they observed with joy, led across a series of knolls where (thought
they) the Persian cavalry could not come at them. Their joy was
short-lived, for no sooner had the light-armed troops who composed the
Greek rearguard begun to leave the summit of the first height than the
enemy rushed up after them, and began showering darts and arrows and
stones from the sling upon them, and so put them out of action for that
day. The heavy-armed did their best. But they were naturally unable to
overtake the skirmishers, and it went hard with the army until special
tactics were devised which answered their purpose. The knolls which had
served them so ill were foothills of a loftier line of heights running
parallel to the road. A sufficient detachment was sent to occupy and
move along the heights simultaneously with the main body advancing by
the road. Afraid of being caught between two forces, the Persian did
not attack. This was the first employment of a manœuvre which the
Greeks repeated many times, and always with success.
The Palace and Villages turned out to be full of bread and wine and
fodder collected by the satrap of the region. So the Greeks halted
there for three days, resting their wounded. Having set out again on
the fourth day, they were overtaken by the implacable Tissaphernes and,
warned by experience, made for the nearest village, where they beat off
his attack very easily. That night they took advantage of an unmilitary
practice of the Persians in never encamping less than seven miles from
an enemy, to steal a march on them. The result was that the next day,
and the day after, and the day after that, they proceeded on their way
unmolested. On the fourth day they came to a place where the Zacho
Dagh, which they had kept so long on their right, sends down a spur to
the river, which it steeply overhangs in a tall cliff picturesquely
crowned to-day by a native village. The Tigris being still unfordable,
the road is forced to climb over the cliff. Cheirisophos, commanding
the van, halted and sent a message to Xenophon, who was in command of
the rear. This was highly inconvenient to Xenophon, because at that
very moment who should appear on the road behind him but Tissaphernes?
However, Xenophon galloped to the front and requested an explanation.
Cheirisophos pointed to the cliff, and there sure enough were armed
men in occupation. Between these and Tissaphernes the army was in a
perilous position. What to do? Xenophon, looking up at the wall of the
Zacho Dagh, noticed that the main height at this part of the range
was directly opposite them; looking again, he could make out a track
leading from this peak to the cliff. He immediately proposed to seize
the peak. A picked force was hastily got together, and off they set
upon their climb. No sooner did the men on the cliff catch sight of
them than they too began to race for the key-position. With shouts
the two sides strained for the goal. Xenophon rode beside his men,
encouraging them. A grumbling fellow from Sicyon complained that he
had to run with a shield while the general rode on a horse. Xenophon
dismounted, pushed the man out of the ranks, took his shield from him,
and struggled on in his place. Thus enkindled, the Greeks—the men to
whom mountains were native—reached the summit first. But it was a near
thing.
Thus the pass was turned. But the situation remained not less than
dreadful. On the right of the army arose the cruel mountains of
Kurdistan; on their left ran swiftly the profound current of the
Tigris. A soldier from Rhodes suggested crossing the stream on an
arrangement of inflated skins, such as appears to be still in use
upon the Tigris, where it is called a “tellek.” The suggestion was
impracticable in face of the enemy, who was found in possession of
the opposing bank. Reluctantly therefore they turned their backs upon
the river and set their minds upon the mountains. Under cover of
darkness they stole across the plain and were on the high ground with
the dawn. They were now in the country of the Kardouchians, whom we
now call the Kurds, in whose intricate valleys and startling ravines
whole armies had been lost. On the appearance of the Greeks the natives
fled with their wives and children from their villages and “took to
the heather.” The invaders requisitioned the supplies they found, but
made some effort to conciliate the highlanders. These remained sullenly
unresponsive. All day long they watched the ten thousand hoplites with
the light-armed and the women of the camp struggle through the high
pass. Then as the last men were descending in the early-gathering
darkness the Kardouchians stirred. Stones and arrows flew, and some
of the Greeks were killed. Luckily for the army the enemy had been
surprised so completely that no concerted attack was made in the
steep-walled road. As it was, although they bivouacked that night
without further annoyance, they could see the signal fires blaze from
every peak, boding ill for the morrow.
