Читать книгу The Two Great Retreats of History - Grote George - Страница 20

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§ 1. Effect of the death of Cyrus on the Greeks; they resolve to retreat.

The first triumphant feeling of the Greek troops at Kunaxa[2] was exchanged, as soon as they learnt the death of Cyrus, for dismay and sorrow; accompanied by unavailing repentance for the venture into which he and Klearchus had seduced them. Probably Klearchus himself too repented, and with good reason, of having displayed, in his manner of fighting the battle, so little foresight, and so little regard either to the injunctions or to the safety of Cyrus. Nevertheless he still maintained the tone of a victor in the field, and after expressions of grief for the fate of the young prince, desired Proklês and Glûs to return to Ariæus, with the reply, that the Greeks on their side were conquerors without any enemy remaining; that they were about to march onward against Artaxerxês; and that if Ariæus would join them, they would place him on the throne which had been intended for Cyrus. While this reply was conveyed to Ariæus by his particular friend Menon along with the messengers, the Greeks procured a meal as well as they could, having no bread, by killing some of the baggage animals; and by kindling fire to cook their meat, from the arrows, the wooden Egyptian shields which had been thrown away on the field, and the baggage carts.

Before any answer could be received from Ariæus, heralds[3] appeared coming from Artaxerxês; among them being Phalînus, a Greek from Zakynthus, and the Greek surgeon Ktesias of Knidus, who was in the service of the Persian king. Phalînus, an officer of some military experience and in the confidence of Tissaphernês, addressed himself to the Greek commanders; requiring them on the part of the King, since he was now victor and had slain Cyrus, to surrender their arms and appeal to his mercy. To this summons, painful in the extreme to a Grecian ear, Klearchus replied that it was not the practice for victorious men to lay down their arms. Being then called away to examine the sacrifice[4] which was going on, he left the interview to the other officers, who met the summons of Phalînus by an emphatic negative. "If the King thinks himself strong enough to ask for our arms unconditionally, let him come and try to seize them."—"The King (rejoined Phalînus) thinks that you are in his power, being in the midst of his territory, hemmed in by impassable rivers, and encompassed by his innumerable subjects."—"Our arms and our valor are all that remain to us (replied a young Athenian); we shall not be fools enough to hand over to you our only remaining treasures, but shall employ them still to have a fight for your treasure." But though several spoke in this resolute tone, there were not wanting others disposed to encourage a negotiation; saying that they had been faithful to Cyrus as long as he lived, and would now be faithful to Artaxerxês, if he wanted their services in Egypt or anywhere else. In the midst of this parley Klearchus returned, and was requested by Phalînus to return a final answer on behalf of all. He at first asked the advice of Phalînus himself; appealing to the common feeling of Hellenic[5] patriotism, and anticipating, with very little judgment, that the latter would encourage the Greeks in holding out. "If (replied Phalînus) I saw one chance out of ten thousand in your favor, in the event of a contest with the King, I should advise you to refuse the surrender of your arms. But as there is no chance of safety for you against the King's consent, I recommend you to look out for safety in the only quarter where it presents itself." Sensible of the mistake which he had made in asking the question, Klearchus rejoined—"That is your opinion: now report our answer. We think we shall be better friends to the King, if we are to be his friends—or more effective enemies, if we are to be his enemies—with our arms, than without them." Phalînus, in retiring, said that the King proclaimed a truce so long as they remained in their present position—but war, if they moved, either onward or backward. And to this Klearchus acceded, without declaring which he intended to do.

Shortly after the departure of Phalînus, the envoys despatched to Ariæus returned; communicating his reply that the Persian grandees would never tolerate any pretensions on his part to the crown, and that he intended to depart early the next morning on his return; if the Greeks wished to accompany him, they must join him during the night. In the evening, Klearchus, convening the generals and the captains, acquainted them that the morning sacrifice had been of a nature to forbid their marching against the King—a prohibition, of which he now understood the reason, from having since learnt that the King was on the other side of the Tigris, and therefore out of their reach—but that it was favorable for rejoining Ariæus. He gave directions accordingly for a night-march back along the Euphratês, to the station where they had passed the last night but one prior to the battle. The other Grecian generals, without any formal choice of Klearchus as chief, tacitly acquiesced in his orders, from a sense of his superior decision and experience, in an emergency when no one knew what to propose. The night-march was successfully accomplished, so that they joined Ariæus at the preceding station about midnight; not without the alarming symptom, however, that Miltokythês the Thracian deserted to the King at the head of 340 of his countrymen, partly horse, partly foot.

