Well knowing the danger of such spontaneous and informal assemblages, and the importance of the habitual solemnities of convocation and arrangement, to ensure either discussion or legitimate defence—Xenophon immediately sent round the herald to summon the army into the regular place of assembly with customary method and ceremony. The summons was obeyed with unusual alacrity, and Xenophon then addressed them—refraining, with equal generosity and prudence, from saying anything about the last proposition which Timasion and others had made to him. Had he mentioned it, the question would have become one of life and death between him and those other officers.
§ 14. Xenophon defends himself against false accusations.
"Soldiers (said he), I understand that there are some men here calumniating me, as if I were intending to cheat you and carry you to Phasis. Hear me then, in the name of the gods. If I am shown to be doing wrong, let me not go from hence unpunished; but if, on the contrary, my calumniators are proved to be the wrong-doers, deal with them as they deserve. You surely well know where the sun rises and where he sets; you know that if a man wishes to reach Greece, he must go westward—if to the barbaric territories, he must go eastward. Can any one hope to deceive you on this point, and persuade you that the sun rises on this side, and sets on that? Can any one cheat you into going on shipboard with a wind which blows you away from Greece? Suppose even that I put you aboard when there is no wind at all. How am I to force you to sail with me against your own consent—I being only in one ship, you in a hundred and more? Imagine however that I could even succeed in deluding you to Phasis. When we land there, you will know at once that we are not in Greece; and what fate can I then expect—a detected impostor in the midst of ten thousand men with arms in their hands? No—these stories all proceed from foolish men, who are jealous of my influence with you; jealous, too, without reason—for I neither hinder them from out-stripping me in your favor, if they can render you greater service—nor you from electing them commanders, if you think fit. Enough of this now: I challenge any one to come forward and say how it is possible either to cheat, or to be cheated, in the manner laid to my charge."
Having thus grappled directly with the calumnies of his enemies, and dissipated them in such manner as doubtless to create a reaction in his own favor, Xenophon made use of the opportunity to denounce the growing disorders in the army; which he depicted as such, that if no corrective were applied, disgrace and contempt must fall upon all. As he paused after this general remonstrance, the soldiers loudly called upon him to go into particulars; upon which he proceeded to recall, with lucid and impressive simplicity, the outrages which had been committed at and near Kerasus—the unauthorized and unprovoked attack made by Klearetus and his company on a neighboring village which was in friendly commerce with the army—the murder of the three elders of the village, who had come as heralds to complain to the generals about such wrong—the mutinous attack made by disorderly soldiers even upon the magistrates of Kerasus, at the very moment when they were remonstrating with the generals on what had occurred; exposing these magistrates to the utmost peril, and putting the generals themselves to ignominy. "If such are to be our proceedings (continued Xenophon), look you well into what condition the army will fall. You, the aggregate body, will no longer be the sovereign authority to make war or peace with whom you please; each individual among you will conduct the army against any point which he may choose. And even if men should come to you as envoys, either for peace or for other purposes, they may be slain by any single enemy; so that you will be debarred from all public communications whatever. Next, those whom your universal suffrage shall have chosen commanders, will have no authority; while any self-elected general who chooses to give the word, Cast, Cast (i.e. darts or stones), may put to death without trial either officer or soldier as it suits him; that is, if he finds you ready to obey him, as it happened near Kerasus. Look now what these self-elected leaders have done for you. The magistrate of Kerasus, if he was really guilty of wrong towards you, has been enabled to escape with impunity; if he was innocent, he has been obliged to run away from you, as the only means of avoiding death without pretence of trial. Those who stoned the heralds to death have brought matters to such a pass, that you alone, of all Greeks, cannot enter the town of Kerasus in safety, unless in commanding force; and that we cannot even send in a herald to take up our dead (Klearetus and those who were slain in the attack on the Kerasuntine village) for burial; though at first those who had slain them in self-defence were anxious to give up the bodies to us. For who will take the risk of going in as herald, from those who have set the example of putting heralds to death? We generals were obliged to entreat the Kerasuntines to bury the bodies for us."
Continuing in this emphatic protest against the recent disorders and outrages, Xenophon at length succeeded in impressing his own sentiment, heartily and unanimously, upon the soldiers. They passed a vote that the ringleaders of the mutiny at Kerasus should be punished; that if any one was guilty of similar outrages in future, he should be put upon his trial by the generals, before the captains as judges, and if condemned by them, put to death; and that trial should be had before the same persons, for any other wrong committed since the death of Cyrus. A suitable religious ceremony was also directed to be performed, at the instance of Xenophon and the prophets, to purify the army.
This speech affords an interesting specimen of the political morality universal throughout the Grecian world, though deeper and more predominant among its better sections. In the miscellaneous aggregate, and temporary society, now mustered at Kotyôra, Xenophon insists on the universal suffrage of the whole body, as the legitimate sovereign authority for the guidance of every individual will; the decision of the majority, fairly and formally collected, as carrying a title to prevail over every dissentient minority; the generals chosen by the majority of votes, as the only persons entitled to obedience. This is the cardinal principle to which he appeals, as the anchorage of political obligation in the mind of each separate man or fraction; as the condition of all success, all safety, and all conjoint action; as the only condition either for punishing wrong or protecting right; as indispensable to keep up their sympathies with the Hellenic communities, and their dignity either as soldiers or as citizens. The complete success of his speech proves that he knew how to touch the right chord of Grecian feeling. No serious acts of individual insubordination occurred afterwards, though the army collectively went wrong on more than one occasion. And what is not less important to notice—the influence of Xenophon himself, after his unreserved and courageous remonstrance, seems to have been sensibly augmented—certainly noway diminished.