When it came they resolved to leave behind all prisoners and all they
could spare of the baggage-train. Thus disencumbered, they set forward
in stormy weather and under constant attack, so that little progress
was made. Finally they came to a complete check. In front of them rose
the sheer side of a mountain, up which the road was seen to climb,
black with their enemies. A frontal attack was not to be thought of.
But was there no byway across the heights? A captured Kurd confessed
that there was. Only at one point this path led over an eminence, which
must be secured in advance. Therefore late in the afternoon a storming
party set out with the guide, their orders being to occupy the eminence
in the night, and sound a bugle at dawn. A violent rainstorm served to
conceal this movement, whose success was also aided by the advance of
Cheirisophos along the visible road. He soon reached a gulch, which
his men must cross to gain a footing on the great cliff. But when they
attempted the passage the enemy rolled down enormous boulders, which
shattered themselves into flying fragments against the iron sides
of the ravine, so that crossing was merely impossible. The attempt
then was not at that time renewed. But through the night the Greeks
continued to hear the thunder of the plunging rocks sent down by the
unwearied and suspicious foe.
Meanwhile the storm-troops who had gone by the circuitous path
surprised a guard of Kardouchians seated about a fire, and, having
dispersed them, held the position under the impression that it was
the “col” or eminence. In this they were mistaken, but at dawn they
realized their error and set out in a friendly mist to seize their true
objective. Its defenders fled as soon as the Greek trumpet sang out
the attack. In the road below Cheirisophos heard the sound and rushed
to the assault of the cliff. His men struggled up as best they might,
hoisting one another by means of their spears. The rearguard, under
Xenophon, followed the bypath. They captured one crest by assault, only
to find themselves confronted by another. Xenophon therefore left a
garrison on the first, and with the rest of his force attacked and
captured the second—only to find a third rising before them, being in
fact the eminence itself. That also was assailed. To the surprise of
the Greeks the enemy made no resistance and made off at once. Soon a
fugitive came to Xenophon with the news that the crest where he had
left a garrison had been stormed, and all its defenders slain—all who
had not escaped by jumping down its rocky sides. It was now evident
why the Kardouchians had left the main eminence; they had seen from
their greater elevation what was happening in Xenophon’s rear. They
now came back to a height facing the eminence and began discussing a
truce, while gradually they were collecting their people. An agreement
was reached, and the Greeks began to descend from their position,
when instantly the Barbarians were on them, yelling and rolling down
boulders after them. However, with little difficulty now, a junction
was effected with Cheirisophos.
In all a week was consumed in traversing the land of the Kardouchians,
and not a day passed without hard fighting. Every narrow way was beset
by the fierce mountaineers, who shot arrows two cubits long from bows
so mighty that the archer had to use one foot to get a purchase on his
weapon. One man was pierced through shield and breastplate and body,
another was shot fairly through the head. In these mountains the Greeks
“suffered more than all they had endured at the hands of the King and
Tissaphernes.” Fighting their way along the Zorawa, they reached at
last the more open ground, where that river falls into the Bohtan Su,
which Xenophon calls the Kentrîtês. Alas, in the morning light they
saw the further bank lined with hostile forces, both foot and horse,
while on the mountains they had just escaped the Kardouchians were
gathered, ready to fall on their rear, if they should attempt the
passage of the Kentrîtês, a deep river full of big slippery stones.
Gloom settled again upon the host. But in a little time, while Xenophon
was still at breakfast, there ran to him two young men with great news.
The pair of them had gone to collect sticks, and, down by the river,
they had noticed on the other side “among rocks that came right down to
the water an old man and a woman putting away in a kind of cave what
looked like a bag of clothes.” So the soldiers put their knives between
their teeth and prepared to swim across. To their surprise they got to
the other side without the need of swimming. Now here they were back
again, having brought the clothes for evidence.
Shortly afterwards they were guiding the division of Cheirisophos to
the ford they had so opportunely discovered, while Xenophon led the
rearguard, whose duty it was to protect the passage of the army from
the assaults of the Kardouchians. These were duly made, but were beaten
off and eluded; and the Kentrîtês was crossed.
