Anabasis XII

The lack of cavalry tells on the first day, in which the Persians send cavalry to spy upon and then harass the Greeks. The mounted bowmen and slingers that the Persians employ inflict significant damage on the rear guard during the march to the villages. Xenophon decides to break formation and charge them, but on foot his men cannot reach the enemy before they can withdraw; and the Persian archers (raised to 'shoot straight and speak the truth') are pretty good shots even while retreating. 

The Greeks reach the villages they mean to plunder, and spend some time refitting some of their pack horses as cavalry mounts. They identify about fifty men who are fit to serve as cavalry, and also some slingers, in order to disrupt future such attempts by the Persians who are following them. 

The Persians return with a thousand cavalry instead of a few hundred, but the Greeks have crossed a ravine before they arrive. The new Greek force is able to deploy against the Persians during their own crossing, striking the vanguard and driving it into retreat. They kill a few Persians and mutilate the bodies to make clear that they're not interested in playing nice any more. 

After this the Ten Thousand march through a set of ruins of cities and fortresses where the Medes -- the same ones who provoked the building of the Median Wall -- had been contesting the area with the Persians during their short-lived empire. Tissaphernes arrives with a very large force, but he shows the typical Persian desire not to risk any lives in the fighting, so he tries to bombard them again. Their new force repels him successfully with disciplined and accurate return fire from the slingers.

The Ten Thousand begin to recover enemy bows and arrows, which are different from the ones they knew at home but which they are able to employ successfully. They also discover in their raids of villages additional bowstrings and lead that can be cast into bullets. Their slingers prove to be better than the Persian ones, having a longer range. The Persians continue to follow, but they are having the worst of the skirmishes.

The hollow square formation, which again is novel I think in this era, proves to have some practical difficulties for traversing bridges, valleys, etc. The Greek generals begin making adaptations on the fly to address these difficulties: 

The generals accordingly, having recognsied the defect, set about curing it. To do so, they made six lochi, or divisions of a hundred men apiece, each of which had its own set of captains and under-officers in command of half and quarter companies. It was the duty of these new companies, during a march, whenever the flanks needed to close in, to fall back to the rear, so as to disencumber the wings. This they did by wheeling clear of them. When the sides of the oblong again extended, they filled up the interstices, if the gap were narrow, by columns of companies, if broader, by columns of half-companies, or, if broader still, by columns of quarter-companies, so that the space between was always filled up. If again it were necessary to effect a passage by bridge or otherwise, there was no confusion, the several companies crossing in turns; or, if the occasion arose to form in line of battle, these companies came up to the front and fell in.

As they leave the plains and begin to rise into the hills they discover another problem, which is that their formation is easily attacked if the enemy is able to cover it from an elevated position. The first day this happens they suffer a large number of wounded among their light infantry. After this they make an additional modification and assign a division of the force to hold the heights while the bulk marches on the roads below. This is slow, though, as the heavy infantry so assigned have to struggle in their armor up to the hills and then along the crests. 

They have the advantage that the Persians do not wish to fight at night, being a large collection of strangers rather than a disciplined and unified force. Thus, the Persian cavalry withdraws each night some miles away to camp, catching up to raid the Greeks the next day. The Greeks begin just occupying villages during the fighting hours, so that their superior marksmanship can tell on the Persians; then they begin marching at night after the Persians withdraw, gaining a few days of peace in this way.

On the fourth day of this strategy, however, the Persians force march themselves to a mountain overnight and occupy the heights of one of its arms, which the Greeks have to pass. Xenophon leads a charge up the heights of the arm, which the Persians abandon to retreat to the summit: they do not wish to come to direct blows with the heavy infantry. The climb is very difficult for the hoplites, but they eventually win the summit as well, the Persians withdrawing before them. 

The Persians now switch tactics as well. They have learned that they cannot win against the Greeks in a stand up fight -- they have superior numbers and combined arms, but lack the unity and morale. Thus, they switch to the extraordinary remedy of burning their own Persian villages in advance of the Greeks, in the hope of starving the Greek army. 

