray us in this fashion, and make friends with that perjurer Tissaphernes?"

Ariaeus could only repeat that Clearchus was a traitor. "Then," cried Xenophon, "why send us not back Proxenus and Medon, good men you say, who would advise both you and us for the best?"

To this no answer was made; and the party slowly made their way back to the camp. The worst had happened. They were in the midst of their enemies, more than a thousand miles from the sea, and they had lost their leaders.

The two Athenians, who shared the same tent, lay down to rest at an early hour. It still wanted some time to midnight, when Xenophon surprised his companion by suddenly starting up.

"I believe," he cried, "all will be well after all. I have had a most encouraging dream."

"What was it?" asked Callias.

"I dreamed," returned the other, "that I was at home and that there was a great storm of thunder and lightning and that the lightning struck the house and that it blazed up all over."

Callias stared. "But that does not sound very encouraging."

"Ah! but listen to what I have to tell you. When Proxenus asked me to come with him on this expedition, I applied to Socrates for his advice.

'Ask the G.o.d at Delphi,' he said. So I asked the G.o.d but not, as he meant me to do, whether I should go or not, but to what G.o.ds, if I went, I should sacrifice. Well, this has been a great trouble to me, and I look upon this dream as an answer. First--this is the encouragement--Zeus shows me a light in darkness. The house all on a blaze, I take it, means that we are surrounded with dangers."

"May it turn out well," was all that Callias could find it in his heart to say. But if he was tempted to think meanly of his companion, he had soon reason to alter his opinion.

"Whether my dream means what I think or any thing else," Xenophon went on, "we must act. To fall into the hands of the King means death, and death in the most shameful form. And yet no one stirs hand or foot to avoid it; we lie quiet, as though it were time to take our rest. I shall go and talk to my comrades about it."

The first thing was to call together his own particular friends, the officers of Proxenus' division. He found them as wakeful as himself.

"Friends," he said, "we must get out of the King's clutches. You know what he did to his own brother. The man was dead; but he must nail his body to a cross. What will he do, think you, to us? No; we must get out of his reach. But how? Not by making terms with him. That only gives him time to hem us in more and more completely. No; we must fight him; and we, who are more enduring and brave than our enemies, have a right to hope that we shall fight to good purpose. And surely the G.o.ds will help us rather than them. For are they not faithless and forsworn?

"But, if we are to fight, we must have leaders. Let us choose them then.

As for me, I will follow another, or, if you will have it so, I will lead myself. Young I am, but I am at least of an age to take care of myself."

Then there was a loud cry--"Xenophon for general!" Only one voice was raised in protest, that of a captain, who spoke in very broad Boeotian. "Escape is impossible; we should better try persuasion."

Such was the burden of his speech.

Xenophon turned on him fiercely. "Escape impossible! And yet you know what the King did. First came a haughty command that we should give up our arms. When we refused, he took to soft words and cajolery. He is afraid of us; but if we trust to persuasion we are lost." Then turning to the others, he cried, "Is this man fit to be a captain? Make him a bearer of burdens. He is a disgrace to the name of Greek."

"Greek," cried an Arcadian captain, "he is no Boeotian, nor Greek at all. He is a Mysian slave. I see his ears are bored." And the man was promptly turned out of camp.

Not a moment was now lost. A representative body of officers from the whole army was promptly collected, and Xenophon was asked to repeat what he had said to the smaller gathering. The meeting ended in the election of five generals to replace those who had been murdered. Chirisophus, a Spartan, made the sixth, having held the office before.

The day was now beginning to dawn. It was scarcely light when the whole army a.s.sembled in obedience to a hasty summons which had been sent through the camp.

Chirisophus opened the proceedings. "We have fared ill, fellow soldiers," he said, "in that we have been robbed of so many officers and have been deserted by our allies. Still we must not give in. If we cannot conquer, at least we can die gloriously. Anyhow we must not fall alive into the hands of the King."

After an address by another general, Xenophon stood up. He had dressed himself in his best apparel. "Fine clothes will suit victory best," he said to himself, "and if I die, let me at least die like a gentleman."

"Gentlemen," he said, "if we were going to treat with the barbarians, then, knowing how faithless they are, we might well despair; but if we mean, taking our good swords in our hands, to punish them for what they have done, and to secure our own safety, then we may hope for the best."

At this point, a soldier sneezed. A sneeze was a lucky omen, and by a common impulse all the soldiers bowed their heads. Xenophon seized the opportunity.

"I spoke of safety, gentlemen, and as I was speaking, Zeus the Savior, sent us an omen of good fortune. Let us therefore vow to him a thank-offering for deliverance, if we ever reach our native country.