Yet, only a year before, "Ten Thousand" heavy-armed Greeks (and near
half as many again of all arms), mostly Spartan, had marched right
through western Asia. They went as mercenary allies of a larger native
force led by Cyrus, Persian prince-governor of west central Anatolia,
who coveted the diadem of his newly enthroned brother. Having traversed
the old Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms they moved down into Cilicia and up
again over north Syria to the Euphrates, bound (though they only learned
it at last by the waters of the Great River itself) for Babylon. But
they never reached that city. Cyrus met death and his oriental soldiers
accepted defeat at Cunaxa, some four days' march short of the goal. But
the undefeated Greeks, refusing to surrender, and, few though they were,
so greatly dreaded by the Persians that they were not directly molested,
had to get back to their own land as best they might. How, robbed of
their original leaders they yet reached the Black Sea and safety by way
of the Tigris valley and the wild passes of Kurdish Armenia all readers
of Xenophon, the Athenian who succeeded to the command, know well. Now
in 400 B.C. they were reappearing in the cities of west Asia and Europe
to tell how open was the inner continent to bold plunderers and how
little ten Orientals availed in attack or defence against one Greek.
Such stories then and there incited Sparta to a forward policy, and one
day would encourage a stronger Western power than hers to march to the
conquest of the East.

We are fortunate in having Xenophon's detailed narrative of the
adventures of these Greeks, if only because it throws light by the way
on inner Asia almost at the very moment of our survey. We see Sardes
under Persia what it had been under Lydia, the capital city of Anatolia;
we see the great valley plains of Lydia and Phrygia, north and south,
well peopled, well supplied, and well in hand, while the rough foothills
and rougher heights of Taurus are held by contumacious mountaineers who