[1] See Diodor. xi, 69; xii, 64-71; Ktesias, Persica, c. 29-45; Aristotel. Polit. v, 14, 8. This last passage of Aristotle is not very clear. Compare Justin, x, 1.

For the chronology of these Persian kings, see a valuable Appendix in Mr. Fynes Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, App. 18, vol. ii, p. 313-316.

[2] Ktesias, Persica, c. 38-40.

[3] See the Appendix of Mr. Fynes Clinton, mentioned in the preceding note, p. 317.

There were some Egyptian troops in the army of Artaxerxes at the battle of Kunaxa; on the other hand, there were other Egyptians in a state of pronounced revolt. Compare two passages of Xenophon’s Anabasis, i, 8, 9; ii, 5, 13; Diodor. xiii, 46; and the Dissertation of F. Ley, Fata et Conditio Ægypti sub imperio Persarum, p. 20-56 (Cologne, 1830).

[4] Xen. Hellen. i, 2, 19; ii, 1, 13.

[5] Thucyd. iv, 50. πολλῶν γὰρ ἐλθόντων πρεσβέων οὐδένα ταὐτὰ λέγειν.

This incompetence, or duplicity, on the part of the Spartan envoys, helps to explain the facility with which Alkibiades duped them at Athens (Thucyd. v, 45). See above, in this History, Vol. VII. ch. lv, p. 47.

[6] Ktesias, Persic. c. 52.

[7] Thucyd. viii, 28. See Vol. VII, ch. lxi, p. 389 of this History.

[8] Xen. Hellen. ii, 1, 14. Compare Xen. Œconom. iv, 20.

[9] Xen. Anab. i, 1, 2; i, 9, 7; Xen. Hellen. i, 4, 3.

[10] Xen. Anab. i, 9, 3-5. Compare Cyropædia, i, 2, 4-6; viii, 1, 16, etc.

[11] Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 2-6; Xen. Anab. ut sup.

[12] See Vol. VIII. ch. lxiv, p. 135.

[13] Darius had had thirteen children by Parysatis; but all except Artaxerxes and Cyrus died young. Ktesias asserts that he heard this statement from Parysatis herself (Ktesias, Persica, c. 49).

[14] Herodot. vii, 4.

[15] Xen. Hellen. ii, 1, 8, 9; Thucyd. viii, 58.

Compare Xen. Cyropæd. viii, 3, 10; and Lucian, Navigium seu Vota, c. 30. vol. iii, p. 267, ed. Hemsterhuys with Du Soul’s note.

It is remarkable that, in this passage of the Hellenica, either Xenophon, or the copyist, makes the mistake of calling Xerxes (instead of Artaxerxes) father of Darius. Some of the editors, without any authority from MSS., wish to alter the text from Ξέρξου to Ἀρταξέρξου.

[16] Xen. Anab. i, 4, 12.

[17] Xen. Anab. i, 1, 4.

[18] So it is presented by Justin, v, 11.

[19] Xen. Anab. i, 1, 6; i, 4, 2.

[20] Xen. Anab. i, 1, 7, 8, ὥστε οὐδὲν ἤχθετο (the king) αὐτῶν πολεμοῦντων.

[21] Xen. Anab. i, 1, 9; ii, 6, 3. The statements here contained do not agree with Diodor. xiv, 12; while both of them differ from Isokrates (Orat. viii, De Pace, s. 121; Or. xii, Panath. s. 111), and Plutarch, Artaxerxes, c. 6.

I follow partially the narrative of Diodorus, so far as to suppose that the tyranny which he mentions was committed by Klearchus as Harmost of Byzantium. We know that there was a Lacedæmonian Harmost in that town, named as soon as the town was taken, by Lysander, after the battle of Ægospotami (Xen. Hellen. ii, 2, 2). This was towards the end of 405 B.C. We know farther, from the Anabasis, that Kleander was Harmost there in 400 B.C. Klearchus may have been Harmost there in 404 B.C.

[22] Xen. Anab. i, 1, 10; Herodot. vii, 6; ix, 1; Plato, Menon, c. 1, p. 70; c. 11, p. 78 C.

[23] Herodot. i. 96. Ὁ δὲ (Dëiokês) οἷα μνώμενος ἀρχὴν, ἰθύς τε καὶ δίκαιος ἦν.

Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 1; Diodor. xiv, 19.

[24] Xen. Anab. 1, 9, 8. Πολλάκις δ᾽ ἰδεῖν ἦν ἀνὰ τὰς στειβομένας ὁδοὺς, καὶ ποδῶν καὶ χειρῶν καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν στερουμένους ἀνθρώπους.

For other samples of mutilation inflicted by Persians, not merely on malefactors, but on prisoners by wholesale, see Quintus Curtius, v. 5, 6. Alexander the Great was approaching near to Persepolis, “quum miserabile agmen, inter pauca fortunæ exempla memorandum, regi occurrit. Captivi erant Græci ad quatuor millia ferè, quos Persæ vario suppliciorum modo affecerunt. Alios pedibus, quosdam manibus auribusque, amputatis, inustisque barbararum literarum notis, in longum sui ludibrium reservaverant,” etc. Compare Diodorus, xvii, 69; and the prodigious tales of cruelty recounted in Herodot. ix, 112; Ktesias, Persic. c. 54-59; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 14, 16, 17.

It is not unworthy of remark, that while there was nothing in which the Persian rulers displayed greater invention than in exaggerating bodily suffering upon a malefactor or an enemy,—at Athens, whenever any man was put to death by public sentence, the execution took place within the prison by administering a cup of hemlock, without even public exposure. It was the minimum of pain, as well as the minimum of indignity; as any one may see who reads the account of the death of Sokrates, given by Plato at the end of the Phædon.

It is certain, that, on the whole, the public sentiment in England is more humane now than it was in that day at Athens. Yet an Athenian public could not have borne the sight of a citizen publicly hanged or beheaded in the market-place. Much less could they have borne the sight of the prolonged tortures inflicted on Damiens at Paris in 1757 (a fair parallel to the Persian σκάφευσις described in Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 16), in the presence of an immense crowd of spectators, when every window commanding a view of the Place de Grève was let at a high price, and filled by the best company in Paris.

[25] Xen. Anab. i, 9, 13.

[26] Xen. Anab. i, 6, 6.

[27] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 2-3.

[28] Xen. Hellen. iii, 1, 1.

[29] Diodor. xiv, 21.

[30] Xen. Anab. vi, 4, 8. Τῶν γὰρ στρατιωτῶν οἱ πλεῖστοι ἦσαν οὐ σπάνει βίου ἐκπεπλευκότες ἐπὶ ταύτην τὴν μισθοφορὰν, ἀλλὰ τὴν Κύρου ἀρετὴν ἀκούοντες, οἱ μὲν καὶ ἄνδρας ἄγοντες, οἱ δὲ καὶ προσανελωκότες χρήματα, καὶ τούτων ἕτεροι ἀποδεδρακότες πατέρας καὶ μητέρας, οἱ δὲ καὶ τέκνα καταλιπόντες, ὡς χρήματα αὐτοῖς κτησάμενοι ἥξοντες πάλιν, ἀκούοντες καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους τοὺς παρὰ Κύρῳ πολλὰ καὶ ἀγαθὰ πράττειν. Τοιοῦτοι οὖν ὄντες, ἐπόθουν εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα σώζεσθαι. Compare v. 10, 10.

[31] Compare similar praises of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in order to attract Greek mercenaries from Sicily to Egypt (Theokrit. xiv, 50-59).

[32] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 4. Ὑπισχνεῖτο δὲ αὐτῷ (Proxenus to Xenophon) εἰ ἔλθοι, φίλον Κύρῳ ποιήσειν· ὃν αὐτος ἔφη κρείττω ἑαυτῷ νομίζειν τῆς πατρίδος.

[33] Strabo, ix, p. 403. The story that Sokrates carried off Xenophon, wounded and thrown from his horse, on his shoulders, and thus saved his life,—seems too doubtful to enter into the narrative.

Among the proofs that Xenophon was among the Horsemen or Ἱππεῖς of Athens, we may remark, not only his own strong interest, and great skill in horsemanship, in the cavalry service and the duties of its commander, and in all that relates to horses, as manifested in his published works,—but also the fact, that his son Gryllus served afterwards among the Athenian horsemen at the combat of cavalry which preceded the great battle of Mantineia (Diogen. Laërt. ii, 54).