The first proceeding of the Grecian generals was to exchange solemn oaths of reciprocal fidelity and fraternity with Ariæus. According to an ancient and impressive practice, a bull, a wolf, a boar, and a ram, were all slain, and their blood allowed to run into the hollow of a shield; in which the Greek generals dipped a sword, and Ariæus, with his chief companions, a spear. The latter, besides the promise of alliance, engaged also to guide the Greeks in good faith down to the Asiatic coast. Klearchus immediately began to ask what route he proposed to take; whether to return by that along which they had come up, or by any other. To this Ariæus replied, that the road along which they had marched was impracticable for retreat, from the utter want of provisions through seventeen days of desert; but that he intended to choose another road, which, though longer, would be sufficiently productive to furnish them with provisions. There was, however, a necessity (he added), that the first two or three days' marches should be of extreme length, in order that they might get out of the reach of the king's forces, who would hardly be able to overtake them afterwards with any considerable numbers.

They had now come 93 days' march from Ephesus, or 90 from Sardis. The distance from Sardis to Kunaxa is 1464 miles. There had been at least 96 days of rest, enjoyed at various places, so that the total of time elapsed must have at least been 189 days, or a little more than half a year: but it was probably greater, since some intervals of rest are not specified in number of days.

How to retrace their steps was now the problem, apparently insoluble. As to the military force of Persia in the field, indeed, not merely the easy victory at Kunaxa, but still more the undisputed march throughout so long a space, left them no serious apprehension. In spite of this great extent, population, and riches, they had been allowed to pass through the most difficult and defensible country, and to ford the broad Euphratês, without a blow: nay, the King had shrunk from defending the long trench which he had specially caused to be dug for the protection of Babylonia. But the difficulties which stood between them and their homes were of a very different character. How were they to find their way back, or obtain provisions, in defiance of a numerous hostile cavalry, which, not without efficiency even in a pitched battle, would be most formidable in opposing their retreat? The line of their upward march had all been planned, with supplies furnished, by Cyrus:—yet even under such advantages, supplies had been on the point of failing, in one part of the march. They were now, for the first time, called upon to think and provide for themselves; without knowledge of either roads or distances—without trustworthy guides—without any one to furnish or even to indicate supplies—and with a territory all hostile, traversed by rivers which they had no means of crossing. Klearchus himself knew nothing of the country, nor of any other river except the Euphratês; nor does he indeed in his heart seem to have conceived retreat as practicable without the consent of the King. The reader who casts his eye on a map of Asia, and imagines the situation of this Greek division on the left bank of the Euphratês, near the parallel of latitude 33° 30'—will hardly be surprised at any measure of despair, on the part either of general or soldiers. And we may add that Klearchus had not even the advantage of such a map, or probably of any map at all, to enable him to shape his course.

In this dilemma, the first and most natural impulse was to consult Ariæus; who (as has been already stated) pronounced, with good reason, that return by the same road was impracticable; and promised to conduct them home by another road—longer indeed, yet better supplied.

§ 2. Commencement of the Retreat.

At daybreak on the ensuing morning, they began their march in an easterly direction, anticipating that before night they should reach some villages of the Babylonian territory, as in fact they did; yet not before they had been alarmed in the afternoon by the supposed approach of some of the enemy's horse, and by evidences that the enemy were not far off, which induced them to slacken their march for the purpose of more cautious array.[6] Hence they did not reach the first villages before dark; these too had been pillaged by the enemy while retreating before them, so that only the first-comers under Klearchus could obtain accommodation, while the succeeding troops, coming up in the dark, pitched as they could without any order. The whole camp was a scene of clamor, dispute, and even alarm, throughout the night. No provisions could be obtained. Early the next morning Klearchus ordered them under arms; and desiring to expose the groundless nature of the alarm, caused the herald[7] to proclaim, that whoever would denounce the person who had let the ass[8] into the camp on the preceding night, should be rewarded with a talent[9] of silver.