Anabasis XI

The new generals post picket guards and call a general meeting of the Ten Thousand.  Xenophon attends in his finest fighting clothes, saying that he intends to look his best whether conquering or dying. This sentiment has been repeated many times since: consider the men of the French Foreign Legion Régiment étranger de parachutistes shaving before they jumped into Điện Biên Phủ, already surrounded by artillery on the high ground. 

Xenophon gives exactly the right speech to win the men; he then counsels exacting discipline, burning the wagons and their tents so they can match faster and lighter, and living off the enemy’s villages through plunder. They adopt a hollow square marching structure to protect their vulnerable enabler units, and start the fires. 

One interesting feature of Xenophon’s talk is his explanation of why they shouldn’t worry about the enemy having cavalry while they don’t. Xenophon was a cavalryman himself, and probably understood that he was greatly exaggerating the advantages and downplaying the weaknesses of infantry versus cavalry. Yet we can look forward more than a generation to Alexander using Macedonian phalanx to conquer the world; or the Roman hollow square formation; or more than a thousand years to the schiltrons at the Bannockburn pushing Edward’s knighthood into the river to drown; or the Spanish tercio of the Thirty Years War. Xenophon hit upon a viable solution to the problem, and I believe he did so at a time when it was novel. 

Americana

My sister is up in Seattle for some reason, and she sent this photo that she took yesterday afternoon. 

Congratulations Tulsi

Tulsi Gabbard, just confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, has the qualifications of having been abused by the system and driven out of the Democratic Party for ideological reasons. In this, she is like the President himself. I trust that her personal experience of being subjected to the system will be a strong driving force in reform.

Good hunting.

Anabasis X: Xenophon Steps Forward

In the end of the eighth part I said that "in some respects this is the real beginning of the story of the Ten Thousand[.]" This next chapter shows some signs of actually being the beginning of the story in the sense of being the first thing Xenophon wrote down, with the earlier parts written later to fill in the story. 

For example, Xenophon introduces himself and explains his role in the adventure and how he has come to be here. 

Now there was in that host a certain man, an Athenian, Xenophon, who had accompanied Cyrus, neither as a general, nor as an officer, nor yet as a private soldier, but simply on the invitation of an old friend, Proxenus. This old friend had sent to fetch him from home, promising, if he would come, to introduce him to Cyrus, "whom," said Proxenus, "I consider to be worth my fatherland and more to me."

We've met Xenophon several times already in the story, so it is weird for him to introduce himself as if he were an unknown character. If this was where he started writing, though, it makes sense. 

Xenophon tells us that he had some concerns about going on this expedition. He doesn't tell us what his qualifications to go were. He seems to have been a cavalryman -- his book on horsemanship is good reading, though we often do things quite differently now -- and to have fought in the Athenian civil war following the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. He was an Athenian, but tended to support the Spartan side and to admire their way of life over that of his home city. So he was no stranger to war, even if he accompanied the army as a friend of Cyrus' rather than as a member of the soldiery. 

We now are introduced to Socrates, whom Xenophon admires and looks upon as a trusted counselor. Socrates tells him to soothe his concern about whether to go by visiting the Oracle of Delphi, which Socrates did himself. Xenophon constructs a question for the Oracle along the lines of 'which gods should I sacrifice to in order to help this be a successful expedition?' Socrates is aghast when he learns the nature of the question, having meant that Xenophon should ask whether to go on the expedition, not how. Still, perhaps he got good advice; Xenophon made the sacrifices, and as we know he came through it in the end.

The army is greatly depressed, morale shattered, by the loss of its generals and many of its captains. Finding that he can barely sleep, except for a telling dream that drives him to action, Xenophon gathers the remaining captains he can find for a midnight council. There he speaks very wisely, according to contemporary military science: just as we teach soldiers to attack into an ambush, so too he counsels that action is the only reasonable choice. Let us not wait, but attack!

