if they would cross over from Asia to Byzantium, the Cyreians thus found
themselves sent away empty-handed to a long march--through another
barbarous country, with chance-supplies to be obtained only by their own
efforts,--and at the end of it a lot unknown and uncertain; while, had
they remained in Asia, they would have had at any rate the rich satrapy
of Pharnabazus within their reach. To perfidy of dealing was now added a
brutal ejectment from Byzantium, without even the commonest
manifestations of hospitality; contrasting pointedly with the treatment
which the army had recently experienced at Trapezus, Sinope, and
Herakleia; where they had been welcomed not only by compliments on their
past achievements, but also by an ample present of flour, meat, and
wine. Such behavior could not fail to provoke the most violent
indignation in the bosoms of the soldiery; and Anaxibius had therefore
delayed giving the order until the last soldiers were marching out,
thinking that the army would hear nothing of it until the generals came
out of the gates to inform them; so that the gates would be closed, and
the walls manned to resist an assault from without. But his calculations
were not realized. Either one of the soldiers passing by heard him give
the order, or one of the captains forming his audience stole away from
the rest, and hastened forward to acquaint his comrades on the outside.
The bulk of the army, already irritated by the inhospitable way in which
they had been thrust out, needed nothing farther to inflame them into
spontaneous mutiny and aggression. While the generals within (who either
took the communication more patiently, or at least, looking farther
forward, felt that any attempt to resent or resist the ill-usage of the
Spartan admiral would only make their position worse) were discussing
with Anaxibius the details of the march just enjoined--the soldiers
without, bursting into spontaneous movement, with a simultaneous and
fiery impulse, made a rush back to get possession of the gate. But
Eteonikus, seeing their movement, closed it without a moment's delay,
and fastened the bar. The soldiers on reaching the gate and finding it
barred, clamored loudly to get it opened, threatened to break it down,
and even began to knock violently against it. Some ran down to the
sea-coast, and made their way into the city round the line of stones at
the base of the city wall, which protected it against the sea; while the
rearmost soldiers who had not yet marched out, seeing what was passing,
and fearful of being cut off from their comrades, assaulted the gate
from the inside, severed the fastenings with axes, and threw it wide
open to the army. All the soldiers then rushed up, and were soon again
in Byzantium.
Nothing could exceed the terror of the Lacedaemonians as well as of the
native Byzantines, when they saw the excited Cyreians again within the
walls. The town seemed already taken and on the point of being
plundered. Neither Anaxibius nor Eteonikus took the smallest means of
resistance, nor stayed to brave the approach of the soldiers, whose
wrath they were fully conscious of having deserved. Both fled to the
citadel--the former first running to the seashore, and jumping into a
fishing-boat to go thither by sea. He even thought the citadel not
tenable with its existing garrison, and sent over to Chalkedon for a
reinforcement. Still more terrified were the citizens of the town. Every
man in the market-place instantly fled; some to their houses, others to
the merchant vessels in the harbor, others to the triremes or ships of
war, which they hauled down to the water, and thus put to sea.
To the deception and harshness of the Spartan admiral, there was thus
added a want of precaution in the manner of execution, which threatened
to prove the utter ruin of Byzantium. For it was but too probable that
the Cyreian soldiers, under the keen sense of recent injury, would
satiate their revenge, and reimburse themselves for the want of
hospitality towards them, without distinguishing the Lacedaemonian
garrison from the Byzantine citizens; and that too from mere impulse,
not merely without orders, but in spite of prohibitions, from their
generals. Such was the aspect of the case, when they became again
assembled in a mass within the gates; and such would probably have been
the reality, had Xenophon executed his design of retiring earlier, so as
to leave the other generals acting without him. Being on the outside
along with the soldiers, Xenophon felt at once, as soon as he saw the
gates forced open and the army again within the town, the terrific
emergency which was impending: first, the sack of Byzantium--next,
horror and antipathy, throughout all Greece, towards the Cyreian
officers and soldiers indiscriminately--lastly, unsparing retribution
inflicted upon all by the power of Sparta. Overwhelmed with these
anxieties, he rushed into the town along with the multitude, using
every effort to pacify them and bring them into order. They on their
parts, delighted to see him along with them, and conscious of their own
force, were eager to excite him to the same pitch as themselves, and to
prevail on him to second and methodize their present triumph. "Now is
your time, Xenophon (they exclaimed), to make yourself a man. You have
here a city--you have triremes--you have money--you have plenty of
soldiers. Now then, if you choose, you can enrich us; and we in return
can make you powerful."--"You speak well (replied he); I shall do as you
propose; but if you want to accomplish anything, you must fall into
military array forthwith." He knew that this was the first condition of
returning to anything like tranquillity; and by great good fortune, the
space called the Thrakion,[104] immediately adjoining the gate inside,
was level, open, and clear of houses; presenting an excellent place of
arms or locality for a review. The whole army,--partly from their long
military practice, partly under the impression that Xenophon was really
about to second their wishes and direct some aggressive operation--threw
themselves almost of their own accord into regular array on the
Thrakion; the heavy-armed foot-soldiers eight deep, the light-armed
foot-soldiers on each flank. It was in this position that Xenophon
addressed them as follows.
