TRAVELS IN THE TRACK OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS; BEING A GEOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITION OF CYRUS AND OF THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS, AS RELATED BY XENOPHON. BY WILLIAM F. AINSWORTH, F.G.S., F. R. G. S., SOCIET DE GEOGRAPH!! DE LYO PREFACE. IT has been truly remarked, in discussing the results of the eventful battle of Cunaxa, that had victory attended the steps of the Greeks we should then have been without the Anabasis, the choicest piece of ancient military history, and fairly worth the history of all the Persian dynasties since that period.' The same high authority and distinguished geographer, Major Rennell, who makes this remark, has also pronounced the Expedition, taken in all its parts, as perhaps the most splendid of all the military events that have been recorded in ancient history; and it is acknowledged at all hands to have been rendered no less interesting and impressive in the description, by the happy mode of relating it. This celebrated Expedition of the younger Cyrus, and still more the Retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, by revealing the weakness of Persia, further paved the way to the overthrow of that vast empire: strong, as Xenophon remarks, with regard to the extent of country and numbers of men, but weak by reason of the great distance of places, and the division of its forces; and it thus assisted, as Archdeacon Wilberforce points out (The Five Empires, &c., pp. 113, 149), in the accomplishment of the promises of God, as made in the prophecies of Daniel, and prepared the way for the third of the great empires which were to precede the coming of the Saviour of mankind. But this remarkable work has been read, and its geographical details have been either taken for granted, or referred to proximate delineations of territory and places, which communicated to the mind anything but a sensible or positive satisfaction in tracing the progress of the armies. In many cases the reader was compelled, after much examination, to take for granted what the mind naturally required to be verified; and in others, to forego all enquiry as entirely hopeless. A reader of modern military history would regard as very imperfect a work which would be found deficient in the necessary details of geography. In books of travel the defect would be felt still more. The Anabasis, independent of its merits arising from the grandeur of the subject, the high reputation of its author, and the military exploits which it records (offering in these a remarkable contrast to the recent campaign of Affghanistan), contains a great variety of incident to recommend it: it combines with the character of a military history, that of a book of travel likewise; and if military operations generally receive their character from the nature of the ground on which they are performed, how much more must they do so when combined with a lengthened journey through hostile countries, and amid inclement seasons! Nor can the mind be satisfied except when such details are accompanied by representations and descriptions, which at once serve to render manifest the several movements, and to develop the causes which led to them. The present illustrator of the Anabasis has by accident enjoyed advantages possessed by no other person, |