But after Cyrus had been killed, and all the people of Asia had joined forces, even under these favorable conditions they made
 such a disgraceful failure of the war as to leave for those who are in the habit of
 vaunting Persian valor not a word to say. For they had to deal with only six thousand
 Hellenes Xen. Anab.
 5.3.3 gives the survivors of the battle of Cunaxa as 8600. —not picked troops, but men who, owing to stress of
 circumstances, were unable to live in their own cities. Cf.
 Isoc. 4.168 ; Isoc. 5.96 , 120,
 121; Isoc. Letter 9.9 . These were, moreover,
 unfamiliar with the country; they had been deserted by their allies; they had been
 betrayed by those who made the expedition with them; they had been deprived of the general
 whom they had followed; and yet the Persians were so inferior to these men that the King, finding himself in
 difficult straits and having no confidence in the force which was under his own command,
 did not scruple to arrest the captains of the auxiliaries in violation of the truce, Clearchus and four other captains were invited to a parley,
 under a truce, and treacherously slain ( Xen. Anab.
 2.5.31 ). Cf. Isoc. 5.91 , where Isocrates uses the
 same language as here. hoping by this lawless act to throw their army into
 confusion, and preferring to offend against the gods rather than join issue openly with
 these soldiers. But when he failed in this plot—for the soldiers not only stood together but bore their
 misfortune nobly,—then, as they set out on their journey home, he sent with them
 Tissaphernes and the Persian cavalry. But although these kept plotting against them
 throughout the entire journey, Tissaphernes, one of the
 four generals of Artaxerxes, engaged to furnish safe escort to the Greeks but, in fact,
 beset their march with treachery ( Xen. Anab.
 2.4.9 ). the Hellenes continued their march to the end as confidently as if
 they had been under friendly escort, dreading most of all the uninhabited regions of that
 country, and deeming it the best possible fortune to fall in with as many of the enemy as
 possible. Let me sum up the whole matter: These men did not set out to get plunder or to capture a
 town, but took the field against the King himself, and yet they returned in greater
 security than ambassadors who go to him on a friendly mission. Therefore it seems to me
 that in every quarter the Persians have clearly exposed their degeneracy; for along the
 coast of Asia they have been defeated in many
 battles, and when they crossed to Europe they
 were duly punished, either perishing miserably or saving their lives with dishonor; and to
 crown all, they made themselves objects of derision under the very walls of their King’s
 palace. See Xen. Anab.
 2.4.4 . Cf. Isoc. 9.58 . 
 And none of these things has happened by accident, but all of them have been due to
 natural causes; for it is not possible for people who are reared and governed as are the
 Persians, either to have a part in any other form of virtue or to set up on the field of
 battle trophies of victory over their foes. For effeminacy
 of the Persians see Isoc. 5.124 . For how could
 either an able general or a good soldier be produced amid such ways of life as theirs?
 Most of their population is a mob without discipline or experience of dangers, which has
 lost all stamina for war and has been trained more effectively for servitude than are the
 slaves in our country.