[34] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 4-9; v. 9, 22-24.

[35] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 4; ii, 3, 19.

Diodorus (xiv, 11) citing from Ephorus affirms that the first revelation to Artaxerxes was made by Pharnabazus, who had learnt it from the acuteness of the Athenian exile Alkibiades. That the latter should have had any concern in it, appears improbable. But Diodorus on more than one occasion, confounds Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes.

[36] Diodor. xiv, 19.

[37] The parasang was a Persian measurement of length, but according to Strabo, not of uniform value in all parts of Asia; in some parts, held equivalent to thirty stadia, in others to forty, in others to sixty (Strabo, xi, p. 518; Forbiger, Handbuch der Alten Geograph. vol. i, p. 555). This variability of meaning is no way extraordinary, when we recollect the difference between English, Irish, and German miles, etc.

Herodotus tells us distinctly what he meant by a parasang, and what the Persian government of his day recognized as such in their measurement of the great road from Sardis to Susa, as well as in their measurements of territory for purposes of tribute (Herod. v, 53; vi, 43). It was thirty Greek stadia = nearly three and a half English miles, or nearly three geographical miles. The distance between every two successive stations, on the road from Sardis to Susa, (which was “all inhabited and all secure,” διὰ οἰκεομένης τε ἅπασα καὶ ἀσφολέος), would seem to have been measured and marked in parasangs and fractions of a parasang. It seems probable, from the account which Herodotus gives of the march of Xerxes (vii, 26), that this road passed from Kappadokia and across the river Halys, through Kelænæ and Kolossæ to Sardis; and therefore that the road which Cyrus took for his march, from Sardis at least as far as Kelænæ, must have been so measured and marked.

Xenophon also in his summing up of the route, (ii, 2, 6; vii, 8, 26) implies the parasang as equivalent to thirty stadia, while he gives for the most part, each day’s journey measured in parasangs. Now even at the outset of the march, we have no reason to believe that there was any official measurer of road-progress accompanying the army, like Bæton, ὁ Βηματιστὴς Ἀλεξάνδρου, in Alexander’s invasion; see Athenæus, x, p. 442, and Geier, Alexandri Magni Histor. Scriptt. p. 357. Yet Xenophon, throughout the whole march, even as far as Trebizond, states the day’s march of the army in parasangs; not merely in Asia Minor, where there were roads, but through the Arabian desert between Thapsakus and Pylæ,—through the snows of Armenia,—and through the territory of the barbarous Chalybes. He tells us that in the desert of Arabia they marched ninety parasangs in thirteen days, or very nearly seven parasangs per day,—and that too under the extreme heat of summer. He tells us, farther, that in the deep snows of Armenia, and in the extremity of winter, they marched fifteen parasangs in three days; and through the territory (also covered with snow) of the pugnacious Chalybes, fifty parasangs in seven days, or more than seven parasangs per day. Such marches, at thirty stadia for the parasang, are impossible. And how did Xenophon measure the distance marched over?

The most intelligent modern investigators and travellers,—Major Rennell, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Hamilton, Colonel Chesney, Professor Koch, etc., offer no satisfactory solution of the difficulty. Major Rennell reckons the parasangs as equal to 2.25 geogr. miles; Mr. Ainsworth at three geogr. miles; Mr. Hamilton (travels in Asia Minor, c. 42, p. 200), at something less than two and a half geogr. miles; Colonel Chesney (Euphrat. and Tigris, ch. 8, p. 207) at 2.608 geogr. miles between Sardis and Thapsakus—at 1.98 geogr. miles, between Thapsakus and Kunaxa,—at something less than this, without specifying how much, during the retreat. It is evident that there is no certain basis to proceed upon, even for the earlier portion of the route; much more, for the retreat. The distance between Ikonium and Dana (or Tyana), is one of the quantities on which Mr. Hamilton rests his calculation; but we are by no means certain that Cyrus took the direct route of march; he rather seems to have turned out of his way, partly to plunder Lykaonia, partly to conduct the Kilikian princess homeward. The other item, insisted upon by Mr. Hamilton, is the distance between Kelænæ and Kolossæ, two places the site of which seems well ascertained, and which are by the best modern maps, fifty-two geographical miles apart. Xenophon calls the distance twenty parasangs. Assuming the road by which he marched to have been the same with that now travelled, it would make the parasang of Xenophon = 2.6 geographical miles. I have before remarked that the road between Kolossæ and Kelænæ was probably measured and numbered according to parasangs; so that Xenophon, in giving the number of parasangs between these two places, would be speaking upon official authority.

