genius, it shows a remarkable degree of enlightenment on the part of
contemporary Greek governments. More credit belongs, no doubt, to the
Aeginetans and Athenians than to Polykratês, who evidently retained
the services of Demokêdês for the court at Samos. Yet Polykratês too
was enlightened. Under his absolute rule or “tyranny,” which is the
Greek technical term, the Ionian island of Samos had become the most
splendid state in Greece. _Not counting those who became tyrants of the
Syracusans, there is none of all the other Greek tyrants who is fit to
be compared to Polykratês in magnificence_. This position was won by
sea-power. _Polykratês is the first of those Greeks we know who aimed
at the Thalassocracy_ (the command of the sea) _save Minos the Knossian
and any one else who acquired the rule of the sea before Minos_—an
interesting remark in view of the theory that the Ionians definitely
aimed at reconstituting the maritime empire of prehistoric Crete. This
glittering tyrant suffered at last a reversal of fortune so strange
and complete that it became a proverbial instance of the hand of God
in human affairs. He was enticed to the Asiatic continent opposite his
island by the Persian grandee Oroitês, and there treacherously seized
and with nameless tortures put to death. His _entourage_ became the
slaves of Oroitês. One of them was Demokêdês.
Some years afterwards King Darius, who had in the meanwhile succeeded
to the throne, was flung from his horse while hunting and dislocated
his ankle. He entrusted his injury to the court-physicians at Susa,
who were Egyptians, Egypt being the home of a very ancient body of
medical lore transmitted from father to son. But the Egyptian doctors
_by wrenching and forcing the foot made the evil greater. For days
seven and seven nights Darius was possessed by sleeplessness by reason
of the malady which beset him, but on the eighth day, when the King
was in poor case, one who had caught a report in Sardis before he came
to Susa of the skill of Demokêdês of Kroton made report to Darius;
and he commanded that he be brought before him with all speed. And
when they had discovered him among the slaves of Oroitês in some
neglected corner, they brought him into the presence dragging his
fetters and clothed in rags. And as he stood there Darius asked him
if he understood the art; but he would not admit it, fearing that, if
he discovered himself, he would lose Hellas altogether. But Darius
perceived clearly that he understood the art, but was feigning, and he
commanded the men who had brought him to bring forth pricks and goads.
Then indeed Demokêdês discovers himself, saying that he had no accurate
knowledge of the matter, but having been the disciple of a leech he had
some poor knowledge of that skill. Afterwards when he had entrusted
himself to him, by using Greek remedies and applying mild cures after
the violent he caused him to get sleep, and in short space restored
him to sound health, that no longer hoped to have his foot whole
again. For a gift thereafter Darius bestows on him two pairs of golden
fetters; but Demokêdês asked him if he thus doubled his misfortunes for
a gift, just because he had made him whole. Darius was pleased at the
speech and sends him to his wives. And the eunuchs who led him there
said to the women that this was the man who had given back his life
to the King. And each of them, plunging a cup in the chest of gold,
gave Demokêdês so rich a gift that his servant, whose name was Skiton,
following him gathered up the nobles that fell from the cups, and a
great deal of gold was amassed by him._
_Then Demokêdês having healed Darius had a very great house at Susa,
and sat at table with the King, and had all else save one thing only,
namely his return to the Greeks. And the Egyptian physicians, who
formerly tended the King, when they were about to be impaled on the
stake for that they had been overcome by a Greek physician, he both
saved by his prayers to the King, and also rescued a prophet of Elis,
who had followed Polykratês, and was neglected among the slaves. And
Demokêdês was a very great matter with the King._
Herodotus is so interesting that it is almost inexcusable to interrupt
him; but the essayist has to study brevity. I will therefore in the
main summarize what follows, indulging myself in only one remark (which
has probably already occurred to my reader) that of course the story
has passed through the popular imagination, and that the historian has
to admire, not so much the caprice of destiny, as the genius of an
indomitable personality.
Shortly after the accident to Darius, his queen Atossa was afflicted
by an ulcer on her breast. Atossa was an unspeakably great lady. She
was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire.
