Artaxerxes   

of it?" But if Cyrus committed a great fault in entering headlong
into the midst of danger, and not paying any regard to his own safety,
Clearchus was as much to blame, if not more, in refusing to lead the
Greeks against the main body of the enemy, where the king stood, and
in keeping his right wing close to the river, for fear of being surrounded.
For if he wanted, above all other things, to be safe, and considered
it his first object to sleep in a whole skin, it had been his best
way not to have stirred from home. But, after marching in arms ten
thousand furlongs from the sea-coast, simply on his choosing, for
the purpose of placing Cyrus on the throne, to look about and select
a position which would enable him, not to preserve him under whose
pay and conduct he was, but himself to engage with more ease and security,
seemed much like one that through fear of present dangers had abandoned
the purpose of his actions, and been false to the design of his expedition.
For it is evident from the very event of the battle that none of those
who were in array around the king's person could have stood the shock
of the Grecian charge; and had they been beaten out of the field,
and Artaxerxes either fled or fallen, Cyrus would have gained by the
victory, not only safety, but a crown. And, therefore, Clearchus by
his caution must be considered more to blame for the result in the
destruction of the life and fortune of Cyrus, than he by his heat
and rashness. For had the king made it his business to discover a
place, where having posted the Grecians, he might encounter them with
the least hazard, he would never have found out any other but that
which was most remote from himself and those near him; of his defeat
in which he was insensible, and, though Clearchus had the victory,
yet Cyrus could not know of it, and could take no advantage of it
before his fall. Cyrus knew well enough what was expedient to be done,
and commanded Clearchus with his men to take their place in the centre.
Clearchus replied that he would take care to have all arranged as
was best, and then spoiled all.
For the Grecians, where they were, defeated the barbarians till they
were weary, and chased them successfully a very great way. But Cyrus
being mounted upon a noble but a headstrong and hard-mouthed horse,
bearing the name, as Ctesias tells us, of Pasacas, Artagerses, the
leader of the Cadusians, galloped up to him, crying aloud, "O most
unjust and senseless of men, who are the disgrace of the honoured
name of Cyrus, are you come here leading the wicked Greeks on a wicked
journey, to plunder the good things of the Persians, and this with
the intent of slaying your lord and brother, the master of ten thousand
times ten thousand servants that are better men than you? as you shall
see this instant; for you shall lose your head here, before you look
upon the face of the king." Which when he had said, he cast his javelin
at him. But his coat of mail stoutly repelled it, and Cyrus was not
wounded; yet the stroke falling heavy upon him, he reeled under it.
Then Artagerses turning his horse, Cyrus threw his weapon, and sent
the head of it through his neck near the shoulder bone. So that it
is almost universally agreed to by all the authors that Artagerses
was slain by him.
But as to the death of Cyrus, since Xenophon, as being himself no
eyewitness of it, has stated it simply and in few words, it may not
be amiss perhaps to run over on the one hand what Dinon, and on the
other, what Ctesias has said of it.
Dinon then affirms that, after the death of Artagerses, Cyrus, furiously
attacking the guard of Artaxerxes, wounded the king's horse, and so
dismounted him, and when Teribazus had quickly lifted him up upon
another, and said to him, "O king, remember this day, which is not
one to be forgotten," Cyrus, again spurring up his horse, struck down
Artaxerxes. But at the third assault the king being enraged, and saying
to those near him that death was more eligible, made up to Cyrus,
who furiously and blindly rushed in the face of the weapons opposed
to him. So the king struck him with a javelin, as likewise did those
that were about him. And thus Cyrus falls, as some say, by the hand
of the king; as others by the dart of a Carian, to whom Artaxerxes