Cyrus Expedition, Ten Thousand

Apprehension and dismay reigned among the Greeks. Their situation was, indeed, appalling. They were considerably more than a thousand miles from home, in a hostile and unknown country, hemmed in on all sides by impassable rivers and mountains, without generals, without guides, without provisions. Xenophon was the first to rouse the captains to the necessity for taking immediate precautions. Though young, he possessed as an Athenian citizen some claim to distinction; and his animated address showed him fitted for command. He was saluted general on the spot; and in a subsequent assembly was, with four others, formally elected to that office.

The Greeks, having first destroyed their superfluous baggage, crossed the Greater Zab, and pursued their march on the other bank. They passed by the ruined cities of Larissa and Mespila on the Tigris, in the neighbourhood of the ancient Nineveh. The march from Mespila to the mountainous country of the Carduchi occupied several days in which the Greeks suffered much from the attacks of the enemy.

Their future route was now a matter of serious perplexity. On their left lay the Tigris, so deep that they could not fathom it with their spears; while in their front rose the steep and lofty mountains of the Carduchi, which came so near the river as hardly to leave a passage for its waters. As all other roads seemed barred, they formed the resolution of striking into these mountains, on the farther side of which lay Armenia, where both the Tigris and the Euphrates might be forded near their sources. After a difficult and dangerous march of seven days, during which their sufferings were far greater than any they had experienced from the Persians the army at length emerged into Armenia. It was now the month of December, and Armenia was cold and exposed, being a table-land raised high above the level of the sea. Whilst halting near some well-supplied villages, the Greeks were overtaken by two deep falls of snow, which almost buried them in their open bivouacs. Hence a five days' march brought them to the eastern branch of the Euphrates. Crossing the river, they proceeded on the other side of it over plains covered with a deep snow, and in the face of a biting north wind. Here many of the slaves and beasts of burthen, and even a few of the soldiers, fell victims to the cold. Some had their feet frost-bitten; some were blinded by the snow; whilst others, exhausted with cold and hunger, sunk down and died. On the eighth day they proceeded on their way, ascending the banks of the Phasis, not the celebrated river of that name, but probably the one usually called Araxes.

William Smith, A Smaller History of Ancient Greece

The Expedition of the Greeks under Cyrus, and Retreat of the Ten Thousand, B.C. 401-400

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