s them as follows:
"They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for
the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks
into knights--even the valets who served them at table, dressed them
or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were
of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies
traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer
dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler,
sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them. The drivers of
chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be
overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being
no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For
the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they
concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except
there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to
fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'"

=Expedition of the Ten Thousand.=--This weakness was very apparent
when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched
against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of
adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus
retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has
written the story of their expedition.

This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without
resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon.
The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the
war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even
within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to
keep ranks.

When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let
them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception
of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army
disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart
of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians
did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five
generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to
conclude a truce.

The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and
their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged
mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, a