At length they reached certain villages indicated by their guides for quarters and provisions; and here for the first time they had a sample of that unparalleled abundance of the Babylonian territory, which Herodotus is afraid to describe with numerical precision. Large quantities of corn,[12]—dates not only in great numbers, but of such beauty, freshness, size, and flavor, as no Greek had ever seen or tasted, insomuch that fruit like what was imported into Greece, was disregarded and left for the slaves—wine and vinegar, both also made from the date-palm; these are the luxuries which Xenophon is eloquent in describing, after his recent period of scanty fare and anxious apprehension; not without also noticing the headaches which such new and luscious food, in unlimited quantity, brought upon himself and others.
§ 3. Negotiations with Tissaphernês.
After three days passed in these restorative quarters, they were visited by Tissaphernês, accompanied by four Persian grandees and a suite of slaves. The satrap[13] began to open a negotiation with Klearchus and the other generals. Speaking through an interpreter, he stated to them that the vicinity of his province to Greece impressed him with a strong interest in favor of the Cyreian Greeks,[14] and made him anxious to rescue them out of their present desperate situation; that he had solicited the King's permission to save them, as a personal recompense to himself for having been the first to forewarn him of the schemes of Cyrus, and for having been the only Persian who had not fled before the Greeks at Kunaxa; that the King had promised to consider this point, and had sent him in the mean time to ask the Greeks what their purpose was in coming up to attack him; and that he trusted the Greeks would give him a conciliatory answer to carry back, in order that he might have less difficulty in realizing what he desired for their benefit. To this Klearchus, after first deliberating apart with the other officers, replied, that the army had come together, and had even commenced their march, without any purpose of hostility to the King; that Cyrus had brought them up the country under false pretences, but that they had been ashamed to desert him in the midst of danger, since he had always treated them generously; that since Cyrus was now dead, they had no purpose of hostility against the King, but were only anxious to return home; that they were prepared to repel hostility from all quarters, but would be not less prompt in requiting favor or assistance. With this answer Tissaphernês departed, and returned on the next day but one, informing them that he had obtained the King's permission to save the Grecian army—though not without great opposition, since many Persian counsellors contended that it was unworthy of the King's dignity to suffer those who had assailed him to escape. "I am now ready (said he) to conclude a covenant[15] and exchange oaths with you; engaging to conduct you safely back into Greece, with the country friendly, and with a regular market for you to purchase provisions. You must stipulate on your part always to pay for your provisions, and to do no damage to the country: if I do not furnish you with provisions to buy, you are then at liberty to take them where you can find them." Well were the Greeks content to enter into such a covenant, which was sworn, with hands given upon it, by Klearchus, the other generals, and the captains on their side—and by Tissaphernês with the King's brother-in-law on the other. Tissaphernês then left them, saying that he would go back to the King, make preparations, and return to reconduct the Greeks home; going himself to his own province.
The statements of Ktesias, though known to us only indirectly, and not to be received without caution, afford ground for believing that Queen Parysatis decidedly wished success to her son Cyrus in his contest for the throne—that the first report conveyed to her of the battle of Kunaxa, announcing the victory of Cyrus, filled her with joy, which was exchanged for bitter sorrow when she was informed of his death,—that she caused to be slain with horrible tortures all those, who, though acting in the Persian army and for the defence of Artaxerxês, had any participation in the death of Cyrus—and that she showed favorable dispositions towards the Cyreian Greeks. It may seem probable, farther, that her influence may have been exerted to procure for them an unimpeded retreat, without anticipating the use afterwards made by Tissaphernês (as will soon appear) of the present convention.[16] And in one point of view the Persian king had an interest in facilitating their retreat. For the very circumstance which rendered retreat difficult, also rendered the Greeks dangerous to him in their actual position. They were in the heart of the Persian Empire, within seventy miles of Babylon; in a country not only teeming with fertility, but also extremely defensible; especially against cavalry, from the multiplicity of canals, as Herodotus observed respecting Lower Egypt. And Klearchus might say to his Grecian soldiers—what Xenophon was afterwards preparing to say to them at Kalpê on the Euxine Sea, and what Nikias also affirmed to the unhappy Athenian army whom he afterwards conducted away from Syracuse[17]—that wherever they sat down, they were sufficiently numerous and well-organized to become at once a city. A body of such troops might effectually assist, and would perhaps encourage, the Babylonian population to throw off the Persian yoke, and to relieve themselves from the prodigious tribute[18] which they now paid to the satrap. For these reasons, the advisers of Artaxerxês thought it advantageous to convey the Greeks across the Tigris out of Babylonia, beyond all possibility of returning thither. This was at any rate the primary object of the convention. And it was the more necessary to conciliate the goodwill of the Greeks, because there seems to have been but one bridge over the Tigris; which bridge could only be reached by inviting them to advance considerably farther into the interior of Babylonia.
