Artaxerxes. For this purpose he engaged the forces of Proxenus, and to
this army Xenophon attached himself. The rendezvous was Sardis, from
which the army marched east under the pretext of chastising the
revolting mountaineers of Pisidia. Instead of attacking the Pisidians,
the followers of Cyrus proceeded east through Asia and Babylonia till
they met the forces of Artaxerxes at Cunaxa. A furious battle took
place, and the rout of the king's army had begun when Cyrus, elated with
the victory that seemed just within his grasp, challenged his brother to
single combat. In the duel that ensued Cyrus was slain. Proxenus had
already fallen, and the virtual command of the Greek army soon devolved
upon Xenophon, who thereupon began the famous retreat.

A vivid account of battles, and of hardships endured from the cold, in
the struggle through mountain snows, through almost impassable forests,
and across bridgeless rivers, is given in Xenophon's _Anabasis_, the
celebrated work, in seven books, which forms the classical narrative of
the campaign and the retreat. Soon after the death of Cyrus, in
September, B.C. 401, the seizure and murder of the leading Greek
generals by the treacherous Persian satrap, Tissaphernes, placed the
Greek army in great peril. Xenophon, who now took practical command,
counselled and exhorted the surviving leaders, and on the next day the
Greeks formed in a hollow square, the baggage in the centre, and began
their retreat, which led them along the Tigris to the territory of the
Carduchi [Kurds], through Armenia, and across Georgia, the enemy often
harassing them.

At the point where the climax of the story, which is presented here, may
be said to begin, the Greeks have entered Armenia, passed the sources of
the Tigris, and reached the Teleboas. Having made a treaty with
Tiribazus, governor of the province, and discovered his insincerity, and