He looked at Chrisophus, watching him intently.
‘We can be another Sparta, another Thebes. If we choose a river running to the coast, we can be another Athens. Perhaps we’ll sail there in ships we have made ourselves.’
‘Would you lead us, if we choose to stay?’ Chrisophus said, gently.
Xenophon returned his gaze without wavering.
‘If you wish it, if you would have me, yes, I would. It would be the honour and the greater purpose of my life. I thought it was to bring you safe to this place, but perhaps this is just the beginning.’
Chrisophus nodded.
‘We will have to ask the others,’ he said. ‘You understand a decision like this cannot be made without a discussion.’
‘Yes … of course …’
Xenophon trailed off, looking over the sand to where the sea shimmered. He felt it as an ache, but in Athens, who would he be? Not the man who had saved them. No, he would once more be unknown, no more popular than he had been before. Without Socrates to visit, the city of his birth was no longer his home.
‘Choose carefully, Chrisophus, please. This is the only chance we will ever have to do this. We are all Greeks, my friend. Only we could even consider it.’
They remained in that place, with the sea glittering in the distance, for three days. Xenophon waited for them to reach a conclusion. He answered any questions they had for him, as honestly as he could. In the end, they sent Chrisophus himself to deliver the verdict and Xenophon did not know if that was good or bad.
His stomach felt light and nervous as he stood to greet the Spartan. Chrisophus came right up to him and rested a hand on the shoulder of the Athenian nobleman who had brought them safe across an empire.
‘I’m sorry, Xenophon. We just want to go home.’
Xenophon felt it as a knife between his ribs, a sudden pain that brought tears to his eyes. He dipped his head, clearing his throat and realising he was trembling.
‘Of course, I … Very well, my friend. You’ll have to share out the gold and silver between them. It should be enough to make a good settlement, enough at least not to starve until they can find work.’
‘Will you not be with us?’ Chrisophus said.
His eyes were dark with grief and Xenophon knew it was an ending between them. He shook his head.
‘No, I don’t think so. I inherited a little land in the Peloponnesus, not far outside Sparta. There is an estate manager who breeds horses for me. I’m sure he thinks he owns the place, after so long. No, Chrisophus, I will not stay. I am not good at farewells, my friend. I will make my own way back there. Perhaps in time, you will seek me out and bring a flask of wine with you. I would … like that.’
Chrisophus took his hand and gripped it.
‘I give you my word, strategos,’ he said. ‘And my thanks. I will see you again, I promise. We will raise a cup then, to all we did here – and to absent friends.’
‘We did it, Spartan,’ Xenophon said, smiling through eyes that gleamed with tears. It was enough. Without another word, he clapped Chrisophus on the shoulder and set off down the hill with a light step, heading towards the sea.
Historical Note
Xenophon’s book Anabasis, published as The Persian Expedition in Penguin Classics, is roughly translated as ‘the way up’. It is the story of Prince Cyrus’ rebellion against his brother, the army he raised, the battle of Cunaxa he fought and lost – and then the appalling situation in which the Greek mercenaries found themselves. They were far from home, surrounded by enemies, but still such an elite fighting force that they could not easily be destroyed. It takes place eighty years after Thermopylae and some seventy years before Alexander the Great.
Persian historical context: King Darius of Persia invaded Greece in 490 BC – and was beaten at Marathon. He was gathering another army to try again when he died, so it was his son Xerxes who came by land and sea. Xerxes is the king the Spartans fought at Thermopylae. He actually reached and burned Athens, but the Athenian navy won an extraordinary battle against his fleet, reducing his ability to manoeuvre. Xerxes ran for home, leaving his general Mardonius to face a Spartan-led army on land. Despite being hugely outnumbered, the Greeks slaughtered the enemy – and Xerxes was killed by his own bodyguard in 465 BC. His son Artaxerxes became king and had the sense to leave the Greeks alone, enjoying a peaceful reign until his death around 424 BC.
That King Artaxerxes had three sons. The oldest became king for a few weeks before he was murdered by a second – who was then killed by the third: Darius II. Darius II had two sons – Artaxerxes and Cyrus, which is where this story begins.
In Greece, Sparta came to dominate the thousand cities, defeating Athens and imposing a Spartan council to rule there, known as the Thirty. Young Xenophon was an Athenian nobleman who admired the Spartans more than his own argumentative Athenians, who could find a dozen opposing views in a decision to eat dinner or see a play. Xenophon was a student of Socrates, it is true, but unlike the more famous student, Plato, his interest was less in existential concepts, or the perfect society, than in the practical application of philosophy. Xenophon was one of those Athenians who tried to create a good life through sheer will, who wanted to know how to live. He found Spartan discipline and self-sacrifice admirable, so that he was always a man torn between two cultures.
