[1] Darius and Parysatis had two sons,* of whom Artaxerxes was the elder and Cyrus the younger, and when Darius was ill and suspected that he was dying, he wanted them both by his side. The elder son was in fact already there, but Cyrus was summoned from the province where Darius had made him satrap* and also commander of all the forces whose place of assembly was the Plain of Castolus.* So Cyrus travelled up country,* and he took with him Tissaphernes, whom he believed to be a friend. He was also accompanied by three hundred Greek hoplites* under the command of Xenias of Parrhasia.
After Darius’ death and Artaxerxes’ accession to the throne, Tissaphernes accused Cyrus, to his brother’s face, of plotting to kill Artaxerxes. The king believed this lie, arrested Cyrus, and was intending to kill him, but his mother interceded and got him sent back to his province. Cyrus had been humiliated and had come close to losing his life, so once he was back in his province he began to make plans; he wanted never again to be in his brother’s power, and he wanted, if he could, to rule in his place. His mother, Parysatis, was on his side (because she loved him more than Artaxerxes, the one who had become king), and he treated any visitors who came to him from the king in such a way that by the time they returned home they were closer to him than they were to the king. He also made sure that the barbarians* on his staff were competent soldiers and were loyal to him, and he did all he could to conceal the fact that he was assembling his corps of Greeks, because he wanted to give the king as little opportunity as possible to prepare.
This is how he went about gathering the corps. He instructed every officer in charge of a garrison in one of the cities of his province to hire as many Peloponnesian troops as he could of the highest possible calibre, on the pretext that Tissaphernes had designs on the cities—which was plausible because the Ionian cities had originally been given to Tissaphernes by the king,* but by this time all of them except Miletus had seceded and gone over to Cyrus. Miletus was the exception because, forewarned that the inhabitants there were planning to do the same (to go over to Cyrus), Tissaphernes had had some of them put to death and others sent into exile. Cyrus took in the exiles, assembled an army, and besieged Miletus by both land and sea in an attempt to restore those who had been banished—all of which gave him another excuse for assembling an army. He also sent a message to the king in which he insisted that, as the king’s brother, these cities should be given to him rather than have Tissaphernes as their ruler, and his mother supported this demand of his. Consequently, the king had no idea that Cyrus was targeting him and believed that he was spending money on his forces because he was at war with Tissaphernes. As a result, he did not find the fact that they were fighting at all disturbing—not least because Cyrus carried on sending the king the tribute raised from those of Tissaphernes’ cities which he now controlled.
In the part of the Chersonese that lies opposite Abydus, another army was being assembled for Cyrus, in the following way. Clearchus, a Spartan exile* who was a valued acquaintance of Cyrus and the recipient of 10,000 darics* from him, was using the money to form an army and to make the Chersonese the base for a war against the Thracians who lived beyond the Hellespont. This helped the local Greeks, and so the Hellespontine communities were glad to contribute money towards the upkeep of the troops. So this army was also being secretly maintained for Cyrus.
Aristippus of Thessaly, a guest-friend* of Cyrus who found himself hard pressed by political opponents at home, came to Cyrus and asked for about 2,000 mercenaries and enough money to pay them for three months, so that he could overcome his opponents. But Cyrus gave him about 4,000 mercenaries and pay for six months, and asked him not to settle his dispute with his opponents without first consulting him. So this army was also being secretly maintained for him in Thessaly. He told Proxenus of Boeotia, a guest-friend of his, to bring as many men as he could for an expedition he alleged he wanted to make against the Pisidians, who were, he claimed, disrupting his territory, and he told further guest-friends of his, Sophaenetus of Stymphalus and Socrates of Achaea, to bring as many men as they could for a war he claimed he was going to fight alongside the Milesian exiles against Tissaphernes. And they did what he told them to do.
[2] When the time seemed right for the march up country, the excuse he gave was that he wanted to drive the Pisidians out of his territory once and for all, and he claimed that he was assembling histroops, barbarian and Greek, for a campaign against them. At this point he also told Clearchus to bring all his men, and he ordered Aristippus to come to terms with his opponents at home and to send him the troops he had under his command. And he told Xenias of Arcadia, who had been put in command of the mercenaries in the cities, to leave behind only as many men as were needed to garrison the acropolises* and to bring the rest. He also summoned the troops who were besieging Miletus and urged the exiles to join him on his campaign, with the promise that, if the expedition achieved its objectives, he would not stop until he had restored them to their native city. They were happy to go along with his suggestion, because they trusted him, and they came to him, armed and ready, at Sardis.
So Xenias arrived in Sardis with about 4,000 hoplites from the cities, while Proxenus came with about 1,500 hoplites and 500 light-armed troops, Sophaenetus of Stymphalus with 1,000 hoplites, and Socrates of Achaea with about 500 hoplites; and Pasion of Megara—who along with Socrates had been among those campaigning at Miletus—also came with 300 hoplites and 300 peltasts.* These were the men who joined Cyrus at Sardis.
All this, however, came to Tissaphernes’ attention, and Cyrus’ measures struck him as too extensive for a campaign against the Pisidians. So he travelled to the king as quickly as he could, with an entourage of about 500 horsemen, and when the king heard from Tissaphernes about Cyrus’ army, he began to prepare to meet him. Cyrus, meanwhile, was setting out from Sardis with the troops I have mentioned, and he marched for three days through Lydia up to the Meander river, a journey of twenty-two parasangs.* The river was two plethra wide and there was a bridge over it consisting of seven boats joined together. Once he had crossed the river, a day’s march of eight parasangs through Phrygia brought him to Colossae, an inhabited city, prosperous and large.* He stayed there for seven days and Meno of Thessaly arrived with 1,000 hoplites and 500 peltasts from Dolopia, Aeniania, and Olynthus.
The next leg was a three-day march of twenty parasangs that brought him to Celaenae, an inhabited Phrygian city, large and prosperous, where Cyrus had a palace and a large park* filled with wild animals which he used to hunt on horseback when he wanted to exercise himself and his horses. The Meander river flows through the middle of the park. The river rises beneath the palace and flows through the city of Celaenae too. Celaenae also has, at the base of the acropolis and by the springs of the Marsyas, a fortified palace belonging to the Great King.* The Marsyas, twenty-five feet in width, also flows through the city, and discharges into the Meander. This is the place where, the story goes, Apollo flayed Marsyas after Marsyas had challenged him to a contest of skill and had lost,* and hung the skin in the cave where the river rises—which is why the river is called the Marsyas. And it is the place where, in the course of his retreat from Greece after defeat in the famous battle,* Xerxes is generally held to have built the palace I mentioned and the city’s acropolis. During Cyrus’ thirty days there, Clearchus, the Spartan exile, arrived with 11,000 hoplites, 800 Thracian peltasts, and 200 Cretan bowmen;* and Sosis of Syracuse and Agias†* of Arcadia arrived at the same time, the former with 300 hoplites and the latter with 1,000 hoplites. While he was there Cyrus held a review in his park, and counted the Greeks: there were altogether 11,000 hoplites and about 2,000 peltasts.
The next leg was a two-day march of ten parasangs that brought him to the inhabited city of Peltae, where he stayed for three days while Xenias of Arcadia sacrificed for the Lycaea and organized an athletic contest.* The prizes were golden crowns* and Cyrus himself was a spectator at the games. The next leg was a two-day march of twelve parasangs that brought him to the inhabited city of Pot-market, the Phrygian city which is closest to Mysia. The next leg was a three-day march of thirty parasangs that brought him to the inhabited city of Cayster-basin, where he stayed for five days.
