st deadly
fraud and injury towards them. If Ariaeus entertained such an
expectation, he was at once undeceived by the language of Kleanor and
Xenophon, which breathed nothing but indignant reproach; so that he soon
retired and left the Greeks to their own reflections.

While their camp yet remained unmolested, every man within it was a prey
to the most agonizing apprehensions. Ruin appeared impending and
inevitable, though no one could tell in what precise form it would come.
The Greeks were in the midst of a hostile country, nearly 1200 miles
from home, surrounded by enemies, blocked up by impassable mountains and
rivers, without guides, without provisions, without cavalry to aid their
retreat, without generals to give orders. A stupor of sorrow and
conscious helplessness seized upon all. Few came to the evening muster;
few lighted fires to cook their suppers; every man lay down to rest
where he was; yet no man could sleep, for fear, anguish, and yearning
after relatives whom he was never again to behold.

Amidst the many causes of despondency which weighed down this forlorn
army, there was none more serious than the fact, that not a single man
among them had now either authority to command, or obligation to take
the initiative. Nor was any ambitious candidate likely to volunteer his
pretensions, at a moment when the post promised nothing but the maximum
of difficulty as well as of hazard. A new, self-kindled light--and
self-originated stimulus--was required, to vivify the embers of
suspended hope and action, in a mass paralyzed for the moment, but every
way capable of effort. And the inspiration now fell, happily for the
army, upon one in whom a full measure of soldierly strength and courage
was combined with the education of an Athenian, a democrat, and a
philosopher.[34]

Sec. 5. Xenophon's Dream and its Results.

It is in true Homeric vein, and in something like Homeric language, that
Xenophon (to whom we owe the whole narrative of the expedition)
describes his dream, or the intervention of Oneirus,[35] sent by
Zeus,[36] from which this renovating impulse took its rise. Lying
mournful and restless like his comrades, he caught a short repose; when
he dreamt that he heard thunder, and saw the burning thunderbolt fall
upon his paternal house, which became forthwith encircled by flames.
Awaking, full of terror, he instantly sprang up; upon which the dream
began to fit on and blend itself with his waking thoughts,