itory with numerous cultivators, so as to
furnish shelter and means of hostility for all the King's enemies:
Tissaphernes calculated that the message now delivered would induce the
Greeks to become alarmed with their actual position, and to cross the
Tigris with as little delay as possible. At least this was the
interpretation which the Greek officers put upon his proceeding; an
interpretation highly plausible, since, in order to reach the bridge
over the Tigris, he had been obliged to conduct the Greek troops into a
position sufficiently tempting for them to hold--and since he knew that
his own purposes were purely treacherous. But the Greeks, officers as
well as soldiers, were animated only by the wish of reaching home. They
trusted, though not without misgivings, in the promise of Tissaphernes
to conduct them; and never for a moment thought of taking permanent post
in this fertile island. They did not however neglect the precaution of
sending a guard during the night to the bridge over the Tigris, which no
enemy came to assail. On the next morning they passed over it in a body,
in cautious and mistrustful array, and found themselves on the eastern
bank of the Tigris,--not only without attack, but even without sight of
a single Persian, except Glus the interpreter and a few others watching
their motions.

After having crossed by a bridge laid upon thirty-seven pontoons,[26]
the Greeks continued their march to the northward upon the eastern side
of the Tigris, for four days to the river Physkus; said to be seventy
miles. The Physkus was 100 feet wide, with a bridge, and the large city
of Opis near it. Here, at the frontier of Assyria and Media, the road
from the eastern regions to Babylon joined the road northerly on which
the Greeks were marching. An illegitimate brother of Artaxerxes was seen
at the head of a numerous force, which he was conducting from Susa and
Ekbatana as a reinforcement to the royal army. This great host halted to
see the Greeks pass by; and Klearchus ordered the march in column of two
abreast, employing himself actively to maintain an excellent array, and
halting more than once. The army thus occupied so long a time in passing
by the Persian host that their numbers appeared greater than the
reality, even to themselves; while the effect upon the Persian
spectators was very imposing. Here Assyria ended and Media began. They
marched, still in a northerly direction, for six days through a portion
of