The Greeks after Cunaxa, unknown artist

"After the generals had been seized, and the captains and soldiers who formed their escort had been killed, the Hellenes lay in deep perplexity--a prey to painful reflections. Here were they at the king's gates, and on every side environing them were many hostile cities and tribes of men. Who was there now to furnish them with a market? Separated from Hellas by more than a thousand miles, they had not even a guide to point the way. Impassable rivers lay athwart their homeward route, and hemmed them in. Betrayed even by the Asiatics, at whose side they had marched with Cyrus to the attack, they were left in isolation. Without a single mounted trooper to aid them in pursuit: was it not perfectly plain that if they won a battle, their enemies would escape to a man, but if they were beaten themselves, not one soul of them would survive?

Haunted by such thoughts, and with hearts full of despair, but few of them tasted food that evening; but few of them kindled even a fire, and many never came into camp at all that night, but took their rest where each chanced to be. They could not close their eyes for very pain and yearning after their fatherlands or their parents, the wife or child whom they never expected to look upon again. Such was the plight in which each and all tried to seek repose."

-Xenophon of Athens, Anabasis: Book 3 Chapter 1

The Greeks after Cunaxa, unknown artist

Source:

https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=resources&s=char-dir&f=cyrus2

 

Quote:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Anabasis/Book_3/Chapter_1