By then he owed the troops over three months’ pay, and they often came to his tent to ask for it, only to hear him repeat his hopes for the future. But he was obviously upset, because it was not in Cyrus’ nature to refuse to pay a debt when he had the money. At this point Epyaxa, the wife of Syennesis,* king of the Cilicians, came to visit Cyrus and, it was rumoured, gave Cyrus plenty of money. At any rate, he paid the men four months’ wages. The Cilician queen had a bodyguard of Cilicians and Aspendians, and it was generally believed that she and Cyrus were lovers.
The next leg was a two-day march of ten parasangs that brought him to Thymbrium, an inhabited city. Here, by the side of the road, there is the so-called Spring of Midas where, the story goes, the Phrygian king caught the satyr by adding wine to the spring water.* The next leg was a two-day march of ten parasangs that brought him to Tyriaeum, an inhabited city, where he stayed for three days.
The Cilician queen, it is said, asked Cyrus to display the army to her. Cyrus was happy to do so and arranged for a review to take place on the plain, of both the Greek and barbarian corps. He told the Greeks to form lines and take up positions in their usual way for battle, with each officer organizing his own men, and they formed themselves into a phalanx four lines deep, with Meno and his men on the right wing, Clearchus and his troops on the left, and the other senior officers in the centre. Cyrus first inspected the barbarian troops, who paraded past him with the horsemen formed into squadrons and the foot soldiers in companies. Then he inspected the Greeks, all of whom wore bronze helmets, red cloaks,* and greaves, and had their shields uncovered,* by driving his chariot past them, while the Cilician queen rode in a carriage. When Cyrus had driven past them all, he halted his chariot in front of the middle of the phalanx, and sent his translator, Pigres, to convey to the Greek generals his request that they should have the entire phalanx move forward with levelled weapons. The generals passed these orders on to their men, and when the trumpet sounded they advanced with their weapons levelled. Soon they were moving faster and faster, until with a shout the soldiers spontaneously broke into a run and charged towards the camp. This terrified the barbarians:† the Cilician queen fled in her carriage and the merchants in the market* abandoned their wares and ran away, while the Greeks, hugely amused, dispersed to their tents. But the Cilician queen was very impressed by the brilliance and the discipline of the army, and Cyrus was delighted to see how frightened the barbarians were by the Greeks.
The next leg was a three-day march of twenty parasangs that brought him to Iconium, the last city in Phrygia, where he stayed for three days. There followed a five-day march of thirty parasangs through Lycaonia, where Cyrus gave the Greeks permission to turn to plunder, since it was hostile territory.* Next he sent the Cilician queen back to Cilicia by the shortest route, with an escort of some of Meno’s troops and Meno himself in command, while he himself marched with the rest of the army for four days, a distance of twenty-five parasangs, through Cappadocia to the inhabited city of Dana, large and prosperous, where he stayed for three days. While he was there Cyrus executed a Persian called Megaphernes, who was a royal secretary,* and another high-ranking officer, on the charge of plotting against him.
Next they set about trying to enter Cilicia. The way in was a carttrack which was so steep that no army could get through against the slightest opposition—and a rumour in fact circulated that Syennesis was on the heights, guarding the pass. Cyrus therefore waited for a day on the plain, but the next day a messenger arrived with the news that Syennesis had abandoned the heights, since he had found out that Meno’s men were already in Cilicia, on his side of the mountains, and also because he had been getting reports about triremes* belonging to the Spartans and to Cyrus himself sailing round from Ionia to Cilicia under the command of Tamos. At any rate, Cyrus climbed up into the mountains without meeting any opposition and saw the camp where the Cilicians had been keeping guard.
The plain he came down to on the other side was large and beautiful: well watered, covered with a wide variety of trees and with vines, and rich in sesame, millet, panic, wheat, and barley. It was completely surrounded, from coast to coast, by tremendous, tall mountains. Once down from the mountains, he marched across the plain for four days, a distance of twenty-five parasangs, to Tarsus, a large and prosperous Cilician city. This was where Syennesis, the king of the Cilicians, had his palace. A river called the Cydnus, two plethra wide, flows through the middle of the city. Only stall-holders remained: the rest of the inhabitants had abandoned the city and fled, along with Syennesis, to a stronghold in the mountains. However, the inhabitants of the coastal cities of Soli and Issus stayed where they were.
Syennesis’ wife, Epyaxa, had reached Tarsus five days before Cyrus, but two companies from Meno’s force had perished during the passage over the mountains and down to the plain. Some said they had been annihilated by the Cilicians while they were out foraging, others that they had fallen behind and got lost, and died without being able to find the rest of the army or the roads. Whatever the facts, each company had consisted of 100 hoplites.† When the survivors reached Tarsus they were so angry about the deaths of their comrades that they looted not only the city, but the palace too. Once Cyrus had marched into the city he sent repeated messages summoning Syennesis to his presence, but Syennesis replied that he had never previously put himself in the hands of anyone stronger than himself and that on this occasion too he would not come to Cyrus until his wife had won Cyrus over and had been given pledges of his good intentions. Later, when they met, Syennesis gave Cyrus a great deal of money for the army and Cyrus gave Syennesis gifts which are regarded as tokens of honour at the king’s court*—a horse with a gold-studded bridle, a golden torque and armlets, a dagger of gold, Persian clothing, the guarantee that his land would not be plundered any more, and permission for his people to take back any of the men captured as slaves they could find.
[3] Cyrus and the army stayed at Tarsus for twenty days, because the soldiers refused to carry on; they already suspected that they were going against the king and they said that this was not the job for which they had been hired. Clearchus was the first to try to force the men under his command to go on, but they threw stones at him and his yoke-animals every time they started off. Clearchus only just avoided being stoned to death then, but later he realized that coercion was going to get him nowhere and he convened his men for an assembly. At first he stood and wept for a long time, while his men watched him in silent astonishment, but then he spoke as follows:
‘Comrades in arms, don’t be surprised if the present situation causes me grief. Cyrus is my guest-friend. When I had been banished from the land of my birth, he showed me honour in various ways, and not least by giving me 10,000 darics. And what did I do when I had been given this money? I did not bank it for my own personal use or waste it on luxurious living; I spent it on you. First, I made war against the Thracians and with your help, in defence of Greece, I punished them by driving them out of the Chersonese and denying them the land of the Greek settlers there which they wanted to steal. Then, when Cyrus sent for me, I set out with you in order to repay him for the favours he had done me by helping him in his hour of need. Since you are reluctant to continue this journey with me, I must either let you down and continue to enjoy Cyrus’ friendship, or stick with you and prove myself false to him. I have no idea whether this will be the right thing to do, but I shall choose you and suffer the consequences along with you. It will never be said of me that I led Greeks into barbarian lands and then betrayed those Greeks by preferring the friendship of the barbarians.* So, since you are refusing to stay with me as ordered, I shall stay with you and suffer the consequences. For I think of you as my homeland,* my friends, and my allies. With you behind me, I think I shall receive honour wherever in the world I may be, but without you I doubt my ability either to help a friend or to defend myself against an adversary* So rest assured of this: I shall go wherever you go.’