The Greeks were now in Armenia. Before them stretched a wide rolling
plateau, sombre, lonely, savagely inclement at that season; and yet
they found it at first like Elysium after their torments up among the
clouds. They crossed two streams, the Bitlis Tchai, by whose deep
trench the caravans still travel, and the Kara Su. It was in the
country of the satrap Tiribazos, who kept following the invaders
with an army. So the march went on. One night they reached the usual
“palace surrounded by villages,” and there, finding plenty to eat and
drink, with joy refreshed their weariness. It was judged imprudent
to billet the men out among the villages, so they bivouacked in the
open. Then the snow came—a soft, persistent snow; and in the morning
nothing seemed desirable except to remain warm and drowsy under that
white blanket. At last Xenophon sprang up, and began to chop wood, so
that the men were shamed and got up too, and took the log from him, and
kindled fires, and anointed themselves with a local unguent. But all
were certain that such another night would be the death of them; so it
was resolved that they should find quarters among the villages. Off
rushed the soldiers with cheers.
But the retreat must proceed. They caught a man who told them that
Tiribazos meant to attack them in a high defile upon their road.
This stroke they anticipated and, crossing the pass, marched day
after day in a wilderness of snow. At one point in their dreadful
journey they waded up to their waists across the icy waters of the
upper Euphrates. The snow got deeper and deeper. Worst of all the
wind—the north wind—blew in their faces. The snow became six feet
deep. Baggage-cattle, slaves, some thirty of the soldiers themselves
disappeared in the drifts. At last by the mercy of the gods the wind
dropped a little, and they found an abundance of wood, which they
burned, and so cleared spaces in the snow, that they might sleep upon
the ground. Then they must bestir themselves and labour on again. Men
began to drop from hunger-faintness. Xenophon got them a mouthful
to eat; whereupon they got on their legs and stumbled forward with
the rest. All the time bands of marauders prowled about the skirts of
the army. If a beast were abandoned, they swooped down upon it, and
shortly you would hear them quarrelling over the carcase. Not only the
beasts were lost, but every now and then a man would fall out because
of frostbite or snow-blindness. Once a whole bunch of soldiers dropped
behind, and, seeing a dark patch where a hot spring had melted the
snow, they sat down there. Xenophon implored them to get up; wolfish
enemies were at their heels. Nothing he could say moved them. Then he
lost his temper. The only result was a tired suggestion from the men
that he should cut their throats. Darkness was falling; nearer and
nearer came the clamour of the pillagers wrangling over their spoils.
Xenophon and his men lay concealed in the bare patch, which sloped
down into a cañon smoking with the steam of the hot spring. When the
miscreants came near, up sprang the soldiers with a shout, while the
outworn men whooped at the pitch of their voices. The startled enemy
“flung themselves down the snow into the cañon, and not one ever
uttered a sound again.”
Not long after, the Greeks came to some villages, one of which was
assigned to Xenophon and his men. It was occupied so rapidly that the
inhabitants had not time to escape. An extraordinary village it was,
for the houses were all underground. You entered the earth-house at
a hole “like the mouth of a well,” and, descending a ladder, found
yourself in a fine roomy chamber, shared impartially by “goats and
sheep and cows and poultry” as well as people. There was store of
provender for the animals, and wheat and barley and greens for folk.
