The Exploits of Xenophon (1955) by Geoffrey Household

Author:Geoffrey Household [Household, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504010504
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller
Published: 2013-01-30T22:00:00+00:00

6. The Sea

It was now about January I, 400 B.C., and the Greeks were in the foothills of the Caucasus, not far from the present frontier between Turkey and Russia. They had passed right out of the provinces effectively governed by the Persian Empire, and were near the end of the known world.

Still, they were close now to the Black Sea; and where there was sea, there were little, isolated Greek cities. These colonies were independent, but each was bound by close ties of affection to the mother state which had first sent out her adventurers to found it. They were tiny trading towns, with a few square miles of farm land outside the walls, set down in the midst of savages. Generally they were welcome because of the unheard-of, civilized luxuries which the tribes and their chieftains could buy in the Greek markets.

The next tribe were the Taochians, and in their country we ran out of food. We never could get any on the march, for the Taochians took refuge, with all their stores and livestock, in mountain fortresses. These were primitive places without any houses in them, but they were very strong.

Cheirisophus tried to storm one of the forts which was protected on all sides by a ravine. He could not bring his superior numbers to bear, so he attacked in three waves on a narrow front, and all three were beaten back. He was very glad to see the rear guard when I came up with it.

‘We have to take this infernal place or starve,’ he said.

At first sight I couldn’t spot the difficulty, for there seemed to be only a handful of men against us, and poorly armed at that. I asked him what stopped us from just marching in.

‘That crag up there!’ he replied. ‘Every time we go under it, they roll down a load of rocks, and that’s what happens.’ He pointed to some poor fellows with their ribs or legs crushed to bits.

I have always got on very well with Spartans and I admire their discipline enormously, but I must say they do have slow minds.

‘Then wait till they have used up all their stones,’ I said. ‘Look here! We only have to charge about a hundred and fifty feet, and for the first hundred there is cover behind the trunks of those big pines, at any rate for a few of us. If we can dodge in and out of the trees and draw their fire, they’ll soon run out of ammunition.’

Cheirisophus and I, with Callimachus, who was officer of the day for the rear guard, went up to the front to control the operation. We managed to get about seventy men, making a dash for it one by one, into the cover of the trees.

Callimachus then hit on a fine trick. He ran forward a few yards from his tree, and when the stones came whizzing down he popped back again. Each of his dashes must have used up ten cartloads of stones.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.