Eighty of these formidable companies of hoplites, each in single file, now began to ascend the hill; the peltasts and bowmen being partly distributed among them, partly placed on the flanks. Cheirisophus and Xenophon, each commanding on one wing, spread their peltasts in such a way as to outflank the Kolchians, who accordingly weakened their centre in order to strengthen their wings. Hence the Arcadian peltasts and hoplites in the Greek centre were enabled to attack and disperse the centre with little resistance; and all the Kolchians presently fled, leaving the Greeks in possession of their camp, as well as of several well-stocked villages in their rear. Amidst these villages the army remained to refresh themselves for several days. It was here that they tasted the grateful, but unwholesome honey, which this region still continues to produce,—unaware of its peculiar properties. Those soldiers who ate little of it were like men greatly intoxicated with wine; those who ate much, were seized with the most violent vomiting and diarrhœa, lying down like madmen in a state of delirium. From this terrible distemper some recovered on the ensuing day, others two or three days afterwards. It does not appear that any one actually died.[195]
Two more days’ march brought them to the sea, at the Greek maritime city of Trapezus or Trebizond, founded by the inhabitants of Sinôpê on the coast of the Kolchian territory. Here the Trapezuntines received them with kindness and hospitality, sending them presents of bullocks, barley-meal, and wine. Taking up their quarters in some Kolchian villages near the town, they now enjoyed, for the first time since leaving Tarsus, a safe and undisturbed repose during thirty days, and were enabled to recover in some degree from the severe hardships which they had undergone. While the Trapezuntines brought produce for sale into the camp, the Greeks provided the means of purchasing it by predatory incursions against the Kolchians on the hills. Those Kolchians who dwelt under the hills and on the plain were in a state of semi-dependence upon Trapezus; so that the Trapezuntines mediated on their behalf and prevailed on the Greeks to leave them unmolested, on condition of a contribution of bullocks.
These bullocks enabled the Greeks to discharge the vow which they had made, on the proposition of Xenophon, to Zeus the Preserver, during that moment of dismay and despair which succeeded immediately on the massacre of their generals by Tissaphernes. To Zeus the Preserver, to Hêraklês the Conductor, and to various other gods, they offered an abundant sacrifice on their mountain camp overhanging the sea; and after the festival ensuing, the skins of the victims were given as prizes to competitors in running, wrestling, boxing, and the pankration. The superintendence of such festival games, so fully accordant with Grecian usage and highly interesting to the army, was committed to a Spartan named Drakontius; a man whose destiny recalls that of Patroklus and other Homeric heroes,—for he had been exiled as a boy, having unintentionally killed another boy with a short sword. Various departures from Grecian custom, however, were admitted. The matches took place on the steep and stony hill-side overhanging the sea, instead of on a smooth plain; and the numerous hard falls of the competitors afforded increased interest to the bystanders. The captive non-Hellenic boys were admitted to run for the prize, since otherwise a boy-race could not have been obtained. Lastly, the animation of the scene, as well as the ardor of the competitors, was much enhanced by the number of their mistresses present.[196]
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER LXX.
ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND AFTER THEY QUITTED THE TIGRIS AND ENTERED THE KARDUCHIAN MOUNTAINS.
It would be injustice to this gallant and long-suffering body of men not to present the reader with a minute description of the full length of their stupendous march. Up to the moment when the Greeks enter Karduchia, the line of march may be indicated upon evidence which, though not identifying special halting-places or localities, makes us certain that we cannot be far wrong on the whole. But after that moment, the evidence gradually disappears, and we are left with nothing more than a knowledge of the terminus, the general course, and a few negative conditions.
Mr. Ainsworth has given, in his Book IV. (Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 155 seq.) an interesting topographical comment on the march through Karduchia, and on the difficulties which the Greeks would have to surmount. He has farther shown what may have been their probable line of march through Karduchia; but the most important point which he has established here, seems to be the identity of the river Kentritês with the Buhtan-Chai, an eastern affluent of the Tigris—distinguishing it from the river of Bitlis on the west and the river Khabur on the south-east, with both of which it had been previously confounded (p. 167). The Buhtan-Chai falls into the Tigris at a village called Til, and “constitutes at the present day, a natural barrier between Kurdistan and Armenia” (p. 166). In this identification of the Kentritês with the Buhtan-Chai, Professor Koch agrees (Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 78).
If the Greeks crossed the Kentritês near its confluence with the Tigris, they would march up its right bank in one day to a situation near the modern town of Sert (Mr. Ainsworth thinks), though Xenophon takes no notice of the river of Bitlis, which nevertheless they must have passed. Their next two days of march, assuming a direction nearly north, would carry them (as Xenophon states, iv. 4, 2) beyond the sources of the Tigris; that is, “beyond the headwaters of the eastern tributaries to the Tigris.”