Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/80

70 accordingly sailed away. The army shortly afterwards started by land, and after a six days' march, having done a good stroke of looting on the way, they arrived at Chrysopolis, which answers to the modern Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople, well known as the seat of our hospitals during the Crimean war.

The Cyreian soldiers were now on the threshold of their fatherland, but actual return seemed still as hard for them as it had been for the much-wandering Ulysses. The concluding pages of Xenophon's narrative represent them as bandied about by Persian satraps, Lacedæmonian officials, and Thracian chiefs, all equally unscrupulous in conduct. The interest of such details consists in the picture of the times which they give us. We see the total want of "solidarity" among the Greek states. Sparta, indeed, appears as all-powerful, but quite devoid of kindred feeling towards Greeks as Greeks. No welcome as to countrymen is extended to the Greek force who, with such unparalleled bravery and skill, had just cut their way out of the depths of the Persian empire. They are regarded with cold selfishness or suspicion as tools to be used, or an infliction to be dreaded. We see, then, that principle of self-seeking isolation at work in Greece which made her the prey of Macedonia, and afterwards of Rome. And those acquainted with India will be aware that it is the same principle which has split up a vast homogeneous population, and has given over to the rule of England an empire extending from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin.

While the Greeks were at Chrysopolis, Cleander