[73] The description given of this scene (known to the Greeks through the communications of Klearchus) by Xenophon, is extremely interesting (Anab. i, 6). I omit it from regard to space.

[74] Xen. Anab. i, 7, 2-9.

[75] Xen. Anab. i, 5, 16.

[76] See Herodot. vii, 102, 103, 209. Compare the observations of the Persian Achæmenês, c. 236.

[77] Herod. vii, 104. Demaratus says to Xerxes, respecting the Lacedæmonians—Ἐλεύθεροι γὰρ ἐόντες, οὐ πάντα ἐλεύθεροί εἰσι· ἔπεστι γάρ σφι δεσπότης, νόμος, τὸν ὑποδειμαίνουσι πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἢ οἱ σοὶ σέ.

Again, the historian observes about the Athenians, and their extraordinary increase of prowess after having shaken off the despotism of Hippias (v. 78)—Δηλοῖ δ᾽ οὐ καθ᾽ ἓν μόνον ἀλλὰ πανταχοῦ, ἡ ἰσηγορίη ὥς ἐστι χρῆμα σπουδαῖον· εἰ καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι τυραννευόμενοι μὲν, οὐδαμῶν τῶν σφέας περιοικεόντων ἦσαν τὰ πολέμια ἀμείνους, ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ τυράννων, μακρῷ πρῶτοι ἐγένοντο. Δηλοῖ ὦν ταῦτα, ὅτι κατεχόμενοι μὲν ἐθελοκακεέον, ὡς δεσπότῃ ἐργαζόμενοι· ἐλευθερωθέντων δὲ, αὐτὸς ἕκαστος ἑωϋτῷ προθυμέετο ἐργάζεσθαι.

Compare Menander, Fragm. Incert. CL. ap. Meineke, Fragm. Comm. Græc. vol. iv. p. 268—

[78] Xen. Anab. i, 7, 14-17.

[79] From Pylæ to the undefended trench, there intervened three entire days of march, and one part of a day; for it occurred in the fourth day’s march.

Xenophon calls the three entire days, twelve parasangs in all. This argues short marches, not full marches. And it does not seem that the space of ground traversed during any one of them can have been considerable. For they were all undertaken with visible evidences of an enemy immediately in front of them; which circumstance was the occasion of the treason of Orontes, who asked Cyrus for a body of cavalry, under pretence of attacking the light troops of the enemy in front, and then wrote a letter to inform Artaxerxes that he was about to desert with his division. The letter was delivered to Cyrus, who thus discovered the treason.

Marching with a known enemy not far off in front, Cyrus must have kept his army in something like battle order, and therefore must have moved slowly. Moreover the discovery of the treason of Orontes must itself have been an alarming fact, well calculated to render both Cyrus and Klearchus doubly cautious for the time. And the very trial of Orontes appears to have been conducted under such solemnities as must have occasioned a halt of the army.

Taking these circumstances, we can hardly suppose the Greeks to have got over so much as thirty English miles of ground in the three entire days of march. The fourth day they must have got over very little ground indeed; not merely because Cyrus was in momentary expectation of the King’s main army, and of a general battle (i, 7, 14), but because of the great delay necessary for passing the trench. His whole army (more than one hundred thousand men), with baggage, chariots, etc., had to pass through the narrow gut of twenty feet wide between the trench and the Euphrates. He can hardly have made more than five miles in this whole day’s march, getting at night so far as to encamp two or three miles beyond the trench. We may therefore reckon the distance marched over between Pylæ and the trench as about thirty-two miles in all; and two or three miles farther to the encampment of the next night. Probably Cyrus would keep near the river, yet not following its bends with absolute precision; so that in estimating distance, we ought to take a mean between the straight line and the full windings of the river.

I conceive the trench to have cut the Wall of Media at a much wider angle than appears in Col. Chesney’s map; so that the triangular space included between the trench, the Wall, and the river, was much more extensive. The reason, we may presume, why the trench was cut, was, to defend that portion of the well-cultivated and watered country of Babylonia which lay outside of the Wall of Media—which portion (as we shall see hereafter in the marches of the Greeks after the battle) was very considerable.

