But are excluded from the city. They enlist in the service of Sparta.
The wrath of the soldiers was boundless when they were thus excluded from Byzantium. They rushed into the town and took possession, which conduct gave grave apprehension to Xenophon, who mustered and harangued the army, and thus prevented anticipated violence. They at length consented to leave the city, and accepted the services of the Theban Coeratidas, who promised to conduct them to the Delta of Thrace, for purposes of plunder, but he was soon dismissed. After various misfortunes the soldiers at length were taken under the pay of Seuthes, a Thracian prince, who sought the recovery of his principality, but who cheated them out of their pay. A change of policy among the Lacedæmonians led to the conveyance of the Cyrenian army into Asia in order to make war on the satraps. Xenophon accordingly conducted his troops, now reduced to six thousand men, over Mount Ida to Pergamus. He succeeded in capturing the Persian general Asidates, and securing a valuable booty, B.C. 399. The soldiers whom he had led were now incorporated with the Lacedæmonian army in Asia, and Xenophon himself enlisted in the Spartan service. His subsequent fortunes we have not room to present. An exile from Athens, he settled in Scillus, near Olympia, with abundant wealth, but ultimately returned to his native city after the battle of Leuctra.
Moral effect of the expedition.
The impression produced on the Grecian mind by the successful retreat of the Ten Thousand was profound and lasting. Its most obvious effect was to produce contempt for Persian armies and Persian generals, and to show that Persia was only strong by employing Hellenic strength against the Hellenic cause. The real weakness of Persia was thus revealed to the Greeks, and sentiments were fostered which two generations afterward led to the expeditions of Alexander and the subjection of Asia to Grecian rule.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LACEDÆMONIAN EMPIRE.
Sparta never lost her power.
I have already shown that Sparta, after a battle with the Argives, B.C. 547, obtained the ascendency in the southern part of the Peloponnesus, and became the leading military State of Greece. This prestige and power were not lost. The severe simplicity of Spartan life, the rigor of political and social institutions, the aristocratic form of government, and above all the military spirit and ambition, gave permanence to all conquests, so that in the Persian wars Sparta took the load of the land forces. The great rival power of Sparta was Athens, but this was founded on maritime skill and enterprise. It was to the navy of Athens, next after the hoplites of Sparta, that the successful resistance to the empire of Persia may be attributed.