Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/172

162 himself proudly, that he fixes the gaze of all, both young and old, and no one tires of contemplating him, so long as he continues to display his magnificent attitudes."

The 'Hipparchicus,' or 'Cavalry Officer's Manual,' is a treatise on the duties of the Commandant of the Knights, and is addressed in a friendly tone to the person holding that office at Athens. The regulation number of the Knights was one thousand, but Xenophon intimates that the corps had fallen below that number, and he even suggests that foreign troopers should be enlisted to fill up the ranks. This shows how weak was the cavalry arm of the Athenian republic, and on how small a scale all its operations must be conceived. Xenophon, in treating of these, does not seem to have had any clear idea of the functions of cavalry, as distinguished from infantry, in war. No military rules referring to this subject are given. In one place, indeed, he advises that when the enemy are on a march, and any weaker force gets detached from the main body, a dash should be made at it by the cavalry; and in this he says that the tactics of beasts and birds of prey in attacking whatever is left unguarded should be imitated. Elsewhere he says that cavalry should be supported by infantry, and that the cavalry may be made to conceal infantry among and behind them. But it would have been more interesting if Xenophon had given us precisely the military ideas of the day as to how each force was to act. Perhaps such ideas were little developed; and Xenophon, both in this work and in his 'Anabasis,' shows that to his