Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/201

EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE RETREAT. 179 On bringing this accomplished and eminent leader to the close of that arduous retreat which he had conducted with so much honor, I have thought it necessary to anticipate a little on the future, in order to take a glance at his subsequent destiny. To his exile (in this point of view not less useful than that of Thucy- dides) we probably owe many of those compositions from which so much of our knowledge of Grecian affairs is derived. But to the contemporary world, the retreat, which Xenophon so success- fully conducted, afforded afar more impressive lesson than any of his literary compositions. It taught in the most striking man- ner the impotence of the Persian land-force, manifested not less in the generals than in the soldiers. It proved that the Persian leaders were unfit for any systematic operations, even under the greatest possible advantages, against a small number of disciplined warriors resolutely bent on resistance ; that they were too stupid and reckless even to obstruct the passage of rivers, or destroy roads, or cut off supplies. It more than confirmed the contempt- uous language applied to them by Cyrus himself, before the battle of Kunaxa ; when he proclaimed that he envied the Greeks their freedom, and that he was ashamed of the worthlessness of hia own countrymen. 1 Against such perfect weakness and disorgan- vhov Trpdf EEVO^UVTO.. And Diogenes also alludes to it &r tyr/ai Ae/ vap%of iv TU Trpdf Hevo^wvra fnroaTaaiov. Schneider in his Epimetrum (ad calcem Anabaseos, p. 573), respecting the exile of Xenophon, argues as if the person against whom the oration of Deinarchus was directed, was Xenophon himself, the Cyreian comman- der and author. But this, I think, is chronologically all but impossible ; for Deinarchus was not born till 361 B. c., and composed his first oration in 336 B. c. Yet Deinarchus, in his speech against Xenophon, undoubtedly mentioned several facts respecting the Cyreian Xenophon, which implies that the lat- ter was a relative of the person against whom the oration was directed. I venture to set him down as grandson, on that evidence, combined with the identity of name and the suitableness in point of time. He might well be the son of Gryllus, who WP.S slain fighting at the battle of Mantineia in 362 B. C. Nothing is more likely than that an orator, composing an oration against Xenophon the grandson, should touch upon the acts and character of Xen- ophon the grandfather ; see for analogy, the oration of Isokrates, de Bigis, among others. 1 Xen. Anab. i, 7, 4. Compare Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 20 ; and Iso'crate^ Panegyr Or iv, s. 168, 169 seq.