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Updated: April 30, 2025
The Persians marched in advance, and the Greeks about three miles in the rear. At the Great Zab they halted three days, and then Tissaphernes enticed the Greek generals to his tent, ostensibly to feast them and renew negotiations. There they were seized, sent prisoners to the Persian court, and treacherously murdered.
Darius, whose headquarters had been at Arbela, south of the Zab, on learning Alexander's approach, had crossed that stream and taken post on the prepared ground to the north, in the neighborhood of a small town or village called Gaugamela.
After this account of the fifth campaign, the whole result of the wars is thus briefly summed up: "There fell into my hands altogether, between the commencement of my reign and my fifth year, forty-two countries with their kings, from the banks of the river Zab to the banks of the river Euphrates, the country of the Rhatti, and the upper ocean of the setting sun.
From the junction of the greater Zab down to Kurna, where the Euphrates joins, this stream is the most important affluent of the Tigris. It was one of those bright, sparkling mornings on which merely to be alive and breathe is a joy. We passed a number of caravans, bringing carpets and rugs from Persia, or fruit and vegetables from the rich agricultural district around Bakuba.
These narrow defiles might well be traversed by an army in a summer campaign, but neither dwellings nor cultivated lands could invade such a district with success; at most they could take possession of the few spots of fertile soil which lay at the mouth of the lateral valleys; such, for example, was the plain of Arbeles which was watered by the great Zab before its junction with the Tigris.
Churchill, in his "Lebanon," speaking of the cruelties of Djezzar Pacha, in extracting to the root the tongues of some Emirs, adds, "It is a curious fact, however, that the tongues grow again sufficiently for the purposes of speech." Sir John Malcolm, in his "Sketches of Persia," speaks of Zâb, Khan of Khisht, who was condemned to lose his tongue.
After the junction of the Imperial troops, which Bahram vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two battles on the banks of the Zab, and the confines of Media.
Six days' further march through a deserted part of Media brought them to some villages belonging to queen Parysatis, which, out of enmity to her as the patron of Cyrus, Tissaphernes abandoned to be plundered by the Greeks. From thence they proceeded in five days to the river Zabatus, or Greater Zab, having previously crossed the Lesser Zab, which Xenophon neglects to mention.
But it was soon found out that his purposes were treacherous, and that he came merely to seduce individual soldiers to desertion with a few of whom he succeeded. Accordingly, the resolution was taken to admit no more heralds or envoys. The Greeks cross the Zab.
We ought to have gone to Bear's Hill, just as we started to. There's always some foxes at Bear's Hill that live there, and don't want to leave home. Let's go after them." After we had eaten our fill we threw the rest of our food on the snow, and Zab gulped it down in no time and had a contented look, probably thinking of those other dogs with their empty bellies.
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