ays'
further march brought them to Cunaxa, about seventy miles from Babylon,
where the army of Artaxerxes was marshaled to meet them. It was an immense
force of more than a million of men, besides six thousand horse-guards and
two hundred chariots. But so confident was Cyrus of the vast superiority
of the Greeks and their warfare, that he did not hesitate to engage the
overwhelming forces of his brother with only ten thousand Greeks and one
hundred thousand Asiatics. The battle of Cunaxa was fatal to Cyrus; he was
slain and his camp was pillaged. The expedition had failed.

(M584) Dismay now seized the Greeks, as well it might--a handful of men in
the midst of innumerable enemies, and in the very centre of the Persian
empire. But such men are not driven to despair. They refused to surrender,
and make up their minds to retreat--to find their way back again to Greece,
since all aggressive measures was madness.

This retreat, amid so many difficulties, and against such powerful and
numerous enemies, is one of the most gallant actions in the history of
war, and has made those ten thousand men immortal.

(M585) Ariaeus, who commanded the Asiatic forces on the left wing of the
army at the battle of Cunaxa, joined the Greeks with what force remained,
in retreat, and promised to guide them to the Asiatic coast, not by the
route which Cyrus had taken, for this was now impracticable, but by a
longer one, up the course of the Tigris, through Armenia, to the Euxine
Sea. The Greeks had marched ninety days from Sardis, about fourteen
hundred and sixty-four English miles, and rested ninety-six days in
various places. Six months had been spent on the expedition, and it would
take more than that time to return, considering the new difficulties which
it was necessary to surmount. The condition of the Greeks, to all
appearance, was hopeless. How were they to ford rivers and cross
mountains, with a hostile cavalry in their rear, without supplies, without
a knowledge of roads, without trustworthy guides, through hostile
territories?

(M586) The Persians still continued their negotiations, regarding the
advance or retreat of the Greeks alike impossible, and curious to learn
what motives had brought them so far from home. They replied that they had
been deceived, that they had no hostility to the Persian king, that they
had been ashamed to desert Cyrus in the midst of danger, and that they now
desired only to return home peaceably, but wer