Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/90

 68 HISTORY OF GREEC3. as soldiers, were animated only by the wish of reaching home They trusted, though not without misgh ings, in the promise of Tissaphernes to conduct them ; and never for a moment thought of taking permanent post in this fertile island. They did not, however, neglect the precaution of sending a guard during tho night tc the bridge over the Tigris, which no enemy came to assail. On the next morning they passed over it in a body, in cautious and mistrustful array, and found themselves on the eastern bank of the Tigris, not only without attack, but even without sight of a single Persian, except Glus, the interpreter, and a few others watching their motions. After having crossed by a bridge laid upon thirty-seven pon- toons, the Greeks continued their march to the northward upon the eastern side of the Tigris, for four days, to the river Physkus ; said to be twenty parasangs. 1 The Physkus was one hundred feet wide, with a bridge, and the large city of Opis near it. Here, at the frontier of Assyria and Media, the road from the eastern regions to Babylon joined the road northerly on which the Greeks were marching. An illegitimate brother of Artaxerxes was seen at the head of a numerous force, which he was conducting from Susa and Ekbatana as a reinforcew ent to the royal army. This great host halted to see the Gre ks pass by; and Klearchus ordered the march in column of two abreast, employing hir'.self actively to maintain an excellent array, and halting more- thai once. The army thus occupied so long a time in passirp- by the Persian host, that their numbers appeared greater than the reality, even to themselves ; while the effect upon the Persian spectators was very imposing. 2 Here Assyria ended and Media began. They marched, still in a northerly direction, for six days through a portion of Media almost unpeopled, until they came to some flourishing villages which formed a portion of the domain of queen Parysatis ; probably these villages, forming so marked an exception to the desert character of the remaining march, were There seems reason to believe that in ancient times the Tigris, above Bagdad, followed a course more to the westward, and less winding, than it does now. The situation of Opis cannot be verified. The ruins of a large city were seen by Captain Lynch near the confluence of the river Adhem with the Tigris, which he supposed to be Opis, in lat. C4.
 * Xen. Anab. i, 4, 26.