Such was the state of fears and hopes on both sides, at the time when Tissaphernês left the Greeks, after concluding his convention. For twenty days did they await his return, without receiving from him any communication; the Cyreian Persians[19] under Ariæus being encamped near them. Such prolonged and unexplained delay became, after a few days, the source of much uneasiness to the Greeks; the more so, as Ariæus received during this interval several visits from his Persian kinsmen, and friendly messages from the King, promising amnesty[20] for his recent services under Cyrus. Of these messages the effects were painfully felt, in manifest coldness of demeanor on the part of his Persian troops towards the Greeks. Impatient and suspicious, the Greek soldiers impressed upon Klearchus their fears, that the King had concluded the recent convention only to arrest their movements, until he should have assembled a larger army and blocked up more effectually the roads against their return. To this Klearchus replied—"I am aware of all that you say. Yet if we now strike our tents,[21] it will be a breach of the convention, and a declaration of war. No one will furnish us with provisions: we shall have no guides: Ariæus will desert us forthwith, so that we shall have his troops as enemies instead of friends. Whether there be any other river for us to cross, I know not; but we know that the Euphratês itself can never be crossed, if there be an enemy to resist us. Nor have we any cavalry,—while cavalry is the best and most numerous force of our enemies. If the King, having all these advantages, really wishes to destroy us, I do not know why he should falsely exchange all these oaths and solemnities, and thus make his own word worthless in the eyes both of Greeks and barbarians."[22]
Such words from Klearchus are remarkable, as they testify his own complete despair of the situation—certainly a very natural despair—except by amicable dealing with the Persians; and also his ignorance of geography and the country to be traversed. This feeling helps to explain his imprudent confidence afterwards in Tissaphernês.
That satrap, however, after twenty days, at last came back, with his army prepared to return to Ionia[23]—with the King's daughter, whom he had just received in marriage—and with another grandee named Orontas. Tissaphernês took the conduct of the march, providing supplies for the Greek troops to purchase; while Ariæus and his division now separated themselves altogether from the Greeks, and became intermingled with the other Persians. Klearchus and the Greeks followed them, at the distance of about three miles in the rear, with a separate guide for themselves; not without jealousy and mistrust, sometimes shown in individual conflicts, while collecting wood or forage, between them and the Persians of Ariæus. After three days' march (that is, apparently, three days, calculated from the moment when they began their retreat with Ariæus) they came to the Wall of Media,[24] and passed through it, prosecuting their march onward through the country on its other or interior side. It was of bricks cemented with bitumen,[25] 100 feet high, and 20 feet broad; it was said to extend a length of about 70 miles, and to be not far distant from Babylon. Two days of farther march, computed at 28 miles, brought them to the Tigris. During these two days they crossed two great ship-canals, one of them over a permanent bridge, the other over a temporary bridge laid on seven boats. Canals of such magnitude must probably have been two among the four stated by Xenophon to be drawn from the river Tigris, each of them about three miles and a half distant from the other. They were 100 feet broad, and deep enough even for heavy vessels; they were distributed by means of numerous smaller channels and ditches for the irrigation of the soil; and they were said to fall into the Euphratês; or rather perhaps they terminated in one main larger canal cut directly from the Euphratês to the Tigris, each of them joining this larger canal at a different point of its course. Within less than two miles of the Tigris was a large and populous city named Sittakê, near which the Greeks pitched their camp, on the verge of a beautiful park or thick grove full of all kinds of trees; while the Persians all crossed the Tigris, at the neighboring bridge.