After this speech the soldiers—not just those under his command, but all of them, when they heard that he was refusing to carry on to the king—applauded his stance, and more than two thousand of them, from Xenias’ and Pasion’s divisions, gathered up their weapons and baggage carts and joined Clearchus’ camp. Cyrus did not know how to cope with all this and in his distress he sent for Clearchus. Although Clearchus publicly refused to go, he sent word to Cyrus, without the soldiers knowing anything about it, telling him to bear up, because things would turn out fine, and to keep sending for him, even though he would refuse to go.
Next, Clearchus called together his own men, along with those who had joined him and anyone else who wanted to come, and spoke as follows: ‘Comrades in arms, Cyrus’ situation with regard to us is obviously the same as ours with regard to him: we are no longer his troops, since we’re refusing to stay with him, and he is no longer our paymaster either. However, I’m sure he thinks we have done him wrong, and this means that, although my continuing refusal to obey his summons is prompted largely by the shameful awareness that I have proved myself utterly false to him, I’m also afraid that he will arrest me and punish me for the wrong he thinks I have done him. It seems to me, then, that this would not be a good time for us to sleep or to stop thinking about what’s best for us; no, we should be weighing up possible courses of action. As long as we stay here, we should, I think, be considering how best to reduce the risks of staying; and if we decide to leave straight away, we should be considering how to do so with as little risk as possible to ourselves, and how we will get hold of provisions—without which neither officers nor rank and file are any good. As a friend, Cyrus is worth a great deal to anyone who is loyal to him, but he’s a terrible enemy to anyone who goes against him. We’re all equally well placed to see the resources he has at his command—the foot soldiers, horsemen, and warships—and we understand what he’s capable of. After all, our camp is not too far from his, I think. And so this would be a good time for people to bring up any ideas they have about what it would be best for us to do.’
That was the end of his speech, and afterwards some men got to their feet of their own accord to propose this or that plan of action, while others, primed by Clearchus, stood up to point out the impossibility of either staying or leaving without Cyrus’ consent. In fact, one of them, who made out that he was in an inordinate hurry to set out for Greece, proposed that they should immediately elect new generals, if Clearchus was unwilling to lead them home. He went on to say that they should buy their provisions (even though the market was in the barbarians’ camp), pack up their baggage, and go and ask Cyrus for ships for their voyage home. If he refused to give them ships, he suggested that they should ask for a guide to take them home through friendly territory; and if he refused to give them a guide as well, he said they should immediately form up for battle and send men to occupy the high ground before Cyrus did—or before the Cilicians did, ‘since we have seized as booty many of the Cilicians’ men and a great deal of their livestock’.
Once this speaker had finished, Clearchus said only: ‘None of you should think of me as your general for this; I can see many reasons why I should not have the job. But think of me as one who will do his best to obey whoever you choose as your general, and then you will appreciate that I know as well as anybody in the world how to take orders as well as give them.’
Next, someone else got up to point out the stupidity of the suggestion that they should ask Cyrus for ships as if he were on a homeward voyage, and also pointed out how stupid it was to ask for a guide ‘from the very man whose project we’re damaging. If we’re to trust a guide given us by Cyrus, we might as well ask Cyrus to occupy the high ground for us as well. I for one’, he went on, ‘would hesitate to board any ships given by him, for fear that he might sink us with triremes from the very same fleet, and I’d be afraid to follow any guide given by him, for fear of being led into a trap. Since I’m leaving without Cyrus’ permission, I’d rather leave without his knowing anything about it—which is impossible. No, these ideas are rubbish, in my opinion. Here’s what I think we should do. A delegation of suitable men, including Clearchus, should go to Cyrus and ask him what he wants us for, and if the project is more or less the same as the one for which he was using mercenaries before,* we should not desert him and prove ourselves more cowardly than those who went on his previous journey up country. On the other hand, if the project turns out to be more important, more physically demanding, and more dangerous than the earlier one, we should insist that he either gives us good reasons for following him or listens to our reasoning and lets us go in friendship. In this way, if we stay with him we do so as friends who are committed to the project, and if we leave we leave safely. But his response, whatever it may be, must be reported back here and then we’ll discuss what to do.’
This proposal was carried and, once they had chosen a delegation to accompany Clearchus, they sent the men off to Cyrus. They asked him the questions approved by the troops, and he replied that, according to information he had received, Abrocomas,* an enemy of his, was at the Euphrates river, twelve days’ march away, and that it was Abrocomas against whom he wanted to march. If Abrocomas was there, he said, he wanted to punish him, ‘and if he has fled, we will discuss the future there’. The delegation reported Cyrus’ response to the troops, and although they suspected that he was leading them against the king, they decided to stay with him. But they did ask for a pay rise, and Cyrus promised to give them all half as much again as they had been getting before—one and a half darics a month for each soldier instead of just one. But on this occasion no one heard anything—or any plain words, at least—about his taking them against the king.
[4] The next leg was a two-day march of ten parasangs that brought him to the Psarus river, which was three plethra wide. The next leg was a one-day march of five parasangs that brought him to the Pyramus river, which was a stade wide. The next leg was a two-day march of fifteen parasangs that brought him to Issus, a coastal city, large and prosperous, which was the last city in Cilicia. During their three days there the ships arrived from the Peloponnese to join Cyrus–thirty-five of them, under the command of Pythagoras of Sparta.* They had been shown the way from Ephesus by Tamos of Egypt, who brought in addition twenty-five of Cyrus’ ships, with which he had been blockading Miletus, when it was loyal to Tissaphernes, and generally supporting Cyrus’ campaign against Tissaphernes. Chirisophus of Sparta also arrived on board the fleet, in response to a summons from Cyrus, with 700 hoplites, whose general he remained after joining Cyrus. The ships lay at anchor next to Cyrus’ tent. It was also while Cyrus was at Issus that the 400 Greek hoplites who had been mercenaries in the service of Abrocomas joined Cyrus’ service for his war against the king.
The next leg was a one-day march of five parasangs that brought him to the Cilician-Syrian Gates. These gates consist of two forts. The one on the western side, defending Cilicia, was held by Syennesis and a garrison of Cilicians, while the one on the eastern side, defending Syria, was reported to be held by the king’s garrison. Between these two forts flows a river called the Carsus, a plethron wide. The total distance from one fort to the other was three stades, and it was impossible to force a crossing because the entrance was narrow, with fortifications reaching down to the sea on the one side and sheer rocks above the entrance on the other side. Both forts were also equipped with gates.
This defile was the reason Cyrus had sent for the ships. With their help, hoplites could be put ashore between the gates and on their eastern side, and these hoplites could effect a passage by force if there did in fact turn out to be a garrison defending the Syrian side. Cyrus expected that Abrocomas would use his vast military resources to do just that, but instead, on hearing that Cyrus was in Cilicia, Abrocomas had turned around and was marching from Phoenicia to join the king with an army reported to consist of 300,000 men.*
The next leg was a one-day march of five parasangs that brought him to Myriandus, a coastal city inhabited by Phoenicians. It was a trading port, with a lot of merchant ships lying at anchor. Cyrus stayed in Myriandus for seven days, and during this time Xenias of Arcadia and Pasion of Megara boarded a ship with their most valuable possessions and sailed away. Most people believed that they did so out of injured pride, because when their men had gone and joined Clearchus, with the intention of returning to Greece instead of marching against the king,* Cyrus had let Clearchus keep them. After they had disappeared, the rumour spread that Cyrus had sent triremes after them; while some prayed that the ‘cowards’, as they put it, would be caught, others felt sorry for what would happen to them if they were caught.