Sec. 18. Xenophon's speech to the soldiers.
"Soldiers, I am not surprised that you are incensed, and that you think
yourselves scandalously cheated and ill-used. But if we give way to our
wrath--if we punish these Lacedaemonians now before us for their
treachery, and plunder this innocent city--reflect what will be the
consequence. We shall stand proclaimed forthwith as enemies to the
Lacedaemonians and their allies, and what sort of a war that will be,
those who have witnessed and who still recollect recent matters of
history may easily fancy. We Athenians entered into the war against
Sparta with a powerful army and fleet, an abundant revenue, and numerous
tributary cities in Asia as well as Europe--among them this very
Byzantium in which we now stand. We have been vanquished in the way that
all of you know. And what then will be the fate of us soldiers, when we
shall have as united enemies, Sparta with all her old allies and Athens
besides,--Tissaphernes and the barbaric forces on the coast--and most of
all the Great King[105] whom we marched up to dethrone and slay, if we
were able? Is any man fool enough to think that we have a chance of
making head against so many combined enemies? Let us not plunge madly
into dishonor and ruin, nor incur the enmity of our own fathers and
friends: who are in the cities which will take arms against us--and will
take arms justly, if we, who abstained from seizing any barbaric city,
even when we were in force sufficient, shall nevertheless now plunder
the first Grecian city into which we have been admitted. As far as I am
concerned, may I be buried ten thousand fathoms deep in the earth rather
than see you do such things! and I exhort _you_ too, as Greeks, to obey
the leaders of Greece. Endeavor while thus obedient, to obtain your just
rights; but if you should fail in this, rather submit to injustice than
cut yourselves off from the Grecian world. Send to inform Anaxibius,
that we have entered the city, not with a view to commit any violence,
but in the hope, if possible, of obtaining from him the advantages which
he promised us. If we fail, we shall at least prove to him that we quit
the city not under his fraudulent manoeuvres, but under our own sense of
the duty of obedience."
This speech completely arrested the impetuous impulse of the army,
brought them to a true sense of their situation, and induced them to
adopt the proposition of Xenophon. They remained unmoved in their
position on the Thrakion, while three of the captains were sent to
communicate with Anaxibius. While they were thus waiting, a Theban named
Koeratadas approached, who had once commanded in Byzantium under the
Lacedaemonians during the previous war. He had now become a sort of
professional general looking out for an army to command wherever he
could find one, and offering his services to any city which would engage
him. He addressed the assembled Cyreians, and offered, if they would
accept him for their general, to conduct them against the Delta[106] of
Thrace (the space included between the northwest corner of the
Propontis[107] and the southwest corner of the Euxine), which he
asserted to be a rich territory presenting great opportunity of plunder:
he further promised to furnish them with ample subsistence during the
march. Presently the envoys returned, bearing the reply of Anaxibius;
who received the message favorably, promising that not only the army
should have no cause to regret their obedience, but that he would both
report their good conduct to the authorities at home, and do everything
in his own power to promote their comfort. He said nothing farther about
taking them into pay; that delusion having now answered its purpose. The
soldiers, on hearing his communication, adopted a resolution to accept
Koeratadas as their future commander, and then marched out of the town.