There was also “barley-wine,” which you sucked through a reed, and
which was “a very delightful beverage to one who had learned to like
it.” Xenophon naturally lived with the headman of the village, whom he
graciously invited to dinner at the expense of the house. He managed
to reassure the headman, who was troubled about many things, including
the capture of his daughter, who had just been married. So the wine was
produced, and they made a night of it. Next morning, awakening among
the cocks and the hens and the other creatures, Xenophon went to call
on Cheirisophos, taking the headman with him. On the way they looked in
at all the houses and in each they found high revelry. They were forced
to come down the ladder and have breakfast. Xenophon has forgotten
how many breakfasts he had that morning, but he remembers lamb, kid,
pork, veal and poultry, not to mention varieties of bread. If anybody
proposed to drink somebody’s health, he was haled to the bowl and made
to shove in his head and “make a noise like an ox drinking.” To the
headman the soldiers offered “anything he would like.” (When you think
of it, they could scarcely do less.) The poor man chose any of his
relations whom he noticed. At the headquarters of Cheirisophos there
were similar scenes. The soldiers in their Greek way had wreathed their
heads for the feast, making wisps of hay serve the purpose of flowers,
and had formed the Armenian boys “in their strange clothes” into
picturesque waiters. Xenophon took seventeen magnificent young horses
which his village had been rearing for the King, and divided them among
his officers, keeping the best for himself. In return he presented the
headman with an oldish steed of his own, which he rather thought was
going to die.
After a jolly week the weary retreat began again. The headman told the
Greeks to tie bags upon the feet of their horses to keep them from
falling through the frozen surface of the snow. He went as guide with
Cheirisophos in the van. As they marched on and on, never coming to a
human habitation, the general flew into a rage and struck the guide.
Next morning they found that the man had disappeared in the night. This
turned out to be the worst thing that had befallen them yet. After a
week of padding the hoof over a white desert with no relief for the
eyes but their own red rags, they came to a river. It was the Araxes,
and if they had taken the right turn here, a few days more would have
brought them to Trebizond. Unfortunately, misled perhaps by the sound
of the native name, they got it into their heads that the river was the
Phasis, about which everybody knew that it flowed through the land of
the Colchians into the Black Sea. Therefore they went _down_ the Araxes.
Fighting began at the very outset. Moreover provisions soon failed
them. They were now in the wild country of the “Taochians,” who lived
in strong places, where they had stored all their supplies. The army
must capture one of these strongholds or starve. The first they
came to was typical. It was simply an enclosed space on the top of
a precipice. A winding stream served as a moat. There was only one
narrow way of approach to the stockade, and this path was commanded
by an insuperable cliff. Within the stockade huddled a throng of men
and women and animals. On the top of the cliff were Taochian warriors,
who flung stones and precipitated rocks on any Greek who ventured to
set foot on the path. Several who ventured had their legs broken or
their ribs crushed. Some shelter was afforded by a wood of tall pines,
through which about seventy soldiers filtered, until no more than
fifty or so feet of open ground lay between them and the stockade. An
officer called Kallimachos began to amuse the army by popping out and
into the wood, thus drawing the fire of the stoners, who let fly at
him with “more than ten cart-loads of rock.” Then, in a lull of the
stones, two or three made a sudden dash across the exposed ground and
into the stockade. The rest followed at their heels. Then occurred a
very horrible thing. The women flung their babies down the precipice
and jumped after them. A sort of heroic madness swept the helpless
defenders. Aeneas of Stymphalos gripped a man who had a splendid dress
on; the man flung his arms about Aeneas and took him with him over the
cliff. Hardly any were saved.
Now the ten thousand entered the country of the Chalybians, the bravest
race they met on all their march; whose strongholds the Greeks did not
take. The Chalybians, who wore an immense tasselled breastplate of
linen, and carried a prodigious long spear and a short sword, used to
cut off the heads of their enemies and go into battle, swinging the
heads, and singing and dancing. Having escaped from such savages, the
army crossed a river and marched many parasangs, turning west by a
route that led them perhaps by way of the modern towns of Alexandropol
and Kars to a populous city by Xenophon named Gymnias, which must have
been near Erzerum. Here they found a guide, who promised to set them on
the true road home. Him they followed for four days. On the fifth day
Xenophon, who as usual was in command of the rearguard, heard a great
and distant shouting. At once he and his men concluded that the van
had been attacked, for the whole country was up in arms. Every moment
the far-off clamour increased. As they stared at the mountain-side,
which the van had just ascended, they noticed that, whenever a company
had got a certain distance, the men suddenly took to their heels and
tore up the mountain for their lives. It was clear that something
extraordinary was happening. Xenophon sprang on his horse and, followed
by the cavalry, galloped to the rescue. But now in a little they could
hear what they were crying on the mountain; it was _The Sea! The Sea!_
Then the rearguard also ran, and the baggage-animals and the horses
too! And on the top they fell to embracing one another, officers and
men indiscriminately, and the tears ran down their faces. Then they
raised a great cairn of stones on that hill-top, overlooking “the col
of Vavoug,” where the road still passes.
