Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/235

Rh the whole enterprise came to nothing. The romantic story of the retreat of the Greeks to the shores of the Euxine has been immortalised by Xenophon. They reached the sea at Trapezus, and thence made their way, some by land and some by sea, to Byzantium, and on to the Thracian Chersonese.

But they found that the effects of the expedition of Cyrus were not over with their escape. The king had been warned of the intentions of Cyrus by Tissaphernes, and rewarded him with the satrapies once held by that prince. Tissaphernes came down with the determination to reduce the Greek cities to obedience. They in their terror had begged help from Sparta, and Thimbron had been despatched with five thousand men to their aid. He was joined by the greater part of the Greeks, who had survived the expedition of Cyrus, and having made some progress in his opposition to Tissaphernes, then marched south to Ephesus. There he was superseded by Dercylidas (B.C. 399), who in that and the following year gained further successes in Aeolis, Bithynia, and the Thracian Chersonese. In B.C. 397 he returned to Caria, but there arranged an armistice with the Persian satraps. These operations were continued on a larger scale in B.C. 396 to B.C. 394 by the Spartan king, Agesilaus, who succeeded to the throne in B.C. 398. He overran Lydia and Phrygia, and in B.C. 395, inflicted so severe a defeat upon the Persian cavalry in Lydia that Tissaphernes was recalled and Tithraustes sent to take over his satrapy. But this was the end of the effective service of Agesilaus. Tithraustes outwitted him in diplomacy, and having induced him to sign an