As soon as they were on the outside, Anaxibius, not content with closing
the gates against them, made public proclamation that if any one of them
were found in the town, he should be sold forthwith into slavery.
There are few cases throughout Grecian history in which an able
discourse has been the means of averting so much evil, as was averted by
this speech of Xenophon to the army in Byzantium. Nor did he ever,
throughout the whole period of his command, render to them a more signal
service. The miserable consequences, which would have ensued, had the
army persisted in their aggressive impulse--first, to the citizens of
the town, ultimately to themselves, while Anaxibius, the only guilty
person, had the means of escaping by sea, even under the worst
circumstances--are stated by Xenophon rather under than above the
reality. At the same time no orator ever undertook a more difficult
case, or achieved a fuller triumph over unpromising conditions. If we
consider the feelings and position of the army at the instant of their
breaking into the town, we shall be astonished that any commander could
have arrested their movements. Though fresh from all the glory of their
retreat, they had been first treacherously entrapped over from Asia,
next roughly ejected by Anaxibius; and although it may be said truly
that the citizens of Byzantium had no concern either in the one or the
other, yet little heed is commonly taken, in military operations, to
the distinction between garrison and citizens in an assailed town.
Having arms in their hands, with consciousness of force arising out of
their exploits in Asia, the Cyreians were at the same time inflamed by
the opportunity both of avenging a gross recent injury, and enriching
themselves in the process of execution; to which we may add, the
excitement of that rush whereby they had obtained re-entry, and the
farther fact that, without the gates they had nothing to expect except
poor, hard, uninviting service in Thrace. With soldiers already
possessed by an overpowering impulse of this nature, what chance was
there that a retiring general, on the point of quitting the army, could
so work upon their minds as to induce them to renounce the prey before
them? Xenophon had nothing to invoke except distant considerations,
partly of Hellenic reputation, chiefly of prudence; considerations
indeed of unquestionable reality and prodigious magnitude, yet belonging
all to a distant future, and therefore of little comparative force,
except when set forth in magnified characters by the orator. How
powerfully he worked upon the minds of his hearers, so as to draw forth
these far-removed dangers from the cloud of present sentiment by which
they were overlaid--how skilfully he employed in illustration the
example of his own native city--will be seen by all who study his
speech. Never did his Athenian accomplishments--his talent for giving
words to important thoughts--his promptitude in seizing a present
situation and managing the sentiments of an impetuous multitude--appear
to greater advantage than when he was thus suddenly called forth to meet
a terrible emergency. His pre-established reputation and the habit of
obeying his orders, were doubtless essential conditions of success. But
none of his colleagues in command would have been able to accomplish the
like memorable change on the minds of the soldiers, or to procure
obedience for any simple authoritative restraint; nay, it is probable,
that if Xenophon had not been at hand, the other generals would have
followed the passionate movement, even though they had been
reluctant--from simple inability to repress it. Again--whatever might
have been the accomplishments of Xenophon, it is certain that even _he_
would not have been able to work upon the minds of these excited
soldiers, had they not been Greeks and citizens as well as
soldiers,--bred in Hellenic sympathies and accustomed to Hellenic order,
with authority operating in part through voice and persuasion, and not
through the Persian whip and instruments of torture. The memorable
discourse on the Thrakion at Byzantium illustrates the working of that
persuasive agency which formed one of the permanent forces and
conspicuous charms of Hellenism. It teaches us that if the orator could
sometimes accuse innocent defendants and pervert well-disposed
assemblies--a part of the case which historians of Greece often present
as if it were the whole--he could also, and that in the most trying
emergencies, combat the strongest force of present passion, and bring
into vivid presence the half-obscured lineaments of long-sighted reason
and duty.
Sec. 19. The army finally leaves Byzantium; Seuthes offers to hire them.
After conducting the army out of the city, Xenophon sent, through
Kleander, a message to Anaxibius, requesting that he himself might be
allowed to come in again singly, in order to take his departure by sea.