Cyrus summoned the generals to a meeting and said: ‘Xenias and Pasion may have left, but they should be fully aware that they have not slipped away unseen, since I know the direction they took, and they have not outdistanced me either, because I have triremes that could catch up with them. But I swear by the gods that I will not pursue them, and it will never be said of me that I make use of people while they are with me, but, when they want to leave, I arrest them, do them harm, and rob them of their possessions. No, let them go. They know that they have treated me worse than I have treated them. It is true that I have their children and their wives under guard at Tralles, but they will not lose even them: they will get them back, in recognition of the good they did me before.’ This speech by Cyrus revealed his calibre so well that even those Greeks who had been disheartened by the prospect of the march up country became happier and more committed to the expedition.
The next leg was a four-day march of twenty parasangs that brought him to the Chalus river, which was one plethron wide and teemed with large, docile fish. The Syrians regarded these fish as gods and did not let anyone harm them, or doves either.* The villages where they bivouacked had been given to Parysatis for her girdle-money.* The next leg was a five-day march of thirty-five parasangs that brought him to the sources of the Dardas river, which is a plethron wide. Here there was the palace of Belesys,* the former ruler of Syria, and a very large and beautiful park, which bore the fruits of every season. But Cyrus devastated the park and burnt down the palace.
The next leg was a three-day march of fifteen parasangs that brought him to the Euphrates, which was four stades wide. On this part of the river there was a large and prosperous city called Thapsacus, where they stayed for five days. Cyrus sent for the Greek generals and told them that they were to march in the direction of Babylon, against the Great King. He told them to inform their men of this and to persuade them not to abandon him. They convened an assembly at which they gave the troops the news. The soldiers were angry with the generals and accused them of having known this for a long time and having kept the information from them. They said that they would not go without the kind of financial inducement received by the earlier force that had accompanied Cyrus on his journey up country to his father, even though these men had not been going to war, but Cyrus had only been responding to the summons from his father. When the Greek generals told Cyrus the soldiers’ terms, he promised to give each man five mnas of silver* when they reached Babylon, and to pay the Greeks their full wages right up until he got them back to Ionia.*
This was enough to win over most of the Greeks, but before it was clear what they would do–whether or not they would go with Cyrus–Meno called his own troops to a separate meeting and spoke along the following lines: ‘Men, if you do as I suggest, Cyrus will think more highly of you than of all the rest of the troops, and you will win this respect from him without any danger or hardship. Here’s my idea. At the moment, Cyrus is asking the Greeks to accompany him against the king. The course of action I recommend is that you should cross the Euphrates before the rest of the Greeks have made up their minds how to respond to Cyrus. Then, you see, if they vote to accompany him, this decision will be held to have been your doing, since you were the first to make the crossing, and Cyrus will be grateful for your commitment and will recompense you for it—and there is no one better at recompensing than he is. On the other hand, if the others vote against accompanying him, we’ll join them on their return journey, but Cyrus will regard you as the only Greeks capable of obeying orders, and so he will treat you as his most reliable troops and will use you for garrison duty and as his company commanders; and if there’s anything else you want, I’m sure you’ll find Cyrus amenable.’
The troops found Meno’s argument convincing and crossed the river before the rest of the Greeks had formulated their reply. Cyrus was delighted at the news that they had made the crossing and sent Glous to Meno’s contingent with the following message: ‘Men, at the moment it is I who am pleased with you, but I will see to it that you are pleased with me too, as sure as my name is Cyrus.’ So Meno’s troops had high hopes for the future and prayed for Cyrus’ success, while Meno himself, it was said, was handsomely rewarded. Then Cyrus crossed the river, and every single one of the rest of the troops went with him. As they were crossing the river, none of them got wet above the level of his chest, but the people of Thapsacus said that the river had never before been fordable. In the past, a pontoon of boats had always been used, but on this occasion Abrocomas had been there first and had burnt the boats to prevent Cyrus from crossing. And so this was held to be a miracle; it seemed clear that the river had yielded before Cyrus since he was destined to be king.*
The next leg was a nine-day march of fifty parasangs through Syria that brought him to the Araxes river, where there were many villages which were well stocked with grain and wine. They stayed in the region for three days and replenished their supplies.
[5] The next leg was a five-day march of thirty-five parasangs through the Arabian desert, keeping the Euphrates on his right. In this region, the land was completely flat and as level as the sea, except that it was covered with wormwood. All the other species of shrub or reed there were as fragrant as spices. The desert was treeless, but had a wide variety of animals; wild asses were the most common, but there were also plenty of ostriches, and bustards and gazelles as well. The horsemen sometimes chased these creatures, and the asses, when chased, ran on ahead—they were much faster than horses—and then stopped; then, when the horses got close, they did the same thing all over again. They were impossible to catch, unless riders took up positions at intervals and then took turns to chase them. The flesh of those that were caught tasted like a more tender version of venison. No one managed to catch an ostrich, and any horseman who set off after one soon stopped; the bird would pull a long way ahead by using not only its feet, to run away, but also by hoisting its wings, as if it were using a sail. But bustards can be caught if one puts them up quickly, because they fly only a short way, like partridges, and soon give up. Their flesh was very tasty.
Their march through this land brought them to the Mascas river, which was a plethron wide, where they found a large, deserted city called Corsote, inside a bend of the river. They stayed there for three days and stocked up on provisions. The next leg was a thirteen-day march of ninety parasangs, keeping the Euphrates on his right, which brought him to the Gates.* During these thirteen stages many of the yoke-animals died of starvation, because the land was absolutely bare, without grass or any trees either. The local inhabitants made a living by quarrying and manufacturing millstones by the side of the river, which they took to Babylon and sold in exchange for grain. The troops ran out of grain and were unable to buy it except from Lydian traders attached to Cyrus’ barbarian corps, where it cost four sigloi for one kapithē of wheat flour or barley meal—a siglos being the equivalent of seven and a half Attic obols and a kapithē that of two Attic choenixes. The soldiers therefore survived by eating meat.* Moreover, whenever Cyrus wanted to reach water or fodder, he made the stages of the march very long.
Once in particular they came across a narrow, muddy place where the going was difficult for the carts. Cyrus halted with his entourage of wealthy noblemen and told Glous and Pigres to take some men from the barbarian corps and extricate the carts. But he thought they were taking too long over the job, and so, feigning anger, he told the Persian noblemen in his entourage to help the carts to get a move on. It then became possible to witness a fine bit of discipline. They let their outer robes of purple drop to the ground without caring where they stood and sprinted, as if they were competing in a race, down a very steep hillside in their expensive tunics and colourful trousers, with some of them even wearing torques around their necks and bracelets on their arms.* As soon as they got there, they leapt into the mud in all their finery and lifted the carts free of the mud more quickly than one would have thought possible.
