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Updated: May 20, 2025
Klearchus concluded his protest by requesting to be informed, what malicious reporter had been filling the mind of Tissaphernês with causeless suspicions against the Greeks. You remark truly, that if you were to meditate evil against me, it would recoil upon yourselves. I shall prove to you, in my turn, that you have no cause to mistrust either the King or me.
He gave directions accordingly for a night-march back along the Euphratês, to the station where they had passed the last night but one prior to the battle. The other Grecian generals, without any formal choice of Klearchus as chief, tacitly acquiesced in his orders, from a sense of his superior decision and experience, in an emergency when no one knew what to propose.
In the evening, Klearchus, convening the generals and the captains, acquainted them that the morning sacrifice had been of a nature to forbid their marching against the King a prohibition, of which he now understood the reason, from having since learnt that the King was on the other side of the Tigris, and therefore out of their reach but that it was favorable for rejoining Ariæus.
The impression entertained by Klearchus, respecting the hopeless position of the Greeks in the heart of the Persian territory after the death of Cyrus was perfectly natural in a military man who could appreciate all the means of attack and obstruction which the enemy had it in their power to employ.
To this summons, painful in the extreme to a Grecian ear, Klearchus replied that it was not the practice for victorious men to lay down their arms. Being then called away to examine the sacrifice which was going on, he left the interview to the other officers, who met the summons of Phalînus by an emphatic negative.
Unfortunately for the reputation of Klearchus, no such reasonable excuse can be offered for his credulity, which brought himself as well as his colleagues to so melancholy an end, and his whole army to the brink of ruin. It appears that the general sentiment of the Grecian army, taking just measure of the character of Tissaphernês, was disposed to greater circumspection in dealing with him.
This great host halted to see the Greeks pass by; and Klearchus ordered the march in column of two abreast, employing himself actively to maintain an excellent array, and halting more than once.
During their halt on the Zab, so many various manifestations occurred to aggravate the mistrust, that hostilities seemed on the point of breaking out between the two camps. To obviate this danger Klearchus demanded an interview with Tissaphernês, represented to him the threatening attitude of affairs, and insisted on the necessity of coming to a clear understanding.
In the midst of this parley Klearchus returned, and was requested by Phalînus to return a final answer on behalf of all. He at first asked the advice of Phalînus himself; appealing to the common feeling of Hellenic patriotism, and anticipating, with very little judgment, that the latter would encourage the Greeks in holding out.
The plan of Tissaphernês, as far as we can understand it, seems to have been, to draw the Greeks to some considerable distance from the heart of the Persian empire, and then to open his schemes of treasonable hostility, which the imprudence of Klearchus enabled him to do, on the banks of the Great Zab, with chances of success such as he could hardly have contemplated.
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