The Two Great Retreats of History

by George Grote; comte de Philippe-Paul Ségur

§ 16. The army crosses the Bosphorus to Byzantium; false promises of Anaxibius and their results.

Under the command of their own officers, the Cyreians now marched from Kalpê across Bithynia to Chrysopolis (in the territory of Chalkêdon on the Asiatic edge of the Bosphorus, immediately opposite to Byzantium,[102] as Scutari now is to Constantinople), where they remained seven days, turning into money the slaves and plunder which they had collected. Unhappily for them, the Lacedæmonian admiral Anaxibius was now at Byzantium, so that their friend Kleander was under his superior command. And Pharnabazus, the Persian satrap of the northwestern regions of Asia Minor, becoming much alarmed lest they should invade his satrapy, despatched a private message to Anaxibius; whom he prevailed upon, by promise of large presents, to transport the army forthwith across to the European side of the Bosphorus. Accordingly, Anaxibius, sending for the generals and the captains across to Byzantium, invited the army to cross, and gave them his assurance that as soon as the soldiers should be in Europe, he would provide pay for them. The other officers told him that they would return with this message and take the sense of the army; but Xenophon on his own account said that he should not return; that he should now retire from the army, and sail away from Byzantium. It was only on the pressing instance of Anaxibius that he was induced to go back to Chrysopolis and conduct the army across; on the understanding that he should depart immediately afterwards.

Here at Byzantium, he received his first communication from the Thracian prince Seuthês; who sent Medosadês to offer him a reward if he would bring the army across. Xenophon replied that the army would cross; that no reward from Seuthês was needful to bring about that movement; but that he himself was about to depart, leaving the command in other hands. In point of fact, the whole army crossed with little delay, landed in Europe, and found themselves within the walls of Byzantium. Xenophon, who had come along with them, paid a visit shortly afterwards to his friend the governor Kleander, and took leave of him as about to depart immediately. But Kleander told him that he must not think of departing until the army was out of the city, and that he would be held responsible if they stayed. In truth Kleander was very uneasy so long as the soldiers were within the walls, and was well aware that it might be no easy matter to induce them to go away. For Anaxibius had practised a gross fraud in promising them pay, which he had neither the ability nor the inclination to provide. Without handing to them either pay or even means of purchasing supplies, he issued orders that they must go forth with arms and baggage, and muster outside of the gates, there to be numbered for an immediate march; any one who stayed behind being held as punishable. This proclamation was alike unexpected and offensive to the soldiers, who felt that they had been deluded, and were very backward in obeying. Hence Kleander, while urgent with Xenophon to defer his departure until he had conducted the army outside of the walls, added—"Go forth as if you were about to march along with them; when you are once outside, you may depart as soon as you please;" Xenophon replied that this matter must be settled with Anaxibius, to whom accordingly both of them went, and who repeated the same directions, in a manner yet more peremptory. Though it was plain to Xenophon that he was here making himself a sort of instrument to the fraud which Anaxibius had practised upon the army, yet he had no choice but to obey. Accordingly, he as well as the other generals put themselves at the head of the troops, who followed, however reluctantly, and arrived most of them outside of the gates. Eteonikus (a Lacedæmonian officer of consideration, noticed more than once in preceding Grecian history) commanding at the gate, stood close to it in person; in order that when all the Cyreians had gone forth, he might immediately shut it and fasten it with the bar.

Anaxibius knew well what he was doing. He fully anticipated that the communication of the final orders would occasion an outbreak among the Cyreians, and was anxious to defer it until they were outside. But when there remained only the rearmost companies still in the inside and on their march, all the rest having got out—he thought the danger was over, and summoned to him the generals and captains, all of whom were probably near the gates superintending the march through. It seems that Xenophon, having given notice that he intended to depart, did not answer to this summons as one of the generals, but remained outside among the soldiers. "Take what supplies you want (said Anaxibius) from the neighboring Thracian villages, which are well furnished with wheat, barley, and other necessaries. After thus providing yourselves, march forward to the Chersonesus,[103] and there Kyniskus will give you pay."

This was the first distinct intimation given by Anaxibius that he did not intend to perform his promise of finding pay for the soldiers. Who Kyniskus was we do not know, nor was he probably known to the Cyreians; but the march here enjoined was at least 150 miles, and might be much longer. The route was not indicated, and the generals had to inquire from Anaxibius whether they were to go by what was called the Holy Mountain (that is, by the shorter line, skirting the northern coast of the Propontis), or by a more inland and circuitous road through Thrace;—also whether they were to regard the Thracian prince, Seuthês, as a friend or an enemy.

§ 17. Mutiny of the army in leaving Byzantium.

Instead of the pay which had been formally promised to them by Anaxibius if they would cross over from Asia to Byzantium, the Cyreians thus found themselves sent away empty-handed to a long march—through another barbarous country, with chance-supplies to be obtained only by their own efforts,—and at the end of it a lot unknown and uncertain; while, had they remained in Asia, they would have had at any rate the rich satrapy of Pharnabazus within their reach. To perfidy of dealing was now added a brutal ejectment from Byzantium, without even the commonest manifestations of hospitality; contrasting pointedly with the treatment which the army had recently experienced at Trapezus, Sinôpê, and Herakleia; where they had been welcomed not only by compliments on their past achievements, but also by an ample present of flour, meat, and wine. Such behavior could not fail to provoke the most violent indignation in the bosoms of the soldiery; and Anaxibius had therefore delayed giving the order until the last soldiers were marching out, thinking that the army would hear nothing of it until the generals came out of the gates to inform them; so that the gates would be closed, and the walls manned to resist an assault from without. But his calculations were not realized. Either one of the soldiers passing by heard him give the order, or one of the captains forming his audience stole away from the rest, and hastened forward to acquaint his comrades on the outside. The bulk of the army, already irritated by the inhospitable way in which they had been thrust out, needed nothing farther to inflame them into spontaneous mutiny and aggression. While the generals within (who either took the communication more patiently, or at least, looking farther forward, felt that any attempt to resent or resist the ill-usage of the Spartan admiral would only make their position worse) were discussing with Anaxibius the details of the march just enjoined—the soldiers without, bursting into spontaneous movement, with a simultaneous and fiery impulse, made a rush back to get possession of the gate. But Eteonikus, seeing their movement, closed it without a moment's delay, and fastened the bar. The soldiers on reaching the gate and finding it barred, clamored loudly to get it opened, threatened to break it down, and even began to knock violently against it. Some ran down to the sea-coast, and made their way into the city round the line of stones at the base of the city wall, which protected it against the sea; while the rearmost soldiers who had not yet marched out, seeing what was passing, and fearful of being cut off from their comrades, assaulted the gate from the inside, severed the fastenings with axes, and threw it wide open to the army. All the soldiers then rushed up, and were soon again in Byzantium.

Nothing could exceed the terror of the Lacedæmonians as well as of the native Byzantines, when they saw the excited Cyreians again within the walls. The town seemed already taken and on the point of being plundered. Neither Anaxibius nor Eteonikus took the smallest means of resistance, nor stayed to brave the approach of the soldiers, whose wrath they were fully conscious of having deserved. Both fled to the citadel—the former first running to the seashore, and jumping into a fishing-boat to go thither by sea. He even thought the citadel not tenable with its existing garrison, and sent over to Chalkêdon for a reinforcement. Still more terrified were the citizens of the town. Every man in the market-place instantly fled; some to their houses, others to the merchant vessels in the harbor, others to the triremes or ships of war, which they hauled down to the water, and thus put to sea.