Xenophon quickly pushed past me and skidded back around the corner where we had first taken shelter, to see what our options were in that direction. The trail behind us, from which we had come, was impassible. The trail forward was already filling with the shouts of angry boys descending to where we stood. An ominous trickle of gravel was beginning to fall on our heads from above. Xenophon looked at me, wild-eyed, and without a word we both began ripping off our armor, while at the same time half-scrambling, half-tumbling down the steep slope below us, hoping to ease into the river before we were crushed by another avalanche.
"Easing in" was not exactly what transpired, for at that point the river was flowing through a narrow defile with sheer rock faces extending twenty feet above the surface of the foaming water. We paused briefly at the lip, and with a quick prayer to the gods to recall to us the swimming skills we had learned as boys at Erchia, we leaped.
Eight hours later, to the astonishment of the sentries, we limped into camp, naked but for our sandals, covered with deep cuts, bruises, and thorn scratches. Half an hour of battering and near drowning in the roiling river had brought us four miles back downstream, safely out of reach of the Pisidians, but a long trek still from our camp, which we did not reach until dusk. Proxenus had already set about sorrowfully making funeral preparations for us, having been told in great detail by the two terrified Boeotian scouts of our gruesome deaths. He was overjoyed at our return and feted us far into the night with meat and uncut wine, begging us over and over to relate how we had leaped into the river to escape. Word of our adventure even made its way that evening to Cyrus, who had also been told of our untimely deaths, and who stopped by Proxenus' tent to congratulate us on evading this fate.
"Your return is a good omen for the army!" he exclaimed. "I have told the quartermaster to issue you new horses-you can arrange that in the morning. Meanwhile… by Zeus, Theo, take a look at that gash!" And he spent the rest of the evening with us, comparing his own scars with ours, and laughing at the likely reaction of the Pisidian boys when they descended their mountain and found we had disappeared.
About poor Cleon nothing more was ever said; but his loss was not a great one, for he was only an interpreter.
After leaving the Meander, we marched another one hundred and fifty uneventful miles further east, Cyrus celebrating and entertaining local dignitaries as we passed, until we arrived at the vast Plain of Caystros, where the army gathered like a huge flock of noisy crows, wheeling, strutting, and shouting orders and insults at each other. The pause was necessary to rest and regroup, as we had been on the road for over three months now, the weather had become deadly hot, and the Greek troops were slow in becoming acclimated. The Persian contingents in our army-Ariaius' troops and Cyrus' handpicked personal cavalry guard-ribbed the Greeks unmercifully about their complaints, saying that they themselves felt quite refreshed, since after all, we were still traveling through the relatively cool Pisidian mountains. "The best is yet to come," they taunted. "You soft-assed Greeks are going to wilt like flowers in the Syrian desert!"
Morale had begun to drop as well. The men had been complaining for some weeks now that they were owed back wages. The prince had allowed no looting on the way, nor plunder to be captured, and since he had paid the troops no stipends since we had left, the men were feeling the pinch every time they passed through a market town and were unable to buy even basic supplies, much less purchase trinkets or gamble. This distressed Cyrus greatly, for he had always been justly proud of having treated his men fairly, and he placed great stock on retaining their loyalty, particularly in view of the size of his army and its isolated position. Just as the grumbling was beginning to be of concern to the officers, we spied a short wagon train approaching in the distance. Cyrus did not seem at all surprised-in fact, he appeared to have been expecting it.
I was sitting on my horse next to Proxenus when it arrived, and we both watched it with interest. The coaches were richly appointed, with well-dressed horses and heavily muscled guards and liverymen garbed in fine silks and gold chains. "The train belongs to Queen Epyaxa of Cilicia," he said. As the woman carefully stepped down before the eyes of the gathering troops, I could see that she was past her youthful prime, though had not yet lost a certain flush of the beauty she had once possessed.
"She's the wife of King Syennesis, one of Cyrus' allies. He is an old man, who was a satrap to the prince's father as well."
"Where is the king?" asked Xenophon, riding up to us. "He didn't send his wife out alone to meet us, did he?"
"Ha! That's a story in itself," Proxenus replied derisively. "This king hasn't left his palace in ten years, out of shame at the way he was handled by the Pisidians when they captured him during one of their petty little wars. Rumor has it that the treatment he received resulted in the loss of his manhood, though I can't say whether this was something physical or a form of madness imposed by the gods as punishment for some act he committed." Proxenus paused and looked around carefully to see if anyone was near. He then broke out in a broad grin. "But if his virility was mislaid somewhere, they say that ever since, the queen has spared no effort looking for it among lucky candidates."
Indeed, I do not know precisely what transpired in Cyrus' tent during the queen's state visit, for it was one of the few times that Proxenus was not invited to be present during an official reception. Even Cyrus' favored concubines were summarily turned out, to the amusement of the Greek officers at seeing the indignant pouts the girls affected during their temporary exile to a neighboring canvas.
I do know, however, that the queen brought Cyrus an enormous sum of money, several chests filled with silver, part of which he used to pay his troops four months' wages on the spot, plus a bonus for their patience. The men shouted their appreciation to the queen, blessing her in the name of the god Priapus and waving their drinking horns in salute to her absent husband. The queen, being too dignified to show offense, merely nodded and smiled at the men demurely as she exited Cyrus' lodgings and ducked back into her own travel tent of hairy, untanned leather.
BOOK FOUR
It is shameless how readily mortals cast blame on the gods.
From us, they say, come all their sorrows, from us their misery,
But they have no one to blame but themselves-
Themselves and their own blind folly.
– HOMER
CHAPTER ONE
GOOD QUEEN EPYAXA accompanied us in march for some weeks, and at Tyriaion, the first major city we encountered after her arrival, the army was called to halt for three days. The queen had become ever bolder in her displays of affection for Cyrus, and had begged him to arrange a review of his army for her. Thinking that it might be a good opportunity to impress the city's inhabitants with his military might, and thereby continue the supply of easily gotten provisions, Cyrus readily agreed.
The men grumbled about the extra work required to polish their shields, wash their linens and their bodies, and dress their hair, but I believe that in general they were pleased at the opportunity to perform for the awestruck population. It was a welcome break from the routine and drudgery. Tyriaion was by no means a grand city-a sprawling collection of low mud hovels with a dusty square in the middle, inhabited by the local governor and a small garrison of troops, and supported by a large population of abject-looking farmers and slaves. The place was pestilential-an open sewage line ran straight through the middle of the dust-choked streets, stinging flies tormented the men, and the stench was suffocating. Proxenus noted, out of earshot of Clearchus and his men, that it bore a close resemblance to Sparta. In fact, the Spartans did look much more at home there than they ever had in the oriental splendor of Sardis, or the grandeur of Athens.