As Proxenus and Xenophon were here walking in front of the camp after supper, a man was brought up who had asked for the former at the advanced posts. This man said that he came with instructions from Ariæus. He advised the Greeks to be on their guard, as there were troops concealed in the adjoining grove, for the purpose of attacking them during the night—and also to send and occupy the bridge over the Tigris, since Tissaphernês intended to break it down, in order that the Greeks might be caught without possibility of escape between the river and the canal. On discussing this information with Klearchus, who was much alarmed by it, a young Greek present remarked that the two matters stated by the informant contradicted each other; for that if Tissaphernês intended to attack the Greeks during the night, he would not break down the bridge, so as both to prevent his own troops on the other side from crossing to aid, and to deprive those on this side of all retreat if they were beaten,—while, if the Greeks were beaten, there was no escape open to them, whether the bridge continued or not. This remark induced Klearchus to ask the messenger, what was the extent of ground between the Tigris and the canal. The messenger replied that it was a great extent of country, comprising many large cities and villages. Reflecting on this communication, the Greek officers came to the conclusion that the message was a stratagem on the part of Tissaphernês to frighten them and hasten their passage across the Tigris; under the apprehension that they might conceive the plan of seizing or breaking the bridge and occupying a permanent position in the spot where they were; which was an island, fortified on one side by the Tigris,—on the other sides, by intersecting canals between the Euphratês and the Tigris. Such an island was a defensible position, having a most productive territory with numerous cultivators, so as to furnish shelter and means of hostility for all the King's enemies: Tissaphernês calculated that the message now delivered would induce the Greeks to become alarmed with their actual position, and to cross the Tigris with as little delay as possible. At least this was the interpretation which the Greek officers put upon his proceeding; an interpretation highly plausible, since, in order to reach the bridge over the Tigris, he had been obliged to conduct the Greek troops into a position sufficiently tempting for them to hold—and since he knew that his own purposes were purely treacherous. But the Greeks, officers as well as soldiers, were animated only by the wish of reaching home. They trusted, though not without misgivings, in the promise of Tissaphernês to conduct them; and never for a moment thought of taking permanent post in this fertile island. They did not however neglect the precaution of sending a guard during the night to the bridge over the Tigris, which no enemy came to assail. On the next morning they passed over it in a body, in cautious and mistrustful array, and found themselves on the eastern bank of the Tigris,—not only without attack, but even without sight of a single Persian, except Glûs the interpreter and a few others watching their motions.
After having crossed by a bridge laid upon thirty-seven pontoons,[26] the Greeks continued their march to the northward upon the eastern side of the Tigris, for four days to the river Physkus; said to be seventy miles. The Physkus was 100 feet wide, with a bridge, and the large city of Opis near it. Here, at the frontier of Assyria and Media, the road from the eastern regions to Babylon joined the road northerly on which the Greeks were marching. An illegitimate brother of Artaxerxês was seen at the head of a numerous force, which he was conducting from Susa and Ekbatana as a reinforcement to the royal army. This great host halted to see the Greeks pass by; and Klearchus ordered the march in column of two abreast, employing himself actively to maintain an excellent array, and halting more than once. The army thus occupied so long a time in passing by the Persian host that their numbers appeared greater than the reality, even to themselves; while the effect upon the Persian spectators was very imposing. Here Assyria ended and Media began. They marched, still in a northerly direction, for six days through a portion of Media almost unpeopled, until they came to some flourishing villages which formed a portion of the domain of Queen Parysatis; probably these villages, forming so marked an exception to the desert character of the remaining march, were situated on the Lesser Zab, which flows into the Tigris, and which Xenophon must have crossed, though he makes no mention of it. According to the order of march stipulated between the Greeks and Tissaphernês, the latter only provided a supply of provisions for the former to purchase; but on the present halt, he allowed the Greeks to plunder the villages, which were rich and full of all sorts of subsistence—yet without carrying off the slaves. The wish of the satrap to put an insult on Cyrus, as his personal enemy, through Parysatis, thus proved a sentence of ruin to these unhappy villagers. Five more days' march, called seventy miles, brought them to the banks of the river Zabatus, or the Greater Zab, which flows into the Tigris near a town now called Senn. During the first of these five days, they saw on the opposite side of the Tigris a large town called Kænæ, from whence they received supplies of provisions, brought across by the inhabitants upon rafts supported by inflated skins.[27]