What was the project of route entertained by Ariæus, we cannot ascertain; since it was not farther pursued. For the effect of the unexpected arrival of the Greeks as if to attack the enemy—and even the clamor and shouting of the camp during the night—so intimidated the Persian commanders, that they sent heralds the next morning to treat about a truce. The contrast between this message, and the haughty summons of the preceding day to lay down their arms, was sensibly felt by the Grecian officers, and taught them that the proper way of dealing with the Persians was by a bold and aggressive demeanor. When Klearchus was apprised of the arrival of the heralds, he desired them at first to wait at the outposts until he was at leisure: then, having put his troops into the best possible order, with a phalanx[10] compact on every side to the eye, and the unarmed persons out of sight, he desired the heralds to be admitted. He marched out to meet them with the most showy and best-armed soldiers immediately around him, and when they informed him that they had come from the King with instructions to propose a truce, and to report on what conditions the Greeks would agree to it, Klearchus replied abruptly—"Well then—go and tell the King, that our first business must be to fight; for we have nothing to eat, nor will any man presume to talk to Greeks about a truce, without first providing dinner for them." With this reply the heralds rode off, but returned very speedily; thus making it plain that the King, or the commanding officer, was near at hand. They brought word that the King thought their answer reasonable, and had sent guides to conduct them to a place where they would obtain provisions, if the truce should be concluded.

After an affected delay and hesitation, in order to impose upon the Persians, Klearchus concluded the truce, and desired that the guides should conduct the army to those quarters where provisions could be had. He was most circumspect in maintaining exact order during the march, himself taking charge of the rear guard. The guides led them over many ditches and channels, full of water, and cut for the purpose of irrigation[11]; some so broad and deep that they could not be crossed without bridges. The army had to put together bridges for the occasion, from palm-trees either already fallen, or expressly cut down. This was a troublesome business, which Klearchus himself superintended with peculiar strictness. He carried his spear in the left hand, his stick in the right; employing the latter to chastise any soldier who seemed remiss—and even plunging into the mud and lending his own hands in aid wherever it was necessary. As it was not the usual season of irrigation for crops he suspected that the canals had been filled on this occasion expressly to intimidate the Greeks, by impressing them with the difficulties of their prospective march; and he was anxious to demonstrate to the Persians that these difficulties were no more than Grecian energy could easily surmount.

At length they reached certain villages indicated by their guides for quarters and provisions; and here for the first time they had a sample of that unparalleled abundance of the Babylonian territory, which Herodotus is afraid to describe with numerical precision. Large quantities of corn,[12]—dates not only in great numbers, but of such beauty, freshness, size, and flavor, as no Greek had ever seen or tasted, insomuch that fruit like what was imported into Greece, was disregarded and left for the slaves—wine and vinegar, both also made from the date-palm; these are the luxuries which Xenophon is eloquent in describing, after his recent period of scanty fare and anxious apprehension; not without also noticing the headaches which such new and luscious food, in unlimited quantity, brought upon himself and others.

§ 3. Negotiations with Tissaphernês.

After three days passed in these restorative quarters, they were visited by Tissaphernês, accompanied by four Persian grandees and a suite of slaves. The satrap[13] began to open a negotiation with Klearchus and the other generals. Speaking through an interpreter, he stated to them that the vicinity of his province to Greece impressed him with a strong interest in favor of the Cyreian Greeks,[14] and made him anxious to rescue them out of their present desperate situation; that he had solicited the King's permission to save them, as a personal recompense to himself for having been the first to forewarn him of the schemes of Cyrus, and for having been the only Persian who had not fled before the Greeks at Kunaxa; that the King had promised to consider this point, and had sent him in the mean time to ask the Greeks what their purpose was in coming up to attack him; and that he trusted the Greeks would give him a conciliatory answer to carry back, in order that he might have less difficulty in realizing what he desired for their benefit. To this Klearchus, after first deliberating apart with the other officers, replied, that the army had come together, and had even commenced their march, without any purpose of hostility to the King; that Cyrus had brought them up the country under false pretences, but that they had been ashamed to desert him in the midst of danger, since he had always treated them generously; that since Cyrus was now dead, they had no purpose of hostility against the King, but were only anxious to return home; that they were prepared to repel hostility from all quarters, but would be not less prompt in requiting favor or assistance. With this answer Tissaphernês departed, and returned on the next day but one, informing them that he had obtained the King's permission to save the Grecian army—though not without great opposition, since many Persian counsellors contended that it was unworthy of the King's dignity to suffer those who had assailed him to escape. "I am now ready (said he) to conclude a covenant[15] and exchange oaths with you; engaging to conduct you safely back into Greece, with the country friendly, and with a regular market for you to purchase provisions. You must stipulate on your part always to pay for your provisions, and to do no damage to the country: if I do not furnish you with provisions to buy, you are then at liberty to take them where you can find them." Well were the Greeks content to enter into such a covenant, which was sworn, with hands given upon it, by Klearchus, the other generals, and the captains on their side—and by Tissaphernês with the King's brother-in-law on the other. Tissaphernês then left them, saying that he would go back to the King, make preparations, and return to reconduct the Greeks home; going himself to his own province.

