The Exploits of Xenophon Read online

  After that there was no more trouble with Cotyora or Sinope. We were treated to gifts and dinner parties and much delightful conversation.

  Hecatonymus told us that to march through Paphlagonia was more than difficult—it was absolutely impossible. The mountain passes were mere slits in the rock, and, when we came to the plains, we should be up against a mass of cavalry of far better quality than that of the Persians. He was obviously telling the truth, since it was in Sinope’s interest that we should go on by land. If we didn’t, they would have to provide the ships.

  We talked this over among ourselves, and the army voted in favour of going by sea, provided we could get enough ships from Sinope and Heraclea to take us all at once. It was no good leaving a fraction of the army behind. They would soon find themselves reduced to starvation and sold into slavery.

  We sent delegates to the two cities to ask for ships. Meanwhile, the army waited at Cotyora, bored and inactive. Every day I saw camped around me this magnificent, well-balanced force of hardened veterans, and I could not help thinking what a fine colony we could found on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. I did not dare breathe a word of this to the army, but I sent for Silanus, a most experienced army chaplain whose advice to Cyrus had been remarkably accurate, and asked him to perform a sacrifice and see what the gods wished. I made him do it in my presence, since by this time I was myself quite good at reading the future from the appearance of the carcasses.

  Silanus said that the signs were all in favour of my colony, but that it looked as if I would be cheated out of it by some conspiracy. He told the truth, too, for the conspirator was himself. He had no interest in being stuck in a Black Sea colony, so he went off to his friends and gave the whole scheme away.

  There was a fearful row. I was really in some danger from the troops. Fortunately our delegates came back with a definite promise of ships. So I was able to say, quite honestly, that if we had them and if we could all move together I saw no more point in founding a colony.

  But no sooner had that unpleasantness blown over than I was in trouble again. Some of my fellow-commanders changed their minds and began to think the colony would be a good idea. That, of course, was put down to my bad influence. Then the soldiers got it into their heads that when they were on board the ships, we should give orders for the fleet to sail east instead of west. They got completely out of hand. I had to call a meeting and explain, at the risk of my life, that what they feared was impossible. They had only to look at sunrise and sunset to see which way the fleet was sailing.

  When all this was over, we were ashamed of ourselves. As one man the whole army voted that mutinous behaviour would have to stop, and that the ringleaders should be punished. We set up courts-martial to deal with any crimes that had been committed since the death of Cyrus. And on my strong recommendation, backed by the chaplains, we held a service of repentance and absolution.

  Discipline Breaks Down

  The generals, too, had to face a court of inquiry. Two were fined because the cargoes we had taken off the captured ships and placed under guard were found to have been pilfered. Another was fined for neglect of duty. I myself was charged with common assault on private soldiers.

  I asked my chief accuser to state where and when I had beaten him.

  ‘When we were dying of cold in the deep snow,’ he said.

  ‘Probably guilty,’ I admitted. ‘But I don’t recognize you. Are you a soldier of the line?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Light infantryman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Mule driver.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘Of course you’re the fellow I ordered to load a dying man.’

  So I told the court what really happened.

  ‘The rear guard found this man digging a hole to bury a fellow-soldier. While I stood by, the soldier kicked, and we all exclaimed that he was alive.

  ‘“Alive or not,” said this mule driver, “I won’t carry him. He’s going to die.”

  ‘“So are we all,” I answered. “But that’s no reason why we should be buried alive.”

  ‘And then I beat him up.’

  After that, the jury was all for me, and none of my accusers dared to say a word. However, I wanted this question cleared up for good, so I went on to speak in my own defence.

  ‘In that deadly cold I beat men for their own sake,’ I said. ‘And I have beaten men, too, when they left the line in action to go and loot. And I may have used force on stragglers to save them from being overtaken by the enemy and lanced. My defence is simple. I claim that I am no more deserving of punishment than a parent or schoolmaster who smacks a child.

  ‘Or do you think it was sheer brutality? If you do, I ask you to remember that I am a stronger man than I was and a good deal tougher, and I drink a lot more wine. So if brutality were in my character, you would expect it to come out now. But it does not, and why? Because when a ship is in smooth water at last, there is no need for the helmsman to curse and carry on as he did when it was in danger.

  ‘Gentlemen of the jury, when I drove the rear guard through the snow, you did not have voting papers in your hands. You had swords. If you did not approve of my methods, there was the remedy!

  ‘You remember now the times when you hated me. But were there no times when I eased for you the agony of storm and winter or turned on the enemy or helped you in sickness and want? Did I not praise every gallant deed and see that the doer was honoured by us all? All this is forgotten. But isn’t it more just, more kindly, more in accordance with the divine will and pleasanter, too, to remember good rather than evil?’

  This started up many a memory of comradeship in the jury, and the court rose in a far happier mood than any of us had reason to expect.

  The ships arrived, and we sailed for a day and a night along the coast of Paphlagonia. On May 20th we reached Sinope, which gave us a magnificent reception with 4,500 bushels of barley and 1,500 jars of wine.