[80] Xen. Anab. i, 7, 20. The account given by Xenophon of this long line of trench, first dug by order of Artaxerxes, and then left useless and undefended, differs from the narrative of Diodorus (xiv, 22), which seems to be borrowed from Ephorus. Diodorus says that the king caused a long trench to be dug, and lined with carriages and waggons as a defence for his baggage; and that he afterwards marched forth from this entrenchment, with his soldiers free and unincumbered, to give battle to Cyrus. This is a statement more plausible than that of Xenophon, in this point of view, that it makes out the king to have acted upon a rational scheme; whereas in Xenophon he appears at first to have adopted a plan of defence, and then to have renounced it, after immense labor and cost, without any reason, so far as we can see. Yet I have no doubt that the account of Xenophon is the true one. The narrow passage, and the undefended trench, were both facts of the most obvious and impressive character to an observing soldier.

[81] Xenophon does not mention the name Kunaxa, which comes to us from Plutarch (Artaxerx. c. 8), who states that it was five hundred stadia (about fifty-eight miles) from Babylon; while Xenophon was informed that the field of battle was distant from Babylon only three hundred and sixty stadia. Now, according to Colonel Chesney (Euphrates and Tigris, vol. i, p. 57), Hillah (Babylon) is distant ninety-one miles by the river, or sixty-one and a half miles direct, from Felujah. Following therefore the distance given by Plutarch (probably copied from Ktesias), we should place Kunaxa a little lower down the river than Felujah. This seems the most probable supposition.

Rennell and Mr. Baillie Fraser so place it (Mesopotamia and Assyria, p. 186, Edin. 1842), I think rightly; moreover the latter remarks, what most of the commentators overlook, that the Greeks did not pass through the Wall of Media until long after the battle. See a note a little below, near the beginning of my next chapter, in reference to that Wall.

[82] The distance of the undefended trench from the battle-field of Kunaxa would be about twenty-two miles. First, three miles beyond the trench, to the first night-station; next, a full day’s march, say twelve miles; thirdly, a half day’s march, to the time of the mid-day halt, say seven miles.

The distance from Pylæ to the trench having before been stated at thirty-two miles, the whole distance from Pylæ to Kunaxa will be about fifty-four miles.

Now Colonel Chesney has stated the distance from Hit to Felujah Castle (two known points) at forty-eight miles of straight line, and seventy-seven miles, if following the line of the river. Deduct four miles for the distance from Hit to Pylæ, and we shall then have between Pylæ and Felujah, a rectilinear distance of forty-four miles. The marching route of the Greeks (as explained in the previous note, the Greeks following generally, but not exactly, the windings of the river) will give fifty miles from Pylæ to Felujah, and fifty-three or fifty-four from Pylæ to Kunaxa.

[83] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 8-11.

[84] Thucyd. v. 70. See Vol. VII, ch. lvi, p. 84 of this History.

[85] Plutarch (Artaxerx. c. 8) makes this criticism upon Klearchus; and it seems quite just.

[86] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 17; Diodor. xiv, 23.

[87] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 17-20.

[88] Xen. Anab i, 10, 4-8.

[89] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 23; i, 9, 31.

[90] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 21.

Κῦρος δὲ, ὁρῶν τοὺς Ἕλληνας νικῶντας τὸ καθ᾽ αὑτοὺς καὶ διώκοντας, ἡδόμενος καὶ προσκυνούμενος ἤδη ὡς βασιλεὺς ὑπὸ τῶν ἀμφ᾽ αὐτὸν, οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἐξήχθη διώκειν, etc.

The last words are remarkable, as indicating that no other stimulus except that of ambitious rivalry and fraternal antipathy, had force enough to overthrow the self-command of Cyrus.

[91] Compare the account of the transport of rage which seized the Theban Pelopidas, when he saw Alexander the despot of Pheræ in the opposite army; which led to the same fatal consequences (Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 32; Cornel. Nepos, Pelop. c. 5). See also the reflections of Xenophon on the conduct of Teleutas before Olynthus.—Hellenic. v. 3, 7.

