60 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



against King Artaxerxes. This Xenophon at that 

 time was very young, and never had seen the wars 

 before ; neither had any command in the army, but 

 only followed the war as a voluntary, for the love 

 and conversation of Proxenus his friend. He was 

 present when Falinus came in message from the great 

 king to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the 

 field, and they a handful of men left to themselves in 

 the midst of the king s territories, cut off from their 

 country by many navigable rivers, and many hundred 

 miles. The message imported that they should deliver 

 up their arms and submit themselves to the king s 

 mercy. To which message before answer was made, 

 divers of the army conferred familiarly with Falinus ; 

 and amongst the rest Xenophon happened to say, 

 * Why, Falinus, we have now but these two things 

 left, our arms and our virtues ; and if we yield up our 

 arms, how shall we make use of our virtue ? Whereto 

 Falinus smiling on him said, If I be not deceived, 

 young gentleman, you are an Athenian : and I believe 

 you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say : 

 but you are much abused, if you think your virtue can 

 withstand the king s power. Here was the scorn ; 

 the wonder followed : which was, that this young 

 scholar, or philosopher, after all the captains were 

 murdered in parley by treason, conducted those ten 

 thousand foot, through the heart of all the king s high 

 countries, from Babylon to Grecia in safety, in despite 

 of all the king s forces, to the astonishment of the 

 world, and the encouragement of the Grecians in times 

 succeeding to make invasion upon the kings of Persia ; 

 as was after proposed by Jason the Thessalian, attempted 

 by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander 

 the Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that 

 young scholar. 



VIII. 1. To proceed now from imperial and military 

 virtue to moral and private virtue ; first, it is an assured 

 truth, which is contained in the verses, 



Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes 

 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros. 



