[Footnote 49: From the "Anabasis." Translated by J. S. Watson. The
"Anabasis" has made Xenophon perhaps the most prominent figure of
ancient classical literature, largely because every schoolboy who
studies Greek knows at least this book. It stands in that sense to
Greek literature as Cæsar's "Commentaries" stands to Latin. The book
has further value, not only as authentic history, but for the curious
details it gives of the manners and customs of savage tribes living
along the shores of the Euxine, and of those which prevailed at the
Persian court and elsewhere in the Persian state.]
[Footnote 50: A Spartan general who, at the instance of Xenophon, had
been appointed to lead the van of the retreating Greek army.]
[Footnote 51: W. T. Ainsworth, who has made a geographical commentary
on Xenophon's "Anabasis," says: "This description of a village on the
Armenian uplands applies itself to many that I visited." Houses on
exposed elevations he found to be still semisubterranean. Whatever
might be the kind of cottage used, domestic animals "participated with
the family in the warmth and protection thereof."]