[92] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 22-29. The account of this battle and of the death of Cyrus by Ktesias (as far as we can make it out from the brief abstract in Photius—Ktesias, Fragm. c. 58, 59, ed. Bähr) does not differ materially from Xenophon. Ktesias mentions the Karian soldier (not noticed by Xenophon) who hurled the javelin; and adds that this soldier was afterwards tortured and put to death by Queen Parysatis, in savage revenge for the death of Cyrus. He also informs us that Bagapatês, the person who by order of Artaxerxes cut off the head and hand of Cyrus, was destroyed by her in the same way.

Diodorus (xiv, 23) dresses up a much fuller picture of the conflict between Cyrus and his brother, which differs on many points, partly direct and partly implied, from Xenophon.

Plutarch (Artaxerxes, c. 11, 12, 13) gives an account of the battle, and of the death of Cyrus, which he professes to have derived from Ktesias, but which differs still more materially from the narrative in Xenophon. Compare also the few words of Justin, v, 11.

Diodorus (xiv, 24) says that twelve thousand men were slain of the king’s army at Kunaxa; the greater part of them by the Greeks under Klearchus, who did not lose a single man. He estimates the loss of Cyrus’s Asiatic army at three thousand men. But as the Greeks did not lose a man, so they can hardly have killed many in the pursuit; for they had scarcely any cavalry, and no great number of peltasts,—while hoplites could not have overtaken the flying Persians.

[93] Xen. Anab. i, 10, 3. The accomplishments and fascinations of this Phokæan lady, and the great esteem in which she was held first by Cyrus and afterwards by Artaxerxes, have been exaggerated into a romantic story, in which we cannot tell what may be the proportion of truth (see Ælian, V. H. xii, 1; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 26, 27; Justin, x, 2). Both Plutarch and Justin state that the subsequent enmity between Artaxerxes and his son Darius, which led to the conspiracy of the latter against his father, and to his destruction when the conspiracy was discovered, arose out of the passion of Darius for her. But as that transaction certainly happened at the close of the long life and reign of Artaxerxes, who reigned forty-six years—and as she must have been then sixty years old, if not more—we may fairly presume that the cause of the family tragedy must have been something different.

Compare the description of the fate of Berenikê of Chios, and Monimê of Miletus, wives of Mithridates king of Pontus, during the last misfortunes of that prince (Plutarch, Lucullus, c. 18).

[94] Xen. Anab. i, 10, 17. This provision must probably have been made during the recent halt at Pylæ.

[95] Xen. Anab. i, 10, 18, 19.

[96] Xen. Anab. ii. 1, 3, 4.

[97] Isokrates, Orat. iv, (Panegyric.) s. 175-182; a striking passage, as describing the way in which political institutions work themselves into the individual character and habits.

[98] Diodorus (xiv, 23) notices the legendary pair of hostile brothers, Eteokles and Polyneikes, as a parallel. Compare Tacitus, Annal. iv, 60. “Atrox Drusi ingenium, super cupidinem potentiæ, et solita fratribus odia, accendebatur invidia, quod mater Agrippina promptior Neroni erat,” etc.; and Justin, xlii, 4.

Compare also the interesting narrative of M. Prosper Mérimée, in his life of Don Pedro of Castile; a prince commonly known by the name of Peter the Cruel. Don Pedro was dethroned, and slain in personal conflict, by the hand of his bastard brother, Henri of Transtamare.

At the battle of Navarrete, in 1367, says M. Mérimée, “Don Pèdre, qui, pendant le combat, s’était jété au plus fort de la mêlée, s’acharna long temps à la poursuite des fuyards. On le voyait galoper dans la plaine, monté sur un cheval noir, sa bannière armoriée de Castille devant lui, cherchant son frère partout où l’on combattait encore, et criant, échauffé par le carnage—‘Où est ce bâtard, qui se nomme roi de Castille?’” (Histoire de Don Pèdre, p. 504.)

Ultimately Don Pedro, blocked up and almost starved out in the castle of Montiel, was entrapped by simulated negotiations into the power of his enemies. He was slain in personal conflict by the dagger of his brother Henri, after a desperate struggle, in which he seemed likely to prevail, if Henri had not been partially aided by a bystander.

