Artaxerxes

So Cyrus marched up against the king with a large force of Barbarians and nearly thirteen thousand Greek mercenaries,[*](Cf. Xenophon, Anab. i. 7, 10, where the force of Barbarians is said to have numbered one hundred thousand.) alleging one pretext after another for his expedition. But the real object of it was not long concealed, for Tissaphernes went in person to the king and informed him of it. Then there was a great commotion at the court, Parysatis being most blamed for the war, and her friends undergoing suspicion and accusation.

And above all was she vexed by Stateira, who was greatly distressed at the war, and kept crying: Where now are those pledges of thine? And where are the entreaties by which thou didst rescue the man who had plotted against the life of his brother, only to involve us in war and calamity? Therefore Parysatis hated Stateira, and being naturally of a harsh temper and savage in her wrath and resentment, she plotted to kill her.

Deinon says that her plot was carried out during the war. Ctesias, however, says that it was accomplished afterwards, and neither is it likely that he was ignorant of the time since he was at the scene of action, nor had he any occasion, in his narrative of the deed, to change the time of it on purpose, however often his story turns aside from the truth into fable and romance. I shall therefore give the event the place which he has assigned to it.[*](See chap. xix. )

As Cyrus proceeded on his march, rumours and reports kept coming to his ears that the king had decided not to give battle at once, and was not desirous of coming to close quarters with him, but rather of waiting in Persia until his forces should assemble there from all parts. For he had run a trench, ten fathoms in width and as many in depth, four hundred furlongs through the plain; and yet he allowed Cyrus to cross this and to come within a short distance of Babylon itself.[*](Cf. Xenophon, Anab. i. 7, 14-17. )

And it was Teribazus, as we are told, who first plucked up courage to tell the king that he ought not to shun a battle, nor to retire from Media and Babylon, as well as Susa, and hide himself in Persia, when he had a force many times as numerous as that of the enemy, and countless satraps and generals who surpassed Cyrus in wisdom and military skill. The king therefore determined to fight the issue out as soon as possible.

So, to begin with, by his sudden appearance with an army of nine hundred thousand men in brilliant array, he so terrified and confounded the enemy, who were marching along in loose order and without arms because of their boldness and contempt for the king, that Cyrus could with difficulty bring them into battle array amid much tumult and shouting; and again, by leading his forces up slowly and in silence, he filled the Greeks with amazement at his good discipline, since they had expected in so vast a host random shouting, and leaping, with great confusion and dissipation of their lines.

Besides this, he did well to draw up in front of his own line, and over against the Greeks, the mightiest of his scythe-bearing chariots, in order that by the force of their charge they might cut to pieces the ranks of the Greeks before they had come to close quarters.