nce there lay in their way a ravine
difficult to pass. They found the ravine undefended (according to the
usual stupidity of Persian proceedings), but when they had got nearly a
mile beyond it, Mithridates reappeared in pursuit with a body of 4000
horsemen and darters. Confident from his achievement of the preceding
day, he had promised, with a body of that force, to deliver the Greeks
into the hands of the satrap. But the latter were now better prepared.
As soon as he began to attack them, the trumpet sounded,--and forthwith
the horsemen, slingers, and darters, issued forth to charge the
Persians, sustained by the heavy-armed foot-soldiers in the rear. So
effective was the charge, that the Persians fled in dismay,
notwithstanding their superiority in number; while the ravine so impeded
their flight that many of them were slain, and eighteen prisoners made.
The Greek soldiers of their own accord mutilated the dead bodies, in
order to strike terror into the enemy. At the end of the day's march,
they reached the Tigris, near the deserted city of Larissa, the vast,
massive, and lofty brick walls of which (25 feet in thickness, 100 feet
high, seven miles in circumference) attested its former grandeur. Near
this place was a stone pyramid, 100 feet in breadth, and 200 feet high;
the summit of which was crowded with fugitives out of the neighboring
villages. Another day's march up the course of the Tigris brought the
army to a second deserted city called Mespila, nearly opposite to the
modern city of Mosul. Although these two cities, which seem to have
formed the continuation of (or the substitute for) the once colossal
Nineveh[54] or Ninus, were completely deserted,--yet the country around
them was so well furnished with villages and population, that the Greeks
not only obtained provisions, but also strings for the making of new
bows, and lead for bullets to be used by the slingers.

During the next day's march, in a course generally parallel with the
Tigris, and ascending the stream, Tissaphernes, coming up along with
some other grandees, and with a numerous army, enveloped the Greeks both
in flanks and rear. In spite of his advantage of numbers, he did not
venture upon any actual charge, but kept up a fire of arrows, darts, and
stones. He was however so well answered by the newly-trained archers and
slingers of the Greeks, that on the whole they had the advantage, in
spite of the superior size of the Persian bows, many of wh