Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/87

 SITTAKE. 5 elusion that the message was a stratagem on the part of Tissa phemes to frighten them and accelerate their passage across the Tigris ; under the apprehension that they might conceive the plan of seizing or breaking the bridge and occupying a permanent posi- tion in the spot where they were ; which was an island, fortified on one side by the Tigris, on the other sides, by intersecting canals between the Euphrates and the Tigris. 1 Such an island was 1 I reserve for this place the consideration of that which Xenophon states, in two or three passages, about the Wall of Media and about different ca- nals in connection with the Tigris, the result of which, as far as I can make it out, stands in my text. I have already stated, in the preceding chapter, that in the march of the day next but one preceding the battle of Kunaxa, the army came to a deep and broad trench dug for defence across their line of way, with the excep- tion of a narrow gut of twenty feet broad close by the Euphrates ; through which gut the whole army passed. Xenophon says, " This trench had been carried upwards across the plain as far as the Wall of Media, where indeed, the canals are situated, flowing from the river Tigris ; four canals, one hun- dred feet in breadth, and extremely deep, so that corn-bearing vessels sail along them. They strike into the Euphrates, they are distant each from the other by one parasang, and there are bridges over them JlapereTaTo 6' i) Ttuppof avo 6iu TOV Ttediov irl dudsKa irapdaayyaf, fiexP 1 T v "Mqdias rei- %ovf, Iv&a 6% (the books print a full stop between rd^ovq and evtia, which appears to me incorrect, as the sense goes on without interruption) daiv al 6iupv%<;, aub TOV Ti-yprjTog Trorafiov fteovaaf eld 6s rerrapef, rd ftev evpof Tr/leiSpiatai, /3a$elai 6e t<7t>p<3f, nal irXoia 7rAei kv avralf airayuya elapdhXovai 6s elf rbv 'Ev(j>puTj]v, diaheiitovci <5' eKuaTr) irapaau-yyqv, yi$v- pai (5' eTTEiaiv. The present tense elaiv al 6iupv%s seems to mark the local reference of ev&a to the Wall of Media, and not to the actual march of the army. Major Kennell (Illustrations of the Expedition of Cyrus, pp. 79-87, etc.), Hitter, (Erdkunde, x, p. 16), Koch, (Zug der Zehn Tausend, pp.46, 47), and Mr. Ainsworth (Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand, p. 88) consider Xenophon to state that the Cyreian army on this day's march (the day but one before the battle) passed through the Wall of Media and over the four distinct canals reaching from the Tigris to the Euphrates. They all, indeed, contest the accuracy of this latter statement ; Rennell remarking that the level OL the Tigris, in this part of its course, is lower than that of the Eu- phrates ; and that it could not supply water for so many broad canals so near to each other. Col. Chesney also conceives the army to have passed through the Wall of Media before the battle of Kunaxa. It seems to me, however, that they do not correctly interpret the words of Xenophon, who does not say thf.t Cyras ever passed either the Wall of Media, or these four canals before the battle of Kunaxa, but who says (as VOL. IX. 50C.