IV
ELEUTHERIA
What was the special gift of Greece to the world? The answer of the
Greeks themselves is unexpected, yet it is as clear as a trumpet:
_Eleutheria_, Freedom. The breath of Eleutheria fills the sail of
Aeschylus’ great verse, it blows through the pages of Herodotus,
awakens fierce regrets in Demosthenes and generous memories in
Plutarch. “Art, philosophy, science,” the Greeks say, “yes, we have
given all these; but our best gift, from which all the others were
derived, was Eleutheria.”
Now what did they mean by that?
They meant _the Reign of Law_. Aeschylus says of them in _The Persians_:
ATOSSA. _Who is their shepherd over them and lord of their host?_
CHORUS. _Of no man are they called the slaves or subjects._
Now hear Herodotus amplifying and explaining Aeschylus. _For though
they are free, yet are they not free in all things. For they have a
lord over them, even Law, whom they fear far more than thy people fear
thee. At least they do what that lord biddeth them, and what he biddeth
is still the same, to wit that they flee not before the face of any
multitude in battle, but keep their order and either conquer or die._
It is Demaratos that speaks of the Spartans to King Xerxes.
Eleutheria the Reign of Law or _Nomos_. The word _Nomos_ begins with
the meaning “custom” or “convention,” and ends by signifying that which
embodies as far as possible the universal and eternal principles of
justice. To write the history of it is to write the history of Greek
civilization. The best we can do is to listen to the Greeks themselves
explaining what they were fighting for in fighting for Eleutheria. They
will not put us off with abstractions.
No one who has read _The Persians_ forgets the live and leaping voice
that suddenly cries out before the meeting of the ships at Salamis:
_Onward, Sons of the Hellenes! Free your country, free your children,
your wives, your fathers’ tombs and seats of your fathers’ gods! All
hangs now on your fighting!_ This, then, when it came to action, is
what the Greeks meant by the Reign of Law. It will not seem so puzzling
if you put it in this way: that what they fought for was the right to
govern themselves. Here as elsewhere we may observe how the struggle of
Greek and Barbarian fills with palpitating life such words as Freedom,
which to dull men have been apt to seem abstract and to sheltered
people faded. For the Barbarians had not truly laws at all. How are
laws possible where “all are slaves save one,” and be responsible to
nobody? So the fight for Freedom becomes a fight for Law, that no man
may become another’s master, but all be subject equally to the Law,
“whose service is perfect freedom.”
That conception was wrought out in the stress of conflict with the
Barbarians, culminating in the Persian danger. On that point it is
well to prepare our minds by an admission. The quarrel was never a
simple one of right and wrong. Persia at least was in some respects
in advance of the Greece she fought at Salamis; and not only in
material splendour. That is now clear to every historian; it never was
otherwise to the Greeks themselves. Possessing or possessed by the
kind of imagination which compels a man to understand his enemy, they
saw much to admire in the Persians—their hardihood, their chivalry,
their munificence, their talent for government. The Greeks heard with
enthusiasm (which was part at least literary) the scheme of education
for young nobles—“to ride a horse, to shoot with the bow, and to speak
the truth!” In fact the two peoples, although they never realized it,
were neither in race nor in speech very remote from one another. But
it was the destiny of the Persians to succeed to an empire essentially
Asiatic and so to become the leaders and champions of a culture alien
to Greece and to us. In such a cause their very virtues made them the
more dangerous. Here was no possible compromise. Persia and Greece
stood for something more than two political systems; the European mind,
the European way of thinking and feeling about things, the soul of
Europe was at stake. There is no help for it; in such a quarrel we must
take sides.