The circumstances which immediately followed were indeed well calculated to augment it. For it was resolved, on the proposition of Xenophon himself, that the generals themselves should be tried before the newly-constituted tribunal of the captains, in case anyone had complaint to make against them for past matters; agreeably to the Athenian habit of subjecting every magistrate to a trial of accountability on laying down his office. In the course of this investigation, Philesius and Xanthiklês were fined twenty minæ,[91] to make good an assignable deficiency of that amount, in the cargoes of those merchantmen which had been detained at Trapezus for the transport of the army: Sophænetus, who had the general superintendence of this property, but had been negligent in that duty, was fined ten minæ. Next, the name of Xenophon was put up, when various persons stood forward to accuse him of having beaten and ill-used them. As commander of the rear-guard, his duty was by far the severest and most difficult, especially during the intense cold and deep snow; since the sick and wounded, as well as the laggards and plunderers, all fell under his inspection. One man especially was loud in complaints against him, and Xenophon questioned him, as to the details of his case, before the assembled army. It turned out that he had given him blows, because the man, having been entrusted with the task of carrying a sick soldier, was about to evade the duty by burying the dying man alive. This interesting debate ended by a full approbation on the part of the army of Xenophon's conduct, accompanied with regret that he had not handled the man yet more severely.
The statements of Xenophon himself give us a vivid idea of the internal discipline of the army, even as managed by a discreet and well-tempered officer. "I acknowledge (said he to the soldiers) to have struck many men for disorderly conduct; men who were content to owe their preservation to your orderly march and constant fighting, while they themselves ran about to plunder and enrich themselves at your cost. Had we all acted as they did, we should have perished to a man. Sometimes too I struck men who were lagging behind with cold and fatigue, or were stopping the way so as to hinder others from getting forward: I struck them with my fist, in order to save them from the spear of the enemy. You yourselves stood by and saw me: you had arms in your hands, yet none of you interfered to prevent me. I did it for their good as well as for yours, not from any insolence of disposition; for it was a time when we were all alike suffering from cold, hunger, and fatigue; whereas I now live comparatively well, drink more wine and pass easy days—and yet I strike no one. You will find that the men who failed most in those times of hardship, are now the most outrageous offenders in the army. There is Boïskus, the Thessalian pugilist, who pretended sickness during the march, in order to evade the burden of carrying his shield—and now, as I am informed, he has stripped several citizens of Kotyôra of their clothes. If (he concluded) the blows which I have occasionally given, in cases of necessity, are now brought in evidence—I call upon those among you also, to whom I have rendered aid and protection, to stand up and testify in my favor."
Many individuals responded to this appeal, insomuch that Xenophon was not merely acquitted, but stood higher than before in the opinion of the army. We learn from his defence that for a commanding officer to strike a soldier with his fist, if wanting in duty, was not considered improper; at least under such circumstances as those of the retreat. But what deserves notice still more, is, the extraordinary influence which Xenophon's powers of speaking gave him over the minds of the army. He stood distinguished from the other generals, Lacedæmonian, Arcadian, Achæan, and the rest, by his power of working on the minds of the soldiers collectively; and we see that he had the good sense, as well as the spirit, not to shrink from telling them unpleasant truths. In spite of such frankness—or rather, partly by means of such frankness—his ascendency as commander not only remained unabated, as compared with that of the others, but went on increasing. For whatever may be said about the flattery of orators as a means of influence over the people,—it will be found that though particular points may be gained in this way, yet wherever the influence of an orator has been steady and long-continued (like that of Periklês or Demosthenês) it is owing in part to the fact that he has an opinion of his own, and is not willing to accommodate himself constantly to the prepossessions of his hearers. Without the oratory of Xenophon, there would have existed no engine for kindling or sustaining the common sense or feeling of the ten thousand Cyreians assembled at Kotyôra, or for keeping up the moral authority of the aggregate over the individual members and fractions. The other officers could doubtless speak well enough to address short encouragements, or give simple explanations, to the soldiers: without this faculty, no man was fit for military command over Greeks. But the oratory of Xenophon was something of a higher order. Whoever will study the discourse pronounced by him at Kotyôra will perceive a dexterity in dealing with assembled multitudes—a discriminating use sometimes of the plainest and most direct appeal, sometimes of indirect insinuation or circuitous transitions to work round the minds of the hearers—a command of those fundamental political convictions which lay deep in the Grecian mind, but were often so overlaid by the fresh impulses arising out of each successive situation, as to require some positive friction to draw them out from their latent state—lastly, a power of expansion and varied repetition—such as would be naturally imparted both by the education and the practice of an intelligent Athenian, but would rarely be found in any other Grecian city. The energy and judgment displayed by Xenophon in the retreat were doubtless not less essential to his influence than his power of speaking; but in these points we may be sure that other officers were more nearly his equals.