Next morning they crossed the Zab—it was the dry season—but had not advanced far on the other side when they were overtaken by a small force of horsemen, archers and slingers under the command of a certain Mithradates. These approached in a seeming-friendly manner until they were fairly near, when all at once they began to ply their bows and slings. The Greek army, marching in hollow square, could not retaliate. A charge failed to capture a single man, the enemy retiring before the charge and shooting as they retired, according to the “Parthian” tactics which were to become famous in Roman times. That day the Greeks covered little more than three miles. Clearly something must be done about it. Xenophon discovered that the army contained some Rhodians, who could sling leaden bullets twice as far as the Persians could cast their stones, which were “as big as your fist.” These Rhodians then were formed overnight into a special corps and instructed in their task. Next day the host set out earlier than usual, for they had to cross a ravine, where an attack would be especially dangerous. When they were about a mile beyond, Mithradates crossed after them with a thousand horsemen and four thousand archers and slingers. No sooner had he come within range than a bugle rang out and the special troops rushed to close quarters. The enemy did not await the charge, but fled back to the ravine pursued by a small body of mounted men for whom Xenophon had somehow collected horses. It was a brilliant little victory, stained by the infamy of some, who mutilated the dead—a thing so startlingly un-Greek that I cannot remember another historical instance. And here what was done was not done in cold blood.
In the evening of that day they came to a great deserted city, the name of which was Larissa. A great city; it was girdled by a wall two leagues in length, twenty-five feet in thickness, and a hundred feet high. Hard by was a pyramid of stone two hundred feet in height, where the Greeks found many fugitives who had sought refuge there from the neighbouring villages. Their next march brought them to another great empty fortress, called Mespila, opposite what [(Note 69)]we now call Mosul. Somewhere in this region of Larissa and Mosul had anciently stood the enormous city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria; and the whole district (as one gathers from Xenophon) was full of dim legends of an overwhelming disaster. The soldiers were marching over the grave of an empire. Even the fragments were imposing. Mespila was based on a kind of ring, fifty feet broad and fifty feet high, built all of a polished stone “full of shells”; and on this foundation rose a wall of bricks, the breadth of it fifty feet, and the height four hundred, and the circuit six leagues.
Beyond Mespila Tissaphernes attacked again with what appeared a very large force. But his light-armed troops were no match for the Rhodian slingers and the Cretan bowmen, whose every shot told in the dense array of the enemy, who withdrew discomfited. The Greek army was now approaching the mountains, which they had long seen towering on the horizon. It appeared to the generals that the “hollow square” must be replaced by a new formation better suited to the narrow ways they would soon be following, and this they now devised. They were to use it successfully henceforward.
They came in sight of a “palace surrounded by villages.” The way to it, they observed with joy, led across a series of knolls where (thought they) the Persian cavalry could not come at them. Their joy was short-lived, for no sooner had the light-armed troops who composed the Greek rearguard begun to leave the summit of the first height than the enemy rushed up after them, and began showering darts and arrows and stones from the sling upon them, and so put them out of action for that day. The heavy-armed did their best. But they were naturally unable to overtake the skirmishers, and it went hard with the army until special tactics were devised which answered their purpose. The knolls which had served them so ill were foothills of a loftier line of heights running parallel to the road. A sufficient detachment was sent to occupy and move along the heights simultaneously with the main body advancing by the road. Afraid of being caught between two forces, the Persian did not attack. This was the first employment of a manœuvre which the Greeks repeated many times, and always with success.
The Palace and Villages turned out to be full of bread and wine and fodder collected by the satrap of the region. So the Greeks halted there for three days, resting their wounded. Having set out again on the fourth day, they were overtaken by the implacable Tissaphernes and, warned by experience, made for the nearest village, where they beat off his attack very easily. That night they took advantage of an unmilitary practice of the Persians in never encamping less than seven miles from an enemy, to steal a march on them. The result was that the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, they proceeded on their way unmolested. On the fourth day they came to a place where the Zacho Dagh, which they had kept so long on their right, sends down a spur to the river, which it steeply overhangs in a tall cliff picturesquely crowned to-day by a native village. The Tigris being still unfordable, the road is forced to climb over the cliff. Cheirisophos, commanding the van, halted and sent a message to Xenophon, who was in command of the rear. This was highly inconvenient to Xenophon, [(Note 71)]because at that very moment who should appear on the road behind him but Tissaphernes? However, Xenophon galloped to the front and requested an explanation. Cheirisophos pointed to the cliff, and there sure enough were armed men in occupation. Between these and Tissaphernes the army was in a perilous position. What to do? Xenophon, looking up at the wall of the Zacho Dagh, noticed that the main height at this part of the range was directly opposite them; looking again, he could make out a track leading from this peak to the cliff. He immediately proposed to seize the peak. A picked force was hastily got together, and off they set upon their climb. No sooner did the men on the cliff catch sight of them than they too began to race for the key-position. With shouts the two sides strained for the goal. Xenophon rode beside his men, encouraging them. A grumbling fellow from Sicyon complained that he had to run with a shield while the general rode on a horse. Xenophon dismounted, pushed the man out of the ranks, took his shield from him, and struggled on in his place. Thus enkindled, the Greeks—the men to whom mountains were native—reached the summit first. But it was a near thing.
