Having arms in their hands, with consciousness of force arising out of
their exploits in Asia, the Cyreians were at the same time inflamed by
the opportunity both of avenging a gross recent injury, and enriching
themselves in the process of execution; to which we may add, the
excitement of that rush whereby they had obtained re-entry, and the
farther fact that, without the gates they had nothing to expect except
poor, hard, uninviting service in Thrace. With soldiers already
possessed by an overpowering impulse of this nature, what chance was
there that a retiring general, on the point of quitting the army, could
so work upon their minds as to induce them to renounce the prey before
them? Xenophon had nothing to invoke except distant considerations,
partly of Hellenic reputation, chiefly of prudence; considerations
indeed of unquestionable reality and prodigious magnitude, yet belonging
all to a distant future, and therefore of little comparative force,
except when set forth in magnified characters by the orator. How
powerfully he worked upon the minds of his hearers, so as to draw forth
these far-removed dangers from the cloud of present sentiment by which
they were overlaid--how skilfully he employed in illustration the
example of his own native city--will be seen by all who study his
speech. Never did his Athenian accomplishments--his talent for giving
words to important thoughts--his promptitude in seizing a present
situation and managing the sentiments of an impetuous multitude--appear
to greater advantage than when he was thus suddenly called forth to meet
a terrible emergency. His pre-established reputation and the habit of
obeying his orders, were doubtless essential conditions of success. But
none of his colleagues in command would have been able to accomplish the
like memorable change on the minds of the soldiers, or to procure
obedience for any simple authoritative restraint; nay, it is probable,
that if Xenophon had not been at hand, the other generals would have
followed the passionate movement, even though they had been
reluctant--from simple inability to repress it. Again--whatever might
have been the accomplishments of Xenophon, it is certain that even _he_
would not have been able to work upon the minds of these excited
soldiers, had they not been Greeks and citizens as well as
soldiers,--bred in Hellenic sympathies and accustomed to Hellenic order,
with authority operating in part through voice and pers