Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/98

76 HISTORY OF GREECE. ihen acquainted them that Klearchus, having been detected in a breach of the convention to which he had sworn, had been put to death ; that Proxenus and Menon, who had divulged his treason, were in high honor at the Persian quarters. He concluded by saying, the king calls upon you to surrender your arms, which now (he says) belong to him, since they formerly belonged to his elave Cyrus." 1 The step here taken seems to testify a belief on the part of these Persians, that the generals being now hi their power, the Grecian soldiers had become defenceless, and might be required to surrender their arms, even to men who had just been guilty of the most deadly fraud and injury towards them. If Ariaeus entertained such an expectation, he was at once undeceived by the language of Kleanor and Xenophon, who breathed nothing but indignant reproach ; so that he soon retired and left the Greeks to then* own reflections. While their camp thus remained unmolested, every man within it was a prey to the most agonizing apprehensions. Ruin appeared impending and inevitable, though no one could tell in what precise form it would come. The Greeks were in the midst of a hostile country, ten thousand stadia from home, surrounded by enemies, blocked up by impassable mountains and rivers, without guides, without provisions, without cavalry to aid their retreat, without generals to give orders. A stupor of sorrow and conscious helpless- ness seized upon all. Few came to the evening muster; few lighted fires to cook their suppers ; every man lay down to rest where he was ; yet no man could sleep, for fear, anguish, and yearning after relatives whom he was never again to behold. 2 Amidst the many causes of despondency which weighed down this forlorn army, there was none more serious than the fact, that not a single man among them had now either authority to com- mand, or obligation to take the initiative. Nor was any ambitious tandidate likely to volunteer his pretensions, at a moment when the post promised nothing but the maximum of difficulty as well as of hazard. A new, self-kindled, light and self-originated stimu- lus was required, to vivfy the embers of suspended hope and action, in a mass paralyzed for the moment, but every way capable 1 Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 37, 38. * Xen Anab. iii, 1, 2. 3