Thus the pass was turned. But the situation remained not less than dreadful. On the right of the army arose the cruel mountains of Kurdistan; on their left ran swiftly the profound current of the Tigris. A soldier from Rhodes suggested crossing the stream on an arrangement of inflated skins, such as appears to be still in use upon the Tigris, where it is called a “tellek.” The suggestion was impracticable in face of the enemy, who was found in possession of the opposing bank. Reluctantly therefore they turned their backs upon the river and set their minds upon the mountains. Under cover of darkness they stole across the plain and were on the high ground with the dawn. They were now in the country of the Kardouchians, whom we now call the Kurds, in whose intricate valleys and startling ravines whole armies had been lost. On the appearance of the Greeks the natives fled with their wives and children from their villages and “took to the heather.” The invaders requisitioned the supplies they found, but made some effort to conciliate the highlanders. These remained sullenly unresponsive. All day long they watched the ten thousand hoplites with the light-armed and the women of the camp struggle through the high pass. Then as the last men were descending in the early-gathering darkness the Kardouchians stirred. Stones and arrows flew, and some of the Greeks were killed. Luckily for the army the enemy had been surprised so completely that no concerted attack was made in the steep-walled road. As it was, although they bivouacked that night without further annoyance, they could see the signal fires blaze from every peak, boding ill for the morrow.
When it came they resolved to leave behind all prisoners and all they could spare of the baggage-train. Thus disencumbered, they set forward in stormy weather and under constant attack, so that little progress was made. Finally they came to a complete check. In front of them rose the sheer side of a mountain, up which the road was seen to climb, black with their enemies. A frontal attack was not to be thought of. But was there no byway across the heights? A captured Kurd confessed that there was. Only at one point this path led over an eminence, which must be secured in advance. Therefore late in the afternoon a storming party set out with the guide, their orders being to occupy the eminence in the night, and sound a bugle at dawn. A violent rainstorm served to conceal this movement, whose success was also aided by the advance of Cheirisophos along the visible road. He soon reached a gulch, which his men must cross to gain a footing on the great cliff. But when they attempted the passage the enemy rolled down enormous boulders, which shattered themselves into flying fragments against the iron sides of the ravine, so that crossing was merely impossible. The attempt then was not at that time renewed. But through the night the Greeks continued to hear the thunder of the plunging rocks sent down by the unwearied and suspicious foe.
Meanwhile the storm-troops who had gone by the circuitous path surprised a guard of Kardouchians seated about a fire, and, having dispersed them, held the position under the impression that it was the “col” or eminence. In this they were mistaken, but at dawn they realized their error and set out in a friendly mist to seize their true objective. Its defenders fled as soon as the Greek trumpet sang out the attack. In the road below Cheirisophos heard the sound and rushed to the assault of the cliff. His men struggled up as best they might, hoisting one another by means of their spears. The rearguard, under Xenophon, followed the bypath. They captured one crest by assault, only to find themselves confronted by another. Xenophon therefore left a garrison on the first, and with the rest of his force attacked and captured the second—only to find a third rising before them, being in fact the eminence itself. That also was assailed. To the surprise of the Greeks the enemy made no resistance and made off at once. Soon a fugitive came to Xenophon with the news that the crest where he had left a garrison had been stormed, and all its defenders slain—all who had not escaped by jumping down its rocky sides. It was now evident why the Kardouchians had left the main eminence; they had seen from their greater elevation what was happening in Xenophon’s rear. They now came back to a height facing the eminence and began discussing a truce, while gradually they were collecting their people. An agreement was reached, and the Greeks began to descend from their position, when instantly the Barbarians were on them, yelling and rolling down boulders after them. However, with little difficulty now, a junction was effected with Cheirisophos.
In all a week was consumed in traversing the land of the Kardouchians, and not a day passed without hard fighting. Every narrow way was beset by the fierce mountaineers, who shot arrows two cubits long from bows so mighty that the archer had to use one foot to get a purchase on his weapon. One man was pierced through shield and breastplate and body, another was shot fairly through the head. In these mountains the Greeks “suffered more than all they had endured at the hands of the King and Tissaphernes.” Fighting their way along the Zorawa, they reached at last the more open ground, where that river falls into the Bohtan Su, which Xenophon calls the Kentrîtês. Alas, in the morning light they saw the further bank lined with hostile forces, both foot and horse, while on the mountains they had just escaped the Kardouchians were gathered, ready to fall on their rear, if they should attempt the passage of the Kentrîtês, a deep river full of big slippery stones. Gloom settled again upon the host. But in a little time, while Xenophon was still at breakfast, there ran to him two young men with great news. The pair of them had gone to collect sticks, and, down by the river, they had noticed on the other side “among rocks that came right down to the water an old man and a woman putting away in a kind of cave what looked like a bag of clothes.” So the soldiers put their knives between their teeth and prepared to swim across. To their surprise they got to the other side without the need of swimming. Now here they were back again, having brought the clothes for evidence.
Shortly afterwards they were guiding the division of Cheirisophos to the ford they had so opportunely discovered, while Xenophon led the rearguard, whose duty it was to protect the passage of the army from the assaults of the Kardouchians. These were duly made, but were beaten off and eluded; and the Kentrîtês was crossed.