"Now, however, that they have abruptly ended the truce, there is an end also to their own insolence and to our suspicion. All these good things of theirs are now set as prizes for the combatants. To whichsoever of us shall prove the better men, will they fall as guerdons; and the gods themselves are the judges of the strife. The gods, who full surely will be on our side, seeing it is our enemies who have taken their names falsely; whilst we, with much to lure us, yet for our oath's sake, and the gods who were our witnesses, sternly held aloof. So that, it seems to me, we have a right to enter upon this contest with much more heart than our foes; and further, we are possessed of bodies more capable than theirs of bearing cold and heat and labour; souls too we have, by the help of heaven, better and braver; nay, the men themselves are more vulnerable, more mortal, than ourselves, if so be the gods vouchsafe to give us victory once again.

"Howbeit, for I doubt not elsewhere similar reflections are being made, whatsoever betide, let us not, in heaven's name, wait for others to come and challenge us to noble deeds; let us rather take the lead in stimulating the rest to valour. Show yourselves to be the bravest of officers, and among generals, the worthiest to command. For myself, if you choose to start forwards on this quest, I will follow; or, if you bid me lead you, my age shall be no excuse to stand between me and your orders. At least I am of full age, I take it, to avert misfortune from my own head."

The captains are stirred by this, very much needing a direction at this moment, and so they gather additional men they trust from their units and advise them to begin preparing. A non-Greek among them tries to argue against it and finds himself expelled from the army. The rest pull together a hundred of the top men left alive to vote on new leadership. 

Xenophon gives another version of the speech counseling action, and telling them that it is up to them to save the morale of the army. If they themselves seem afraid, the army will collapse. If they show themselves bold, the men will fall in on bold action. 

He then makes a point that Chesterton also famously makes, Chesterton defending the verse about 'he who will lose his life shall save it.' Xenophon gives the pragmatic version rather than the mystical one: 

This observation, also, I have laid to heart, that they, who in matters of war seek in all ways to save their lives, are just they who, as a rule, die dishonourably; whereas they who, recognising that death is the common lot and destiny of all men, strive hard to die nobly: these more frequently, as I observe, do after all attain to old age, or, at any rate, while life lasts, they spend their days more happily.

The army's best men then vote five new generals to replace the five lost, Xenophon among them. 

Anabasis Interlude II: Plato's Meno

In the very next chapter Xenophon will introduce us to Socrates, not the general but the philosopher. Socrates was a man that Xenophon liked and trusted. We mostly know Socrates through Plato's presentation of him, and it is interesting that Xenophon presents Socrates as being somewhat different from the Socrates we get in Plato. 

An honest man, Xenophon was no trained philosopher. He could neither fully conceptualize nor articulate Socrates's arguments. He admired Socrates for his intelligence, patriotism, and courage on the battlefield.... Like Plato's Apology, Xenophon's Apologia describes the trial of Socrates, but the works diverge substantially and, according to W. K. C. Guthrie, Xenophon's account portrays a Socrates of "intolerable smugness and complacency"....In Memorabilia, he defends Socrates from the accusations of corrupting the youth and being against the gods; essentially, it is a collection of various stories gathered together to construct a new apology for Socrates.

This is thus a good time to point out that Socrates also knew one of the generals just under discussion. As mentioned in the comments to the post below, the general Menon is the same as the Meno that is the namesake of one of Plato's dialogues, the Meno. It is nothing but an account of a discussion Socrates and Meno had about the nature of virtue. Meno had been a student of Gorgias, one of the more infamous Sophists, and Socrates engages Meno in a discussion about virtue -- whether it is a sort of knowledge, whether it can be taught, and what its basic nature might be. 

This foray into philosophy instead of adventure story won't be of interest to everyone, but it fits the theme here well enough that I would feel remiss not to include it. After the jump, we'll do a very quick run through the Meno.

Anabasis IX: In Praise of the Generals

Xenophon interrupts his story, as he had following the death of Cyrus, to describe the murdered generals. These should really be read in full rather than summarized. Clearchus in particular is praised as a man who was devoted to war the way some men are devoted to love affairs, always ready for adventure, tough and brave both by day and by night. 