She had been the wife of the son and successor of Cyrus, her brother
Cambyses. Now she was the wife of Darius and the mother of Xerxes.
Darius himself may well have been a little in awe of her. She outlived
him, if we may believe Aeschylus, who has introduced her into his play
of _The Persians_, uttering magnificent stately lamentations over the
ruin of the Persian cause in Hellas, and evoking from his royal tomb
the ghost of the “god” Darius. Such was the half-divine woman, who
was to help Demokêdês back to the Greece for which he felt so deep a
nostalgia. A single touch of Herodotus makes her as real as any patient
you have seen in a hospital. _So long as the thing was comparatively
little she concealed it and being ashamed of it did not tell anybody,
but when she was seriously ill she sent for Demokêdês._ He cured her
after extracting a promise, which she fulfilled in the following
manner. She persuaded Darius to plan an expedition against Greece and,
as an aid to this, to send Demokêdês to make a report on his native
country. The King then summoned fifteen Persians of distinction and
instructed them to accompany Demokêdês on the projected voyage along
the coasts of Hellas in quest of intelligence, commanding them on
no account to let Demokêdês escape. Next he sent for his healer and
explained the nature of the employment to which he designed to put
him. He bade Demokêdês take all his movable possessions with him as
presents for his father and his brethren, promising to requite him
many times over. Demokêdês declined this offer, that he might not
betray himself by too manifest an eagerness. He did accept the gift
of a merchant-vessel freighted with “goods of every sort” for his
“brethren”—and for his father too, we may hope, that irascible old man.
The expedition went first to Sidon, where they fitted out two triremes
and the merchant-vessel freighted with goods of every sort, then sailed
for Greece. They touched at various points of the coast, spying out
the land and writing down an account of what seemed most remarkable.
In this way they came at last to Tarentum in Italy. There Demokêdês
got in touch with Aristophilidês, whom Herodotus calls the “king”
of the Tarentines. Aristophilidês removed the steering-apparatus of
the foreign ships, which prevented their sailing, and imprisoned the
crew as spies; while Demokêdês took advantage of their predicament to
escape to his native Kroton. Then Aristophilidês released the Persians
and gave them back their rudders. They at once sailed in pursuit of
their prisoner, and found him at Kroton “holding the attention of the
Agora,” which was the centre of Greek city-life. There they _sought
to lay hands on him. And some of the men of Kroton, fearing the might
of Persia, would have yielded him up, but others gat hold of him on
their part, and began to beat the Persians with their staves; who made
profession in such words as these: “Ye men of Kroton, consider what ye
do; ye are taking from us a man that is a runaway slave of the King.
How then shall King Darius be content to have received this insult? And
how shall your deeds serve you well, if ye drive us away? Against what
city shall we march before this, and what city shall we try to enslave
before yours?” So spake they, but they did not indeed persuade the
men of Kroton, but had Demokêdês rescued out of their hands, and the
merchantman, which they had brought with them, taken away from them,
and so sailed back to Asia; neither did they seek any further knowledge
concerning Greece, though this was the object of their coming; for they
had lost their guide. Now as they were putting forth, Demokêdês charged
them with no message but this, bidding them tell Darius “Demokêdês is
married to Milo’s daughter.” For the name of Milo the wrestler was of
great account with the King. I think that Demokêdês hurried on this
marriage, paying a great sum, in order that Darius might see clearly
that in his own country also Demokêdês was a great man._
The explanation of Herodotus is convincing. Demokêdês was suffering
from repressed egotism. He had had wealth and consideration in Persia,
but he could not breathe its spiritual atmosphere. It is pleasant to
reflect that in the court of Susa he may have regretted his father.
To the Hellenic mind it was a chief curse in Barbarism that it swamps
the individual. How shall a man possess his soul in a land where the
slavery of all but One is felt to be a _natural_ state of things? So
in ancient Greece it was above all else personality that counted;
freedom was a merely external matter unless it meant the liberation
of the spirit, the development (as our jargon expresses it) of
personality—although this development realized itself most effectively
in the service of the State. Greek history is starred with brilliant
idiosyncrasies—Demokêdês being one, whom we may now leave triumphant
there at home in his flaming Persian robe, “holding the attention of
the Agora” with his amazing story.