Even a century and a half afterwards, the geographer Eratosthenes found it not possible to obtain accurate measurements, in much of the country traversed by Cyrus (Strabo, ii, p. 73.)

Colonel Chesney remarks,—“From Sardis to Cunaxa, or the mounds of Mohammed, cannot be much under or over twelve hundred and sixty-five geographical miles; making 2.364 geographical miles for each of the five hundred and thirty-five parasangs given by Xenophon between those two places.”

As a measure of distance, the parasang of Xenophon is evidently untrustworthy. Is it admissible to consider, in the description of this march, that the parasangs and stadia of Xenophon are measurements rather of time than of space? From Sardis to Kelænæ, he had a measured road and numbered parasangs of distance; it is probable that the same mensuration and numeration continued for four days farther, as far as Keramôn-Agora, (since I imagine that the road from Kelænæ to the Halys and Kappadokia must have gone through these two places,)—and possibly it may have continued even as far as Ikonium or Dana. Hence, by these early marches, Xenophon had the opportunity of forming to himself roughly an idea of the time (measured by the course of the sun) which it took for the army to march one, two, or three parasangs; and when he came to the ulterior portions of the road, he called that length of time by the name of one, two, or three parasangs. Five parasangs seem to have meant with him a full day’s march; three or four, a short day; six, seven, or eight, a long, or very long day.

We must recollect that the Greeks in the time of Xenophon had no portable means of measuring hours, and did not habitually divide the day into hours, or into any other recognized fraction. The Alexandrine astronomers, near two centuries afterwards, were the first to use ὥρη in the sense of hour (Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i, p. 239.)

This may perhaps help to explain Xenophon’s meaning, when he talks about marching five or seven parasangs amidst the deep snows of Armenia; I do not however suppose that he had this meaning uniformly or steadily present to his mind. Sometimes, it would seem, he must have used the word in its usual meaning of distance.

[38] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 8, 9. About Kelænæ, Arrian, Exp. Al. i, 29, 2; Quint. Curt. iii, 1, 6.

[39] These three marches, each of ten parasangs, from Keramôn-Agora to Käystru-Pedion,—are the longest recorded in the Anabasis. It is rather surprising to find them so; for there seems no motive for Cyrus to have hurried forward. When he reached Käystru-Pedion, he halted five days. Koch (Zug der Zehn Tausend, Leipsic, 1850, p. 19) remarks that the three days’ march, which seem to have dropped out of Xenophon’s calculation, comparing the items with the total, might conveniently be let in here; so that these thirty parasangs should have occupied six days’ march instead of three; five parasangs per day. The whole march which Cyrus had hitherto made from Sardis, including the road from Keramôn-Agora to Käystru-Pedion, lay in the great road from Sardis to the river Halys, Kappadokia, and Susa. That road (as we see by the March of Xerxes, Herodot. vii, 26; v, 52) passed through both Kelænæ and Kolossæ; though this is a prodigious departure from the straight line. At Käystru-Pedion, Cyrus seems to have left this great road; taking a different route, in a direction nearly south-east towards Ikonium. About the point, somewhere near Synnada, where these different roads crossed, see Mr. Ainsworth, Trav. in the Track, p. 28.

I do not share the doubts which have been raised about Xenophon’s accuracy, in his description of the route from Sardis to Ikonium; though the names of several of the places which he mentions are not known to us, and their sites cannot be exactly identified. There is a great departure from the straight line of bearing. But we at the present day assign more weight to that circumstance than is suited to the days of Xenophon. Straight roads, stretching systematically over a large region of country, are not of that age; the communications were probably all originally made, between one neighboring town and another, without much reference to saving of distance, and with no reference to any promotion of traffic between distant places.

It was just about this time that King Archelaus began to “cut straight roads” in Macedonia,—which Thucydides seems to note as a remarkable thing (ii, 100).

[40] Neither Thymbrium, nor Tyriæum, can be identified. But it seems that both must have been situated on the line of road now followed by the caravans from Smyrna to Konieh (Ikonium,) which line of road follows a direction between the mountains called Emir Dagh on the north-east, and those called Sultan Dagh on the south-west (Koch, Der Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 21, 22).