The descriptions of the men includes also analysis of their weaknesses. Clearchus' incomplete virtue was justice: he believed (quite rightly) that an undisciplined army was useless, and thus imposed strict punishments for violations of order. Yet he acted sometimes in anger, and this imperfection in his administration of justice caused him to feel regret afterwards. That is itself a sign of an internal commitment to the virtue of justice, that one can feel bad about failing to achieve it properly.

The best proof of the worth of an officer is the confidence of his men, who did not love Clearchus but had faith in his leadership. They took confidence in his courage and in the fact that he held their fellow soldiers to account, so that they could rely on the discipline of the army. Men forced into his service during the wars due to poverty or as punishment came to be disciplined soldiers and good fighting men. 

Some other generals don't come off as well. Proxenus is described as having been motivated by a desire for personal greatness and glory, although also as always pursuing that greatness through fair means and not foul. Menon is described as motivated only by a desire for wealth, pursuing honors and friendships with the great only as means to the end of enriching himself. 

Agias and Socrates, the two remaining generals -- young men of about thirty-five -- receive only a brief joint comment. 

No one could speak slightingly of their courage in war, nor accuse them of lack of consideration for a friend.

That is far from the worst epigram to receive from a fellow soldier. 

Happy Superb Owl Viewing!

I overheard at a local cafe that a lot of people were enjoying viewing superb owls today. I, too, am a fan of owls and thought I would share this superb owl with any other enthusiasts who might be at the hall.

Anabasis VIII: Treachery

By the time they reach the Great Zab river (the notes in my edition claim this is the ‘Zapatas’ mentioned last time), the Greek commander decides to try to address the mutual suspicion that he has been noticing growing between his army and the Persians. Clearchus asks for an interview with Tissaphernes, who readily grants it. Clearchus points out that, in spite of the oaths they have exchanged not to do each other harm, the two sides are watching each other like hawks. He thinks they might avoid trouble if they addressed this mistrust directly, in order to avoid the mutual suspicion sparking a conflict. 

Clearchus points out that the oaths, which were taken before the gods, prevent them from being enemies, and that neglect of such oaths is deeply destructive to one's conscience. Therefore, he suggests, the two sides should trust the gods and each other's oaths and dispose of the suspicion. He gives further pragmatic arguments as to why Tissaphernes can trust the Greeks not to betray him.

Tissaphernes declares himself delighted with the proposal, praises Clearchus' reasoning, and gives several arguments about why the Greeks can also trust him (especially, that he might want to hire mercenaries someday). Tissaphernes then offers to host Clearchus and his captains at a feast at which he will reveal who has been slandering them and causing all this mistrust. Clearchus promises to attend, and to reveal any similar slander that comes to his attention. Tissaphernes then hosts him for dinner as his guest, creating a hospitality bond between them. These are honor bonds not readily broken, especially in the Middle East (Saladin would not harm a Crusader who had received even a cup of water from his hands; one time when a tribal leader in the Mahmudiyah Qada didn't offer us a drink of water or tea or coffee on arrival, I was very much on guard).

The next day Clearchus and his generals and captains went to the feast. The generals were invited inside Tissaphernes' tent, with the captains and other Greeks who had accompanied the group (to ferry back supplies) waiting outside. At a signal, the generals were all seized and a unit of cavalry rode in and slaughtered the captains all all of the other Greeks who had come with the party.

Tissaphernes executed Clearchus (for perjury, indeed on the claim that Clearchus had broken his oath to keep the peace), and then sent the other generals to the King of Persia who beheaded them. The native Persian allies who had marched with Cyrus alongside the Greeks now turned on them completely, and joined Tissaphernes to try to extort a surrender from the Ten Thousand. They were, again, refused. 

In some respects this is the real beginning of the story of the Ten Thousand. From here on they have lost both their political leader, Cyrus, and their military leadership. What they do from this point is different, as they must now govern themselves rather than simply exercise military discipline. 

