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Perceiving and appreciating the great qualities of the Greeks, and learning how to influence them, he sought, by their aid, to conquer his way to the throne. As has been remarked, he communicated them only to the Spartan general, Clearchus. Neither Greek nor Persian divined his object as he collected a great army at Sardis.
Clearchus attempted to suppress the mutiny by severe measures, but failed. He then resorted to stratagem, and pretended to yield to the wishes of the Greeks, and likewise refused to march, but sent a secret dispatch to Cyrus that all would be well in the end, and requested him to send fresh invitations, that he might answer by fresh refusals.
However, Artaxerxes consented to the entreaties of his mother, and promised her with an oath that he would spare Clearchus; but afterwards, at the instigation of Statira, he put every one of them to death except Menon.
“The gods will some day explain,” said Clearchus, winding up the argument,—and so for a little while the four forgot all about Glaucon. Despite the cane, Clearchus was right. The visitor was Democrates. The orator mounted the dark stair above the shield-factory and knocked against a door, calling, “Pai! Pai!” “Boy! boy!” a summons answered by none other than the ever smiling Hiram.
“At least he has a visitor,” asserted Clearchus, who had long been silent. “See, a gentleman wrapped in a long himation is going up to the door and standing up his walking stick.” “And if I have eyes,” vowed the juror, squinting through his hands in the half light, “that closely wrapped man is Glaucon the Alcmæonid.” “Or Democrates,” remarked Clearchus; “they look much alike from behind.
Certain young Athenians conspired against Diocles and Hippias, tyrants of Athens. Diocles they slew; but Hippias, making his escape, avenged him. Chion and Leonidas of Heraclea, disciples of Plato, conspired against the despots Clearchus and Satirus. Clearchus fell, but Satirus survived and avenged him. The Pazzi, of whom we have spoken so often, succeeded in murdering Giuliano only.
For Clearchus, who was the scholar of Aristotle, and inferior to no one of the Peripatetics whomsoever, in his first book concerning sleep, says that "Aristotle his master related what follows of a Jew," and sets down Aristotle's own discourse with him.
And, therefore, Clearchus, by his caution, must be considered more to blame for the result in the destruction of the life and fortune of Cyrus, than he by his heat and rashness.
It is impossible not to observe the brutal and senseless fury which characterises almost every Spartan with whom he was connected. Clearchus nearly lost his life by his cruelty. Chirisophus deprived his army of the services of a faithful guide by his unreasonable and ferocious severity. But it is needless to multiply instances.
At this said Lacedæmon, by the by, women seem to have somewhat ruled the roast, and taken the law, at least before marriage, into their own hands; for Clearchus Solensis, in his adages, reports, that "at Lacedæmon, on a certain festival, the women dragged the unmarried men about the altar, and beat them with their hands, in order that a sense of shame at the indignity of this injury might excite in them a desire to have children of their own to educate, and to choose wives at a proper season for this purpose."
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