ds for pathos everything in
Grecian literature, always excepting the Greek drama, and comes
nearest of anything, throughout Pagan literature, to the impassioned
simplicity of Scripture, in its tale of Joseph and his brethren. The
other historical work of Xenophon is the _Anabasis_. The meaning of
the title is _the going-up_ or _ascent_--viz. of Cyrus the younger.
This prince was the younger brother of the reigning king Artaxerxes,
nearly two centuries from Cyrus the Great; and, from opportunity
rather than a better title, and because his mother and his vast
provincial government furnished him with royal treasures able to hire
an army, most of all, because he was richly endowed by nature with
personal gifts--took it into his head that he would dethrone his
brother; and the more so, because he was only his half-brother. His
chance was a good one: he had a Grecian army, and one from the very
_elite_ of Greece; whilst the Persian king had but a small corps of
Grecian auxiliaries, long enfeebled by Persian effeminacy and Persian
intermarriages. Xenophon was personally present in this expedition.
And the catastrophe was most singular, such as does not occur once in
a thousand years. The cavalry of the great King retreated before the
Greeks continually, no doubt from policy and secret orders; so that,
when a pitched battle became inevitable, the foreign invaders found
themselves in the very heart of the land, and close upon the
Euphrates. The battle was fought: the foreigners were victorious: they
were actually singing _Te Deum_ or _Io Paean_ for their victory, when
it was discovered that their leader, the native prince in whose behalf
they had conquered, was missing; and soon after, that he was dead.
What was to be done? The man who should have improved their victory,
and placed them at his own right hand when on the throne of Persia,
was no more; key they had none to unlock the great fortresses of the
empire, none to unloose the enthusiasm of the native population. Yet
such was the desperation of their circumstances, that a _coup-de-main_
on the capital seemed their best chance. The whole army was and felt
itself a forlorn hope. To go forward was desperate, but to go back
much more so; for they had a thousand rivers without bridges in their
rear; and, if they set their faces in that direction, they would have
300,000 light cavalry upon their flanks, besides nations innumerable--

'Dusk faces with white silken turbans wre