On the whole, Cyrus was obviously in a hurry throughout the journey and never delayed except when he called a halt for some essential purpose such as replenishing supplies. His thinking was that the faster he went, the less prepared the king would be for battle, and that every delay would allow the king to assemble a larger force; and in fact it was obvious to anyone who thought about it that although its size and the enormity of its population gave the king’s empire strength, the length of the journeys involved and the fact that its forces were scattered made it weak and vulnerable to a sudden offensive.*
On the other side of the Euphrates during these desert stages of the march was a prosperous, large city called Charmande, where the soldiers bought supplies. They crossed the river on rafts which they made by filling the animal skins which served as their tents with dried grass, and then joining the skins together and sewing them up to stop the water reaching the hay. They used these floats to cross the river and get their supplies– wine made from dates and bread made from millet, which was very plentiful in this region.
A dispute arose while they were at Charmande between a soldier from Meno’s contingent and one of Clearchus’ men. Clearchus judged the case and in his opinion Meno’s man was the wrongdoer, so he had him flogged. The man’s fellow soldiers were indignant, when he returned to his own contingent and told them what had happened, and their feelings were running high against Clearchus. Later that same day Clearchus went to the river-crossing. After inspecting the market there he rode back to his tent, with a small retinue, through Meno’s encampment. Cyrus was still on the march and had not yet arrived. One of Meno’s soldiers was chopping wood when he saw Clearchus passing by, and he threw his axe at him. He missed, but someone else threw a stone, and then another stone flew, and soon the air was thick with stones and shouts.
Clearchus sought the safety of his own camp and immediately called his troops to arms. He told his hoplites to wait with their shields resting against their knees, while he took the Thracians and the horsemen he had in his unit—there were more than forty of them, mostly Thracians—and advanced against Meno’s men. The upshot was that Meno’s troops, and Meno himself, were terrified and ran to collect their weapons, although there were others who just stood still in bewilderment. But Proxenus, who happened to have fallen behind and to be approaching the Greek encampment along with a unit of hoplites, immediately led his men between the two sides, halted them with their weapons at the ready, and asked Clearchus to stop what he was doing.
Clearchus was angry that Proxenus was talking in a mild-mannered way about what had happened to him, when he had only just escaped being stoned to death, and he ordered him out of the way. Just then Cyrus came up too and was told what was going on. He immediately seized his javelins and rode between the two sides with those of his trusted advisers who were on hand. ‘Clearchus,’ he said, ‘and Proxenus, and all you Greeks here, you have no idea what you are doing. If you fight one another even for a moment, you should know that I shall be cut down today and not long afterwards you will be annihilated too. For if things go wrong for us, all the barbarians you can see here will be more hostile towards us than those fighting for the king.’ These words brought Clearchus back to his senses, and both sides stood down and returned to their quarters.
[6] As they went on from there they began to come across hoof-marks and droppings; it looked as though they were on the trail of about 2,000 horsemen who, as they advanced, were burning fodder and anything else that might have been useful. Orontas, a Persian who was related to the king and was said to be as good as any Persian at warfare, hatched a plot against Cyrus. He had been Cyrus’ enemy before, but they had become reconciled. He now asked Cyrus for 1,000 horsemen, with which, he said, he would either ambush and kill the cavalry detachment which was burning everything ahead of them, or capture enough of them to stop them burning things as they advanced; and he also said that he would do this in such a way that they would never catch sight of Cyrus’ forces and report back to the king. Cyrus thought this was a useful idea and he told Orontas to take a detachment from each of his cavalry commanders.
Thinking that the horsemen were his for the taking, Orontas wrote a letter to the king in which he said that he would come and would bring as many horsemen as he could, and he urged the king to tell his cavalry to receive him as a friend. He also included in the letter reminders of his former loyalty and reliability. He gave this letter to a man he considered trustworthy, but the man took it and gave it to Cyrus. After reading it, Cyrus arrested Orontas, summoned to his tent seven of the Persian noblemen from his entourage, and told the Greek generals to bring up their hoplites and have them stand at the ready around his tent. In accordance with his instructions, the generals brought up about 3,000 hoplites. Cyrus also asked Clearchus to join him inside as one of his advisers, since both he and the rest of the Persians thought that Clearchus was the most highly regarded of the Greeks.
When Clearchus emerged from the tent, he informed his friends, since he had not been forbidden to do so, what had happened in Orontas’ trial. He said that Cyrus began the proceedings by speaking as follows: ‘I have invited you here, my friends, because I want with your help to decide what both gods and men would consider the right way to deal with Orontas here. Once we have reached a decision, I will carry it out. My father first gave him to me as my subordinate. Later, acting, he claims, on my brother’s orders, he occupied the acropolis of Sardis and made war on me, but I fought back so successfully that I made him decide to end his hostility towards me, and we shook hands on it. Subsequently,’ he said, turning to Orontas, ‘did I wrong you in any way?’
‘No,’ Orontas replied.
Cyrus then asked him a further question: ‘Later—although, as you yourself admit, you had not been wronged by me—did you not go over to the Mysians and do all you could to harm my territory?’
‘Yes’ said Orontas.
‘And,’ Cyrus continued, ‘once you had come to realize the limits of your powers, did you not go to the altar of Artemis* and say that you were sorry? And, when I believed you, did we not once again exchange pledges?’
Orontas agreed to this too.
‘What wrong have I done you, then,’ said Cyrus, ‘that you should now be caught red-handed in a third conspiracy against me?’
When Orontas agreed that Cyrus had not done him any wrong, Cyrus said: ‘So you admit that you have done me wrong?’
‘I am bound to admit it,’ said Orontas.
Then Cyrus asked him a further question: ‘Will you in the future be an enemy of my brother and a loyal friend to me?’
‘Cyrus,’ he replied, ‘even if I were, you would never believe it.’
Cyrus then turned to those present and said: ‘You’ve heard what this man has done and what he has said. Clearchus, I want you to be the first to tell us what you think.’
Clearchus spoke as follows: ‘My advice is that you should get rid of this man as soon as possible, so that we can stop taking precautions against him. Then, so far as this fellow is concerned, we can have the time to do good to those who have chosen to be our friends.’ And Clearchus said that everyone else agreed with his point of view.
Next, at Cyrus’ command, everyone stood up, even Orontas’ relatives, and took hold of Orontas’ belt, to indicate that they voted for his death. Then the appointed men took him outside. When those who had previously paid homage to Orontas saw him, they did so even then, although they could see that he was being taken to his death. He was taken into the tent of Artapatas, the most loyal of Cyrus’ staff-bearers, and no one ever again saw Orontas alive or dead, nor could anyone say with certainty how he died, although people came up with various conjectures. No one ever saw his grave either.
[7] The next leg was a three-day march of twelve parasangs through Babylonia. In the course of the third day Cyrus conducted a review of both Greeks and barbarians on the plain. The review took place in the middle of the night, because he expected the arrival of the king at dawn the following day, along with his army, to do battle. He put Clearchus in charge of the right wing and Meno of Thessaly in charge of the left wing, while he deployed his own troops. At daybreak the following day, after the review, deserters from the Great King arrived with information about the king’s army.
Cyrus summoned the Greek generals and company commanders to a meeting to consider with their help how the battle should be fought. He also tried to raise their morale and their determination by speaking somewhat as follows: ‘Men of Greece, it is not because I am short of barbarian troops that I have brought you here to fight on my side; it is because you are, in my opinion, braver and better than hordes of barbarians. That’s why I got you to join me. Endeavour, then, to prove yourselves worthy of the freedom you possess. I envy you this freedom. Why? I assure you that I would choose freedom over all my wealth,* even if I was far better off than I am now. Now, there are aspects of the coming conflict of which you are ignorant but I am not, and so I shall explain them to you. The enemy army is vast and as they advance they will raise a terrific clamour. As long as you are not put off by this—well, as for the rest, I feel ashamed when I think how feeble you will find the people of this land of mine to be. If you are men and if my business here goes well, I will make any of you who wants to return home an object of envy to his neighbours; but I think I shall make many of you choose to stay with me rather than return home.’
