WITH their generals arrested and the captains and soldiers who had gone with them put to death, the Greeks were in an extremely awkward position. It occurred to them that they were near the King’s capital and that around them on all sides were numbers of people and cities who were their enemies; no one was likely in the future to provide them with a chance of buying food. They were at least a thousand miles away from Greece; they had no guide to show them the way; they were shut in by impassable rivers which traversed their homeward journey; even the natives who had marched on the capital with Cyrus had turned against them, and they were left by themselves without a single cavalryman in their army, so that it was evident that, if they won a victory, they could not kill any of their enemies, and if they were defeated themselves none of them would be left alive. With all this to reflect upon they were in a state of deep despondency. Only a few tasted food that evening, and a few lit fires. Many of them did not parade by the arms that night, but took their rest just where each man happened to be, and could not sleep because of their misery and their longing for their home lands and parents and wives and children, which they thought that they would never see again. In this state of mind they all took their rest.
There was an Athenian in the army called Xenophon,1 who accompanied the expedition neither as a general nor a captain nor an ordinary soldier. Proxenus, who was an old friend of his, had sent for him from his home and promised to make him the friend of Cyrus whom, he said, he valued above his own country. When Xenophon had read Proxenus’s letter he consulted Socrates the Athenian about the proposed expedition, and Socrates, suspecting that friendship with Cyrus might involve complaints at Athens (since Cyrus was thought to have been very active in helping the Spartans in their war with Athens), recommended Xenophon to go to Delphi and consult the god on the question of the expedition. Xenophon went there and asked Apollo the following question: ‘To what God shall I pray and sacrifice in order that I may best and most honourably go on the journey I have in mind, and return home safe and successful?’ Apollo’s reply was that he should sacrifice to the appropriate gods, and when Xenophon got back to Athens he told Socrates the oracle’s answer. When Socrates heard it he blamed him for not first asking whether it was better for him to go on the expedition or to stay at home; instead of that he had made his own decision that he ought to go, and then inquired how he might best make the journey. ‘However’, he said, ‘since this was the way you put your question, you must do what the god has told you.’
Xenophon then made the sacrifices which the god had ordered and set sail. He found Proxenus and Cyrus at Sardis just on the point of starting on the march into the interior and he was introduced to Cyrus. Proxenus was eager for him to stay with them and Cyrus too joined him in this, saying that as soon as the campaign was over he would send him back home immediately. The expedition was supposed to be against the Pisidians. Xenophon thus joined the army under a false impression, though this was not the fault of Proxenus, since neither he nor anyone else among the Greeks, except for Clearchus, knew that the expedition was marching against the King. However, when they got to Cilicia, it already seemed obvious to everyone that it was against the King that they were marching. All the same, though unwillingly and with apprehensions about the journey, most people continued on the march, not wanting to lose face in each other’s eyes, and in the eyes of Cyrus. Xenophon was no different from the rest, and now in their difficult position he was as miserable as anyone else and could not get to sleep. However, he got a little sleep in the end and had a dream. He dreamed that there was a thunderstorm and that a thunderbolt fell on his father’s house and then the whole house was on fire. He woke up immediately, feeling very frightened, and considered that in some respects the dream was a good one, because in the midst of his difficulties and dangers he had dreamed of a great light from Zeus; but in other respects he was alarmed by it, because the dream seemed to him to have come from Zeus in his character of the King and the fire had seemed to blaze all round him and this might mean that he would not be able to leave the King’s country but would be shut in on all sides by one difficulty or another. But what is really meant by having a dream like this can be seen from what happened after the dream.
This is what did happen. As soon as he woke up the first thing that came into his head was this: ‘What am I lying here for? The night is passing and at dawn the enemy will probably be here. If we fall into the King’s hands, there is nothing to prevent us from seeing the most terrible things happening, from suffering all kinds of tortures and from being put to death in ignominy. Yet so far from anybody bothering to take any steps for our defence, we are lying here as though we had a chance of enjoying a quiet time. What city, then, do I expect will produce the general to take the right steps? Am I waiting until I become a little older? I shall never be any older at all if I hand myself over to the enemy today.’