It would be too strange an omission to say nothing about that which,
before Alexander’s tremendous march, is the most familiar of all Greek
adventures among the Barbarians; I mean that suffered and described by
Xenophon the Athenian. Again we witness the triumph of a personality,
although that is not the important thing about the Retreat of the Ten
Thousand. The important thing is the triumph of the Greek character in
a body of rascal mercenaries. The personality of the young gentleman
who gained so much authority with them found its opportunity in a
crisis among ignorant men, but it never became a great one. To the
last it was curiously immature. Perhaps it would be an apter metaphor
to say of Xenophon what some one said of Pitt—“He did not grow, he was
cast.” His natural tastes were very much those of a more generous and
incomparably greater man, Sir Walter Scott. They were the tastes of a
country gentleman with a love of literature and history, especially
with a flavour of romance. The _Cyropaedia_ is the false dawn of the
Historic Novel. Both Xenophon and Sir Walter wanted, probably more
than anything else, to be soldiers. But Xenophon wanted to be too many
things. Before his mind floated constantly the image of the “Archical
Man”—the ideal Ruler—who had long exercised the thoughts of Greek
philosophers, of none perhaps more than Socrates, whose pupil Xenophon
professed himself to be. One day it seems to have struck him: Might not
he, Xenophon, be the Archical Man? He may not have framed the thought
so precisely, for it is of the kind that even youth does not always
admit to itself; but the thought was there. It was his illusion. He
was not born to command, he was born to write. He did not dominate, he
was always more or less under the influence of some one else—Socrates,
Cyrus, Agesilaos. He was an incredibly poor judge of men and the
movement of affairs. But put a pen in his hands and you have, if not
one of the great masters, yet a master in a certain vivid manner of his
own.
He can have been little more than a boy when Fate sent him his
incomparable adventure. The King of Persia had died leaving two sons,
his heir and successor Artaxerxes, and Cyrus, the favourite of their
dreadful mother, the dowager queen Parysatis. The younger son began
secretly to collect and mobilize an army in Asia Minor, where authority
had been delegated to him, intending to march without declaration of
war against Artaxerxes. Xenophon was introduced to Cyrus by Proxenos
of Boeotia, who indeed had induced him to visit Sardis. Proxenos, says
his friend, _thought it was sufficient for being and being thought an
Archical Man to praise him who did well and to refrain from praising
the wrongdoer. Consequently the nice people among those who came into
contact with him liked him, but he suffered from the designs of the
unscrupulous, who felt that they could do what they pleased with him_.
Xenophon appears to have fallen immediately under the spell of Cyrus,
who undoubtedly has somewhat the air of a man of genius and who, as
a scion of the Achaemenids, would in any case have inspired in him
much the same feeling as a Bourbon inspired in Sir Walter Scott. In
the army of invasion was a large body of Greek mercenary soldiers,
chiefly from the Peloponnese, under the command of a hard-bitten
Spartan _condottiere_ called Klearchos. Xenophon joined this force as
a volunteer. He believed at the time, as did Proxenos, who was one of
the “generals” (_Strategi_), and indeed everybody except Klearchos,
who was in the secret, that the expedition was preparing against the
Pisidians, hill-tribes delighting in brigandage. It was not until the
army had passed the “Cilician Gates” of the Taurus and had reached
Tarsus that the Greek troops found confirmed their growing suspicion
that they were being led against the King. They protested and refused
to go farther. Their discontent was allayed with difficulty, but it
is clear that Xenophon had already made up his mind. He went with the
rest. They threaded the “Syrian Gates” of the range called Amanus, and
struck across the desert. Having reached the Euphrates, they followed
the river into “Babylonia,” what we call Mesopotamia, as far as Kunaxa,
in the region where the two great streams begin to open out again after
coming so close in the neighbourhood of Bagdad. At Kunaxa the Great
King met them with an enormous army. A huge disorderly battle followed,
in which the Greeks very easily dispersed everything that met them—but
Cyrus was slain.