At this point Gaulites, a Samian exile who was one of the company, and was a trusted adviser of Cyrus, said: ‘And yet, Cyrus, there are those who say that you’re making generous promises now because of the situation you’re in, a situation of imminent danger, but that if things go well you will forget the promises you made. And there are others who say that even if you do remember them and want to keep them, you won’t have the resources to pay everything you are promising.’
Cyrus replied: ‘Well, my friends, my father’s empire extends south to a region where men cannot live because of the heat and north to a region where they cannot live because of the cold. All the territories between these two extremes are governed by my brother’s friends, but if I’m victorious, I am bound to put my friends in charge of them. So there’s no reason for you to worry that, if things go well, I may not have enough to give to each of my friends; it would make more sense for you to worry that I may not have enough friends to reward. And I will also give each of you Greeks a crown of gold.’
These words of Cyrus had the effect of increasing the resolution of the Greeks, and when they passed the news on to everyone else, some of the other Greeks too went to Cyrus and asked him to tell them what they would get if they were victorious. Before dismissing them, he satisfied the desires of each and every one of them. In conversation with him, everyone urged him not to take part in the fighting, but to assign himself a position in the rear. This was the context of a question Clearchus put to Cyrus, phrased more or less as follows: ‘Do you think your brother will fight you, Cyrus?’ ‘He most certainly will,’ Cyrus answered. ‘If he really is the son of Darius and Parysatis, if he really is my brother, I won’t gain this empire without a fight.’
When the Greeks were counted, while under arms on the third day of this leg, there were found to be 10,400 hoplites and 2,500 peltasts.* Cyrus’ barbarian troops numbered 100,000, and there were about 20 scythe-bearing chariots. The enemy force was said to number 1,200,000,* with 200 scythe-bearing chariots; in addition there were 6,000 horsemen under the command of Artagerses, who were deployed in defence of the king himself. The king’s army had four commanders—Abrocomas, Tissaphernes, Gobryas and Arbaces—each of whom was responsible for 300,000 men. But only 900,000 of the king’s troops and 150 scythe-bearing chariots took part in the battle because Abrocomas, marching from Phoenicia, arrived five days too late. This was the information given Cyrus by deserters from the Great King before the battle, and enemy prisoners gave the same facts and figures after the battle too.
The next leg was a one-day march of three parasangs. During this march all the troops, both Greek and barbarian, were drawn up in battle order, because this was the day on which Cyrus expected the king to join battle. About halfway through this stage there was a deep artificial trench, five fathoms wide and three fathoms deep, which extended inland over the plain for twelve parasangs and ended at the Median Wall.* By the side of the Euphrates there was a narrow gap, about twenty feet wide, between the river and the trench. The Great King had constructed this trench as a means of defence when he found out that Cyrus was marching against him.
Cyrus and his army passed through this gap and found themselves beyond the trench. The king did not offer battle that day, but the tracks were visible of many men and horses who had withdrawn before them. Cyrus summoned Silanus, his diviner from Ambracia, and gave him 3,000 darics because ten days earlier Silanus had predicted, as a result of his sacrifices, that the king would not fight within ten days. At the time Cyrus had said: ‘Then he won’t fight at all, if he won’t fight within ten days. But if you’re right, I promise you ten talents.’ So this was the money he paid him then, since the ten days had passed.
The king’s failure to obstruct the passage of Cyrus’ army at the trench made Cyrus and everyone else think that he had abandoned the idea of fighting, and so the next day Cyrus took fewer precautions as he marched on, and on the day after that he travelled on a chariot with only a few men in battle order in front of him, while the bulk of the army made their way forward in a chaotic fashion, with much of the soldiers’ weaponry and armour being carried on carts and yoke-animals.
[8] Late in the morning,* when the staging area where Cyrus was intending to halt was near by, Pategyas, a Persian who was one of Cyrus’ trusted advisers, came into view. He was riding at full speed, with his horse all covered in sweat, and he lost no time in shouting out to everyone he met, in Greek and other languages, that the king was approaching with a vast army, ready for battle. Considerable turmoil was the result of this news, because the first thought that occurred to the Greeks—to everyone, in fact—was that the king would fall on them while they were in disarray.
Cyrus leapt down from his chariot. He put on his breastplate, mounted his horse, and was handed his javelins; then he told everyone else to arm themselves and instructed each man to take up his proper position in battle order. Everyone rushed to do so. Clearchus, with the right wing, was by the Euphrates; Proxenus was next to him, and then came the rest, while Meno and his troops held the left wing of the Greek corps. As for the barbarians (apart from a Paphlagonian cavalry unit of about 1,000, who were stationed beside Clearchus on the right wing, along with the Greek peltasts), on the left wing there was Ariaeus, Cyrus’ second-in-command, and the rest of the barbarian foot soldiers, while Cyrus and his horsemen, about 600 in number, occupied the middle. These Persian horsemen wore breastplates and cuisses, and all of them except Cyrus, who rode into battle bare-headed, wore helmets as well. All the horses in Cyrus’ squadron were equipped with protective armour on their foreheads and chests, and their riders also carried Greek-style swords.
Midday came and still there was no sign of the enemy, but early in the afternoon a cloud of dust appeared, looking at first like a white cloud in the sky. Some time later, however, it was as if there was a huge black smudge on the plain. Before long, as the enemy drew nearer, there were flashes of bronze, and then the tips of their spears and the divisions of the enemy army became apparent. On the left wing there were cavalrymen in white cuirasses, reported to be under the command of Tissaphernes; next to them were foot soldiers with wicker shields and then heavily armed troops, rumoured to be from Egypt, with wooden shields which reached down to their feet. Then there were further cavalry units and more archers. All of them marched in serried squares, with a different people making up each square. In front of them, and at some distance from one another, were the scythe-bearing chariots, as they are called; they were equipped with scythes which projected out sideways from their axles and faced the ground under the chariots as well, so as to cut to pieces anything or anyone they met. The plan was to use these chariots against the Greeks as they advanced in formation to break up the enemy lines. But one thing Cyrus said at the meeting he had convened turned out to be wrong: he had urged the Greeks to stand firm against the barbarians’ clamour, but in actual fact they made no noise, but advanced slowly and steadily, in all possible silence.