Then he stood up and first of all called together Proxenus’s captains. When they had come together, he said: ‘I personally, captains, cannot sleep any more than, I expect, you can, and I can no longer lie still when I think of the position we are in. For there is no doubt that the enemy only made open war on us when they thought that their plans were complete, but on our side there is now nobody who is thinking out counter measures whereby we can put up as good a fight as possible. Yet if we relax and fall into the King’s power, what sort of treatment can we expect from him? He is the man who cut off and fixed to a stake the head and hand of his own brother, his own mother’s son, even when he was dead. So what sort of treatment can we expect, we who have no blood relation to take our side, and who marched against him with the intention of deposing him and making him a subject, and killing him if we could? Will he not go to all possible lengths in trying to inflict on us every conceivable misery and so make all men afraid of ever marching against him again? No, it is surely clear that we must do everything in our power to avoid falling into his hands.
‘Now, personally, while the truce was in force, I could never stop feeling sorry for us and looking with envy on the King and those on his side. I considered what a large and splendid country they had, what inexhaustible supplies, what quantities of servants, of cattle and gold and clothing material; and then I thought on the other hand of our men’s prospects – that we could only get a share of all these good things by paying for it (and I knew that there were not many left who had the money to do so), and that the oaths we had sworn prevented us from acquiring supplies in any other way except by paying for them. When I reckoned all this up, I sometimes used to feel more misgivings about the truce than I now do about the war. Now, however, they have put an end to the truce, and I think that the period of their arrogance and of our uneasy feelings is also ended. For now these good things lie in front of us as prizes for whichever side shows itself to be the better men; the gods are judges of the contest, and they will naturally be on our side, since it was our enemies who took their names in vain, while we, with many good things before our eyes, resolutely kept our hands off them because of the oaths we had sworn to the gods. So it seems to me that we can enter the contest with much more confidence than they can. Then we are physically better able than they are to endure cold and heat and hardship; our morale is, with the gods on our side, better than theirs; and if the gods grant us victory, as they did before, our enemies are easier to wound and kill than we are.
‘Quite likely there are others who feel the same as I do. Well then, in heaven’s name, let us not wait for other people to come to us and call upon us to do great deeds. Let us instead be the first to summon the rest to the path of honour. Show yourselves to be the bravest of all the captains, with more of a right to leadership than those who are our leaders at present. As for me, if you are willing to take the initiative like this, I am prepared to follow you, and if you appoint me to be your leader I do not ask to be excused because of my age.2 Indeed I think I am already sufficiently grown up to act in my own defence.’
This was what Xenophon said, and, after listening to him, all the captains urged him to be their leader – all except for a man there called Apollonides, who had a Boeotian accent. This Apollonides declared that it was nonsense to say that there was any chance of safety except by getting, if it was possible, the King’s goodwill, and at the same time he started talking about all their difficulties. Xenophon, however, cut him short and spoke as follows: ‘My dear good man, you are the sort of person who neither understands what he sees nor remembers what he hears. Yet you were there with all the rest when the King, after Cyrus’s death and in his pride because of it, sent and demanded that we should surrender our arms; and then, when we, so far from surrendering them, made ready for battle and went and encamped by his army, he left no stone unturned – sending people to negotiate, begging for a truce, providing us with supplies – until he got his truce. But when our generals and captains went into a conference, just as you are recommending, and left their arms behind, relying on the truce, what happened? Are they not at this moment being beaten and tortured and insulted, and are not even able, poor devils, to die, though death, I imagine, is what they are longing for? With all this knowledge in your possession, do you actually maintain that those who recommend self-defence are talking nonsense, and tell us to go and make another attempt at getting the King’s goodwill? Soldiers, my view is that we should not suffer this fellow in our society; we should take away his captaincy, put the baggage on his back and use him as an animal. Being a Greek, and being what he is, he brings shame not only on his own native place but on the whole of Greece.’