  Here Cheirisophus at last rejoined us. To our disappointment he brought nothing but a single warship and the empty congratulations of his friend, the Spartan admiral Anaxibius.

  Our next port of call was Heraclea, only 120 miles from the entrance to the Bosporus. We were now nearly in Greek waters, and the army began to think what a pity it was to return home without a penny in our pockets. They held meetings and came to the conclusion that they would like to appoint a commander in chief who would lead them on a last expedition. They were tired of being commanded by a headquarters conference, whose decisions were slow and always leaked out and caused trouble.

  They asked me to take the job, and I was very eager to accept it—though it was as likely to lead me to ruin as to fame. Under these difficult circumstances I performed a sacrifice to Zeus the King, to whom I had been told to pray by the priestess at Delphi when I made my pilgrimage before setting out on the expedition.

  To my great disappointment the god told me clearly that I should not ask for the supreme command or accept it if it was offered.

  So, when I was put up for election at a general meeting of the army, I refused. I told them that they ought to elect a Spartan. The Spartans were the leaders of all the states of Greece, and it would be intolerable for them to find that, after their victory over Athens, so powerful an army was in the hands of an Athenian.

  My friend Agasias—he who had taken the Taochian fort—said this was ridiculous. Were the Spartans to take offence because a lot of friends held a dinner party and didn’t ask a Spartan to sit at the head of the table?

  ‘If that’s how they are going to look at it,’ he said, ‘I don’t see why we Arcadians are allowed to be officers at all.’

  This raised a laugh against the Spartans, and I had to confess my real reasons—how I had sacrificed and received a sign so plain that even a man with no religious training could not fail to understand it.

  The meeting then elected Cheirisophus. He thanked the army and said that, though he would have bac
ked me most loyally, Anaxibius and the Spartans did distrust me and I was very wise not to have accepted the command. He ordered the army to sail the next day for Heraclea.

  8. Back to Europe

  Nobody knew what this international army would or would not do. It was not responsible to any government at all. Worse still, it obeyed men who could make any amount of trouble for the Spartans—this adventurous Athenian Xenophon and despised Arcadians like old Cleanor and the fiery Agasias. The Spartans could hardly leave fellow-Greeks to starve; but at the same time they did not like the thought of a first-class army outside Byzantium.

  Byzantium was the first name of the city which was later called Constantinople and is now Istanbul. Then, as now, it commanded the entrance to the Black Sea. It was originally a colony of the Athenians and had been taken from them by the Spartans a few years before Xenophon’s expedition.

  We anchored at Heraclea, off a peninsula where Heracles is said to have descended to the lower world to fetch the dog Cerberus. The cleft he entered, 1,300 feet deep, is still shown to tourists.

  Heraclea provided us with only three days’ food and offered no reasonable suggestions for getting any more. The army was angry and held a meeting at which it was decided that Cheirisophus and I should go up to the city and demand a lump sum of money. We both flatly refused to blackmail Heraclea, and the army thereupon sent a delegation of its own, consisting of Agasias and two other officers. They were far from tactful, however, and the result was what I expected. The citizens of Heraclea carried into the town all their property and stores from the farms round about, closed the gates and manned the walls with their fighting men.

  That was that. And there was such bitter feeling in the army that the Arcadians and Achaeans, who supplied the majority of our infantry of the line, declared that they were not going to obey a Spartan and an Athenian any longer. They broke away and formed an independent force. So Cheirisophus’ supreme command lasted barely a week.

  The only way to get food was to raid the Bithynians who lived behind Port Calpe. This was a good harbour midway between Heraclea and Byzantium. The country inland was rich, but it had never been colonised. Ships passed Port Calpe far out, for the Bithynians had a reputation for savage treatment of any Greek crews who fell into their hands.

  The Arcadians were the first to move. Heraclea had given them some ships to get rid of them. Four thousand they were, all infantry of the line. Cheirisophus, ill and disappointed that he had lost his command, marched along the coast with 2,000 of the remainder; and I, also with 2,000, made a circuit inland. I had our little force of cavalry—now about forty troopers.

  The cavalry soon brought in word that some disaster had happened to a Greek force, and we hurried to the rescue. To make my little army appear much larger than it was, I extended the men over the country as far as was safe and set fire to everything inflammable. At night we lit more watch fires than were needed, so that all the plain and mountains seemed to be blazing.

  What had occurred was that the Arcadians had landed and marched into the interior. This was sheer folly, for they hadn’t a single archer or light infantryman. When the Bithynians attacked them, they were shot to pieces and could not retaliate. The Arcadians were then driven to take refuge on an isolated hill, where they were surrounded and cut off from water.

  Fortunately we were in time. The Bithynians were alarmed by our fires and retreated. In the morning we relieved the Arcadians, and then all of us marched back to Port Calpe together. There we found Cheirisophus’ army under the command of Neon. Cheirisophus was dead. He had been marching with a fever, and he died of the too drastic drugs which he took to cure himself.

  Agasias and other Arcadian officers, now thoroughly ashamed of themselves and their heavy losses, called a meeting of their troops, which voted that anyone who suggested splitting up the army should be punished with death, and that the former generals should be reinstated.