Panic in the blue rooms

From the NYT, which incautiously allowed conservative-ish Bret Stephens to join in a round-table discussion:

Voters, including conservative ones, don’t want an authoritarian state. But liberals and progressives consistently failed to recognize the way in which their own side violated those norms, or sought to impose their own forms of authoritarianism.

Do any Democrats understand that trying to throw your opponent in jail, or bankrupt him with doubtful suits, or strike his name from the ballot, isn’t democratic? Do they understand that they can’t credibly talk about Trump’s threats to our governing traditions when they also are calling to pack the Supreme Court or end the Senate filibuster? Do they comprehend that trying to strong-arm Facebook into suppressing “misinformation” violated the spirit of the First Amendment?

Do they understand that lying about Joe Biden’s health was reminiscent of Soviet propaganda during the reigns of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko? (Nothing to see here but a “cheapfake”!) Do they recognize the chilling effects of the progressive speech police? One of the reasons Trump won is that Democrats all but erased the difference between them and Republicans when it came to the question of adhering to “democratic norms.”

***

The Democratic Party has, to an astonishing degree, become the party of government workers and union workers. They should try to make inroads with the rest of us.

When someone other than Stephens is speaking, it's mostly an inadvertent confirmation of his thesis. Long may they keep it up.

Meanwhile, all those unaccountable billionaire wrong-thinking geeks are starting to explain why no one can perform a useful audit on federal spending: Treasury just writes a check for whatever the agencies requisition, and the money comes out of thin air--has done since we abandoned the gold standard in 1971. So, as soon as someone successful appeals the New York judge who denied access to the Treasury payment system by the Secretary of the Treasury, the evil billionaires can start figuring out a way to track payments and inform the public what the heck has been going on with the slush funds and the "incurable" national debt.

(This editorial is behind a paywall, and I have no intention of subscribing, but if you hold down "Ctrl" and hit A then C quickly, you can copy the whole thing before the wall slams down, then paste it into a text field somewhere to read it.)

Typoglycemia

 

Desperados Waiting for a Train

This particular train is of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, currently blocking the end of the one-way road into Dillsboro, North Carolina. I’m sure it will move on in the fullness of God’s good time. 

Pretty afternoon to sit by the river anyway. 

The deadliest sin

Screwtape warned his trainee tempter of the danger when humans remember that despair is a worse sin than any of the sins that provoke it.

An Israeli hostage's father thanks Trump for inspiring the deal that brought his daughter home alive, and describes how hard he fought for her when he really just wanted to curl up and die:

The hardest lesson I learned was that hopelessness consumes energy you can’t afford to waste.

This is the lesson I keep taking from my nephew's untimely death. He didn't get much time on earth, but his last year was a miracle respite, only because he never gave up trying.

A Useful Reminder

Anabasis VII

In spite of their concerns caused by the lengthy delay, the Greeks abide by the truce and wait to be led out by the Persian forces. This march begins in conditions of mutual suspicion, at least between the Greeks and the Persians. The Persian allies of Cyrus begin to camp with their relatives, mending fences as is the normal way after the war. That only makes the Greeks feel more isolated. 

Nevertheless there have been arrangements made for food, and after a while the Greeks come to the Median Wall. 

This wall was built of burnt bricks, laid in bitumen ; it was twenty feet in thickness, and a hundred in height, and the length of it was said to be twenty parasangs; and it was not far distant from Babylon.

"Not the least remarkable of the discoveries," says the Rev. J. F. Macmichael in the Appendix to his Xenophon, "which of late years have marked the progress of geographical inquiry in this most interesting - but, till of late, unexplored region, is the actual existence at the present time of an ancient wall stretching across Mesopotamia at the head of the Babylonian plain. Mr. Ross, who first examined it at its eastern terminus, in 1836, described it under the name of Khalu or Sidd Nimrud, (wall or embankment of Nimrod,) and as a straight wall 25 long paces thick, and from 35 to 40 feet high, running S. W. :} N. as far as the eye could reach, to two mounds called Ramelah, (Sifairah, Ainswr. p. 81-2,) on the Euphrates, some hours above Felujah. The eastern extremity was built of the small pebbles of the country, cemented with lime of great tenacity; and farther inland, his Bedwin guides told him it was built of brick, and in some places worn down level with the desert, and was built by Nimrod to keep off the people of Nineveh, with whom he had an implacable feud. (Journal of R. Geog. S. ix. p. 446.)

