The Two Great Retreats of History Part 6

[18] =Tribute=: this was an annual tax so heavy and so cruelly extorted that it kept the great body of the people in a state little better than that of slavery.

[19] =Cyreian Persians=: those Persians who had espoused the cause of Cyrus in his attempt to seize the throne.

[20] =Amnesty=: pardon.

[21] =Strike our tents=: take down our tents.

[22] =Barbarians=: the Greeks called all foreigners "barbarians." This word, however, did not generally express contempt, or necessarily imply lack of civilization, but was used to designate those who spoke another language than Greek.

[23] =Ionia=: see note on p. 21.

[24] =Wall of Media=: a wall supposed to have extended from the Euphrates to the Tigris. It cannot now be traced with certainty.

[25] =Bitumen=: mineral pitch or asphalt. It is now much used for cement, for making pavements, and for covering flat roofs.

[26] =Pontoons=: light framework or floats on which a platform or roadway is laid for a temporary bridge. Boats or canoes, placed side by side, and covered with planks, are not infrequently so used.

[27] =Inflated skins=: bags or vessels made of the skins of sheep and other animals. They are quite commonly used in the East for carrying wine and other liquids. When inflated they are also employed as above mentioned.

[28] =Mysians and Pisidians=: see note on p. 35.

[29] =Ionia=: the central part of the western coast of Asia Minor. Here, at a very early period, flouris.h.i.+ng Greek colonies were planted, and Ionia became celebrated for its art, its literature, and its cities, such as Ephesus and Miletus. But the country could not maintain its independence against the Eastern kings, and was at this period tributary to Persia. If the Ten Thousand could reach Ionia they would be among fellow-countrymen and friends, and within easy sail of all parts of Greece.

[30] =Tiara=: a flexible cap worn by the Persians. The king alone had the right to wear it erect and high, as a badge of royal authority. Some suppose that when Tissaphernes says that though he cannot openly place the high tiara on his head, but shall wear it on his heart (feeling like a king if not looking like one), that he purposely uses the language "the better to blind Klearchus," and make him think that if the Greeks will aid him with their arms, he will revolt and aspire to become king in fact.

[31] =Philh.e.l.lenic=: Greek-loving.

[32] =Miletus=: a city of Ionia, subject in a measure to Athens, revolted in 412 B.C. The next year the Lacedaemonians, or Spartans, who were the enemies of Athens, sent over a fleet to aid the people of Miletus. Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, desiring to see the power of Athens completely overthrown, promised to pay the Spartan soldiers (of whom Klearchus was one), but afterwards made up his mind not to do so, and left them to fight at their own expense.

[33] =Arcadian=: an inhabitant of Arcadia, a district of the Peloponnesian peninsula, Greece.

[34] =Democrat and philosopher=: Xenophon (431?-355 B.C.) belonged to that party in Athens that maintained the principle of government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," in opposition to the party that, like the Spartans, believed that all political power should be monopolized by a favored few. Xenophon was also the disciple and friend of Socrates the philosopher, of whom some account will be given later on.

[35] =Oneirus=: the G.o.d of dreams and messenger of Zeus (Jupiter), father of G.o.ds and men, sometimes called Zeus the Preserver, Saviour, or Deliverer.

[36] =Zeus=: see note above on Oneirus.

[37] =Boeotian dialect=: the inhabitants of the Greek province of Boeotia were considered by the Athenians to be a dull and unprogressive people. They spoke a broad, coa.r.s.e dialect.

[38] =Cas.h.i.+er=: to dismiss from service.

[39] =Ears bored=: this was an Eastern (Lydian) custom, which the Greeks despised as only befitting slaves, since with them it was a mark of servitude. Agasias intimates that Apollonides either had been a slave or at least ought to be one.

[40] =Kilikia= (also spelled Cilicia): Asia Minor.

