The Historians' History of the World 04

Xenophon, who had rendered the most conspicuous service on this memorable march, returned to Greece after he had led the remnant of the Ten Thousand to the Spartan army in Asia Minor. Some years later he took part in the expedition against the Persians conducted by his friend the Spartan king, Agesilaus, and after the return of the latter fought at the battle of Coronea. While he was in Asia with Agesilaus he was banished from his native city by a vote of the people, because he had taken part in a war against the Persian king, who was at that time an ally of Athens, and because his aristocratic opinions and his preference for the political system of Sparta had earned him the hatred of the demagogues and the jealousy of the populace. After the battle of Coronea he accompanied Agesilaus to Sparta and remained there for a while, and then settled on a country estate in the neighbourhood of Olympia, which he had either received as a gift from the Spartans or bought with the great wealth he had amassed in Asia. Here and in Corinth he wrote some part of his works. The sentence of banishment from Athens was soon repealed, but it does not seem probable that he ever returned to his native city, though at a later time he induced his son Gryllus to take part in one of the military expeditions of the Athenians. Gryllus fell at the battle of Mantinea, and the story goes that the news of his death was brought to his aged father as he was standing by an altar, sacrificing to the gods. Xenophon was crowned with a garland, in accordance with the Greek custom of wearing wreaths upon festal occasions. He immediately took it from his head, but received the news of his son’s death with the utmost composure, saying that he knew he had only begotten a mortal. When he was told that Gryllus had fought with great valour, he put the garland on again, finished his sacrifice, and added to it a prayer in which he gave thanks to the gods for his son’s worthiness. Xenophon died at Corinth in (355 B.C.) the ninetieth year of his age.e

THE MEANING OF XENOPHON’S FEAT

[399 B.C.]

The world has never ceased to thrill with a sympathetic memory of that glad cry of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand, “Thalatta! Thalatta!” (The sea! The sea!) It has a kinship with the feelings of the foot-sore and heart-sore children of Israel reaching the edge of the Promised Land. It stands out from above the usual crises of history as a temple dome above a town. It takes its place among such peaks of emotion as the view that Attila took of Rome, and the crusaders of the minarets of Jerusalem, the cry of “Land ho!” on the ships of Columbus. It finds a strangely modern parallel in the first ocean-glimpse of the American soldiers in Sherman’s march to the sea.

Like all these picturesque incidents, it meant more than a merely dramatic moment to the history of mankind. It was a prelude in Greek history to the triumph of Alexander. It showed to the Greeks that their ambitions need not be confined to the small parishes they had dwelt in. It revealed the fact that the great realm of the Persian monarch, whom the Greeks always referred to as “The King,” was like Dead Sea fruit: brilliant in its shell, and hollow corruption at core. The only impetus the Greeks had felt towards a Panhellenic spirit had been inspired by the imminence of the Persian danger. They had with small bands of patriots dispersed the droves of oriental subjects brought against them, and yet they could not have dreamed that their success in an offensive war would be equal to the glory of the defensive struggle.

But here was a lessening body of ten thousand Greeks, bound together by no common sentiment except a desire for money—which they did not get. And this comparative handful of mercenaries had ransacked the very innermost recesses of the Persian empire, and had never found an army great enough or brave enough to withstand it in open assault. The conquest of such an empire seemed to be within the grasp of any Greek commander. The first to attempt it was a second-rate Spartan king, Agesilaus, who failed. And the Persian empire resisted attack for five generations more, till the new blood of Macedonia and the unlimited ambitions of Alexander made the attempt. Until he came, the blows of the others were only so much callisthenics. When he came he was not loath to acknowledge, on the eve of the battle of Issus, the inspiration he owed to the feat of the Ten Thousand.

Meanwhile, without reference to its remote bearings, the anabasis and catabasis of Xenophon’s army stand forth glorious in themselves. He himself sums up the achievement baldly at the conclusion of his work.

[401-399 B.C.]