Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/44

 22 HJ STORY OF GREECE At first, however, if, appeared as if the march of Cyrus was destined to finish at Tarsus, where he was obliged to remain twenty days. The army had already passed by Pisidia, the ostensible purpose of the expedition, for which the Grecian troops had been engaged; not one of them, either officer or soldier, suspecting anything to the contrary, except Klearchus, who was in the secret. But all now saw that they had been imposed upon, and found out that they were to be conducted against the Persian king. Besides the resentment at such delusion, they shrunk from the risk altogether ; not from any fear of Persian armies, but from the terrors of a march of three months inward from the coast, and the impossibility of return, which had so powerfully affected the Spartan King Kleomenes, 1 a century be- fore ; most of them being (as I have before remarked) men of decent position and family in their respective cities. According- ly they proclaimed their determination to advance no farther, as they had not been er gaged to fight against the Great King. 2 Among the Grecian officers, each (Klearchus, Proxenus, Me- non, Xenias, etc.) commanded his own separate division, without any generalissimo except Cyrus himself. Each of them probably sympathized more or less in the resentment as well as in the repugnance of the soldiers. But Klearchus, an exile and a mer- cenary by profession, was doubtless prepared for this mutiny, and had assured Cyrus that it might be overcome. That such a man as Klearchus could be tolerated as a commander of free and non-professional soldiers, is a proof of the great susceptibility of the Greek hoplites for military discipline. For though he had great military merits, being brave, resolute, and full of resource in the hour of danger, provident for the subsistence of his soldiers, and unshrinking against fatigue and hardship, yet his look and manner were harsh, his punishments were perpetual as well as cruel, and he neither tried nor cared to conciliate his soldiers; who accordingly stayed with him, and were remarkable for ex- actness of discipline, so long as political orders required them, Macedon : " Crcscente in dies Philippi odio in Re manos, cui Perseus indul- geret, Demetrius suramS. ope adversaretur, prospicientes animo exitura incau/ i a frande fraternS. juvenis adjuvandum, quodfu'urum erat, rati,foven- damque spem jwtentioris, Persco se adjunc/unt" etc. (Livy xl, 5). 1 Sec Herodot. v. 49. * Xen. Anab. i, 3, I.