Anabasis II

Cyrus has already crossed the Euphrates, wisely not leaving that for later as it grows quite wide further south. He puts the river on his army's right hand and begins a much more punishing march south. Because he was not resisted at the Gates of Syria by the army that fled before him, he knows that word will now be coming to his brother of his advance in force. Persia is a large empire, with its people spread out quite widely. Once word gets to his brother, the Great King will have to send riders out to summon aid from various places, and then that aid will have to come to him. Thus, the tempo of the march shifts from leisurely and with many rests to rapid; and Cyrus’ force, now concentrated instead of dispersed, moves together towards the coming battle. He hopes to force his brother to combat as early as possible, to prevent the opposing force from being any larger than can be helped.

This is all perfectly in accord with the best military science. We still teach young officers to 'disperse for movement, concentrate for attack.' In the first books Cyrus showed himself clever in his stratagems for raising and concealing a large army, and for getting past the structural roadblock of Cilicia. Now we see he is also possessed of a good tactical mind. He understands maneuver and he understands the logistics of the lines of communication. Xenophon understands them too, as clarified by some occasional remarks on why he thinks Cyrus did this or that.

The Euphrates from a pontoon bridge we stretched across it near Yusufiyah.

Although Cyrus had taken the trouble of purveying for some extra supplies, the forced march rapidly exhausts their stores of grain; what remains for sale in the civilian 'market' that is accompanying him is so inflated that the army has to start eating only meat. They attain this by hunting wild asses and large fowl native to the area -- I did not observe any of these birds, nor the ostriches he mentions, during my time there -- but probably also by eating many of the pack animals that they mention losing. 

They move through what would today be Anbar province in Iraq. Many of the ancient place names are disputed, and it is not clear even to our scholars exactly where some of these cities were. The city of Charmande is not otherwise attested; some scholars think it was Anah, Iraq. The country they are moving through is spare of food in spite of the Euphrates; only once it approaches the Tigris does the effect of the two rivers render the land lush. 

Oranges on the Euphrates, March 2008

However his description of the smells of the country does remind me of my own time on the Euphrates. These days the smell is mostly from the orange groves that grow along the river. I also remember it as a country filled with sweet-smelling bushes, quiet except for the noise of the moving army, full of people who would probably have preferred to be left alone but who were usually friendly to the heavily-armed men moving among them (as one might wisely be). Strange to think that this scene has been repeating itself in their neighborhood for at least two and a half thousand years, and probably twice so long.