Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/84

62 HISTORY OF GREECE. the advisers of Artaxerxes thought it advantageous to convey thfe Greeks across the Tigris out of Babylonia, beyond all possibility of returning thither. This was at any rate the primary object of the convention. And it was the more necessary to conciliate the good-will of the Greeks, because there seems to have been but one bridge over the Tigris ; which bridge could only be reached by inviting them to advance considerably farther into the interior of Babylonia, Such was the state of fears and hopes on both sides, at the tune when Tissaphernes left the Greeks, after concluding his convention. For twenty days did they await his return, without receiving from him any communication; the Cyreian Persians under Ariaeus being encamped near them. Such prolonged and unexplained delay became, after a few days, the source of much uneasiness to the Greeks ; the more so as Ariaeus received during this interval several visits from his Persian kinsmen, and friendly messages from the king, promising amnesty for his recent services under Cyrus. Of these messages the effects were painfully felt in manifest coldness of demeanor on the part of his Persian troops towards the Greeks. Impatient and suspicious, the Greek sol- diers impressed upon Klearchus their fears, that the king had concluded the recent convention only to arrest their movements, until he should have assembled a larger army and blocked up more effectually the roads against their return. To this Kle- archus replied, "I am aware of all that you say. Yet if we now strike our tents, it will be a breach of the convention and a declaration of war. No one will furnish us with provisions ; we shall have no guides ; Ariaeus will desert us forthwith, so that we shall have his troops as enemies instead of friends. Whether there be any other river for us to cross, I know not ; but we know that the Euphrates itself can never be crossed, if there be an enemy to resist us. Nor have we any cavalry, while cavalry is the best and most numerous force of our enemies. If the king, having all these advantages, really wishes to destroy us, I do not know why he should falsely exchange all these oatha and solemnities, and thus make his own word worthless in thn eyes both of Greeks and barbarians." 1 1 Xen. Anab. ii, 4, 3-8.