So we are north of Fallujah, which is in Anbar province, but somewhere east of it. Xenophon says that the armies "passed over to the other side of it," which is not very adequate detail for a wall a hundred feet wide and maybe seventy miles long. (Remember that a 'parasang' is not strictly a measure of distance, but a rough measure of time spent traveling.) It would be interesting to know more about how one passed this wall, whether by wooden ramps that could be pulled up, or dirt ramps that had to be destroyed if enemies were approaching, or in some other way. By tradition, there were towers constructed and manned at intervals during the era that the wall was a defensive structure.

An 1877 illustration imagines the wall.

We end up learning very little from Xenophon about this wonder of the world, which I might have thought would make a larger impression upon him. I suppose he was focused on the problem of getting out more than the enjoyment of the sights.

There are reports of plotted attacks by native forces, which the Greeks analyze sensibly and don't get too excited about, although they take due precautions. None materialize during this period.

For some reason, however, they are marching east and not north or west. They come to the Tigris, and eventually to the ancient city of Opis. This is very near to modern Baghdad, but east of it. The reason is hinted at when we learn that the country they are marching through belonged to Cyrus' family, including his mother and his bastard brother. They meet the brother in passing, going with an army to report to the King for service -- doubtless to prove his loyalty after his brother's betrayal. The Persian commander, Tissaphernes, allows them to plunder two villages belonging to Cyrus' mother as a way of insulting his family and provisioning the Greeks. 

They now turn north along the Tigris and march another sixty miles, passing a city called Caenae and then coming to a river called Zapatas. It is not clear to me precisely where these would be from my knowledge of the area.

Guilty Flee When None Pursue

Canada's version of USAID has just deleted "its entire public database of foreign aid spending." 

They don't even have a DOGE in Canada.

Honor to the Fallen

A firefighter and former Marine shows honor, and class.

Fear and Congress

J. Michael Waller suggests that there's a reason the Tulsi/Kash nominations are taking a while: Congress is afraid of vengeance from the agencies if they vote yes.

One supposes that the level of corruption in Congress is high enough that each of them knows what he or she has to lose if the FBI seeks revenge. The only way to put a chain on that wolf, ironically, is to be brave enough to take the vote; but then one's crimes might come out as part of the daylight to follow.

Anabasis Interlude: Foraging

The army has the usual problem for armies of feeding itself. Logistics is going to be a key problem for the rest of the tale; we've already seen some hardships. Now that they are cut off from their benefactor and his resources, they depend either upon their enemies (who are helping them out with an eye towards getting rid of them without a fight) or upon the land.

Proceeding on their way they reached some villages, where their guides indicated to them that they would find provisions. They were found to contain plenty of corn, and wine made from palm dates, and an acidulated beverage extracted by boiling from the same fruit. As to the palm nuts or dates themselves, it was noticeable that the sort which we are accustomed to see in Hellas were set aside for the domestic servants; those put aside for the masters are picked specimens, and are simply marvellous for their beauty and size, looking like great golden lumps of amber; some specimens they dried and preserved as sweetmeats. Sweet enough they were as an accompaniment of wine, but apt to give headache. Here, too, for the first time in their lives, the men tasted the brain of the palm. No one could help being struck by the beauty of this object, and the peculiarity of its delicious flavour; but this, like the dried fruits, was exceedingly apt to give headache. When this cabbage or brain has been removed from the palm the whole tree withers from top to bottom.