His request was granted, though not without much difficulty; upon which
he took leave of the army under the strongest expressions of affection
and gratitude on their part and went into Byzantium along with Kleander;
while on the next day Koeratadas came to assume the command according to
agreement, bringing with him a prophet, and beasts to be offered in
sacrifice. There followed in his train twenty men carrying sacks of
barley-meal, twenty more with jars of wine, three bearing olives, and
one man with a bundle of garlic and onions. All these provisions being
laid down, Koeratadas proceeded to offer sacrifice, as a preliminary to
the distribution of them among the soldiers. On the first day, the
sacrifices being unfavorable, no distribution took place; on the second
day, Koeratadas was standing with the wreath on his head at the altar,
and with the victims beside him, about to renew his sacrifice--when
Timasion and the other officers interfered, desired him to abstain, and
dismissed him from the command. Perhaps the first unfavorable sacrifices
may have partly impelled them to this proceeding. But the main reason
was, the scanty store, inadequate even to one day's subsistence for the
army, brought by Koeratadas--and the obvious insufficiency of his means.
On the departure of Koeratadas, the army marched to take up its quarters
in some Thracian villages not far from Byzantium, under its former
officers; who however could not agree as to their future order of march.
Kleanor and Phryniskus, who had received presents from Seuthes, urged
the expediency of accepting the service of that Thracian prince: Neon
insisted on going to Chersonese, to be under the Lacedaemonian officers
in that peninsula (as Anaxibius had projected); in the idea that he, as
a Lacedaemonian, would there obtain the command of the whole army; while
Timasion, with the view of re-establishing himself in his native city of
Dardanus, proposed returning to the Asiatic side of the strait.
Though this last plan met with decided favor among the army, it could
not be executed without vessels. These Timasion had little or no means
of procuring; so that considerable delay took place, during which the
soldiers, receiving no pay, fell into much distress. Many of them were
even compelled to sell their arms in order to get subsistence; while
others got permission to settle in some of the neighboring towns, on
condition of being disarmed. The whole army was thus gradually melting
away, much to the satisfaction of Anaxibius, who was anxious to see the
purposes of Pharnabazus accomplished. By degrees, it would probably have
been dissolved altogether, had not a change of interest on the part of
Anaxibius induced him to promote its reorganization. He sailed from
Byzantium to the Asiatic coast, to acquaint Pharnabazus that the
Cyreians could no longer cause uneasiness, and to require his own
promised reward. It seems moreover that Xenophon himself departed from
Byzantium by the same opportunity. When they reached Kyzikus, they met
the Lacedaemonian Aristarchus; who was coming out as a newly-appointed
governor of Byzantium, to supersede Kleander, and who acquainted
Anaxibius that Polus was on the point of arriving to supersede him as
admiral. Anxious to meet Pharnabazus and make sure of his bribe,
Anaxibius impressed his parting injunction upon Aristarchus to sell for
slaves all the Cyreians whom he might find at Byzantium on his arrival,
and then pursued his voyage along the southern coast of the Propontis to
Parium. But Pharnabazus, having already received intimation of the
change of admirals, knew that the friendship of Anaxibius was no longer
of any value, and took no farther heed of him; while he at the same time
sent to Byzantium to make the like compact with Aristarchus against the
Cyreian army.
Anaxibius was stung to the quick at this combination of disappointment
and insult on the part of the satrap. To avenge it, he resolved to
employ those very soldiers whom he had first corruptly and fraudulently
brought across to Europe, cast out from Byzantium, and lastly, ordered
to be sold into slavery, so far as any might yet be found in that town.
He now resolved to bring them back into Asia for the purpose of acting
against Pharnabazus. Accordingly he addressed himself to Xenophon, and
ordered him without a moment's delay to rejoin the army, for the purpose
of keeping it together, of recalling the soldiers who had departed, and
transporting the whole body across into Asia. He provided him with an
armed vessel of thirty oars to cross over from Parium to Perinthus,
sending over a peremptory order to the Perinthians to furnish him with
horses in order that he might reach the army with the greatest speed.
Perhaps it would not have been safe for Xenophon to disobey this order,
under any circumstances. But the idea of acting with the army in Asia
against Pharnabazus, under Lacedaemonian sanction, was probably very
acceptable to him. He hastened across to the army, who welcomed his
return with joy, and gladly embraced the proposal of crossing to Asia,
which was a great improvement upon their forlorn and destitute
condition. He accordingly conducted them to Perinthus, and encamped
under the walls of the town; refusing, in his way through Selymbria, a
second proposition from Seuthes to engage the services of the army.
