[64] Xen. Anab. i, 4, 18. Compare (Plutarch, Alexand. 17) analogous expressions of flattery—from the historians of Alexander, affirming that the sea near Pamphylia providentially made way for him—from the inhabitants on the banks of the Euphrates, when the river was passed by the Roman legions and the Parthian prince Tiridates, in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (Tacitus, Annal. vi. 37); and by Lucullus still earlier (Plutarch, Lucull. c. 24).
The time when Cyrus crossed the Euphrates, must probably have been about the end of July or beginning of August. Now the period of greatest height, in the waters of the Euphrates near this part of its course, is from the 21st to the 28th of May; the period when they are lowest, is about the middle of November (see Colonel Chesney’s Report on the Euphrates, p. 5). Rennell erroneously states that they are lowest in August and September (Expedit, of Xenophon, p. 277). The waters would thus be at a sort of mean height, when Cyrus passed.
Mr. Ainsworth states that there were only twenty inches of water in the ford at Thapsakus, from October 1841 to February 1842; the steamers Nimrod and Nitocris then struck upon it (p. 72), though the steamers Euphrates and Tigris had passed over it without difficulty in the month of May.
[65] Xenophon gives these nine days of march as covering fifty parasangs (Anab. i, 4, 19). But Koch remarks that the distance is not half so great as that from the sea to Thapsakus; which latter Xenophon gives at sixty-five parasangs. There is here some confusion; together with the usual difficulty in assigning any given distance as the equivalent of the parasang (Koch, Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 38).
[66] See the remarkable testimony of Mr. Ainsworth, from personal observation, to the accuracy of Xenophon’s description of the country, even at the present day.
[67] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 24.
[68] Xen. Anab. i, 5, 4-8.
[69] I infer that the army halted here five or six days, from the story afterwards told respecting the Ambrakiot Silanus, the prophet of the army; who, on sacrificing, had told Cyrus that his brother would not fight for ten days (i, 7, 16). This sacrifice must have been offered, I imagine, during the halt—not during the distressing march which preceded. The ten days named by Silanus, expired on the fourth day after they left Pylæ.
It is in reference to this portion of the course of the Euphrates, from the Chaboras southward down by Anah and Hit (the ancient Is, noticed by Herodotus, and still celebrated from its unexhausted supply of bitumen), between latitude 35½° and 34°—that Colonel Chesney, in his Report on the Navigation of the Euphrates (p. 2), has the following remarks:—
“The scenery above Hit, in itself very picturesque, is greatly heightened, as one is carried along the current, by the frequent recurrence, at very short intervals, of ancient irrigating aqueducts; these beautiful specimens of art and durability are attributed by the Arabs to the times of the ignorant, meaning (as is expressly understood) the Persians, when fire-worshippers, and in possession of the world. They literally cover both banks, and prove that the borders of the Euphrates were once thickly inhabited by a people far advanced indeed in the application of hydraulics to domestic purposes, of the first and greatest utility—the transport of water. The greater portion is now more or less in ruins, but some have been repaired, and kept up for use either to grind corn or to irrigate. The aqueducts are of stone, firmly cemented, narrowing to about two feet or twenty inches at top, placed at right angles to the current, and carried various distances towards the interior, from two hundred to one thousand two hundred yards.