This tragical scene (on the night of the 23d of March, 1369) is graphically described by M. Mérimée (p. 564-566).

[99] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 4. Ὑπισχνεῖτο δὲ αὐτῷ (Ξενοφῶντα Πρόξενος) εἰ ἔλθοι, φίλον Κύρῳ ποιήσειν· ὃν αὐτός ἔφη κρείττω ἑαυτῷ νομίζειν τῆς πατρίδος.

[100] Xen. Anab. ii, 1, 5-7.

[101] We know from Plutarch (Artaxer. c. 13) that Ktesias distinctly asserted himself to have been present at this interview, and I see no reason why we should not believe him. Plutarch indeed rejects his testimony as false, affirming that Xenophon would certainly have mentioned him, had he been there; but such an objection seems to me insufficient. Nor is it necessary to construe the words of Xenophon, ἦν δ᾽ αὐτῶν Φαλῖνος εἶς Ἕλλην, (ii, 1, 7) so strictly as to negative the presence of one or two other Greeks. Phalinus is thus specified because he was the spokesman of the party—a military man.

[102] Xen. Anab. ii, 1, 12 μὴ οὖν οἴου τὰ μόνα ἡμῖν ἀγαθὰ ὄντα ὑμῖν παραδώσειν· ἀλλὰ σὺν τούτοις καὶ περὶ τῶν ὑμετέρων ἀγαθῶν μαχούμεθα.

[103] Xen. Anab. ii, 1, 14-22. Diodorus (xiv, 25) is somewhat copious in his account of the interview with Phalinus. But he certainly followed other authorities besides Xenophon, if even it be true that he had Xenophon before him. The allusion to the past heroism of Leonidas seems rather in the style of Ephorus.

[104] Xen. Anab. ii, 2, 7-9. Koch remarks, however, with good reason, that it is difficult to see how they could get a wolf in Babylonia, for the sacrifice (Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 51).

[105] Such is the sum total stated by Xenophon himself (Anab. ii, 1, 6). It is greater, by nine days, than the sum total which we should obtain by adding together the separate days’ march specified by Xenophon from Sardis. But the distance from Sardis to Ephesus, as we know from Herodotus, was three days’ journey (Herod. v, 55); and therefore the discrepancy is really only to the amount of six, not of nine. See Krüger ad Anabas. p. 556; Koch, Zug der Z. p. 141.

[106] Colonel Chesney (Euphrates and Tigris, c. ii, p. 208) calculates twelve hundred and sixty-five geographical miles from Sardis to Kunaxa or the Mounds of Mohammed.

[107] For example, we are not told how long they rested at Pylæ, or opposite to Charmandê. I have given some grounds (in the preceding chapter) for believing that it cannot have been less than five days. The army must have been in the utmost need of repose, as well as of provisions.

[108] Xen. Anab. i, 5, 9.

[109] Xen. Anab. ii, 4, 6, 7.

[110] Xen. Anab. ii, 2, 13. Ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἡμέρα ἐγένετο, ἐπορεύοντο ἐν δεξιᾷ ἔχοντες τὸν ἥλιον, λογιζόμενοι ἥξειν ἅμα ἡλίῳ δύνοντι εἰς κώμας τῆς Βαβυλωνίας χώρας· καὶ τοῦτο μὲν οὐκ ἐψεύσθησαν.

