"Klearchus (replied the satrap), I rejoice to hear such excellent sense from your lips. You remark truly, that if you were to meditate evil against me, it would recoil upon yourselves. I shall prove to you, in my turn, that you have no cause to mistrust either the King or me. If we had wished to destroy you, nothing would be easier. We have superabundant forces for the purpose: there are wide plains in which you would be starved—besides mountains and rivers which you would be unable to pass, without our help. Having thus the means of destroying you in our hands, and having nevertheless bound ourselves by solemn oaths to save you, we shall not be fools and knaves enough to attempt it now, when we should draw upon ourselves the just indignation of the gods. It is my peculiar affection for my neighbors the Greeks—and my wish to attach to my own person, by ties of gratitude, the Greek soldiers of Cyrus—which have made me eager to conduct you to Ionia[29] in safety. For I know that when you are in my service, though the King is the only man who can wear his tiara[30] erect upon his head, I shall be able to wear mine erect upon my heart, in full pride and confidence."
So powerful was the impression made upon Klearchus by these assurances, that he exclaimed—"Surely those informers deserve the severest punishment, who try to put us at enmity, when we are such good friends to each other, and have so much reason to be so." "Yes (replied Tissaphernês), they deserve nothing less: and if you, with the other generals and captains, will come into my tent tomorrow, I will tell you who the calumniators are." "To-be-sure I will (rejoined Klearchus), and bring the other generals with me. I shall tell you at the same time who are the parties that seek to prejudice us against you." The conversation then ended, the satrap detaining Klearchus to dinner, and treating him in the most hospitable and confidential manner.
On the next morning, Klearchus communicated what had passed to the Greeks, insisting on the necessity that all the generals should go to Tissaphernês pursuant to his invitation; in order to re-establish that confidence which unworthy calumniators had shaken, and to punish such of the calumniators as might be Greeks. So emphatically did he pledge himself for the good faith and philhellenic[31] dispositions of the satrap, that he overruled the opposition of many among the soldiers; who, still continuing to entertain their former suspicions, remonstrated especially against the extreme imprudence of putting all the generals at once into the power of Tissaphernês. The urgency of Klearchus prevailed. Himself with four other generals—Proxenus, Menon, Agias, and Sokratês—and twenty captains—went to visit the satrap in his tent; about 200 of the soldiers going along with them, to make purchases for their own account in the Persian camp-market.
On reaching the quarters of Tissaphernês—distant nearly three miles from the Persian camp according to habit—the five generals were admitted into the interior, while the captains remained at the entrance. A purple flag, hoisted from the top of the tent, betrayed too late the purpose for which they had been invited to come. The captains, with the Grecian soldiers who had accompanied them, were surprised and cut down, while the generals in the interior were detained, put in chains, and carried up as prisoners to the Persian court. Here Klearchus, Proxenus, Agias, and Sokratês, were beheaded, after a short imprisonment. Queen Parysatis, indeed, from affection to Cyrus, not only furnished many comforts to Klearchus in the prison (by the hands of her surgeon Ktesias), but used all her influence with her son Artaxerxês to save his life; though her efforts were counteracted, on this occasion, by the superior influence of Queen Stateira, his wife. The rivalry between these two royal women, doubtless arising out of many other circumstances besides the death of Klearchus, became soon afterwards so furious, that Parysatis caused Stateira to be poisoned.
Menon was not put to death along with the other generals. He appears to have taken credit at the Persian court for the treason of entrapping his colleagues into the hands of Tissaphernês. But his life was only prolonged to perish a year afterwards in disgrace and torture—probably by the requisition of Parysatis, who thus avenged the death of Klearchus. The queen-mother had always power enough to perpetrate cruelties, though not always to avert them. She had already brought to a miserable end every one, even faithful defenders of Artaxerxês, concerned in the death of her son Cyrus.
Though Menon thought it convenient, when brought up to Babylon, to boast of having been the instrument through whom the generals were entrapped into the fatal tent, this boast is not to be treated as matter of fact. For not only does Xenophon explain the catastrophe differently, but in the delineation which he gives of Menon, dark and odious as it is in the extreme, he does not advance any such imputation; indirectly, indeed, he sets it aside.
Unfortunately for the reputation of Klearchus, no such reasonable excuse can be offered for his credulity, which brought himself as well as his colleagues to so melancholy an end, and his whole army to the brink of ruin. It appears that the general sentiment of the Grecian army, taking just measure of the character of Tissaphernês, was disposed to greater circumspection in dealing with him. Upon that system Klearchus himself had hitherto acted; and the necessity of it might have been especially present to his mind, since he had served with the Lacedæmonian fleet at Miletus[32] in 411 B.C., and had therefore had fuller experience than other men in the army, of the satrap's real character. On a sudden he now turns round, and on the faith of a few verbal declarations, puts all the military chiefs into the most defenceless posture and the most obvious peril, such as hardly the strongest grounds for confidence could have justified. Though the remark of Machiavel is justified by large experience—that from the short-sightedness of men and their obedience to present impulse, the most notorious deceiver will always find new persons to trust him—still such misjudgment on the part of an officer of age and experience is difficult to explain. Polyænus intimates that beautiful women, exhibited by the satrap at his first banquet to Klearchus alone, served as a lure to attract him with all his colleagues to the second; while Xenophon imputes the error to continuance of a jealous rivalry with Menon. The latter, it appears, having always been intimate with Ariæus; had been thus brought into previous communication with Tissaphernês, by whom he had been well received, and by whom he was also encouraged to lay plans for detaching the whole Grecian army from Klearchus so as to bring it all under his (Menon's) command into the services of the satrap. Such at least was the suspicion of Klearchus; who, jealous in the extreme of his own military authority, tried to defeat the scheme by bidding still higher himself for the favor of Tissaphernês. Imagining that Menon was the unknown calumniator who prejudiced the satrap against him, he hoped to prevail on the satrap to disclose his name and dismiss him. Such jealousy seems to have robbed Klearchus of his customary prudence. We must also allow for another impression deeply fixed in his mind; that the salvation of the army was hopeless without the consent of Tissaphernês, and therefore, since the latter had conducted them thus far in safety, when he might have destroyed them before, that his designs at the bottom could not be hostile.
Notwithstanding these two great mistakes—one on the present occasion, one previously, at the battle of Kunaxa, in keeping the Greeks on the right contrary to the order of Cyrus—both committed by Klearchus, the loss of that officer was doubtless a great misfortune to the army; while, on the contrary, the removal of Menon was a signal benefit—perhaps a condition of ultimate safety. A man so treacherous and unprincipled as Xenophon depicts Menon, would probably have ended by really committing towards the army that treason, for which he falsely took credit at the Persian court in reference to the seizure of the generals.
The impression entertained by Klearchus, respecting the hopeless position of the Greeks in the heart of the Persian territory after the death of Cyrus was perfectly natural in a military man who could appreciate all the means of attack and obstruction which the enemy had it in their power to employ. Nothing is so unaccountable in this expedition as the manner in which such means were thrown away—the spectacle of Persian impotence. First, the whole line of upward march, including the passage of the Euphratês, left undefended; next, the long trench dug across the frontier of Babylonia, with only a passage of twenty feet wide left near the Euphratês, abandoned without a guard; lastly, the line of the Wall of Media and the canals which offered such favorable positions for keeping the Greeks out of the cultivated territory of Babylonia, neglected in like manner, and a convention concluded whereby the Persians engaged to escort the invaders safe to the Ionian coast, beginning by conducting them through the heart of Babylonia, amidst canals affording inexpugnable defences