[41] Εἶχον δὲ πάντες κράνη χαλκᾶ, καὶ χιτῶνας φοινικοῦς, καὶ κνημῖδας, καὶ τὰς ἀσπίδας ἐκκεκαθαρμένας.

When the hoplite was on march, without expectation of an enemy, the shield seems to have been carried behind him, with his blanket attached to it (see Aristoph. Acharn. 1085, 1089-1149); it was slung by the strap round his neck and shoulder. Sometimes indeed he had an opportunity of relieving himself from the burden, by putting the shield in a baggage-wagon (Xen. Anab. i, 7, 20). The officers generally, and doubtless some soldiers, could command attendants to carry their shields for them (iv, 2, 20; Aristoph. 1, c.).

On occasion of this review, the shields were unpacked, rubbed, and brightened, as before a battle (Xen. Hell. vii, 5, 20); then fastened round the neck or shoulders, and held out upon the left arm, which was passed through the rings or straps attached to its concave or interior side.

Respecting the cases or wrappers of the shields, see a curious stratagem of the Syracusan Agathokles (Diodor. xx, 11). The Roman soldiers also carried their shields in leathern wrappers, when on march (Plutarch, Lucull. c. 27).

It is to be remarked that Xenophon, in enumerating the arms of the Cyreians, does not mention breastplates; which (though sometimes worn, see Plutarch, Dion. c. 30) were not usually worn by hoplites, who carried heavy shields. It is quite possible that some of the Cyreian infantry may have had breastplates as well as shields, since every soldier provided his own arms; but Xenophon states only what was common to all.

Grecian cavalry commonly wore a heavy breastplate, but had no shield.

[42] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 16-19.

[43] Xen. Anab. iii, 2, 25.

[44] This shorter and more direct pass crosses the Taurus by Kizil-Chesmeh, Alan Buzuk, and Mizetli; it led directly to the Kilikian seaport-town Soli, afterwards called Pompeiopolis. It is laid down in the Peutinger Tables as the road from Iconium to Pompeiopolis (Ainsworth, p. 40 seq.; Chesney, Euph. and Tigr. ii, p. 209).

[45] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 20.

[46] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 21; Diodor. xiv, 20. See Mr. Kinneir, Travels in Asia Minor, p. 116; Col. Chesney, Euphrates and Tigris, vol. i, p. 293-354; and Mr. Ainsworth, Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 40 seq.; also his other work, Travels in Asia Minor, vol. ii. ch. 30, p. 70-77; and Koch, Der Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 26-172, for a description of this memorable pass.

Alexander the Great, as well as Cyrus, was fortunate enough to find this impregnable pass abandoned; as it appears, through sheer stupidity or recklessness of the satrap who ought to have defended it, and who had not even the same excuse for abandoning it as Syennesis had on the approach of Cyrus (Arrian. E. A. ii. 4; Curtius, iii, 9, 10, 11).

[47] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 23-27.

[48] Diodorus (xiv, 20) represents Syennesis as playing a double game, though reluctantly. He takes no notice of the proceeding of Epyaxa.

So Livy says, about the conduct of the Macedonian courtiers in regard to the enmity between Perseus and Demetrius, the two sons of Philip II. of Macedon: “Crescente in dies Philippi odio in Romanos, cui Perseus indulgeret, Demetrius summâ ope adversaretur, prospicientes animo exitum incauti a fraude fraternâ juvenis—adjuvandum, quod futurum erat, rati, fovendamque spem potentioris, Perseo se adjungunt,” etc. (Livy, xl, 5).

[49] See Herodot. v. 49.

[50] Xen. Anab. i, 3, 1.

[51] Xen. Anab. ii, 6, 5-15.

[52] Xen. Anab. i, 3, 2-7. Here, as on other occasions, I translate the sense rather than the words.

[53] Xen. Anab. i, 3, 16-21.

[54] The breadth of the river Sarus (Scihun) is given by Xenophon at three hundred feet; which agrees nearly with the statements of modern travellers (Koch, Der Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 34).

Compare, for the description of this country, Kinneir’s Journey through Asia Minor, p. 135; Col. Chesney, Euphrates and Tigris, ii, p. 211; Mr. Ainsworth, Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 54.