Schneider, in his note on this passage, as well as Ritter, (Erdkunde, part. x, 3, p. 17), Mr. Ainsworth (Travels in the Track, p. 103) and Colonel Chesney (Euph. and Tigr. p. 219), understand the words here used by Xenophon in a sense from which I dissent. “When it was day, the army proceeded onward on their march, having the sun on their right hand,”—these words they understand as meaning that the army marched northward; whereas, in my judgment, the words intimate that the army marched eastward. To have the sun on the right hand, does not so much refer either to the precise point where, or to the precise instant when, the sun rises,—but to his diurnal path through the heavens, and to the general direction of the day’s march. This may be seen by comparing the remarkable passage in Herodotus, iv, 42, in reference to the alleged circumnavigation of Africa, from the Red Sea round the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Gibraltar, by the Phœnicians under the order of Nekos. These Phœnicians said, “that in sailing round Africa (from the Red Sea) they had the sun on their right hand”—ὡς τὴν Λιβύην περιπλώοντες τὸν ἠέλιον ἐπὶ δεξιᾷ. Herodotus rejects this statement as incredible. Not knowing the phenomena of a southern latitude beyond the tropic of Capricorn, he could not imagine that men in sailing from East to West could possibly have the sun on their right hand; any man journeying from the Red Sea to the Straits of Gibraltar must, in his judgment, have the sun on the left hand, as he himself had always experienced in the north latitude of the Mediterranean or the African coast. See Vol. III. of this History, ch. xviii, p. 282.

In addition to this reason, we may remark, that Ariæus and the Greeks, starting from their camp on the banks of the Euphrates (the place where they had passed the last night but one before the battle of Kunaxa) and marching northward, could not expect to arrive, and could not really arrive, at villages of the Babylonian territory. But they might naturally expect to do so, if they marched eastward, towards the Tigris. Nor would they have hit upon the enemy in a northerly march, which would in fact have been something near to a return upon their own previous steps. They would moreover have been stopped by the undefended Trench, which could only be passed at the narrow opening close to the Euphrates.

[111] Xen. Anab. ii, 2, 20. This seems to have been a standing military jest, to make the soldiers laugh at their past panic. See the references in Krüger and Schneider’s notes.

[112] Diodorus (xvi, 24) tells us that Ariæus intended to guide them towards Paphlagonia; a very loose indication.

[113] Xen. Anab. ii, 3, 7, 13.

[114] Xen. Anab. ii, 3, 14, 17.

[115] Xen. Anab. ii, 3, 18-27.

[116] Ktesiæ Persica, Fragm. c. 59, ed. Bähr; compared with the remarkable Fragment. 18, preserved by the so-called Demetrius Phalêreus: see also Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 17.

[117] Herodot. i, 193; ii, 108; Strabo, xvii. p. 788.

[118] Xen. Anab. v, 6, 16; Thucyd. vii.

[119] Xen. Anab. ii, 4, 3-8.

[120] Xen. Anab. ii, 4, 12. Διελθόντες δὲ τρεῖς σταθμοὺς, ἀφίκοντο πρὸς τὸ Μηδίας καλούμενον τεῖχος, καὶ παρῆλθον αὐτοῦ εἴσω. It appears to me that these three days’ march or σταθμοὶ can hardly be computed from the moment when they commenced their march under the conduct of Tissaphernes. On the other hand, if we begin from the moment when the Greeks started under conduct of Ariæus, we can plainly trace three distinct resting places (σταθμοὺς) before they reached the Wall of Media. First, at the villages where the confusion and alarm arose (ii, 13-21). Secondly, at the villages of abundant supply, where they concluded the truce with Tissaphernes, and waited twenty days for his return (ii, 3, 14; ii, 4, 9). Thirdly, one night’s halt under the conduct of Tissaphernes, before they reached the Wall of Media. This makes three distinct stations or halting places, between the station (the first station after passing the undefended trench) from whence they started to begin their retreat under the conduct of Ariæus,—and the point where they traversed the Wall of Media.

[121] I reserve for this place the consideration of that which Xenophon states, in two or three passages, about the Wall of Media and about different canals in connection with the Tigris,—the result of which, as far as I can make it out, stands in my text.

