The March

The March by Xenophon

=WIP=

Cyrus the Younger has been killed, fighting his older brother Ataxerxes for the throne of Persia.

His friends Clearchus - Spartan exile and renegade king - and Xenophon of Athens, along with 10,000 Greek mercenaries, are trapped deep in enemy territory. Outnumbered and abandoned, they try to make peace with Ataxerxes.

They are betrayed.

Arieus, messenger of the King, and ruler of near-Asia closest to Hellas, speaks loudly the message of Ataxerxes.

"Proximo and Menon both live, and have sworn allegiance to the king. They beg you will do the same, pleading you sue for his pardon and you will find forgiveness. The mighty king of Babylon is merciful."

"And Clearchus?"

The messenger paused before replying. "Clearchus is dead."

Great then was the dismay in the ranks, and all along the line hoplites cried out in an uproar of emotion.

"Dead!"

Raising his voice above the clamor the Persian yelled, "Clearchus committed perjury, perfidious perjury, by his own confession! He was executed like all perjurors-"

"Liar!" No one present believed for a moment the words of Arieus, finding it impossible to imagine the man who spent every waking hour chasing death would forsake his honor, when honor was sweeter to him than any earthly reward.

'Arieus, thou faithless wretch! Cyrus was a friend to thee like no other!' Chrysoiphus cried. 'We were all the friends of Cyrus, and now you betray those friends and serve a mongrel who murders his own family, who desecrates their remains; who breaks faith with the gods - and you ride here talking of mercy? Did we not show thee truest loyalty? 'Our neighbor'! The whole world will laugh when the words honor and Arieus are used together!"

"Ask the king how fares his neck?" and there was an uproar of laughter from the men in earshot.

'O vile wretch! Motherless dog' and worse pelted him like stones, and no further could he speak but they shouted him down with the most provocative insults they could devise.

Arieus recoiled, stung by the words of the Greeks, and was greatly surprised; finding that, far from pleading for their lives, they were rather angry, and acted in the most belligerent manner. He was clouded with doubt and made no response to their demands, but immediately took his reins in hand and fled, leaving their jeers in his wake.

Such was the fate of Clearchus. the sell-sword spartan, the mercenary king; that he died on campaign was considered most appropriate for the consummate soldier.

He never took a wife, nor companion that any could see. War was his only mistress, his only love. Most men seek war as a path to wealth and position; but Clearchus saw wealth and position as useful only when they allowed him to pursue his greatest passion: combat. It was a sign of his strength of character, that of all the various and quarrelsome greek tribes, never once did any disobey him. He was at his happiest and most friendly before the moment of action, as though drunk on joy; and in those times the scars of age would fall away and they could see the young nobility of character that had made him famous.

No other thing that the king did, no other evil or cruelty, made the Greeks hate him more than this; and the deepest hate of all was for Tissaphernes and Arieus. For while the king had at least openly opposed them on the field of battle, and was ever their enemy, these two had ridden beside them and spoken brave words of friendship. Now these same friends of Cyrus hacked Clearchus to pieces under banner of truce.