Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/208

200 ANTONY. behind, the baggage horses being dead or othei-wise em- ployed in carrying the sick and wounded. Provision was so scarce in the army that an Attic quart of wheat sold for fifty drachmas, and barley loaves for their weight in silver. And when they tried vegetables and roots, they found such as are commonly eaten very scarce, so that they were constrained to venture upon any they could get, and, among others, they chanced upon an herb that was mortal, first taking away all sense and understanding. He that had eaten of it remembered nothing in the world, and employed himself only in moving great stones from one place to another, which he did with as much earnest- ness and industry as if it had been a business of the greatest consequence. Through all the camp thei'e was nothing to be seen but men grubbing upon the ground at stones, which they carried from place to place. But in the end they threw up bile and died, as wine, moreover, which was the one antidote, failed. When Antony saw them die so fast, and the Parthian still in pursuit, he was heard to exclaim several times over, " 0, the Ten Thou- sand ! " as if m admiration of the retreat of the Greeks with Xenophon, who, when they had a longer journey to make from Babylonia, and a more powerful enemy to deal with, nevertheless came home safe. The Parthians, finding that they could not divide the Roman army, nor break the order of then* battle, and that withal they had been so often worsted, once more began to treat the foragers with professions of humanity ; they came up to them with their bows unbended, telling them that they were going home to their houses ; that this was the end of their retaliation, and that only some Median ti'oops would follow for two or three days, not with any design to annoy them, but for the defence of some of the villages further on. And, saying this, they saluted them and embraced them with a great show of friendship. This