The Ten Thousand (20 page)
The Persian generals stood frozen in horror, their barely contained rage flushing their cheeks. I had to pinch my arm black and blue to keep from guffawing on the spot, and I could see Proxenus' jaw muscles tensing as he worked to stifle his laughter. The embassy filed out silently, only to see that our men had been arranged into two long files outside the tent entrance, between which the ambassadors had to pass for what seemed an eternity before they finally arrived at their horses and were given back their weapons. As they mounted, on a signal from Proxenus the troops raised a deafening roar and began banging their spears loudly against the bronze rims of their shields. The suddenness of the clamor so frightened the already skittish Persian horses that they bolted, and it was all the enraged generals could do to hang on to the beasts' necks with both arms to keep from falling as they leaped away, back over the ridge to the Persian camp.
Clearchus' ruse succeeded, for the ambassadors were back that afternoon, bearing a considerably humbler and less formal demeanor. This time, he kept them waiting almost two hours before summoning them in to his august presence. Without further introduction, they informed him that Tissaphernes felt his request was more than reasonable, and that as a sign of good faith, he would lead them to a village of suitable size where they could camp comfortably as long as they liked, have ready access to a market for food, and make preparations at their leisure to complete whatever arrangements were agreed to between the king and the Greek leadership.
Clearchus dismissed the ambassadors to a meager supper he had arranged for them (a thorn branch courteously placed on each plate in order, he said, to make them feel more at home), and consulted with his council. It seemed best not to overplay his hand, for sooner or later Tissaphernes would discover the Hellenic forces' true strength, and it would not do to insult him further before a proper truce could be arranged. Clearchus waited an appropriate time, letting the ambassadors become so fearful of the outcome that they hardly touched their food; and when even the Greek officers themselves began questioning whether he might have a change of heart, he finally summoned the ambassadors back and ordered them to return to the king and arrange guides for his army at first light.
SUSPECTING THE KING'S potential for treachery, Clearchus marched the army in full battle array. The physical obstacles we encountered, oddly enough, were not of the gods, mountains, or rivers, or even the desert, but rather man-made. The land was riddled with dozens, perhaps hundreds of ditches and irrigation canals that could not be crossed without first building bridges, which we did by cutting down date palms and lashing them together. Clearchus himself set the example in this effort, wading into the mud with the younger men and carrying logs on his shoulders. At one point, spying a shirker resting in the reeds munching on bread he had saved from that morning, he dragged him out by the hair, threw him into the mud at the bank of the canal and beat him brutally with a heavy wooden rod he carried to pry embedded logs. The man was bleeding and unconscious before Clearchus finally laid off the punishment. The troops had gathered around silently and now stood staring, some reproachfully, others in fear and wonder at the harsh treatment.
Clearchus climbed onto the bridge footing and glared at the men. "What the fuck are you all staring at?" He bellowed hoarsely. "Cyrus is dead and you are marching on your own, in enemy territory! By the good grace of the gods, you ass-humpers have been blessed with a Spartan for a general. When I lead men, I expect nothing less of myself than what I order them to do. And I expect nothing less of my men than unquestioning obedience! When a Spartan leads an army, that army is Spartan! And you will work as Spartans and behave as Spartans, or by the gods you will die as Spartans."
The men dispersed sullenly, avoiding Clearchus' harsh gaze, but there was no further shirking as they redoubled their efforts to move the army and its baggage over the rough roads. Xenophon sidled up to me on his horse a few minutes after the incident, his face red with outrage.
"Did you hear him, Theo? The man's a tyrant! 'Work as Spartans or die as Spartans.' That dog-breathed jackass is going to have the men deserting like our Thracians if he doesn't give them a better reason to follow him than the threat of being beaten with a stick in the mud."
"Such as starving in the desert, perhaps?" I suggested evenly. "Or being picked off on the sly by Persian outriders? Those might be good motivations."
He glared at me fiercely, but I held his stare, and he wheeled his horse and galloped off.
When we arrived at the village three days later, we were relieved to see that the conditions were just as the king's ambassadors had promised. There was plenty of wheat, palms, and dates, and the natives had filled cisterns with a kind of date wine, to which the troops immediately took a liking, much to the officers' chagrin. Not only had the men lost their tolerance for drink during the long march from Sardis, but this particular wine had a tendency to immobilize them with a blinding headache. Clearchus banned its consumption, but not until half his army had been knocked supine for a day, during which time Xenophon and I prayed that the king's promise of safe conduct was trustworthy.