Note on distance. Persians of the period tended to use ‘parasang’ as a unit of time, which was often somewhat confusingly used as a measure of distance as well, in Greek texts. A modern equivalent would be ‘It’s an hour away’. Herodotus estimated the parasang as roughly thirty ‘stades’ or 3.5–3.75 miles. I have left some mentions of miles in the text, to give readers who do not think in parasangs and stades a clearer idea of the distances involved. A ‘stathmos’ was also not a precise distance, but roughly the length of road between stopping places, so around eighteen or twenty miles. On his way east, Cyrus is recorded as marching his men between twenty-two and twenty-four miles a day – some seven hours on the road, including stops. That is a pace equivalent to that of the later Roman legions, and good going in great heat. It is interesting to compare the distances recorded by Xenophon later on, when they have camp followers. Then, fifteen miles a day was more usual. The effect of the need to stop at every river to replenish water becomes obvious.
The events in Cilicia with Queen Epyaxa – where she brought funds to Cyrus after he was cut off, and then stayed the night with him – is a fascinating incident. I wish we knew more, but Xenophon is the only source. He described a mock charge put on to impress the queen, a charge that accidentally routed a part of Cyrus’ own native forces, when they saw it coming. He also describes a longer meeting, involving her husband King Syennesis in Tarsus, chiefly interesting as the birthplace of Saul of Tarsus in a later century, who would become St Paul.
The difficulty with such detailed historical accounts is that they are impossible to fit into a novel. Xenophon might describe a skirmish on a hill in three lines; I could not do it in less than a chapter. For the details I could not fit in here, I recommend The Persian Expedition, particularly to any reader interested in how the Greeks thought and acted. It deserves to have survived over two thousand years. Sometimes, as I found with The Secret History of the Mongols, one key book can be the doorway to a world.
Xenophon gives the army of Cyrus as a hundred thousand, but the army of Artaxerxes as 1.2 million, with two hundred scythed chariots and six thousand cavalry. It is impossible to know if those numbers were exaggerated, though I’ve gone with a lesser estimate of around six hundred thousand men – still a vast number that made the hordes of Genghis Khan look small.
Four commanders led the Persian army: Abrocomas, Tissaphernes, Gobrias and Arbaces. Apart from Tissaphernes, I have not made much of these, for fear of losing the reader with too many unfamiliar names. My aim is to tell the story. As E. L. Doctorow said, ‘The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.’ My intention here, of course, wa
s to do both.
On that subject, the mutiny that General Clearchus handled was described by Xenophon in some detail. It was around the time the column discovered who they were really facing – something that might have been known to the generals, but not the common soldiers. Clearchus wept in front of them and indulged in some interesting theatrics. He said they forced him to betray the prince, but that he would never abandon them.
In historical fiction, the writer looks for key relationships, so to read that Clearchus sent a messenger back to Cyrus, telling him not to worry, indicates a true friendship. The Spartan argued and persuaded to bring them back on side, appealing to emotion and duty – and finally arranging a 50 per cent pay increase for each man, which did the trick.
The battle of Cunaxa comes from one source – the description by Xenophon as an eye witness. His personal account comes with one mention of himself, in the third person, where he exchanges a few words with Prince Cyrus before the battle is joined. We cannot know if that scene took place, or was a device to place Xenophon in the narrative.
Prince Cyrus sent the Greeks in, but they were bogged down by the sheer number of soldiers they faced. Tissaphernes had convinced King Artaxerxes to gather a host – so perhaps the entire enterprise was always doomed. It is hard to say. It is always possible for a prince or a king to stop an arrow, of course. Perhaps the wonder of leaders who took part in battles, like Caesar and Genghis, is that they survived so many brushes with death.
Cyrus saw the battle could be won with a single blow. He and his personal guard rode across the face of the approaching armies in what seems now to be a wild gamble. He reached his brother and injured him, but was struck down by a thrown javelin. It is tempting to think his was a great life unlived – that this was one of those moments in history when a dynasty might have reached greatness but was cut down. It would not be too many years before Alexander the Great’s army looted those Achaemenid tombs. The Greek king might have treated the land of Cyrus with more respect, perhaps.
Xenophon described the prince having his head raised on a spear and paraded as proof he was dead. The great size of the battlefield is demonstrated in what followed. King Artaxerxes rode for some way with his grisly trophy. Meanwhile, Clearchus and the Greeks still had no idea Cyrus had fallen. They continued to cut a swathe through the enemy and believed they had won. News of the true situation came slowly to both sides – and the Greeks suddenly realised they were in a lot of trouble. The native army brought to Cunaxa by Prince Cyrus was pulled away by General Ariaeus. This seems to have been a reasonable attempt to remain alive, though it left the ten thousand Greek allies completely exposed. Only the extraordinary superiority of those soldiers kept them alive. In scenes reminiscent of Leonidas at Thermopylae, they could march through enemy formations and come out unscathed. The Persians were simply not their match, in tactics or armour or discipline. It led to the oddest scenes, where the Greeks were vastly outnumbered, but could still go wherever they wanted to.
Part Two begins with an extraordinary situation. The Greeks gathered in their camp, so in all were roughly ten thousand soldiers and as many camp followers. They were over a thousand miles from Greece and without support, food or water. I omitted the argument when the Persians ordered the Greeks to surrender their arms. The Greeks pointed out that either they were allies, in which case they were more valuable with weapons – or they were enemies, in which case they would need their weapons even more. Either way, they would not be giving them up. It is just one example of Greek logic and stubbornness that is a hallmark of the society of the time.
