THIMBRON SENT TO ASIA. 20< lie at the same time threw strong Grecian garrisons into the other cities to protect them against attack. 1 This local quarrel was, however, soon merged in the more com- prehensive dispute respecting the Persian succession. Both parties were found on the field of Kunaxa ; Cyrus with the Greek soldiers and Milesian exiles on one side, Tissaphernes on the other. How that attempt, upon which so much hinged in the future his- tory both of Asia Minor and of Greece, terminated, I have already recounted. Probably the impression brought back by the Lacedae- monian fleet which left Cyrus on the coast of Syria, after he had surmounted the most difficult country without any resistance, was highly favorable to his success. So much the more painful would be the disappointment among the Ionian Greeks when the news of his death was afterwards brought ; so much the greater their alarm, when Tissaphernes, having relinquished the pursuit of the Ten Thousand Greeks at the moment when they entered the mountains of Karduchia, came down as victor to the seaboard ; more powerful than ever, rewarded 2 by the Great King, for the services which he had rendered against Cyrus, with all the territory which had been governed by the latter, as well as with the title of commander-in-chief over all the neighboring satraps, and prepared not only to reconquer, but to punish, the revolted maritime cities. He began by attacking Kyme ; 3 ravaging the territory, with great loss to the citizens, and exacting from them a still larger contribution, when the approach of winter rendered it inconvenient to besiege their city. In such a state of apprehension, these cities sent to Sparta, as the great imperial power of Greece, to entreat her protection against the aggravated slavery impending over them. 4 The Lacedaemo- nians had nothing farther to expect from the king of Persia, with whom they had already broken the peace by lending aid to Cyrus. Moreover, the fame of the Ten Thousand Greeks, who were now coming home along the Euxine towards Byzantium, had become diffused throughout Greece, inspiring signal contempt for Persian military efficiency, and hopes of enrichment by war against the Asiatic satraps. Accordingly, the Spartan ephors were induced 1 Xen. Anab. i, 1, 8. 2 Xen. Anab. ii, 3, 19 ; ii 4, 8 ; Xen. Aellen. iii, 1, 3 ; iii, 3, 13.
- Diodor. xiv, 35. * Diodor. ut sup.