What were they to do? The whole purpose of the campaign—to put Cyrus
on the throne—had vanished. It was clear to them that they could not
rely on the Barbarians who had marched with them the two thousand miles
from Sardis. Nothing to do but retreat. But retreat by the way they
had come was no longer possible, since they had eaten up the country.
It remained to follow the line of the Tigris up into Armenia, and so
cross—in the winter—that savage plateau, in the hope of coming at last
to Trebizond, away there on the Euxine, all those leagues away.
So they set out. It was the first requirement of their plan to cross
Babylonia to the Tigris. Breaking up their camp at dawn, they were
alarmed in the afternoon by the sight of horses, which at first they
took for Persian cavalry, but soon discovered to be baggage-animals out
at grass. That in itself was surprising—it seemed the King’s encampment
must be near. They continued their advance, and at sunset the vanguard
entered and took up their quarters in some deserted and pillaged huts,
while the rest of the army, with much shouting in the darkness, found
such accommodation outside as they could. That was a night of panics.
An inexplicable uproar broke out in camp, which Klearchos allayed by
proclaiming a reward for information against “the individual who let
loose the donkey.” The enemy, as appeared in the morning, had been
equally nervous. At least he had vanished from the neighbourhood.
Moreover heralds now appeared offering a truce from the King. The offer
was accepted under promise that the Greek army would be provisioned.
So the host set out again under the guidance of the King’s messengers
through a country all criss-crossed by irrigation-ditches, looking
suspiciously full of water for the time of year. However, they soon
reached some villages full of food and drink. There were some dates ...
“like amber,” says Xenophon reminiscently. (He had got no breakfast
that morning.) Here also they tasted “the brain of the palm”—the
“cabbage”—delicious, but it gave them a headache.
In these excellent villages they remained three days and continued
negotiations with Tissaphernes, the subtle representative of the King.
As a result of the conversations they moved on again under the satrap’s
direction as far as the towering “Wall of Media,” which crossed the
land in a diagonal line towards Babylon, being twenty feet broad, a
hundred feet high, and twenty leagues long. From the Wall they marched
between twenty and thirty miles, crossing canals and ditches, until
they struck the Tigris at Sittakê, where they encamped in a “paradise”
full of trees. At the bridge of Sittakê met the roads to Lydia and
Armenia, to Susa and Ecbatana (Hamadan). Next morning the Greeks
crossed without opposition and advanced as far as a considerable stream
traversed by a bridge at “Opis,” near which populous centre they found
themselves observed by a large force of Asiatics. Thereupon Klearchos
led his men past in column two abreast, now marching and now halting
them. Every time the vanguard stopped the order to halt went echoing
down the line, and had barely died out in the distance when the advance
was resumed; _so that even to the Greeks themselves the army seemed
enormous, while the Persian looking on was astounded_.
They were now in “Media”—really Assyria—a very different country from
the “Garden of Eden” they had left on the other side of the Tigris.
They marched and marched, and at last reached a cluster of dwellings
called the “Villages of Parysatis.” Then another twenty leagues to
the town of Kainai and the confluence of the Tigris with the Greater
Zab, on whose bank they rested three days. All this time the enemy,
although never attacking, had been following in a watchful cloud.
Klearchos therefore sought an interview with Tissaphernes to discover
his intentions. The satrap responded with Oriental courtesy and invited
to a discussion at his headquarters Klearchos and the other generals,
namely Proxenos, Menon, Agias and Socrates the Achaean. With grave
misgivings, relying on the faith of the Barbarian, they entered the
Persian camp. There they were immediately arrested. The officers who
had accompanied the generals were cut down, and the Persian cavalry
galloped out over the plain, killing every Greek they could find. The
Hellenes from their camp could make out that something unusual was
happening in that distant cloud of horse, but what it was they never
guessed until Nikarchos the Arcadian came tearing along with his hands
upon a great wound in his belly, holding in his entrails. He told them
his story; they ran to arm themselves. However, the enemy did not come
on. Meanwhile the generals were sent to the King, who had them beheaded.