I have already stated, in the preceding chapter, that in the march of the day next but one preceding the battle of Kunaxa, the army came to a deep and broad trench dug for defence across their line of way, with the exception of a narrow gut of twenty feet broad close by the Euphrates; through which gut the whole army passed. Xenophon says, “This trench had been carried upwards across the plain as far as the Wall of Media, where indeed, the canals are situated, flowing from the river Tigris; four canals, one hundred feet in breadth, and extremely deep, so that corn-bearing vessels sail along them. They strike into the Euphrates, they are distant each from the other by one parasang, and there are bridges over them—Παρετέτατο δ᾽ ἡ τάφρος ἄνω διὰ τοῦ πεδίου ἐπὶ δώδεκα παράσαγγας, μέχρι τοῦ Μηδίας τείχους, ἔνθα δὴ (the books print a full stop between τείχους and ἔνθα, which appears to me incorrect, as the sense goes on without interruption) εἰσιν αἱ διωρύχες, ἀπὸ τοῦ Τίγρητος ποταμοῦ ῥέουσαι· εἰσὶ δὲ τέτταρες, τὸ μὲν εὖρος πλεθριαῖαι, βαθεῖαι δὲ ἰσχυρῶς, καὶ πλοῖα πλεῖ ἐν αὐταῖς σιταγωγά· εἰσβάλλουσι δὲ εἰς τὸν Εὐφράτην, διαλείπουσι δ᾽ ἑκάστη παρασάγγην, γέφυραι δ᾽ ἔπεισιν. The present tense—εἰσιν αἱ διώρυχες—seems to mark the local reference of ἔνθα to the Wall of Media, and not to the actual march of the army.

Major Rennell (Illustrations of the Expedition of Cyrus, pp. 79-87, etc.), Ritter, (Erdkunde, x, p. 16), Koch, (Zug der Zehn Tausend, pp. 46, 47), and Mr. Ainsworth (Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 88) consider Xenophon to state that the Cyreian army on this day’s march (the day but one before the battle) passed through the Wall of Media and over the four distinct canals reaching from the Tigris to the Euphrates. They all, indeed, contest the accuracy of this latter statement; Rennell remarking that the level of the Tigris, in this part of its course, is lower than that of the Euphrates; and that it could not supply water for so many broad canals so near to each other. Col. Chesney also conceives the army to have passed through the Wall of Media before the battle of Kunaxa.

It seems to me, however, that they do not correctly interpret the words of Xenophon, who does not say that Cyrus ever passed either the Wall of Media, or these four canals before the battle of Kunaxa, but who says (as Krüger, De Authentiâ Anabaseos, p. 12, prefixed to his edition of the Anabasis, rightly explains him), that these four canals flowing from the Tigris are at, or near, the Wall of Media, which the Greeks did not pass through until long after the battle, when Tissaphernes was conducting them towards the Tigris, two days’ march before they reached Sittakê (Anab. ii, 4, 12).

It has been supposed, during the last few years, that the direction of the Wall of Media could be verified by actual ruins still subsisting on the spot. Dr. Ross and Captain Lynch (see journal of the Geographical Society, vol. ix. pp. 447-473, with Captain Lynch’s map annexed) discovered a line of embankment which they considered to be the remnant of it. It begins on the western bank of the Tigris, in latitude 34° 3′, and stretches towards the Euphrates in a direction from N. N. E. to S. S. W. “It is a solitary straight single mound, twenty-five long paces thick, with a bastion on its western face at every fifty-five paces; and on the same side it has a deep ditch, twenty-seven paces broad. The wall is here built of the small pebbles of the country, imbedded in cement of lime of great tenacity; it is from thirty-five to forty feet in height, and runs in a straight line as far as the eye can trace it. The Bedouins tell me that it goes in the same straight line to two mounds called Ramelah on the Euphrates, some hours above Felujah; that it is, in places far inland, built of brick, and in some parts worn down to a level with the desert.” (Dr. Ross, l. c. p. 446).

Upon the faith of these observations, the supposed wall (now called Sidd Nimrud by the natives) has been laid down as the Wall of Media reaching from the Tigris to the Euphrates, in the best recent maps, especially that of Colonel Chesney; and accepted as such by recent inquirers.

Nevertheless, subsequent observations, recently made known by Colonel Rawlinson to the Geographical Society, have contradicted the views of Dr. Ross as stated above, and shown that the Wall of Media, in the line here assigned to it, has no evidence to rest upon. Captain Jones, commander of the steamer at Bagdad, undertook, at the request of Colonel Rawlinson a minute examination of the locality, and ascertained that what had been laid down as the Wall of Media was merely a line of mounds; no wall at all, but a mere embankment, extending seven or eight miles from the Tigris, and designed to arrest the winter torrents and drain off the rain water of the desert into a large reservoir, which served to irrigate an extensive valley between the rivers.