The statements of Ktesias, though known to us only indirectly, and not to be received without caution, afford ground for believing that Queen Parysatis decidedly wished success to her son Cyrus in his contest for the throne—that the first report conveyed to her of the battle of Kunaxa, announcing the victory of Cyrus, filled her with joy, which was exchanged for bitter sorrow when she was informed of his death—that she caused to be slain with horrible tortures all those, who, though acting in the Persian army and for the defence of Artaxerxês, had any participation in the death of Cyrus—and that she showed favorable dispositions towards the Cyreian Greeks. It may seem probable, farther, that her influence may have been exerted to procure for them an unimpeded retreat, without anticipating the use afterwards made by Tissaphernês (as will soon appear) of the present convention.[16] And in one point of view the Persian king had an interest in facilitating their retreat. For the very circumstance which rendered retreat difficult, also rendered the Greeks dangerous to him in their actual position. They were in the heart of the Persian Empire, within seventy miles of Babylon; in a country not only teeming with fertility, but also extremely defensible; especially against cavalry, from the multiplicity of canals, as Herodotus observed respecting Lower Egypt. And Klearchus might say to his Grecian soldiers—what Xenophon was afterwards preparing to say to them at Kalpê on the Euxine Sea, and what Nikias also affirmed to the unhappy Athenian army whom he afterwards conducted away from Syracuse[17]—that wherever they sat down, they were sufficiently numerous and well-organized to become at once a city. A body of such troops might effectually assist, and would perhaps encourage, the Babylonian population to throw off the Persian yoke, and to relieve themselves from the prodigious tribute[18] which they now paid to the satrap. For these reasons, the advisers of Artaxerxês thought it advantageous to convey the Greeks across the Tigris out of Babylonia, beyond all possibility of returning thither. This was at any rate the primary object of the convention. And it was the more necessary to conciliate the goodwill of the Greeks, because there seems to have been but one bridge over the Tigris; which bridge could only be reached by inviting them to advance considerably farther into the interior of Babylonia.

Such was the state of fears and hopes on both sides, at the time when Tissaphernês left the Greeks, after concluding his convention. For twenty days did they await his return, without receiving from him any communication; the Cyreian Persians[19] under Ariæus being encamped near them. Such prolonged and unexplained delay became, after a few days, the source of much uneasiness to the Greeks; the more so, as Ariæus received during this interval several visits from his Persian kinsmen, and friendly messages from the King, promising amnesty[20] for his recent services under Cyrus. Of these messages the effects were painfully felt, in manifest coldness of demeanor on the part of his Persian troops towards the Greeks. Impatient and suspicious, the Greek soldiers impressed upon Klearchus their fears, that the King had concluded the recent convention only to arrest their movements, until he should have assembled a larger army and blocked up more effectually the roads against their return. To this Klearchus replied—"I am aware of all that you say. Yet if we now strike our tents,[21] it will be a breach of the convention, and a declaration of war. No one will furnish us with provisions: we shall have no guides: Ariæus will desert us forthwith, so that we shall have his troops as enemies instead of friends. Whether there be any other river for us to cross, I know not; but we know that the Euphratês itself can never be crossed, if there be an enemy to resist us. Nor have we any cavalry—while cavalry is the best and most numerous force of our enemies. If the King, having all these advantages, really wishes to destroy us, I do not know why he should falsely exchange all these oaths and solemnities, and thus make his own word worthless in the eyes both of Greeks and barbarians."[22]

Such words from Klearchus are remarkable, as they testify his own complete despair of the situation—certainly a very natural despair—except by amicable dealing with the Persians; and also his ignorance of geography and the country to be traversed. This feeling helps to explain his imprudent confidence afterwards in Tissaphernês.

