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Rh reality, meant that Tissaphernes had such an admiration for the Greeks that he could not quite relinquish the idea of making himself king by their assistance. It was in allusion to the offer which had been refused by Ariæus; and the delicate compliment seems to have worked so powerfully with Clearchus as to have entirely thrown him off his guard. In spite of all remonstrances of cautious persons, he accepted an invitation to go to a still more confidential interview with Tissaphernes within the Persian lines, and he persuaded four generals, including Proxenus and Meno, and twenty captains, of the Greeks, to accompany him.

No sooner had they arrived at the tent of Tissaphernes than all the captains and the small guard of honour that accompanied them were cut down, and the generals were seized and bound and sent up to the King. Four of them were immediately put to death by beheading. Meno alone had his life granted to him, probably on account of certain traitorous communications which he had previously held with Tissaphernes. Xenophon, after relating these events, sketches in a masterly way the characters of the different generals, and stigmatises Meno as a bad and false man. He records, with apparent satisfaction, that Meno was ultimately put to death with lingering tortures. This nemesis was due to the still powerful influence of the queen-mother, Parysatis, who appears to have played the part of a vindictive Juno towards all who had been hostile or unfaithful to her favourite Cyrus and his Greeks.

In the mean time, one of the guard of honour having