From this important communication it results, that there is as yet no evidence now remaining for determining what was the line or position of the Wall of Media; which had been supposed to be a datum positively established, serving as premises from whence to deduce other positions mentioned by Xenophon. As our knowledge now stands, there is not a single point mentioned by Xenophon in Babylonia which can be positively verified, except Babylon itself,—and Pylæ, which is known pretty nearly, as the spot where Babylonia proper commences.

The description which Xenophon gives of the Wall of Media is very plain and specific. I see no reason to doubt that he actually saw it, passed through it, and correctly describes it in height as well as breadth. Its entire length he of course only gives from what he was told. His statement appears to me good evidence that there was a Wall of Media, which reached from the Tigris to the Euphrates, or perhaps to some canal cut from the Euphrates, though there exists no mark to show what was the precise locality and direction of the Wall. Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiv, 2), in the expedition of the emperor Julian, saw near Macepracta, on the left bank of the Euphrates, the ruins of a wall, “which in ancient times had stretched to a great distance for the defence of Assyria against foreign invasion.” It is fair to presume that this was the Wall of Media; but the position of Macepracta cannot be assigned.

It is important, however, to remember,—what I have already stated in this note,—that Xenophon did not see, and did not cross either the Wall of Media, or the two canals here mentioned, until many days after the battle of Kunaxa.

We know from Herodotus that all the territory of Babylonia was intersected by canals, and that there was one canal greater than the rest and navigable, which flowed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, in a direction to the south of east. This coincides pretty well with the direction assigned in Colonel Chesney’s map to the Nahr-Malcha or Regium Flumen, into which the four great canals, described by Xenophon as drawn from the Tigris to the Euphrates, might naturally discharge themselves, and still be said to fall into the Euphrates, of which the Nahr-Malcha was as it were a branch. How the level of the two rivers would adjust itself, when the space between them was covered with a network of canals great and small, and when a vast quantity of the water of both was exhausted in fertilizing the earth, is difficult to say.

The island wherein the Greeks stood, at their position near Sittakê, before crossing the Tigris, would be a parallelogram formed by the Tigris, the Nahr-Malcha, and the two parallel canals joining them. It might well be called a large island, containing many cities and villages, with a large population.

[122] There seems reason to believe that in ancient times the Tigris, above Bagdad, followed a course more to the westward, and less winding, than it does now. The situation of Opis cannot be verified. The ruins of a large city were seen by Captain Lynch near the confluence of the river Adhem with the Tigris, which he supposed to be Opis, in lat. 34°.

[123] Xen. Anab. ii, 4, 26.

[124] Ktesias, Fragm. 18, ed. Bähr.

[125] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 26-28.

Mannert, Rennell, Mr. Ainsworth, and most modern commentators, identify this town of Καιναὶ or Kænæ with the modern town Senn; which latter place Mannert (Geogr. der Röm. v. p. 333) and Rennell (Illustrations p. 129) represent to be near the Lesser Zab instead of the Greater Zab.

To me it appears that the locality assigned by Xenophon to Καιναὶ, does not at all suit the modern town of Senn. Nor is there much real similarity of name between the two; although our erroneous way of pronouncing the Latin name Caenae, creates a delusive appearance of similarity. Mr. Ainsworth shows that some modern writers have been misled in the same manner by identifying the modern town of Sert with Tigrano-certa.

It is a perplexing circumstance in the geography of Xenophon’s work, that he makes no mention of the Lesser Zab, which yet he must have crossed. Herodotus notices them both, and remarks on the fact that though distinct rivers, both bore the same name (v, 52). Perhaps in drawing up his narrative after the expedition, Xenophon may have so far forgotten, as to fancy that two synonymous rivers mentioned as distinct in his memoranda, were only one.

[126] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 2-15.

[127] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 17-23. This last comparison is curious, and in all probability the genuine words of the satrap—τὴν μὲν γὰρ ἐπὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ τιάραν βασιλεῖ μόνῳ ἔξεστιν ὀρθὴν ἔχειν, τὴν δ᾽ ἐπὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ ἴσως ἂν ὑμῶν παρόντων καὶ ἕτερος εὐπετῶς ἔχοι.