Just then Cyrus rode along the line accompanied only by Pigres (his translator) and three or four others and, shouting out loud, ordered Clearchus to lead his men against the centre of the enemy formation, because that was where the king was. ‘If we win there,’ he said, ‘we’ll have accomplished all we came for.’ But although Clearchus had seen how compact the enemy’s centre was, and although he had been informed that the king was beyond Cyrus’ left wing—for the king’s troops so far outnumbered Cyrus’ that the king’s centre was beyond Cyrus’ left wing—nevertheless, Clearchus was reluctant to open up a gap between the right wing and the river, which would have made him vulnerable to being outflanked on both sides, and so he told Cyrus that he would make sure that things went well.*
At that moment, then, the barbarian army was steadily drawing closer and the Greeks were staying put while latecomers were still taking up their positions in the battle lines. Some way in front of the army, Cyrus was riding past, looking in both directions—at both his enemies and his friends. Xenophon of Athens* spotted him from the Greek lines, rode to meet him, and asked him whether he had any instructions. Cyrus reined in his horse and told Xenophon to spread the news that the sacrifices and the omens were favourable. Just as Cyrus was speaking, he heard a noise running through the Greek lines and he asked what it was. When Xenophon said that the watchword* was now being passed back through the lines, Cyrus asked, in surprise, who had authorized it and what it was. Xenophon replied: ‘Zeus the Saviour and Victory.’ On hearing the watchword, Cyrus said: ‘That’s perfectly acceptable; let it stand.’ And with these words he rode back to his own position.
Only three or four stades separated the two phalanxes when the Greeks struck up the paean* and began to advance against the enemy. As they were advancing, a part of the phalanx surged forward, so those who were falling behind broke into a run. Then all the soldiers cried out their usual war-cry to Enyalius* and began to run. Some say that they also clashed the shafts of their spears against their shields to frighten the enemy horses. Before they were within bow-shot, the barbarians caved in and fled. The Greeks then set out after them at full speed, but called out to one another not to make it a race, but to keep their formation. The enemy chariots, abandoned by their drivers, hurtled through the ranks of both the enemy and the Greeks. When the Greeks saw them coming, they opened up a gap to let them through. One man, behaving like someone caught panic-stricken on a horse-racing track, was actually run down by a chariot, but the report said that even he was not hurt, and neither was any other Greek, except for someone on the left wing who was said to have been wounded by an arrow.
Cyrus saw that the Greeks had defeated the unit opposite them and had set out in pursuit. He was pleased, and some of his entourage were already doing homage to him as king,* but even so he was not tempted to join in the pursuit. Instead, he kept his squadron of 600 horsemen in close formation and watched to see what the king would do. He was sure that the king held the centre of his army—and in fact it is the universal practice of barbarian rulers to hold the centre when they are in command, because they think it the safest position, since they have forces to either side of them and their troops can receive any messages they need to send in half the time. So on this occasion too the king held the centre of his army. Despite this, he found himself beyond the left wing of Cyrus’ army and so, since there was no one straight ahead to offer battle to him or the men deployed in front of him, he had his men change direction with the intention of outflanking his opponents.
Cyrus, worried that the king might get behind his forces and annihilate the Greeks, rode to meet him. The attack was successful. He and his 600 men defeated the 6,000 deployed in front of the king and put them to flight—and he even killed their commander, Artagerses, with his own hand, it is said. But after the enemy had been turned, Cyrus’ 600 set out after them and also became scattered, until Cyrus was left with only a very few men around him, mainly his so-called ‘table-companions’.* This was his situation when he caught sight of the king and the compact troop around him. Without hesitating for a moment, he cried out, ‘I see him!’, and charged at him. He struck the king on the chest and wounded him through his breastplate. This is on the authority of Ctesias the doctor,* who adds that it was he who healed the wound.
As he was striking the blow, however, a javelin struck him hard under the eye.* There followed a fight between Cyrus and the king, and their respective retinues. Ctesias, who was with the king, reports the number of the casualties on the king’s side; but Cyrus himself was killed, and eight of the bravest men from his retinue lay dead on his body. It is said that when Artapatas, the most loyal of his staff-bearers, saw that Cyrus had fallen, he leapt off his horse and threw himself on the body. Some say that the king ordered one of his men to butcher Artapatas on Cyrus’ body, but according to others Artapatas drew his dagger and did the deed himself. For he carried a golden dagger, and also wore all the usual accoutrements that noble Persians wear, such as a torque and armlets, which had been given to him by Cyrus as rewards for his loyalty and reliability.
[9] This is how Cyrus died. Of all the successors of Cyrus the Elder,* no Persian was a more natural ruler and none more deserved to rule. This was the view of all who were held to have been close to Cyrus. In the first place, even while he was still a child, at school with his brother and the other boys, he was regarded as the best of his generation at everything. All the sons of Persian noblemen are educated at court, where they gain a thorough grounding in self-discipline, and where there is no harsh sound to be heard or ugly sight to be seen. The boys see and hear about those who are highly regarded by the king, and those who receive no honour from him, which means that from their earliest years they are learning how to rule and how to be ruled. In this context, Cyrus was thought, first, to be more respectful than any of his peers and more obedient to his elders even than his inferiors in rank. Second, he adored horses and was particularly good at handling them. Third, there was reckoned to be no one who was more keen to learn the military skills of archery and javelin, and no one who practised them more assiduously.
Moreover, when he reached the appropriate age, he was not only very fond of hunting, but also relished the risks involved in facing wild creatures. A she-bear once charged him, but he engaged the creature without flinching and was dragged from his horse. He received some injuries, the scars of which remained plainly visible, but in the end he killed the beast. Moreover, he made the first man to come to his assistance a general object of envy.
Then again, when he was sent down to the coast by his father to be satrap of Lydia, Greater Phrygia, and Cappadocia, and was also appointed commander of all the forces whose ordained place of assembly was the Plain of Castolus, he demonstrated, first, that the quality he held most important when he was making a treaty or entering into a contract or making a promise was his own personal integrity. This is why the cities there trusted him and put themselves into his hands, and why individuals trusted him too. Even former enemies who later entered into a treaty with Cyrus trusted that the terms of the treaty would be adhered to. This explains why, during his war with Tissaphernes, all the cities of their own accord preferred Cyrus to Tissaphernes. The only exception was Miletus, but the Milesians were frightened of him because he refused to abandon the exiles. For he constantly made it plain, by his actions as well as his words, that he would never abandon them, now that he had become their friend, not even if their numbers declined still further and their situation further deteriorated.
It was also clear that he always tried to go one better than anyone who did him either good or harm. In fact, there was a story in circulation of how he used to pray to live long enough to repay with interest both those who had done him good and those who had injured him. This is why more people wanted to entrust their money, their cities, and even their lives to him than to any other person of our times. At the same time, however, no one could say that he allowed criminals and wrongdoers to mock him. No, he punished them with unstinting severity, and one could often see, by the side of busy roads, people who had lost feet, hands, or eyes. The upshot was that it became possible for any innocent man, whether Greek or barbarian, to travel within Cyrus’ domain wherever he liked without fear and carrying whatever he wanted.
It was universally acknowledged, however, that he especially used to honour people for bravery in warfare. A prime example of this occurred during his war against the Pisidians and the Mysians, when he personally took to the field to invade their territories. He gave those whom he saw readily facing danger responsibility for the territory he was in the process of subduing, and also rewarded them subsequently in other ways as well. This meant that brave men were also seen to prosper the most, while cowards were expected to be their slaves. This is why he always had plenty of men who were prepared to face danger in any situation where they thought that it might come to Cyrus’ attention.
Then again, he regarded it as essential to make those who wanted to stand out for their justice wealthier than those who sought to profit from injustice. This meant not only that his affairs in general were handled in an equitable fashion, but in particular that he gained the services of an army which truly deserved the name. For both the generals and the company commanders who crossed the sea to join his army as mercenaries came to realize that honourable support† for Cyrus was worth more to them than their monthly wages. Further more, he never let the wholehearted performance of any of his orders go unrewarded, and this was generally held to be the reason why in all his undertakings he always gained the best subordinates.