Then Agasias the Stymphalian broke in and said: ‘This fellow has got nothing to do either with Boeotia or with Greece. I have observed that he has holes in both his ears, just like a Lydian.’ This was actually the case, and so they drove him out.
The others went round the various detachments and where there was a general still alive they called for him, or, in cases where he was missing, for his deputy commander; where there was a captain still alive, they called for the captain. When they had all assembled they sat down in front of the place where the arms were kept. The generals and captains assembled; there were about a hundred all together, and the meeting took place at about midnight. Hieronymus of Elis, the oldest of Proxenus’s captains, then began the proceedings and spoke as follows : ‘ Generals and captains, in view of our present position we decided to meet together ourselves and to invite you to join us, so that, if possible, we might come to some useful decision. I now call upon Xenophon to speak as he has already spoken to us.’
Xenophon accordingly spoke as follows: ‘Here is one thing which we all know, namely, that the King and Tissaphernes have made prisoners of all those of us whom they could and are obviously planning, if they can manage it, to destroy the rest of us. Our part, as I see it, is to do everything possible to prevent our ever coming into the power of the natives -indeed to see rather that they are in our power. I should like to assure you of this point – that you who have assembled here in your present numbers are placed in an extraordinarily responsible position. All these soldiers of ours have their eyes on you, and if they see that you are downhearted they will all become cowards, while if you are yourselves clearly prepared to meet the enemy and if you call on the rest to do their part, you can be sure that they will follow you and try to be like you. It is right, too, I think, that you should show some superiority over them. After all you are generals, you are officers and captains. In peace time you got more pay and more respect than they did. Now, in war time, you ought to hold yourselves to be braver than the general mass of men, and to take decisions for the rest, and, if necessary, to be the first to do the hard work. I think that first of all you could do a great service to the army by appointing generals and captains as quickly as possible to take the places of those whom we have lost. For where there is no one in control nothing useful or distinguished can ever get done. This is roughly true of all departments of life, and entirely true where soldiering is concerned. Here it is discipline that makes one feel safe, while lack of discipline has destroyed many people before now.
‘Then I think that, after you have appointed the required number of officers, if you were to call a meeting of the rest of the soldiers and put some heart into them, that would be just what the occasion demands. At the moment I expect you realize, just as I do, how dispirited they were in handing in their arms for the night and in going on guard. In that condition I cannot see how any use can be made of them, whether by night or by day. But there will be a great rise in their spirits if one can change the way they think, so that instead of having in their heads the one idea of “what is going to happen to me?” they may think “what action am I going to take?”
‘You are well aware that it is not numbers or strength that bring the victories in war. No, it is when one side goes against the enemy with the gods’ gift of a stronger morale that their adversaries, as a rule, cannot withstand them. I have noticed this point too, my friends, that in soldiering the people whose one aim is to keep alive usually find a wretched and dishonourable death, while the people who, realizing that death is the common lot of all men, make it their endeavour to die with honour, somehow seem more often to reach old age and to have a happier life when they are alive. These are facts which you too should realize (our situation demands it) and should show that you yourselves are brave men and should call on the rest to do likewise.’
So he ended his speech. Chirisophus spoke after him and said: ‘Up to now, Xenophon, the only thing I knew about you was that I had heard you were an Athenian. Now I congratulate you on your speech and your actions, and I should like to see here as many people of your sort as possible. Then we should have the right spirit all through the army. And now,’ he went on, ‘let us not waste time, my friends. Let us go away, and let those who are short of officers choose new ones. When you have chosen them, come to the centre of the camp and bring along those whom you have elected. Then we will muster the rest of the soldiers there. Tolmides the herald had better come with us.’
With these words he got to his feet so as to show that there should be no delay, that what was necessary should be done at once. Afterwards the following were chosen as officers: Timasion, a Dardanian, to take the place of Clearchus, Xanthicles, an Achaean, to take Socrates’ place, Cleanor, an Arcadian, to take Agias’s place, Philesius, an Arcadian, to take that of Menon, and Xenophon, an Athenian, in the place of Proxenus.