[128] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 30.

[129] Xen. Anab. ii, 6, 1. Ktesiæ Frag. Persica, c. 60, ed. Bähr; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 19, 20; Diodor. xiv, 27.

[130] Tacit. Histor. i, 45. “Othoni nondum auctoritas inerat ad prohibendum scelus; jubere jam poterat. Ita, simulatione iræ, vinciri jussum (Marium Celsum) et majores pœnas daturum, affirmans, præsenti exitio subtraxit.”

Ktesias (Persica, c. 60; compare Plutarch and Diodorus as referred to in the preceding note) attests the treason of Menon, which he probably derived from the story of Menon himself. Xenophon mentions the ignominious death of Menon, and he probably derived his information from Ktesias (see Anabasis, ii, 6, 29).

The supposition that it was Parysatis who procured the death of Menon, in itself highly probable, renders all the different statements consistent and harmonious.

[131] Xenophon seems to intimate that there were various stories current, which he does not credit, to the disparagement of Menon,—καὶ τὰ μὲν δὴ ἀφανῆ ἔξεστι περὶ αὐτοῦ ψεύδεσθαι, etc. (Anab. ii, 6, 28).

Athenæus (xi, p. 505) erroneously states that Xenophon affirmed Menon to be the person who caused the destruction of Klearchus by Tissaphernes.

[132] Xenophon in the Cyropædia (viii, 8, 3) gives a strange explanation of the imprudent confidence reposed by Klearchus in the assurance of the Persian satrap. It arose (he says) from the high reputation for good faith which the Persians had acquired by the undeviating and scrupulous honor of the first Cyrus (or Cyrus the Great), but which they had since ceased to deserve, though the corruption of their character had not before publicly manifested itself.

This is a curious perversion of history to serve the purpose of his romance.

[133] Macciavelli, Principe, c. 18, p. 65.

[134] Polyæn. vii, 18.

[135] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 27, 28.

[136] Compare Anab. ii, 4, 6, 7; ii, 5, 9.

[137] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 37, 38.

[138] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 2, 3.

[139] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 4-11. Ἦν δέ τις ἐν τῇ στρατιᾷ Ξενοφῶν Ἀθηναῖος, ὃς οὔτε στρατηγὸς, etc.

Homer, Iliad, v, 9—

Compare the description of Zeus sending Oneirus to the sleeping Agamemnon, at the beginning of the second book of the Iliad.

[140] Respecting the value of a sign from Zeus Basileus, and the necessity of conciliating him, compare various passages in the Cyropædia, ii, 4, 19; iii, 3, 21; vii, 5, 57.

[141] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 12, 13. Περίφοβος δ᾽ εὐθὺς ἀνηγέρθη, καὶ τὸ ὄναρ τῆ μὲν ἔκρινεν ἀγαθόν, ὅτι ἐν πόνοις ὢν καὶ κινδύνοις φῶς μέγα ἐκ Διὸς ἰδεῖν ἔδοξε, etc. ... Ὁποῖον τι μὲν δή ἐστι τὸ τοιοῦτον ὄναρ ἰδεῖν, ἔξεστι σκοπεῖν ἐκ τῶν συμβάντων μετὰ τὸ ὄναρ. Γίγνεται γὰρ τάδε. Εὐθὺς ἐπειδὴ ἀνηγέρθη, πρῶτον μὲν ἔννοια αὐτῷ ἐμπίπτει· Τί κατάκειμαι; ἡ δὲ νὺξ προβαίνει· ἅμα δὲ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ εἰκὸς τοὺς πολεμίους ἥξειν, etc.

The reader of Homer will readily recall various passages in the Iliad and Odyssey, wherein the like mental talk is put into language and expanded,—such as Iliad, xi, 403—and several other passages cited or referred to in Colonel Mure’s History of the Language and Literature of Greece, ch. xiv, vol. ii, p. 25 seq.

A vision of light shining brightly out of a friendly house, counts for a favorable sign (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 587 C.).