While Xenophon was exerting himself to procure transports for the
passage of the army at Perinthus, Aristarchus, the new governor, arrived
there with two triremes from Byzantium. It seems that not only
Byzantium, but also both Perinthus and Selymbria, were comprised in his
government as governor. On first reaching Byzantium to supersede
Kleander, he found there no less than 400 of the Cyreians chiefly sick
and wounded; whom Kleander, in spite of the ill-will of Anaxibius, had
not only refused to sell into slavery, but had billeted[108] upon the
citizens, and tended with solicitude; so much did his good feeling
towards Xenophon and towards the army now come into play. We read with
indignation that Aristarchus, immediately on reaching Byzantium to
supersede him, was not even contented with sending these 400 men out of
the town; but seized them,--Greeks, citizens, and soldiers as they
were--and sold them all into slavery. Apprised of the movements of
Xenophon with the army, he now came to Perinthus to prevent their
transit into Asia; laying an embargo on the transports in the harbor,
and presenting himself personally before the assembled army to prohibit
the soldiers from crossing. When Xenophon informed him that Anaxibius
had given them orders to cross, and had sent him expressly to conduct
them--Aristarchus replied, "Anaxibius is no longer in functions as
admiral, and I am governor in this town. If I catch any of you at sea, I
will sink you." On the next day, he sent to invite the generals and the
captains to a conference within the walls. They were just about to enter
the gates, when Xenophon, who was among them, received a private
warning, that if he went in, Aristarchus would seize him, and either put
him to death or send him prisoner to Pharnabazus. Accordingly Xenophon
sent forward the others, and remained himself with the army, alleging
the obligation of sacrificing. The behavior of Aristarchus--who, when he
saw the others without Xenophon, sent them away, and desired that they
would all come again in the afternoon--confirmed the justice of his
suspicions, as to the imminent danger from which he had been preserved
by this accidental warning. It need hardly be added that Xenophon
disregarded the second invitation no less than the first; moreover, a
third invitation, which Aristarchus afterwards sent, was disregarded by
all.
We have here a Lacedaemonian governor, not scrupling to lay a snare of
treachery, as flagrant as that which Tissaphernes had practised on the
banks of the Zab, to entrap Klearchus and his colleagues--and that too
against a Greek, and an officer of the highest station and merit, who
had just saved Byzantium from pillage, and was now actually in execution
of orders received from the Lacedaemonian admiral Anaxibius. Assuredly,
had the accidental warning been withheld, Xenophon would not have
escaped falling into this snare; nor could we reasonably have charged
him with imprudence--so fully was he entitled to count upon
straightforward conduct under the circumstances. But the same cannot be
said of Klearchus, who manifested lamentable credulity, nefarious as was
the fraud to which he fell a victim.
At the second interview with the other officers, Aristarchus, while he
forbade the army to cross the water, directed them to force their way by
land through the Thracians who occupied the Holy Mountain, and thus to
arrive at the Chersonese; where (he said) they should receive pay. Neon
the Lacedaemonian, with about 800 heavy-armed foot-soldiers who adhered
to his separate command, advocated this plan as the best. To be set
against it, however, there was the proposition of Seuthes to take the
army into pay; which Xenophon was inclined to prefer, uneasy at the
thoughts of being cooped up in the narrow peninsula of the Chersonese,
under the absolute command of the Lacedaemonian governor, with great
uncertainty both as to pay and as to provisions. Moreover it was
imperiously necessary for these disappointed troops to make some
immediate movement: for they had been brought to the gates of Perinthus
in hopes of passing immediately on shipboard; it was midwinter--they
were encamped in the open field, under the severe cold of Thrace--they
had neither assured supplies, nor even money to purchase, if a market
had been near. Xenophon, who had brought them to the neighborhood of
Perinthus, was now again responsible for extricating them from this
untenable situation; and began to offer sacrifices, according to his
wont, to ascertain whether the gods would encourage him to recommend a
covenant with Seuthes. The sacrifices were so favorable, that he
himself, together with a confidential officer from each of the generals,
went by night and paid a visit to Seuthes, for the purpose of
understanding distinctly his offers and purposes.