As for the leaderless men, _few of them tasted food that evening, only
a few kindled a fire, many did not trouble to return to their quarters
at all, but lay down where each happened to find himself, unable to
close their eyes for misery and longing for the home-town, and father,
and mother, and the wife, and the baby_. Xenophon got a little sleep
at last, and as he slept he dreamed that his father’s house was struck
by a thunderbolt and set on fire. The dream was so vivid that he awoke
and began to ponder what it might signify. His excited imagination
revived in still more startling colours the terrors of the situation.
Here was the stage set for a moving scene. Where was the hero? Where
was the Archical Man? Here at last was the opportunity he had prayed
for. There was kindled that night in Xenophon the flame of a resolution
which, while it lasted, did really keep at the heroic pitch a spirit
secretly doubtful of itself. It was the sense of drama acting on an
artistic temperament; and of course that army, being Greek, accepted
the miracle and naturally assumed its rôle. The gentleman ranker
developed a Napoleonic energy, and made eloquent speeches (for which he
dressed very carefully); with the result that he was chosen one of the
new generals. He became in fact henceforward the leading spirit, and
was entrusted with the most difficult task—the command of the rearguard
in a fighting retreat. He made mistakes; he was not a Napoleon. But the
distinguished French officer who has written the best military history
of the Retreat gives him high credit for his grasp of the principles of
war, which General Boucher believes he learned from Socrates. Perhaps
you have not thought of Socrates as an authority on the art of war?
Next morning they crossed the Zab—it was the dry season—but had not
advanced far on the other side when they were overtaken by a small
force of horsemen, archers and slingers under the command of a certain
Mithradates. These approached in a seeming-friendly manner until they
were fairly near, when all at once they began to ply their bows and
slings. The Greek army, marching in hollow square, could not retaliate.
A charge failed to capture a single man, the enemy retiring before
the charge and shooting as they retired, according to the “Parthian”
tactics which were to become famous in Roman times. That day the Greeks
covered little more than three miles. Clearly something must be done
about it. Xenophon discovered that the army contained some Rhodians,
who could sling leaden bullets twice as far as the Persians could cast
their stones, which were “as big as your fist.” These Rhodians then
were formed overnight into a special corps and instructed in their
task. Next day the host set out earlier than usual, for they had to
cross a ravine, where an attack would be especially dangerous. When
they were about a mile beyond, Mithradates crossed after them with a
thousand horsemen and four thousand archers and slingers. No sooner
had he come within range than a bugle rang out and the special troops
rushed to close quarters. The enemy did not await the charge, but
fled back to the ravine pursued by a small body of mounted men for
whom Xenophon had somehow collected horses. It was a brilliant little
victory, stained by the infamy of some, who mutilated the dead—a thing
so startlingly un-Greek that I cannot remember another historical
instance. And here what was done was not done in cold blood.
In the evening of that day they came to a great deserted city, the
name of which was Larissa. A great city; it was girdled by a wall two
leagues in length, twenty-five feet in thickness, and a hundred feet
high. Hard by was a pyramid of stone two hundred feet in height, where
the Greeks found many fugitives who had sought refuge there from the
neighbouring villages. Their next march brought them to another great
empty fortress, called Mespila, opposite what we now call Mosul.
Somewhere in this region of Larissa and Mosul had anciently stood
the enormous city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria; and the whole
district (as one gathers from Xenophon) was full of dim legends of an
overwhelming disaster. The soldiers were marching over the grave of an
empire. Even the fragments were imposing. Mespila was based on a kind
of ring, fifty feet broad and fifty feet high, built all of a polished
stone “full of shells”; and on this foundation rose a wall of bricks,
the breadth of it fifty feet, and the height four hundred, and the
circuit six leagues.
Beyond Mespila Tissaphernes attacked again with what appeared a very
large force. But his light-armed troops were no match for the Rhodian
slingers and the Cretan bowmen, whose every shot told in the dense
array of the enemy, who withdrew discomfited. The Greek army was now
approaching the mountains, which they had long seen towering on the
horizon. It appeared to the generals that the “hollow square” must
be replaced by a new formation better suited to the narrow ways they
would soon be following, and this they now devised. They were to use it
successfully henceforward.