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As it was, at that period of its debilitated authority, the wretched 

 policy of the Persian court to encourage perpetual disputes between 

 the governors of the distant provinces, with a view to incapacitate 

 them for engaging in projects of higher ambition, for some time 

 Artaxerxes continued without alarm, though not without suspicion, 

 at the reports of the increasing numbers that daily flocked to the 

 standard of his perfidious brother. At length Tissaphernes, con- 

 vinced of the real designs of his rival, set off with all speed from 

 Miletus to the imperial residence, and gave such indubitable proofs 

 both of his own innocence and of the treason of C} r rus, as induced 

 Darius immediately to take the field with a great army, that he 

 might be prepared to meet the danger that threatened his throne 

 and life. Having drawn out his forces on the spacious plains of 

 Cunaxa, in the province of Babylon, where the Persian cavalry, 

 still formidable in battle, could act with most effect, he there fixed 

 his camp, and waited with dignified composure the awful day that 

 was to establish, or annihilate, his just claim to the throne of Persia 

 against the intrigues and usurpation of his turbulent and aspiring- 

 brother. 



Cyrus, in the mean time, was advancing to the Babylonian terri- 

 tory, by long and rapid marches, at the head of an army of which 

 Clearchus and the principal Persian leaders alone knew the real 

 destination. The incessant fatigues they endured, the mysterious 

 silence observed in regard to the enemy with whom they were to 

 contend, want of regular and sufficient pay, owing to the exhausted 

 treasury of Cyrus, together with numerous other irritating causes, 

 required the exertion of the most consummate policy joined to 

 the most undaunted firmness, in the general, to keep so vast and 

 various an assemblage of men from mutiny ; and especially the 

 Greeks, who were several times on the point of disbanding. When, 

 at length, after having passed the great Tauric range, they had ad- 