That satrap, however, after twenty days, at last came back, with his army prepared to return to Ionia[23]—with the King's daughter, whom he had just received in marriage—and with another grandee named Orontas. Tissaphernês took the conduct of the march, providing supplies for the Greek troops to purchase; while Ariæus and his division now separated themselves altogether from the Greeks, and became intermingled with the other Persians. Klearchus and the Greeks followed them, at the distance of about three miles in the rear, with a separate guide for themselves; not without jealousy and mistrust, sometimes shown in individual conflicts, while collecting wood or forage, between them and the Persians of Ariæus. After three days' march (that is, apparently, three days, calculated from the moment when they began their retreat with Ariæus) they came to the Wall of Media,[24] and passed through it, prosecuting their march onward through the country on its other or interior side. It was of bricks cemented with bitumen,[25] 100 feet high, and 20 feet broad; it was said to extend a length of about 70 miles, and to be not far distant from Babylon. Two days of farther march, computed at 28 miles, brought them to the Tigris. During these two days they crossed two great ship-canals, one of them over a permanent bridge, the other over a temporary bridge laid on seven boats. Canals of such magnitude must probably have been two among the four stated by Xenophon to be drawn from the river Tigris, each of them about three miles and a half distant from the other. They were 100 feet broad, and deep enough even for heavy vessels; they were distributed by means of numerous smaller channels and ditches for the irrigation of the soil; and they were said to fall into the Euphratês; or rather perhaps they terminated in one main larger canal cut directly from the Euphratês to the Tigris, each of them joining this larger canal at a different point of its course. Within less than two miles of the Tigris was a large and populous city named Sittakê, near which the Greeks pitched their camp, on the verge of a beautiful park or thick grove full of all kinds of trees; while the Persians all crossed the Tigris, at the neighboring bridge.

As Proxenus and Xenophon were here walking in front of the camp after supper, a man was brought up who had asked for the former at the advanced posts. This man said that he came with instructions from Ariæus. He advised the Greeks to be on their guard, as there were troops concealed in the adjoining grove, for the purpose of attacking them during the night—and also to send and occupy the bridge over the Tigris, since Tissaphernês intended to break it down, in order that the Greeks might be caught without possibility of escape between the river and the canal. On discussing this information with Klearchus, who was much alarmed by it, a young Greek present remarked that the two matters stated by the informant contradicted each other; for that if Tissaphernês intended to attack the Greeks during the night, he would not break down the bridge, so as both to prevent his own troops on the other side from crossing to aid, and to deprive those on this side of all retreat if they were beaten—while, if the Greeks were beaten, there was no escape open to them, whether the bridge continued or not. This remark induced Klearchus to ask the messenger, what was the extent of ground between the Tigris and the canal. The messenger replied that it was a great extent of country, comprising many large cities and villages. Reflecting on this communication, the Greek officers came to the conclusion that the message was a stratagem on the part of Tissaphernês to frighten them and hasten their passage across the Tigris; under the apprehension that they might conceive the plan of seizing or breaking the bridge and occupying a permanent position in the spot where they were; which was an island, fortified on one side by the Tigris—on the other sides, by intersecting canals between the Euphratês and the Tigris. Such an island was a defensible position, having a most productive territory with numerous cultivators, so as to furnish shelter and means of hostility for all the King's enemies: Tissaphernês calculated that the message now delivered would induce the Greeks to become alarmed with their actual position, and to cross the Tigris with as little delay as possible. At least this was the interpretation which the Greek officers put upon his proceeding; an interpretation highly plausible, since, in order to reach the bridge over the Tigris, he had been obliged to conduct the Greek troops into a position sufficiently tempting for them to hold—and since he knew that his own purposes were purely treacherous. But the Greeks, officers as well as soldiers, were animated only by the wish of reaching home. They trusted, though not without misgivings, in the promise of Tissaphernês to conduct them; and never for a moment thought of taking permanent post in this fertile island. They did not however neglect the precaution of sending a guard during the night to the bridge over the Tigris, which no enemy came to assail. On the next morning they passed over it in a body, in cautious and mistrustful array, and found themselves on the eastern bank of the Tigris—not only without attack, but even without sight of a single Persian, except Glûs the interpreter and a few others watching their motions.