I did include an exchange where the Greeks were told it would be war if they moved, truce if they stayed in one place. In reply, they said they understood, but they repeated the terms in such a way that they seemed a threat: ‘Truce if we remain, war if we go forward or backward.’ The confidence of elite soldiers shines through twenty-five centuries.
I have compressed the last month for Clearchus before his death, aged around fifty. The truce he negotiated with Tissaphernes involved days of nothing happening at all. Other Greeks urged Clearchus to make a break for it, but he refused. He was acutely aware that he had no cavalry to speak of – and that the Persian king had vast numbers of horsemen and chariots to run them down.
Rather than an immediate betrayal, as I have written it here, Tissaphernes escorted the Greeks away from Cunaxa for many days, allowing them to take food but not slaves as they found villages. The Greeks even passed a Persian army still on its way to the battle, having missed all of it. Suspicion grew between the two sides, but Clearchus was revealed as a wonderful leader of men at this last stage. I could not give more than a flavour of it here.
Tissaphernes persuaded Clearchus to attend a supper with five generals and some twenty captains as well as a couple of hundred other soldiers to gather provisions. Inside the tent, they were all seized and killed. One dying man made it back to the main camp and the treachery was revealed.
The Greeks ran to arms and Ariaeus and others approached to tell them the news and demand surrender. The immediate danger of bloodshed dwindled as the night wore on. After all, the Greeks had been made leaderless. Who was left who could command?
I changed the name of the Spartan who helped Xenophon at a crucial juncture – he is recorded as Chirisophus, but ‘Chrisophus’ looked better to my eye. Trivial, but a choice rather than an error. He must have been an interesting man, as Chirisophus guided the crowd in their acceptance of Xenophon. Perhaps Chirisophus might have taken overall command himself, but Xenophon had spoken first. It was Xenophon’s idea to make a square within a square, Xenophon who saw that the lack of cavalry was the biggest tactical problem. In short, Xenophon was the one who knew how to lead in a crisis. It is a testament to them all that the murder of the Greek generals did not destroy morale. They elected new leaders as soon as they heard – and they did not trust the Persians ever again.
The story of Xenophon chasing up a hill with his men to overlook an ambush is from the original account. As Xenophon urged them on in heroic terms, a man named Soteridas said, ‘We are not equal. You are on horseback! I am exhausting myself carrying a shield.’ In a temper, Xenophon took the shield from him and ran with it, while others pelted the man with stones.
The embattled Greeks shed their Persian pursuers only when they entered the mountains of the Carduchi – or Kardoukhoi. The story of a vast Persian army entering those mountains and being slaughtered is from Xenophon’s account, though there is no way to confirm it. This is the first mention of the Carduchi anywhere. It is possible that they are the ancestors of modern Kurds in northern Iraq, Iran and Syria. Xenophon described villages, animal husbandry and agriculture – as well as a ruthless and implacable enemy who was the master of difficult terrain. It took seven days to cross those mountains. Xenophon’s account of fighting hilltop to hilltop and how the Greeks countered their advantages is extraordinary.
After the fight to get across the river, the journey through western Armenia in winter is brutal. They experience heavy snowfall, with frostbite, loss of toes and snow-blindness. Men died every night and the entire enterprise was on its last legs, defeated not by an enemy, but by worse cold than they had ever encountered. Xenophon’s advice to prevent snow-blindness by keeping something black in front of the eyes is fascinating. He describes soldiers who sat down in the snow and would not go on, so were left to die. Some asked to be killed. Only the threat of an enemy force behind roused them to action.
They travelled fifteen miles a day for around two hundred miles further. It is then that the most famous scene of Xenophon’s account occurs, when the forward scouts sight a coast they know contains Greek settlements and shout ‘Thalatta! Thalatta!’ – the sea, the sea. The emphasis is on the first syllable and though Xenophon recorded it in Athenian Greek as Thalatta, I prefer the alternative dialect version of Thalassa. The Greeks embraced each other with tears in their eyes. They had found the way home at last.
In Xeno
phon’s account, the journey does not actually end at that point, but continues the travelogue through the country of the Macronians, where they see off some local warriors. After that, they walked to Trapezus – a Greek city where they rested for about thirty days and held sporting events – wrestling and boxing, sprints and long-distance running. It would have been there that Xenophon heard Socrates had been executed, a man who chose death over banishment, saying, ‘The unexamined life is not worth knowing.’ It is true Socrates wrote nothing down – all we know of him comes from Xenophon and Plato, his students.
The Greeks took warships at Trapezus and went on plundering expeditions, determined to leave the coast with as much as they could carry. Xenophon’s share allowed him to buy an estate on the road from Sparta to Olympia, where he wrote most of this story.
I have cut out the aftermath of seeing the sea, as it was essentially an anti-climax. However, I had to include Xenophon’s idea of founding a city – and the fact that after all they had gone through together, the Greeks turned his offer down. It seemed the natural end to this extraordinary event – the march of ten thousand out of Persia.
Conn Iggulden, 2017
THE BEGINNING
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The Falcon of Sparta Page 38