History of Greece, Volume 09 (of 12)

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.”

Three days of additional march brought them to the river Teleboas—“of no great size, but beautiful” (iv. 4, 4). There appear sufficient reasons to identify this river with the Kara-Su or Black River, which flows through the valley or plain of Mush into the Murad or Eastern Euphrates (Ainsworth, p. 172; Ritter, Erdkunde, part x. s. 37. p. 682). Though Kinneir (Journey through Asia Minor and Kurdistan, 1818, p. 484), Rennell (Illustrations of the Expedition of Cyrus, p. 207) and Bell (System of Geography, iv. p. 140) identify it with the Ak-Su or river of Mush—this, according to Ainsworth, “is only a small tributary to the Kara-Su, which is the great river of the plain and district.”

Professor Koch, whose personal researches in and around Armenia give to his opinion the highest authority, follows Mr. Ainsworth in identifying the Teleboas with the Kara-Su. He supposes, however, that the Greeks crossed the Kentritês, not near its confluence with the Tigris, but considerably higher up, near the town of Sert or Sort. From hence he supposes that they marched nearly north-east in the modern road from Sert to Bitlis, thus getting round the head or near the head of the river called Bitlis-Su, which is one of the eastern affluents to the Tigris (falling first into the Buhtan-Chai), and which Xenophon took for the Tigris itself. They then marched farther, in a line not far distant from the Lake of Van, over the saddle which separates that lake from the lofty mountain Ali-Dagh. This saddle is the water-shed which separates the affluents to the Tigris from those to the Eastern Euphrates, of which latter the Teleboas or Kara-Su is one (Koch, Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 82-84).

After the river Teleboas, there seems no one point in the march which can be identified with anything approaching to certainty. Nor have we any means even of determining the general line of route, apart from specific places, which they followed from the river Teleboas to Trebizond.

Their first object was to reach and cross the Eastern Euphrates. They would of course cross at the nearest point where they could find a ford. But how low down its course does the river continue to be fordable, in mid-winter, with snow on the ground? Here professor Koch differs from Mr. Ainsworth and colonel Chesney. He affirms that the river would be fordable a little above its confluence with the Tscharbahur, about latitude 39° 3′. According to Mr. Ainsworth, it would not be fordable below the confluence with the river of Khanus (Khinnis). Koch’s authority, as the most recent and systematic investigator of these regions, seems preferable, especially as it puts the Greeks nearly in the road now travelled over from Mush to Erzerum, which is said to be the only pass over the mountains open throughout all the winter, passing by Khinnis and Koili; see Ritter, Erdkunde, x. p. 387. Xenophon mentions a warm spring, which the army passed by during the third or fourth day after crossing the Euphrates (Anab. iv, 5, 15). Professor Koch believes himself to have identified this warm spring—the only one, as he states (p. 90-93), south of the range of mountains called the Bingöldagh—in the district called Wardo, near the village of Bashkan.

To lay down, with any certainty, the line which the Greeks followed from the Euphrates to Trebizond, appears altogether impossible. I cannot admit the hypothesis of Mr. Ainsworth, who conducts the army across the Araxes to its northern bank, carries them up northward to the latitude of Teflis in Georgia, then brings them back again across the Harpa Chai (a northern affluent of the Araxes, which he identifies with the Harpasus mentioned by Xenophon) and the Araxes itself, to Gymnias, which he places near the site of Erzerum. Professor Koch (p. 104-108), who dissents with good reason from Mr. Ainsworth, proposes (though with hesitation and uncertainty) a line of his own which appears to me open greatly to the same objection as that of Mr. Ainsworth. It carries the Greeks too much to the northward of Erzerum, more out of their line of march from the place where they crossed the Eastern Euphrates, than can be justified by any probability. The Greeks knew well that, in order to get home they must take a westerly direction (see Anab. iii. 5, 15).

Their great and constant purpose would be to make way to the westward, as soon as they had crossed the Euphrates; and the road from that river, passing near the site of Erzerum to Trebizond, would thus coincide, in the main, with their spontaneous tendency. They had no motive to go northward of Erzerum, nor ought we to suppose it without some proof. I trace out, therefore, a line of march much less circuitous; not meaning it to be understood as the real road which the army can be proved to have taken, but simply because it seems a possible line, and because it serves as a sort of approximation to complete the reader’s idea of the entire ground travelled over by the Ten Thousand.

