Anabasis

These proposals also were adopted, and in the course of that night a company of two hundred slingers was organized, while on the following day horses and horsemen to the number of fifty were examined and accepted, and jerkins and cuirasses were provided for them; and Lycius, the son of Polystratus, an Athenian, was put in command of the troop.

That day they remained quiet, but the next morning they set forth, after rising earlier than usual; for there was a gorge they had to cross, and they were afraid that the enemy might attack them as they were crossing.

It was only after they had crossed it, however, that Mithradates appeared again, accompanied by a thousand horsemen and about four thousand bowmen and slingers. For these were the numbers he had requested from Tissaphernes, and these numbers he had obtained upon his promise that, if such a force were given him, he would deliver the Greeks into Tissaphernes’ hands; for he had come to despise them, seeing that in his earlier attack with a small force he had done a great deal of harm, as he thought, without suffering any loss himself.

When, accordingly, the Greeks were across the gorge and about eight stadia beyond it, Mithradates also proceeded to make the crossing with his troops. Now orders had already been given to such of the Greek peltasts and hoplites as were to pursue the enemy, and the horsemen had been directed to be bold in urging the pursuit, in the assurance that an adequate force would follow at their heels.

As soon, then, as Mithradates had caught up, so that his sling-stones and arrows were just beginning to reach their marks, the trumpet gave its signal to the Greeks, and on the instant the foot-soldiers who were under orders rushed upon the enemy and the horsemen charged; and the enemy did not await their attack, but fled towards the gorge.

In this pursuit the barbarians had many of their infantry killed, while of their cavalry no less than eighteen were taken alive in the gorge. And the Greek troops, unbidden save by their own impulse, disfigured the bodies of the dead, in order that the sight of them might inspire the utmost terror in the enemy.

After faring thus badly the enemy departed, while the Greeks continued their march unmolested through the remainder of the day and arrived at the Tigris river.

Here was a large deserted city[*](This city, called by Xenophon Larisa, was the great Assyrian city of Calah, mentioned in Genesis, X. 11, 12.); its name was Larisa, and it was inhabited in ancient times by the Medes. Its wall was twenty-five feet in breadth and a hundred in height, and the whole circuit of the wall was two parasangs. It was built of clay bricks, and rested upon a stone foundation twenty feet high.