THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT
ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER
Decadence of the Persian Empire.—The Greeks, engaged in strife, ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from him. But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled. The satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, became a little king in his province. When the Great King desired to remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by assassinating him. The Persians themselves were no longer that nation before which all the Asiatic peoples were wont to tremble. Xenophon, a Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows: "They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks into knights—even the valets who served them at table, dressed them or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them. The drivers of chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'"
Expedition of the Ten Thousand.—This weakness was very apparent when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has written the story of their expedition.
This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon. The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to keep ranks.
When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to conclude a truce.
The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian empire. At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000.
Agesilaus.—Three years after, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, with a small army invaded the rich country of Asia Minor, Lydia, and Phrygia. He fought the satraps and was about to invade Asia when the Spartans ordered his return to fight the armies of Thebes and Athens. Agesilaus was the first of the Greeks to dream of conquering Persia. He was distressed to see the Greeks fighting among themselves. When they announced to him the victory at Corinth where but eight Spartans had perished and 10,000 of the enemy, instead of rejoicing he sighed and said, "Alas, unhappy Greece, to have lost enough men to have subjugated all the barbarians!" He refused one day to destroy a Greek city. "If we exterminate all the Greeks who fail of their duty," said he, "where shall we find the men to vanquish the barbarians?" This feeling was rare at that time. In relating these words of Agesilaus Xenophon, his biographer, exclaims, "Who else regarded it as a misfortune to conquer when he was making war on peoples of his own race?"
CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER
Macedon.—Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them standing as Greeks.