Koch hardly makes sufficient account of the overwhelming hardships with which the Greeks had to contend, when he states (p. 96) that if they had taken a line as straight, or nearly as straight as was practicable, they might have marched from the Euphrates to Trebizond in sixteen or twenty days, even allowing for the bad time of year. Considering that it was mid-winter, in that very high and cold country, with deep snow throughout; that they had absolutely no advantages or assistance of any kind; that their sick and disabled men, together with their arms, were to be carried by the stronger; that there were a great many women accompanying them; that they had beasts to drive along, carrying baggage and plunder,—the prophet Silanus, for example, having preserved his three thousand darics in coin from the field of Kunaxa until his return; that there was much resistance from the Chalybes and Taochi; that they had to take provisions where provisions were discoverable; that even a small stream must have impeded them, and probably driven them out of their course to find a ford,—considering the intolerable accumulation of these and other hardships, we need not wonder at any degree of slowness in their progress. It rarely happens that modern travellers go over these regions in mid-winter; but we may see what travelling is at that season, by the dreadful description which Mr. Baillie Fraser gives of his journey from Tauris to Erzerum in the month of March (Travels in Koordhistan, Letter XV). Mr. Kinneir says (Travels, p. 353)—“The winters are so severe that all communication between Baiburt and the circumjacent villages is cut off for four months in the year, in consequence of the depth of the snow.”

Now if we measure on Kiepert’s map the rectilinear distance,—the air-line—from Trebizond to the place where Koch represents the Greeks to have crossed the Eastern Euphrates,—we shall find it one hundred and seventy English miles. The number of days’ journey-marches which Xenophon mentions are fifty-four; even if we include the five days of march undertaken from Gymnias (Anab. iv. 7, 20), which, properly speaking, were directed against the enemies of the governor of Gymnias, more than for the promotion of their retreat. In each of those fifty-four days, therefore, they must have made 3.14 miles of rectilinear progress. This surely is not an unreasonably slow progress to suppose, under all the disadvantages of their situation; nor does it imply any very great actual departure from the straightest line practicable. Indeed Koch himself (in his Introduction, p. 4) suggests various embarrassments which must have occurred on the march, but which Xenophon has not distinctly stated.

The river which Xenophon calls the Harpasus seems to be probably the Tchoruk-su, as colonel Chesney and Prof. Koch suppose. At least it is difficult to assign any other river with which the Harpasus can be identified.

I cannot but think it probable that the city which Xenophon calls Gymnias (Diodorus, xiv. 29, calls it Gymnasia) was the same as that which is now called Gumisch-Khana (Hamilton), Gumush-Kaneh (Ainsworth), Gemisch-Khaneh (Kinneir). “Gumisch-Khana (says Mr. Hamilton, Travels in Asia Minor, vol. i. ch. xi. p. 168; ch. xiv. p. 234) is celebrated as the site of the most ancient and considerable silver-mines in the Ottoman dominions.” Both Mr. Kinneir and Mr. Hamilton passed through Gumisch-Khana on the road from Trebizond to Erzerum.

Now here is not only great similarity of name, and likelihood of situation,—but the existence of the silver mines furnishes a plausible explanation of that which would otherwise be very strange; the existence of this “great, flourishing, inhabited, city,” inland, in the midst of such barbarians,—the Chalybes, the Skythini, the Makrônes, etc.

Mr. Kinneir reached Gumisch-Khana at the end of the third day after quitting Trebizond; the two last days having been very long and fatiguing. Mr. Hamilton, who also passed through Gumisch-Khana, reached it at the end of two long days. Both these travellers represent the road near Gumisch-Khana as extremely difficult. Mr. Ainsworth, who did not himself pass through Gumisch-Khana, tells us (what is of some importance in this discussion) that it lies in the winter-road from Erzerum to Trebizond (Travels in Asia Minor, vol. ii. p. 394). “The winter-road, which is the longest, passes by Gumisch-Khana, and takes the longer portion of valley; all the others cross over the mountain at various points, to the east of the road by the mines. But whether going by the mountains or the valley, the muleteers often go indifferently to the west as far as Ash Kaleh, and at other times turn off by the villages of Bey Mausour and Kodjah Bunar, where they take to the mountains.”