Tissaphernes finally arrived with his retinue, which included the queen's brother, the three ambassadors whom we had already met, and a long train of slaves bearing gifts and supplies. Up close he was an older man than I remembered when I saw him in the chaos of the fighting outside Cyrus' tent, much more so than one would have expected for a cavalry commander. He was tall, however, long-limbed and rangy, with leathery skin and a wispy beard, constantly moving about with a kind of nervous energy that belied his age, and with a commanding bearing that indicated he would brook no dissent. His eyes were sharp and pale, a light blue or gray, and after entering the tent with the quick, confident step of a victor, he suddenly stopped short and gazed openly around the space, as if looking for someone in particular. I saw Asteria, standing in attendance behind Clearchus, shrink back behind the slave girl next to her, seeking to avoid his piercing gaze.
Tissaphernes was not so easily cowed as the king's previous representatives. He locked his raptorlike glare on Clearchus, ensuring that he would be received as an equal or a superior, until the Spartan dropped his gaze. Having settled this matter of rank without yet even uttering a word, he further secured his position among the Greek officers by an elaborate distribution of gifts of golden chalices and other luxuries. Xenophon was allotted a beautifully ornate Persian bridle bit crafted of brass and silver, embarrassingly lavish for an officer of his rank, or for any officer serving under Spartan command. He gravely nodded his thanks to Tissaphernes' steward upon receiving this gift, and then handed it off to me, wishing to be rid of it, before returning to his place with the other Greek officers standing along the wall of the tent.
After the ritual opening statements, during which Clearchus ostentatiously yawned, though with no apparent effect on Tissaphernes, the Persian turned and addressed not merely him but all the officers. He used an interpreter, though he was perfectly fluent in Greek.
"Gentlemen," he said, in a surprisingly high-pitched and unctuous voice. "As you may know, my home country is a near neighbor to yours, and I have taken the liberty of proposing to the king that I escort you home personally, on the occasion of a journey I had already previously planned to visit my estates. My hope is that this will earn me the gratitude of you and your country, and would also be to the king's advantage by ridding him of a foreign army occupying his soil.
"The king promised he would consider this plan. But he first told me to ask you why you make war upon his country. Your army is too small and your supply lines too long to establish any permanent presence here; yet you are strong enough to cause considerable damage before you are ultimately defeated. I urge you to forgo your harsh treatment of Persian ambassadors, and to answer my question with all due thoughtfulness, so that I may give a favorable response to the king and thereby assist you in resolving your difficulty."
Clearchus' face softened slightly, as if he were much taken with the general's good sense. Although Tissaphernes was not as humble as might be hoped, at least he was not prone to the idle boasting with which the earlier ambassadors had offended the Greeks. After consulting with Proxenus for a moment, Clearchus replied with an effort at politeness:
"Lord Tissaphernes: We did not originally intend to make war on the king, but rather on the Pisidians. Cyrus convinced us, however, through promises of glory and wealth, to assist him in his true goal, which we did out of loyalty and friendship to him. We have no intention of establishing a presence in your country, nor do we bear you any ill will. Cyrus is dead. We have no further business here, and would like nothing better than to march peacefully home, provided that we are not harassed along the way. Any aggression we will meet with deadly force."
After a few minutes more of ritual chatter, Tissaphernes and his retinue bowed deeply and retired to their carriages, this time surrounded by silent Greeks. He took the message back to the king and returned several days later with a smaller, less ceremonial escort, and most important of all, a positive response. Tissaphernes promised to escort us home with his army, providing markets along the way, if the Greeks agreed to behave as if they were on friendly territory. There was to be no violence by either side. Tissaphernes and Clearchus sealed their agreement with an oath and a handclasp, and the captains and officers on both sides drank to each others' health. Tissaphernes then returned to his troops to make arrangements for the journey, and Proxenus, Xenophon, and I went back to our Boeotians, to announce the plan and to bide our time until departure.
We waited there outside the village, alongside Ariaius' troops, for three weeks, as the men became simultaneously more dissipated from the forced inactivity, and nervous at the lack of progress. The site afforded little in the way of distraction or comfort. The armies were camped near a series of vast grain fields that were now withered and fallow, relentless in their flat, brown monotony. Water we drew from a large, muddy irrigation canal that Tissaphernes had ordered the villagers to open for our use. The water's mineral content stained everything, from our pots to our garments, a kind of dull orange that served as a depressing counterpoint to the unremitting glare of the sun, which was unbroken by the shade of any trees or landscape features. Our hide and canvas tents afforded little respite from the throbbing, airless heat, and in fact were too unbearably close and stifling to sleep in by night. Most of the men simply cut their shelters along the seams and rigged them as awnings propped by spear shafts, to the seething disapproval of Clearchus, who viewed this as one further obstacle to battle readiness. Nevertheless, he ultimately bowed to reason, and complied with Proxenus' suggestion that the men be allowed this small concession to comfort.