  Back under the old headquarters and with a properly balanced force in hand, we were able to smash the Bithynians. Then we settled down at Port Calpe for the month of July and made a sort of temporary colony of it. The country produced everything we needed except olives, and the army managed to accumulate some surplus funds for buying food. Once the trading captains knew that Port Calpe was in safe hands, all the ships which passed along the coast began to put in and sell to us.

  We were getting along very well when Cleander, the Spartan Governor of Byzantium, arrived with a couple of warships. He was accompanied by Dexippus, the man who had stolen the fifty-oar ship which we borrowed from Trapezus.

  Unfortunately there was no responsible person in the camp to receive the Governor. The entire army was out on manoeuvres except for a small ration party who had just come in with a flock of sheep. This was Dexippus’ chance to make trouble and get Cleander on his side. So he accused the ration party of intending to keep the sheep for themselves instead of putting them into the common stock of the army. He arrested one of the soldiers, who belonged to Agasias’ company, and tried to take him to Cleander.

  When the army turned up, Agasias at once rescued his man, and the troops with him stoned Dexippus amid yells of ‘Traitor!’ Cleander and his crews were scared by the uproar and took refuge on board their ships.

  My fellow-generals and I apologised. But Cleander was ashamed of his retreat—all the same, it was no joke to face our army when it was angry—and in a furious temper. He threatened to return to Byzantium and to issue a proclamation declaring us public enemies and forbidding any city to receive us. We implored him not to be so cruel, but he would agree only on condition that Agasias and his man were surrendered to him for execution.

  There was nothing to do but to call a meeting of the whole army. Some of the speakers were inclined to take Cleander’s threat far too lightly. I had to remind them of the Spartan power. Cleander and Admiral Anaxibius could prevent us ever getting home by blockading us where we stood.

  Agasias, who was a particular friend of mine and always a sportsman, solved the problem by getting up and saying that he was going to give himself up to Cleander. He asked only that we send a delegation with him because he was not very good at finding words to defend himself.

  But he did not do at all badly. He boldly took full responsibility for the attack on Dexippus and gave Cleander the story of the man’s treachery. If it had been Cleander himself who had arrested his soldier, he would never, he said, have resisted. But he wasn’t going to allow Dexippus to get away with it.

  Cleander was obviously disgusted by Dexippus’ conduct, but he refused to yield. He said that however great a scoundrel Dexippus was it was no excuse for violence, and that he proposed to put an end to it once and for all.

  When Cleander had eaten his lunch and calmed down, we tried him again. Dracontius, the respectable old Spartan who had run our sports, led the delegation; but I, of course, had to do most of the talking. The essential thing was to persuade Cleander that all the scandal he had heard about us and his unlucky first impression of us were wrong, and that we really were a disciplined force.

  I told him that we would accept his judgment, whatever it was, and treat it with the utmost respect. All we asked was that he take into consideration the services which Agasias and his company had rendered to the army and weigh them against the worth of Dexippus.

  ‘And if you want to see what sort of men we are,’ I said, ‘take command of us! We promise to serve you loyally and to show you how we can obey and how we fight.’

  Then Cleander jumped up and swore by the twin gods of Sparta that all he had heard about us was nothing but lies.

  ‘Take Agasias and his man,’ he cried. ‘And I myself will accept the command of your army and lead you back to Greece.’

  From that time on, Cleander and I trusted each other; and much misery and misunderstanding could have been avoided if only he had been our commander in chief. But the gods were against it. It did not matter how many times we sacrificed; no sort of luck was promised
to him if he took the command.

  ‘Go forward then,’ he said at last, ‘with the generals who have led you so far and who will bring you home. And have no fear when you come to Byzantium! You will be welcome.’

  Admiral Anaxibius provided ships and promised us pay; and we all crossed over the Bosporus to Byzantium. Once there, I felt that my duty was done and proposed to sail home to Athens. When, however, I called at the Governor’s residence to say good-bye to Cleander, he advised me not to embark just yet.

  ‘If you do,’ he said, ‘you will be blamed because the army is unwilling to leave the city.’

  ‘I don’t see why I should be,’ I answered. ‘The reason why the army does not want to go and camp in the open country is that they haven’t any food or money; and Anaxibius has neither paid us nor made a single practical suggestion.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cleander. ‘But people are going to say that you incited your men to make as much trouble as possible and then cleared out. Take my advice, and help us to get the army outside the walls before you leave.’

  ‘All right,’ I agreed, ‘Then come with me to Anaxibius’ office.’

  Anaxibius was thoroughly unhelpful. He said that he had issued an order that the army was to leave the city, and that he was going to see it was obeyed. We were to parade our full strength, number the men and march out; and any absentees would have to take the consequences.

  I did not argue. We marched out of Byzantium in active service order, with full equipment and transport animals, and the generals at the head of the column.

  Then, when we were out and the gates closed, this intolerable Anaxibius summoned us and our officers before him. He told us to supply ourselves as best we could from the villages of Thrace and to get out of Byzantine territory without delay.