Mr. Hamilton makes the distance from Trebizond to Gumisch-Khana eighteen hours, or fifty-four calculated post miles; that is, about forty English miles (Appendix to Travels in Asia Minor, vol. ii. p. 389).

Now we are not to suppose that the Greeks marched in any direct road from Gymnias to Trebizond. On the contrary, the five days’ march which they undertook immediately from Gymnias were conducted by a guide sent from that town, who led them over the territories of people hostile to Gymnias, in order that they might lay waste the lands (iv. 7, 20). What progress they made, during these marches, towards Trebizond, is altogether doubtful. The guide promised that on the fifth day he would bring them to a spot from whence they could view the sea, and he performed his promise by leading them to the top of the sacred mountain Thêchê.

Thêchê was a summit (ἄκρον, iv. 7, 25), as might be expected. But unfortunately it seems impossible to verify the particular summit on which the interesting scene described by Xenophon took place. Mr. Ainsworth presumes it to be the mountain called Kop-Dagh; from whence, however, according to Koch, the sea cannot be discerned. D’Anville and some other geographers identify it with the ridge called Tekieh-Dagh, to the east of Gumisch-Khana; nearer to the sea than that place. This mountain, I think, would suit pretty well for the narrative in respect to position; but Koch and other modern travellers affirm that it is neither high enough, nor near enough to the sea, to permit any such view as that which Xenophon relates. It stands on Kiepert’s map at a distance of full thirty-five English miles from the sea, the view of which, moreover, seems intercepted by the still higher mountain-chain now called Kolath-Dagh, a portion of the ancient Paryadres, which runs along parallel to the coast. It is to be recollected that in the first half of February, the time of Xenophon’s visit, the highest peaks would certainly be all covered with snow, and therefore very difficult to ascend.

There is a striking view obtained of the sea from the mountain called Karakaban. This mountain, more than four thousand feet high, lies rather above twenty miles from the sea, to the south of Trebizond, and immediately north of the still higher chain of Kolath-Dagh. From the Kolath-Dagh chain, which runs east and west, there strike out three or four parallel ridges to the northward, formed of primitive slate, and cut down precipitously so as to leave deep and narrow valleys between. On leaving Trebizond, the traveller ascends the hill immediately above the town, and then descends into the valley on the other side. His road to Karakaban lies partly along the valley, partly along the crest of one of the four ridges just mentioned. But throughout all this road, the sea is never seen; being hidden by the hills immediately above Trebizond. He does not again see the sea until he reaches Karakaban, which is sufficiently high to enable him to see over those hills. The guides (as I am informed by Dr. Holland, who twice went over the spot) point out with great animation this view of the sea, as particularly deserving of notice. It is enjoyed for a short space while the road winds round the mountain, and then again lost.

Here is a view of the sea at once distant, sudden, impressive, and enjoyed from an eminence not too high to be accessible to the Cyreian army. In so far, it would be suitable to the description of Xenophon. Yet again it appears that a person coming to this point from the land-side (as Xenophon of course did), would find it in his descending route, not in his ascending; and this can hardly be reconciled with the description which we read in the Greek historian. Moreover, the subsequent marches which Xenophon mentions after quitting the mountain summit Thêchê, can hardly be reconciled with the supposition that it was the same as what is now called Karakaban. It is, indeed, quite possible, (as Mr. Hamilton suggests), that Thêchê may have been a peak apart from any road, and that the guide may have conducted the soldiers thither for the express purpose of showing the sea, guiding them back again into the road afterwards. This increases the difficulty of identifying the spot. However, the whole region is as yet very imperfectly known, and perhaps it is not impossible that there may be some particular locality even on Tekiah-Dagh, whence, through an accidental gap in the intervening mountains, the sea might become visible.