[41] =Sneeze=: any sudden, involuntary outburst, like sneezing, was considered a sign of the divine will for good or evil. As it occurred here just as Xenophon p.r.o.nounced the auspicious word "preservation," it was regarded as a favorable omen sent by Zeus himself. The accustomed invocation was like the old English custom of crying "G.o.d bless you"

when one sneezed.

[42] =Paean=: war-song, song of triumph; originally addressed to the G.o.d Apollo.

[43] =Mysians and Pisidians=: rude tribes inhabiting mountainous districts of Asia Minor, and maintaining their independence in spite of the efforts of the Persian kings to subjugate them.

[44] =Lotos-eaters=: the lotos is a date-like fruit, fabled by Homer in the "Odyssey" to be so delicious and possessed of such marvellous properties that those who once tasted it forgot home and friends and wished only to remain where they might continue to eat it forever. See "Odyssey," Book IX., and compare Tennyson's poem of the "Lotos-Eaters."

[45] =Achaeans=: inhabitants of Achaia, in the Peloponnesian peninsula.

[46] =Peloponnesians=: inhabitants of the Greek peninsula of the Peloponnesus (or so-called Island of Pelops), now known as the Morea.

They were considered the best soldiers in Greece. Sparta, the rival and enemy of Athens, was the ruling city of this district.

[47] =Athenian catastrophe=: in 415 B.C. the Athenians sent out a powerful expedition to conquer Syracuse in Sicily. They met with a disastrous defeat, both by land and sea, many thousands being taken captive and sold as slaves. Alkibiades, an Athenian who had taken refuge in Sparta, now urged the Spartans to attack Athens, their old rival and enemy. His vehement eloquence was eventually successful.

[48] =Perikles=: leader of the party of the people in Athens, and for a long time governor of the city; he was perhaps the greatest statesman that Greece produced.

[49] =The war=: the Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C. This was a desperate struggle for supremacy between the two chief powers of Greece, Sparta and Athens. The Spartans were a rough, military people, despising all intellectual culture and maintaining a narrow and tyrannical form of government from which the body of the people was wholly excluded. The Athenians, on the contrary, wished to maintain a republic in which all citizens should take part; they represented the highest civilization of Greece, and were in one sense the schoolmasters of the world.

[50] =Sophists=: a cla.s.s of philosophers or teachers who gave instruction in rhetoric and the art of disputation. They went about from city to city, and, contrary to the general custom of Greek philosophers, took fees from their pupils. "What the Sophists, among other things conducive to success in life, really taught the people, was the art of conducting their own cases before the great citizen-juries, where every man was forced to be his own advocate." [See Myers's "Outlines of Ancient History."]

[51] =Javelin=: a light spear.

[52] =Carbines=: short muskets, or rifles.

[53] =Rhodian=: pertaining to the island of Rhodes, off the southwest coast of Asia Minor.

[54] =Nineveh=: "an exceeding great city" (Jonah iii. 3), larger, says Strabo, than Babylon, having walls with 1500 towers 200 feet high.

(Diodorus.)

[55] =Cuira.s.s=: defensive armor, covering the body from the neck to the girdle.

[56] =Sacrificed=: not only to propitiate the G.o.ds, but to obtain omens or signs for their future guidance.

[57] =Cubit=: a measure of length; the distance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about eighteen inches.

[58] =Corselet=: armor covering the front of the upper part of the body.

[59] =Reins=: the small of the back, or the kidneys.

[60] =Burial=: the Greeks believed that so long as the corpse remained unburied the spirit would roam about restlessly in the dreary under-world or common abode of departed souls.

[61] =Kretan=: or Cretan (from Crete).

[62] =Augury=: omen or sign.

[63] =Libations=: wine or liquor poured out on the ground or on a victim in honor of the G.o.ds.

[64] =Bivouac= (biv-wak'): an encampment without tents or shelter, or one in which the whole army is on guard against surprise; here, the former is probably meant.

[65] =Sesame=: an Eastern plant from whose seeds an oil is obtained, which is used for food and other purposes.

[66] =Boreas=: the G.o.d of the north wind.