Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/34

 12 HISTORY OF GREECE. campaign in Pisidia ; which might perhaps be hard, but would certainly be lucrative, and would enable them to return with a well-furnished purse. So the Greek commanders at Sardis all confidsntly assured them ; extolling, with the emphasis and elo- quence suitable to recruiting officers, both the liberality of Cyrus 1 and the abundant promise of all men of enterprise. Among others, the Boeotian Proxenus wrote to his friend Xen- ophon, at Athens, pressing him strongly to come to Sardis, and offering to present him to Cyrus, whom he, (Proxenus,) considered as a better friend to him than his own country ; 2 " a striking evi- dence of the manner in which such foreign mercenary service overlaid Grecian patriotism, which we shall recognize more and more as we advance forward. This able and accomplished Athe- nian, entitled to respectful gratitude, not indeed from Athena his country, but from the Cyreian army and the intellectual world generally, was one of the class of Knights or Horsemen, and is said to have served in that capacity at the battle of Delium. 3 Of his previous life we know little or nothing, except that he was an attached friend and diligent hearer of Sokrates ; the memorials of whose conversation we chiefly derive from his pen, as we also derive the narrative of the Cyreian march. In my last preceding chapter on Sokrates, I have made ample use of the Memorabilia of Xenophon ; and I am now about to draw from his Anabasis (a model of perspicuous and interesting narrative) the account of the adventures of the Cyreian army, which we are fortunate in know- ing from so authentic a source. 1 Compare similar praises of Ptolemy Philadelphia, in order to attract Greek mercenaries from Sicily to Egypt (Theokrit. xiv, 50-59). 2 Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 4. 'TCmaxvetTo de avrti (Proxemis to Xenophon) el t, tytXov Kvpu noifjoeiv bv aiirbg tyi? KpeiT-utavTL) vofu&iv Ttjf irarpi' 3 Strabo, ix, p. 403. The story that Sokrates carried off Xenophon, wounded and thrown from his horse, on his shoulders, and thus saved his life, seems too doubtful to enter into the narrative. Among the proofs that Xenophon was among the Horsemen or 'Iinre7f of Athens, we may remark, not only his own strong interest, and great skill in horsemanship, in the cavalry service and the duties of its commander, and in all that relates to horses, as manifested in his published works, but also the fact, that his son Gryllus served aftenvards among the Athenian horsemen at the combat of cavalry ^rhich preceded the great battle of Man tineia (Diogen. Lae'rt ii, 14).