Anabasis

and Cyrus leaped down from his chariot, put on his breastplate, and then, mounting his horse, took his spears in his hands and passed the word to all the others to arm themselves and get into their places, every man of them.

Thereupon they proceeded in great haste to take their places, Clearchus occupying the right end of the Greek wing,[*](i.e. the Greek army as a whole constituted the right wing of Cyrus’ entire army, his Persian troops forming the centre and the left wing. Clearchus and Menon, then, occupy the right and left wings, respectively, of the Greek contingent.) close to the Euphrates river, Proxenus next to him, and the others beyond Proxenus, while Menon and his army took the left end of the Greek wing.

As for the barbarians, Paphlagonian horsemen to the number of a thousand took station beside Clearchus on the right wing, as did the Greek peltasts, on the left was Ariaeus, Cyrus’ lieutenant, with the rest of the barbarian army,

and in the centre Cyrus and his horsemen, about six hundred in number. These troopers were armed with breastplates and thigh-pieces and, all of them except Cyrus, with helmets—Cyrus, however, went into the battle with his head unprotected. [In fact, it is said of the Persians in general that they venture all the perils of war with their heads unprotected.]

And all their horses [with Cyrus] had frontlets and breast-pieces; and the men carried, besides their other weapons, Greek sabres.

And now it was midday, and the enemy were not yet in sight; but when afternoon was coming on, there was seen a rising dust, which appeared at first like a white cloud, but some time later like a kind of blackness in the plain, extending over a great distance. As the enemy came nearer and nearer, there were presently flashes of bronze here and there, and spears and the hostile ranks began to come into sight.

There were horsemen in white cuirasses on the left wing of the enemy, under the command, it was reported, of Tissaphernes; next to them were troops with wicker shields and, farther on, hoplites with wooden shields which reached to their feet, these latter being Egyptians, people said; and then more horsemen and more bowmen. All these troops were marching in national divisions, each nation in a solid square.

In front of them were the so-called scythe-bearing chariots, at some distance from one another; and the scythes they carried reached out sideways from the axles and were also set under the chariot bodies, pointing towards the ground, so as to cut to pieces whatever they met; the intention, then, was that they should drive into the ranks of the Greeks and cut the troops to pieces.

As for the statement, however, which Cyrus made when he called the Greeks together and urged them to hold out against the shouting of the barbarians, he proved to be mistaken in this point; for they came on, not with shouting, but in the utmost silence and quietness, with equal step and slowly.