Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/112

 90 HISTORY OF GREECE. accord mutilated the dead bodies, in order to strika terror into the enemy. 1 At the end of the day's march they reached the Tigris, near the deserted city of Larissa, the vast, massive, and lofty brick walls of which (twenty-five feet in thickness, one hundred feet high, seven miles in circumference) attested its former grandeur. Near this place was a stone pyramid, one hundred feet in breadth, and two hundred feet high ; the summit of which was crowded with fugitives cut of the neighboring villages. Another day's march up the course of the Tigris brought the army to a second deserted city called Mespila, nearly opposite to the modern city of Mosul. Although these two cities, which seem to have formed the continuation or the substitute of the once colossal Nineveh or Ni- nus, were completely deserted, yet the country around them was so well furnished with villages and population, that the Greeks not only obtained provisions, but also strings for the making of new bows, and lead for bullets to be used for the slingers. 2 During the next day's march, in a course generally parallel with the Tigris, and ascending the stream, Tissaphernes, coming up along with some other grandees, and with a numerous army, enveloped the Greeks both in flanks and rear. In spite of his advantage of numbers, he did not venture upon any actual charge, but kept up a fire of arrows, darts, and stones. He was, however, so well answered by the newly-trained archers and slingers of the Greeks, that on the whole they had the advantage, in spite of the superior size of the Persian bows, many of which were taken and effectively employed on the Grecian side. Having passed the night in a well-stocked village, they halted there the next day in order to stock themselves with provisions, and then pursued their march for four successive days along a level country, until, on the fifth day, they reached hilly ground with the prospect of still higher hills beyond. All this march was made under unremit- ting annoyance from the enemy, insomuch that though the order of the Greeks was never broken, a considerable number of their 1 Xen. Anab. iii, 4, 1-5. that the recent investigations of Mr. Layard have brought to light so many curious and valuable Assyrian remains. The legend which Xenophon heard on the spot, respecting the way in hich these cities were captured and ruined, is of a truly Oriental character.
 * Xen. Anab. iii, 4, 17, 18. It is here, on the site of the ancient Nineveh,