peoples were wont to tremble.  Xenophon, a Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows:  “They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs.  The nobles, for the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks into knights—­even the valets who served them at table, dressed them or perfumed them.  And so, although their armies were large, they were of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies traversed the empire more freely than their friends.  They no longer dared to fight.  The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them.  The drivers of chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy.  For the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except there are Greeks in their army.  They have for their maxim ’never to fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.’”

=Expedition of the Ten Thousand.=—­This weakness was very apparent when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched against him to secure his throne.  There were then some thousands of adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries.  Cyrus retained ten thousand of them.  Xenophon, one of their number, has written the story of their expedition.

This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon.  The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the war-cry.  The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even within bow-shot.  The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to keep ranks.

When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let them through.  Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception of one only who was wounded with an arrow.  Cyrus was killed; his army disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart of a hostile country threatened by a large army.  And yet the Persians did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to conclude a truce.

The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and their chariots, and began their retreat.  They broke into the rugged mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian empire.  At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000.