z6o STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Tliis great man has been lately cenfured, on the ground of that 

 celebrated retreat, by which he brought back ten thoufand 

 Greeks into their own Country, from the very extremity of 

 Peifia, ha\ ing performed a march of eleven hundred leagues 

 through a hoftile country, and amidft foes innumerable. 



It has been aflerted, by a man of great learning, that the 

 retreat of this renowned General, was an etfeél of the good- 

 nature, or the pietv, oï Artaxerxes ; and he has, of confequence, 

 treated the route which Xenophon purfued, by the north of 



Perfia, as a fuperfluous precaution. But is it credible that 



the King of Perfia, intentionally, fliewed indulgence to the 

 Greeks, when we know, that, by a perfidious piece of cruelty, 

 he had put to death twenty-five of their chief men r How was it 

 pofiible for thofe Greeks to have returned by the fame road which 

 thev went, confidering that every thing in this track had been 

 put in motion to intercept them, and that the Perfians had, 

 through it's whole extent, deftroyed the villages? Xejwphon de- 

 feated all their precautions, by direéling his march through a 

 track of which they had no forefight. 



î'or my own part, I confider this military expedition as the 

 mofl illuftrious that ever was atchieved ; not only from the in- 

 numerable conflids, croffings of rivers, forced marches over 

 mountains, in the face of myriads upon myriads of enemies, 

 through which it was accompliflied : but becaufe it was not 

 fullied by a fingle acft of injuftice, and had no other objeft iu 

 view but the prefervation of citizens. All that is held in high 

 renown among the Warriors of Antiquity, have confidered the 

 retreat of the ten thoufand as a maffer-piece in the military art. 

 There is a fingle expreflion tranfmitted to us, which will for ever 

 cover it with glory, uttered in an age, and among a People, by 

 which the Science of War was carried to the height of perfec- 

 tion, and in a fituation which admitted not of difi^mulation : I 

 mean an exprefTion of Anthony^ when entangled in the country 



of 



