ng with him the most active of his men, and hastening to the
village which Xenophon had been allotted, surprized all the villagers
and their head man in their houses, together with seventeen colts that
were bred as a tribute for the king, and the head man's daughter, who
had been but nine days married; her husband was gone out to hunt
hares, and was not found in any of the villages. Their houses were
under ground, the entrance like the mouth of a well, but spacious
below; there were passages dug into them for the cattle, but the
people descended by ladders. In the houses were goats, sheep, cows,
and fowls, with their young; all the cattle were kept on fodder within
the walls.[51] There were also wheat, barley, leguminous vegetables,
and barley-wine, in large bowls; the grains of barley floated in it
even with the brims of the vessels, and reeds also lay in it, some
larger and some smaller, without joints; and these, when any one was
thirsty, he was to take in his mouth and suck. The liquor is very
strong, unless one mixed water with it, and a very pleasant drink to
those accustomed to it.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: From the "Anabasis." Translated by J. S. Watson. The
"Anabasis" has made Xenophon perhaps the most prominent figure of
ancient classical literature, largely because every schoolboy who
studies Greek knows at least this book. It stands in that sense to
Greek literature as Caesar's "Commentaries" stands to Latin. The book
has further value, not only as authentic history, but for the curious
details it gives of the manners and customs of savage tribes living
along the shores of the Euxine, and of those which prevailed at the
Persian court and elsewhere in the Persian state.]

[Footnote 50: A Spartan general who, at the instance of Xenophon, had
been appointed to lead the van of the retreating Greek army.]

[Footnote 51: W. T. Ainsworth, who has made a geographical commentary
on Xenophon's "Anabasis," says: "This description of a village on the
Armenian uplands applies itself to many that I visited." Houses on
exposed elevations he found to be still semisubterranean. Whatever
might be the kind of cottage used, domestic animals "participated with
the family in the warmth and protection thereof."]

III

THE BATTLE OF LEUCTRA[52]

(371 B.C.)

For the battle everything was adverse on the side of the
Lacedaemonians, while to the enemy everything was rendered favorable by
fortune. It was after dinner