The Historians' History of the World 04

Cyrus, on his first arrival in the neighbourhood of the Grecian colonies, became, as we have seen, partial to the Grecian character.

As soon as the design against his brother’s throne was decided, the younger Cyrus, with increased sedulity, extended his connections among the Greeks. They alone, among the nations of that time, knew how to train armies so that thousands of men might act as one machine. Hence their heavy-armed had a power in the shock of battle that no number of more irregular troops, however brave, could resist. Through the long and extensive war lately concluded, Greece abounded with experienced officers, and with men of inferior rank, much practised in arms, and little in any peaceful way of livelihood. Opportunity was thus ready for raising a force of Grecian mercenaries, almost to any amount. What required circumspection was to avoid alarming the court of Susa; and this the defective principles and worse practice of the Persian administration made even easy. Cyrus therefore directed his Grecian commanders, in the several towns, to enlist Greeks, especially Peloponnesians, as many as they could; with the pretence of strengthening his garrisons against the apprehended attempts of Tissaphernes. In Miletus, so the popularity of his character prevailed, a conspiracy was formed for revolting to him; but before it could be carried into effect, it was discovered; and, by the satrap’s order, the ringleaders were executed, and many of their adherents banished. Cyrus not only protected the fugitives, but besieged Miletus by land and sea; and this new war furnished an additional pretence for levying troops.

Notwithstanding the character of frankness, honour, and strict regard for truth which Cyrus generally supported, the candour of Xenophon, his friend and panegyrist, has not concealed from us that he could stoop to duplicity when the great interest of his ambition instigated. So far from acknowledging any purpose of disobedience to the head of the empire, he condescended to request from that brother, against whose throne and life his preparations were already directed, the royal authority for adding Ionia to his immediate government. The request was granted; at the instance, it was said, of Parysatis, who preserved much influence with her elder son, while she incited the nefarious views of the younger against him.

Among the many Greeks admitted to the conversation and to the table of Cyrus, was Clearchus, a Lacedæmonian; who, after serving in the armies of his own commonwealth, through the Peloponnesian War, found himself, at the age of fifty, still uneasy in rest. Seeking opportunity for military employment, he thought he had discovered it in the Thracian Chersonesus, where the Greek settlers were harassed by incursions of the neighbouring barbarians; and he persevered in representation and solicitation to the ephors till he obtained a commission for a command there. Hastening his departure, at Corinth an order of recall overtook him. The disappointment was more than he could bear; he resolved to disobey the revered scytale; and proceeded, in defiance of it, to act in pursuance of his commission received. For this he was, in absence, condemned to death; a sentence operating to his banishment for life.

What fair hope now remained to Clearchus does not appear; but the need of military talents, continually and extensively occurring among the various warring commonwealths and scattered colonies of the Greeks, always offered some prospect for adventurers of any considerable military reputation; and, in the moment, a still more inviting field, possibly always in his view, appeared in the court of Cyrus. Thither he went, and, under a forbidding outside, a surly countenance, a harsh voice, and rough manners, the prince discovering in him a character he wanted, after short intercourse, made him a present of ten thousand darics, near eight thousand pounds sterling.

Clearchus did not disappoint this magnificent generosity. Employing the whole of the prince’s present in raising troops, he offered, as an individual adventurer, that protection to the Chersonesites which, as a general of the Lacedæmonian forces, he had been commissioned to give, but which the Lacedæmonian government, though claiming to be the protecting power of the Grecian name, had finally refused to afford. His service was accepted; and his success against the barbarians, together with the uncommon regularity and inoffensiveness of his troops in the friendly country, so gratified, not the Chersonesites only, but all the Hellespontine Greeks, that, while he generally found subsistence at the expense of the enemy, they provided large pay for his army by voluntary contribution. Hence, with a discipline severe sometimes to excess, he preserved the general attachment of those under him; and thus a body of troops was kept in the highest order, ready for the service of Cyrus.