suspicion that its destiny was Babylon.

The auxiliary army which came from Greece to enter into Cyrus's
service under these circumstances, consisted of about thirteen
thousand men. He had, it was said, a hundred thousand men besides; but
so celebrated were the Greeks in those days for their courage, their
discipline, their powers of endurance, and their indomitable tenacity
and energy, that Cyrus very properly considered this corps as the
flower of his army. Xenophon was one of the younger Grecian generals.
The army crossed the Hellespont, and entered Asia Minor, and, passing
across the country, reached at last the famous pass of Cilicia, in
the southwestern part of the country--a narrow defile between the
mountains and the sea, which opens the only passage in that quarter
toward the Persian regions beyond. Here the suspicions which the
Greeks had been for some time inclined to feel, that they were going
to make war upon the Persian monarch himself, were confirmed, and they
refused to proceed. Their unwillingness, however, did not arise from
any compunctions of conscience about the guilt of treason, or the
wickedness of helping an ungrateful and unprincipled wretch, whose
forfeited life had once been given to him by his brother, in making
war upon and destroying his benefactor. Soldiers have never, in any
age of the world, any thing to do with compunctions of conscience in
respect to the work which their commanders give them to perform.
The Greeks were perfectly willing to serve in this or in any other
undertaking; but, since it was rebellion and treason that was asked of
them, they considered it as specially hazardous, and so they concluded
that they were entitled to extra pay. Cyrus made no objection to this
demand; an arrangement was made accordingly, and the army went on.

Artaxerxes assembled suddenly the whole force of his empire on the
plains of Babylon--an immense army, consisting, it is said, of over a
million of men. Such vast forces occupy, necessarily, a wide extent of
country, even when drawn up in battle array. So great, in fact, was
the extent occupied in this case, that the Greeks, who conquered all
that part of the king's forces which was directly opposed to them,
supposed, when night came, at the close of the day of battle, that
Cyrus had been every where victorious; and they were only undeceived
when, the next day, messengers came from the Persian camp to inform
them that Cyrus's whole force, except