Colonel Chesney affirms that neither the Sarus nor the Pyramus is fordable. There must have been bridges; which, in the then flourishing state of Kilikia, is by no means improbable. He and Mr. Ainsworth, however, differ as to the route which they suppose Cyrus to have taken between Tarsus and Issus.

Xenophon mentions nothing about the Amanian Gates, which afterwards appear noticed both in Arrian (ii, 6; ii, 7) and in Strabo (xiv, p. 676). The various data of ancient history and geography about this region are by no means easy to reconcile; see a valuable note of Mützel on Quintus Curtius, iii, 17, 7. An inspection of the best recent maps, either Colonel Chesney’s or Kiepert’s, clears up some of these better than any verbal description. We see by these maps that Mount Amanus bifurcates into two branches, one of them flanking the Gulf of Issus on its western, the other on its eastern side. There are thus two different passes, each called Pylæ Amanides or Amanian Gates; one having reference to the Western Amanus, the other to the Eastern. The former was crossed by Alexander, the latter by Darius, before the battle of Issus; and Arrian (ii, 6; ii, 7) is equally correct in saying of both of them that they passed the Amanian Gates; though both did not pass the same gates.

[55] Diodor. xiv. 21.

[56] Xen. Anab. i, 4, 3-5. Ἀβροκόμας δ᾽ οὐ τοῦτο ἐποίησεν ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἤκουσε Κῦρον ἐν Κιλικίᾳ ὄντα, αναστρέψας ἐκ Φοινίκης, παρὰ βασιλέα ἀπήλαυνεν, etc.

[57] Diodor. xiv.

[58] Xen. Anab. i, 4, 6. To require the wives or children of generals in service, as hostages for fidelity, appears to have been not unfrequent with Persian kings. On the other hand, it was remarked as a piece of gross obsequiousness in the Argeian Nikostratus, who commanded the contingent of his countrymen serving under Artaxerxes Ochus in Egypt, that he volunteered to bring up his son to the king as a hostage, without being demanded (Theopompus, Frag. 135 [ed. Wichers] ap. Athenæ. vi, p. 252).

[59] Xen. Anab. i, 4, 7-9.

[60] Diodor. xiv, 21.

[61] See the remarks of Mr. Ainsworth, Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 58-61; and other citations respecting the difficult road through the pass of Beilan, in Mützel’s valuable notes on Quintus Curtius, iii, 20, 13, p. 101.

[62] Neither the Chalus, nor the Daradax, nor indeed the road followed by Cyrus in crossing Syria from the sea to the Euphrates, can be satisfactorily made out (Koch, Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 36, 37).

Respecting the situation of Thapsakus,—placed erroneously by Rennell lower down the river at Deir, where it stands marked even in the map annexed to Col. Chesney’s Report on the Euphrates, and by Reichard higher up the river, near Bir—see Ritter, Erdkunde, part x, B. iii; West Asien, p. 14-17, with the elaborate discussion, p. 972-978, in the same volume; also the work of Mr. Ainsworth above cited, p. 70. The situation of Thapsakus is correctly placed in Colonel Chesney’s last work (Euphr. and Tigr. p. 213), and in the excellent map accompanying that work; though I dissent from his view of the march of Cyrus between the pass of Beilan and Thapsakus.

Thapsakus appears to have been the most frequented and best-known passage over the Euphrates, throughout the duration of the Seleukid kings, down to 100 B.C. It was selected as a noted point, to which observations and calculations might be conveniently referred, by Eratosthenes and other geographers (see Strabo, ii, p. 79-87). After the time when the Roman empire became extended to the Euphrates, the new Zeugma, higher up the river near Bir or Bihrejik (about the 37th parallel of latitude) became more used and better known, at least to the Roman writers.

The passage at Thapsakus was in the line of road from Palmyra to Karrhæ in Northern Mesopotamia; also from Seleukeia (on the Tigris below Bagdad) to the other cities founded in Northern Syria by Seleukus Nikator and his successors, Antioch on the Orontes, Seleukeia in Pieria, Laodikeia, Antioch ad Taurum, etc.

The ford at Thapsakus (says Mr. Ainsworth, p. 69, 70) “is celebrated to this day as the ford of the Anezeh or Beduins. On the right bank of the Euphrates there are the remains of a paved causeway leading to the very banks of the river, and continued on the opposite side.”