Food and supplies were procured by pooling our dwindling funds and sending several squads with pack animals into the wretched, foul-smelling village on market days, to wander among the low-slung mud and thatch huts and attempt to barter better prices in large quantities from the wily locals. Our success was mixed, and the wormy, withered vegetables and rancid horsemeat the marketing squads procured made us long for the hearty, if repetitious fare we had enjoyed during the first months of our march out of Sardis.
During these hot, heavy days of enforced village living, the Greeks and the native troops became increasingly soft, losing all perspective as to their true situation. Ariaius' men were deserting to the enemy in droves, and we feared for Ariaius himself, as he received visitors every day from among his Persian relatives, friends and even former comrades-in-arms from the king's forces. He swore that these were merely messages of reassurance from the king, who had pledged that he bore Ariaius no malice for his campaign with Cyrus, and promised to honor the truce, but Proxenus' suspicions grew daily.
"Why are we dallying?" Proxenus finally exclaimed to me impatiently one day, as we took inventory of our stocks for the thousandth time. "Why are we waiting for the king to collect his troops, or to fortify his position? We are in hostile territory, with no provisions except what the benevolent Tissaphernes has given us, and his strength is increasing daily. Which army has time to bide—ours or theirs? Is the king simply going to let us freely return to Greece to laugh about how we got the better of the massed forces of Persia with our ten thousand men, and had our fill of date wine besides?" He swept his maps off the camp table in disgust and stalked outside the tent to assemble the men for yet another review of arms.
I pondered our position. Was Proxenus advocating retreat without the king's permission? That would be suicide, for if we left Tissaphernes' protection we would have no provisions other than what we could loot from the surrounding countryside—a much less certain method than using the markets the village provided us, notwithstanding our dwindling supply of coin. Pillaging would entail breaking our solemn vow to Tissaphernes to keep the truce. Moreover, we would have no guides to lead us back, although Proxenus had developed severe doubts as to the reliability of the king's guides in any case. And leaving now would severely reduce our forces, for it is certain that Ariaius would not accompany us. Our situation was bleak, although a casual observer would never have concluded this, from the laughter and games of the men outside, as they bided their time in the camp.
If Clearchus was thinking the same thing he gave no indication of it when Proxenus finally decided to approach him with his concerns. Hardly looking up from a procurement report he was reviewing in irritation with a trembling and stammering quartermaster, he dismissively waved off Proxenus' worries.
"If Artaxerxes had wanted to attack us, he would have had no need for the oaths and pledges we swore," he said. "The king and Tissaphernes don't have shit for brains. Let them break their word in front of the whole world. We might all die, but we'll take down five of his for every one of ours, and I'll not add to our disgrace by breaking our word in the bargain."
Proxenus returned to the tent furious at Clearchus' refusal to act, although Xenophon reminded him that one could hardly expect otherwise. We had little time to stew further, however, for the next day Tissaphernes arrived with his forces, who despite our worst fears were not in battle array, and he put Clearchus and Proxenus instantly at ease with his jovial manner. His wife, the king's daughter, was accompanying him, this time with her entire train, and Xenophon and I watched in astonishment and amusement as Clearchus stepped out of the camp to greet them.
"Did you see Tissaphernes' baggage?" I asked, and pointed out to Xenophon the approaching retinue of servants, wagons loaded with gifts, and silk-bedecked slave girls that the general's wife kept in attendance. For sheer opulence, the train rivaled Cyrus' during the march out of Sardis. Xenophon let out a low whistle.
"Looks like Tissaphernes plans to travel home in style," he said.
I peered at the wagons carefully. "Do you think any of them contain weapons? Could he be plotting any treachery?"
Xenophon smiled. "I think just the opposite," he replied. "I don't believe our friend Tissaphernes has any intention of mussing his clothes by getting into a scrap with a few wayward Greeks accompanying him along the way."
The two armies left the next day. Tissaphernes led the way along the Euphrates, gathering retainers as he traveled, and continuing to provide us with supplies by means of a thrice-weekly market, while Ariaius accompanied him leading his own native troops. The Greeks followed behind, still in full battle order, still suspicious of the Persian's intentions, maintaining a wide distance between ourselves and Tissaphernes' forces. Every night we camped several miles behind Tissaphernes' party, which led to grumbling among the men because of the inconvenience this caused them for gaining access to the market and the slave girls, but a fierce harangue by Clearchus about maintaining military discipline quieted their complaints for a time. After several days of this arrangement, however, his paranoia seemed to be having a damaging effect, as unwarranted suspicions gradually increased the level of tension between the two armies. Hostilities even broke out once or twice between companies of Greeks and Persians who ran into each other in the country on routine scouting patrols or while gathering firewood.