After having crossed by a bridge laid upon thirty-seven pontoons,[26] the Greeks continued their march to the northward upon the eastern side of the Tigris, for four days to the river Physkus; said to be seventy miles. The Physkus was 100 feet wide, with a bridge, and the large city of Opis near it. Here, at the frontier of Assyria and Media, the road from the eastern regions to Babylon joined the road northerly on which the Greeks were marching. An illegitimate brother of Artaxerxês was seen at the head of a numerous force, which he was conducting from Susa and Ekbatana as a reinforcement to the royal army. This great host halted to see the Greeks pass by; and Klearchus ordered the march in column of two abreast, employing himself actively to maintain an excellent array, and halting more than once. The army thus occupied so long a time in passing by the Persian host that their numbers appeared greater than the reality, even to themselves; while the effect upon the Persian spectators was very imposing. Here Assyria ended and Media began. They marched, still in a northerly direction, for six days through a portion of Media almost unpeopled, until they came to some flourishing villages which formed a portion of the domain of Queen Parysatis; probably these villages, forming so marked an exception to the desert character of the remaining march, were situated on the Lesser Zab, which flows into the Tigris, and which Xenophon must have crossed, though he makes no mention of it. According to the order of march stipulated between the Greeks and Tissaphernês, the latter only provided a supply of provisions for the former to purchase; but on the present halt, he allowed the Greeks to plunder the villages, which were rich and full of all sorts of subsistence—yet without carrying off the slaves. The wish of the satrap to put an insult on Cyrus, as his personal enemy, through Parysatis, thus proved a sentence of ruin to these unhappy villagers. Five more days' march, called seventy miles, brought them to the banks of the river Zabatus, or the Greater Zab, which flows into the Tigris near a town now called Senn. During the first of these five days, they saw on the opposite side of the Tigris a large town called Kænæ, from whence they received supplies of provisions, brought across by the inhabitants upon rafts supported by inflated skins.[27]

§ 4. Treachery of Tissaphernês.

On the banks of the Great Zab they halted three days—days of serious and tragical moment. Having been under feelings of mistrust, ever since the convention with Tissaphernês, they had followed throughout the whole march, with separate guides of their own, in the rear of his army, always maintaining their encampment apart. During their halt on the Zab, so many various manifestations occurred to aggravate the mistrust, that hostilities seemed on the point of breaking out between the two camps. To obviate this danger Klearchus demanded an interview with Tissaphernês, represented to him the threatening attitude of affairs, and insisted on the necessity of coming to a clear understanding. He impressed upon the satrap that, over and above the solemn oaths which had been interchanged, the Greeks on their side could have no conceivable motive to quarrel with him; that they had everything to hope from his friendship, and everything to fear, even to the loss of all chance of safe return, from his hostility; that Tissaphernês also could gain nothing by destroying them, but would find them, if he chose, the best and most faithful instruments for his own aggrandizement and for conquering the Mysians and Pisidians[28]—as Cyrus had experienced while he was alive. Klearchus concluded his protest by requesting to be informed, what malicious reporter had been filling the mind of Tissaphernês with causeless suspicions against the Greeks.

"Klearchus (replied the satrap), I rejoice to hear such excellent sense from your lips. You remark truly, that if you were to meditate evil against me, it would recoil upon yourselves. I shall prove to you, in my turn, that you have no cause to mistrust either the King or me. If we had wished to destroy you, nothing would be easier. We have superabundant forces for the purpose: there are wide plains in which you would be starved—besides mountains and rivers which you would be unable to pass, without our help. Having thus the means of destroying you in our hands, and having nevertheless bound ourselves by solemn oaths to save you, we shall not be fools and knaves enough to attempt it now, when we should draw upon ourselves the just indignation of the gods. It is my peculiar affection for my neighbors the Greeks—and my wish to attach to my own person, by ties of gratitude, the Greek soldiers of Cyrus—which have made me eager to conduct you to Ionia[29] in safety. For I know that when you are in my service, though the King is the only man who can wear his tiara[30] erect upon his head, I shall be able to wear mine erect upon my heart, in full pride and confidence."