[63] Xen. Anab. i, 4, 12-18.

[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.

“But what most concerns the subject of this memoir is, the existence of a parapet wall or stone rampart in the river, just above the several aqueducts. In general, there is one of the former attached to each of the latter. And almost invariably, between two mills on the opposite banks, one of them crosses the stream from side to side, with the exception of a passage left in the centre for boats to pass up and down. The object of these subaqueous walls would appear to be exclusively, to raise the water sufficiently at low seasons, to give it impetus, as well as a more abundant supply to the wheels. And their effect at those times is, to create a fall in every part of the width, save the opening left for commerce, through which the water rushes with a moderately irregular surface. These dams were probably from four to eight feet high originally; but they are now frequently a bank of stones disturbing the evenness of the current, but always affording a sufficient passage for large boats at low seasons.”

The marks which Colonel Chesney points out, of previous population and industry on the banks of the Euphrates at this part of its course, are extremely interesting and curious, when contrasted with the desolation depicted by Xenophon; who mentions that there were no other inhabitants than some who lived by cutting millstones from the stone quarries near, and sending them to Babylon in exchange for grain. It is plain that the population, of which Colonel Chesney saw the remaining tokens, either had already long ceased, or did not begin to exist, or to construct their dams and aqueducts, until a period later than Xenophon. They probably began during the period of the Seleukid kings, after the year 300 B.C. For this line of road along the Euphrates began then to acquire great importance as the means of communication between the great city of Seleukeia (on the Tigris, below Bagdad) and the other cities founded by Seleukus Nikator and his successors in the North of Syria and Asia Minor—Seleukeia in Pieria, Antioch, Laodikeia, Apameia, etc. This route coincides mainly with the present route from Bagdad to Aleppo, crossing the Euphrates at Thapsakus. It can hardly be doubted that the course of the Euphrates was better protected during the two centuries of the Seleukid kings (B.C. 300-100, speaking in round numbers), than it came to be afterwards, when that river became the boundary line between the Romans and the Parthians. Even at the time of the Emperor Julian’s invasion, however, Ammianus Marcellinus describes the left bank of the Euphrates, north of Babylonia, as being in several parts well cultivated, and furnishing ample subsistence, (Ammian. Marc. xxiv, 1). At the time of Xenophon’s Anabasis, there was nothing to give much importance to the banks of the Euphrates north of Babylonia.

Mr. Ainsworth describes the country on the left bank of the Euphrates, before reaching Pylæ, as being now in the same condition as it was when Xenophon and his comrades marched through it,—“full of hills and narrow valleys, and presenting many difficulties to the movement of an army. The illustrator was, by a curious accident, left by the Euphrates steamer on this very portion of the river, and on the same side as the Perso-Greek army, and he had to walk a day and a night across these inhospitable regions; so that he can speak feelingly of the difficulties which the Greeks had to encounter.” (Travels in the Track, etc. p. 81.)

[70] I incline to think that Charmandê must have been nearly opposite Pylæ, lower down than Hit. But Major Rennell (p. 107) and Mr. Ainsworth (p. 84) suppose Charmandê to be the same place as the modern Hit (the Is of Herodotus). There is no other known town with which we can identify it.

[71] Xen. Anab. i, 5, 11-17.

[72] The commentators agree in thinking that we are to understand by Pylæ a sort of gate or pass, marking the spot where the desert country north of Babylonia—with its undulations of land, and its steep banks along the river—was exchanged for the flat and fertile alluvium constituting Babylonia proper. Perhaps there was a town near the pass, and named after it.

Now it appears from Col. Chesney’s survey that this alteration in the nature of the country takes place a few miles below Hit. He observes—(Euphrates and Tigris, vol. i, p. 54)—“Three miles below Hit, the remains of aqueducts disappear, and the windings become shorter and more frequent, as the river flows through a tract of country almost level.” Thereabouts it is that I am inclined to place Pylæ.

Colonel Chesney places it lower down, twenty-five miles from Hit. Professor Koch (Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 44), lower down still. Mr. Ainsworth places it as much as seventy geographical miles lower than Hit (Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 81); compare Ritter, Erdkunde, West Asien, x. p. 16; xi, pp. 755-763.