He never took land away from people who managed their estates with sufficient expertise and justice to improve the land and generate an income from it, but he always added to what they had. This meant that they gladly undertook hard work and went about the business of acquisition with confidence. They also had not the slightest inclination to conceal what they owned from Cyrus, because he made it plain that he did not mind people who made no secret of their wealth, while he made efforts to appropriate the property of those who tried to conceal it.
As for friendship, it is universally acknowledged that there was no one better than Cyrus at looking after all his friends, as long as he found them to be loyal and reckoned them capable of helping him achieve whatever goal he had set his sights on. For just as it was precisely his desire to gain help in some task or other which made him feel that he needed friends, so he himself tried his best to help his friends whenever he saw that there was something one of them wanted. No single individual, in my opinion, ever received more gifts than he did, and there were many reasons why people gave them to him, but he gave them away again, chiefly to his friends, taking into consideration each individual’s character and the particular need he perceived anyone as having. For instance, he was sent plenty of finery to wear during times of war or just to look good, and one of his recorded sayings concerns these gifts: he said that while he could not have himself adorned in all this finery, he thought that there was nothing finer for a man than finely turned out friends.
Since he had greater resources, it is hardly surprising that he outdid his friends in the generosity of the favours he did them, but what seems more admirable to me is that he surpassed them in thoughtfulness and in his determination to do favours. For example, when Cyrus came across a particularly pleasant wine, he often sent his friends the jar, still half full of wine, with the message: ‘Cyrus has not come across a nicer wine than this for a long time, so he has sent it to you with the request that you drink it up today along with your best friends.’ Likewise, he would also send something like a half-eaten goose or half a loaf, and tell the slave who took it to add: ‘Cyrus enjoyed this, and he would like you to have a taste of it too.’ When fodder was in short supply, but he was able to take care of his own needs thanks to the large numbers of slaves he had, and thanks to his prudent management, he used to distribute it among his friends with the request that they use it to feed the horses they rode themselves, so that the horses his friends rode might not go hungry. And whenever he was likely to be seen by large numbers of people while he was out and about, he would gather his friends around him and engage them in close conversation, so as to let people know whom he valued.
In conclusion, then, it is my personal view that no Greek or barbarian—or none that I have heard of—was loved by more people. There is evidence for this in the fact that, although Cyrus was a slave,* no one deserted him for the king. Only Orontas tried to do so, and he soon found out that the man he thought he could rely on was in fact more loyal to Cyrus than him. On the other hand, once there was open warfare between the king and Cyrus, there were plenty of deserters the other way round, and they were men of whom the king was particularly fond.† They deserted because they thought that, as brave men, they would be more likely to get the respect they deserved from Cyrus than from the king.
Even what happened at his death shows clearly that he was a good man himself and that he was capable of accurately assessing fidelity, loyalty, and dependability in others. For as Cyrus lay dying, his entire entourage of friends and table-companions fought and died over his body. The only exception was Ariaeus, who had been put in charge of the cavalry on the left wing. When he found out that Cyrus had fallen, he fled with all the troops under his command.
[10] So Cyrus’ head and his right hand were hacked from his corpse. The king set out in pursuit and burst into Cyrus’ camp, where Ariaeus and his men ceased any attempt at resistance and fled through their own camp to the staging area from where they had set out that day—a distance, it was said, of four parasangs. The king and his men seized a great deal of booty, including Cyrus’ Phocaean concubine,* who was said to be both clever and pretty. The younger of his concubines, the Milesian woman, was also captured by the king’s men, but escaped from their clutches and found her way, naked, to some Greeks who happened to have weapons and formed a last line of defence in the baggage train. These Greeks killed many of the looters and did not run away even though they took casualties. And so they saved this Milesian woman and everything and everyone else which was behind them.
At this point the king and the main body of the Greeks were about thirty stades apart. The Greeks were pursuing the troops they had been ranged against, in the belief that overall victory was theirs, while the king’s men had turned to looting, in the belief that their whole army had by then won the day; but eventually the Greeks found out that the king and his men were in the baggage train, and the king was told by Tissaphernes that the Greeks had defeated their immediate opponents and were racing ahead in pursuit. Then the king collected his troops and formed them up for battle, and Clearchus called over Proxenus (who was nearest to him) and they discussed whether they should send a detachment to help the camp or go in full force. But in the meantime it became plain that the king was advancing again—from their rear, as they thought—so the Greeks did an about-face and got ready to meet his attack, expecting him to come from that direction.
The king, however, did not advance straight towards the Greeks, but retraced the same path he had come by, past the outside of Cyrus’ left wing. On the way he recovered those of his men who had deserted to the Greeks during the battle, and also Tissaphernes and his troops. Tissaphernes had not retreated during the initial clash, but had ridden along the river and against the Greek peltasts. But his charge failed to inflict any casualties, because the Greeks opened up a gap and then struck Tissaphernes’ men with their weapons and hurled javelins at them as they went through. The commander of the peltasts was Episthenes of Amphipolis and he was generally held to have proved himself a sound tactician. At any rate, having come off worst in the encounter, Tissaphernes did not wheel his troops around again, but went on to the Greek camp, where he met the king. Once these two units had formed up together in battle order, they set out.
Before long, they were facing the Greek left wing.* The Greeks were concerned that an attack against their wing would allow the enemy to outflank it on both sides and massacre them. They decided to fold back the wing until they had the river behind them, but before they had finished discussing this manoeuvre the king bypassed them and deployed his men opposite them in the same battle formation he had adopted during the first engagement. When the Greeks saw the enemy troops near by, in battle order, they once again struck up the paean and advanced with far more determination even than before. The barbarians again failed to stand their ground; in fact, they turned to flight when the Greeks were even further off than the first time.
The Greeks chased them as far as a village,* but stopped there because the king and his men had rallied on the hill which over-looked the village. The king no longer had any infantry troops, but the hill was so covered with horsemen that the Greeks could not tell what was going on, though they said they could see the royal standard—a golden spread eagle on a shield.* Even under these circumstances, however, the Greeks set out against the enemy—and the cavalry immediately began to abandon even the hill. Men rode off in all directions, without staying together as a unit at all, until they had all withdrawn and the hill was empty of horsemen. Clearchus did not take his troops up the hill, but halted them at the foot and sent a couple of men (one of them was Lycius of Syracuse) up the hill with instructions to see what was on the other side and report back. Lycius rode up and had a look, and brought back the news that the enemy was in full flight. The sun was just beginning to set when this was happening.
The Greeks then halted, grounded their weapons, and rested. At the same time they were surprised that Cyrus was nowhere to be seen and that no one else turned up from him either. They had no idea that he was dead; their best guess was that either he was chasing the enemy or he had ridden on ahead in order to occupy some strategic point. There was some discussion about whether they should stay where they were and bring the baggage there, or should return to the camp. They decided on the latter course and got back to their tents around the time of the evening meal.*
So this day ended. The Greeks found that most of their things had been stolen, including their food and drink. As for the carts filled with wheat flour and wine, which Cyrus had provided so that in the event of an emergency he would have something to give the Greeks—and there were generally held to have been 400 of these carts—these too had been stolen by the king’s men. As a result, most of the Greeks went without food, and they had gone without a midday meal as well, because the king had turned up before they had stopped to eat. This, then, is how they spent that night.