Xenophon rode on horseback beside his men, urging them to do their utmost. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that this toil is to make it possible for you to return to your homes, your wives, and your children. Yet a little more effort, and all the rest will be easy.’
One of the soldiers, who was named Soteridas, was a lazy, sullen fellow, and looking enviously at Xenophon, he said, ‘It is all very well for you to talk, Xenophon, for you can ride at your ease, but I am groaning beneath the weight of this heavy shield.’
Instantly Xenophon sprang from his horse, seized the shield of Soteridas, pushed him aside, and taking his place in the ranks, struggled up the hill like a private soldier, although he was encumbered with the heavy armour worn for riding.
The other men were delighted at this, and they did not scruple to express their contempt for Soteridas by blows as well as taunts, until at last the unhappy man was constrained to implore Xenophon to let him take back his shield and share the toil of his comrades.
To this Xenophon consented, and remounting his horse, he rode as long as it was possible to do so, but soon the road became so bad that he was obliged to dismount and climb on foot for the rest of the way.
The Persians were but a very little distance from the crest of the mountain when the first Hellenes reached it. The advantage was now with them, and they at once charged. Back fled the Persians by any path they could find, and soon there was no longer a trace either of the detachment that had been posted on the hill, or of the main army advancing along the plain.
The road was free, and a short march brought the Hellenes to some villages where they could rest after the fatigues of the day. There they found abundance of food, and were able moreover to take as spoil a number of cows and other animals, for it happened, fortunately for the Hellenes, that a great number were just then collected at that place in order to be ferried across the Tigris.
This was their last encounter with Tissaphernes. Since his shameful betrayal of their generals, he had for twenty days been following in their track, as a pack of hounds pursues a noble stag, who nevertheless saves himself by his courage and endurance. Taking into consideration the enormous difference in point of numbers, the loss sustained by the Hellenes during these twenty days was very slight. They had been more than a match for Tissaphernes and his great army, and might well feel proud of their superiority to the cowardly mob of Barbarians.
XXVIII
THE RIVER OR THE MOUNTAINS?
But although they had now seen the last of Tissaphernes, the Hellenes were still a very long way from the end of their journey. Difficulties of another and more serious kind still lay before them, and the question of their further route caused the generals great anxiety. For in front of the fruitful valley in which they were encamped, there stretched before them a stern and rugged mountain-country inhabited by a nation of savages.