There are many species of palm tree; this one is of course the date palm, which produces dates. We have the name 'date' from the Greeks, in fact: it comes from the Greek word for 'finger,' (δάκτυλος) which passed through Latin into English. 

It's incredibly destructive to eat the 'brain' (in this translation; mine has 'crown') and thus destroy for one meal a plant that would have borne fruit for many years. This is one reason the Persians are willing to arrange for their enemies to buy food, even to provide them with food rather than have this army feeding itself off the land. 

We had one of these date trees right outside of one of the many buildings we occupied as a temporary headquarters during my time in Iraq. You could just climb up in it and pick the things. I found them exactly as Xenophon describes. The preserved dates were also readily available.

The wine made from palm dates seems to have passed out of existence during the Islamic period. Probably someone still makes it for himself out back, in the manner of moonshine, but I didn't encounter anything like it during my time in Mesopotamia. 

Anabasis VI

The day after the great battle the Greek generals meet before dawn to decide how to proceed in the absence of orders or clear intelligence. Just before dawn they receive messages from the native troops, who had fled back along the route they had come upon, informing them of Cyrus' death and their own retreat. The Greeks offer to make their leader king; he refuses on the grounds that he is not of sufficiently royal blood, and couldn't make it stick. 

Meanwhile the Persians send an embassy including Tissaphernes and a man named Phalinus who is himself a Greek, who suggests to them that they surrender their arms and seek good terms from the King. This is the year 401 B.C.; the battle of Thermopylae is within living memory for the very oldest Greeks, having been fought in 480 B.C. There is no chance that any Greek army is surrendering their arms to a Persian king just for the asking. They know perfectly well that the Persian forces, however much larger, are not capable of defeating them without severe loss of life. 

I'll quote part of the discussion from the post on the battle:

[The large Persian formations] were analogous to a set of pillows, almost: big and voluminous, but not capable of (or willing to) exert much force. Mostly they fled before the Greeks, and avoided combat everywhere except in the intense fight when Cyrus charged the King. There only were the picked loyalist men of the two leaders fully engaged in brutal combat.

I think the reason for this is that the Persian army has the same loyalty problem that Cyrus has with his native forces. They didn't come to fight; nobody wants to die for the Persian king. They came to show up in order to make a showing of loyalty to their best-guess about who was going to win, or the one they obtained sufficient benefits from that they couldn't not show up for them when called.

The King is not in a very happy position. He knows that the Greeks drove all his forces before them all day yesterday. He knows that his people aren't eager to die for him. He further knows that the Greeks will fight to the knife because they know that the alternative is torture if they happen to survive. So he has a morale problem in spite of his vastly superior numbers; and he has the problem that, if he attacks and is driven off or savaged by them, it will destabilize his rule and the appearance of strength on which it rests. It is so clear to him that this is an unhappy position that he withdraws his forces across the Tigris (thus further emphasizing how close we are to modern Baghdad, so close to both the great rivers). 

The discussion of whether or not to surrender their arms involves some straightforward Greek philosophy, all of which points to keeping the arms. That section is enjoyable reasoning and shows practical wisdom in a state of difficulty.  

"Conquerors do not, as a rule, give up their arms" [Meaning that the Greeks had whipped all Persians yesterday -- Grim]... 

Cleanor the Arcadian, by right of seniority, answered: "They would sooner die than give up their arms." Then Proxenus the Theban said: "For my part, I marvel if the king demands our arms as our master, or for the sake of friendship merely, as presents. If as our master, why need he ask for them rather than come and take them? But if he would fain wheedle us out of them by fine speeches, he should tell us what the soldiers will receive in turn for such kindness." ...

Theopompus the Athenian spoke. "Phalinus," he said, "at this instant, as you yourself can see, we have nothing left but our arms and our valour. If we keep the former we imagine we can make use of the latter; but if we deliver up our arms we shall presently be robbed of our lives. Do not suppose then that we are going to give up to you the only good things which we possess. We prefer to keep them; and by their help we will do battle with you for the good things which are yours." Phalinus laughed when he heard those words, and said: "Spoken like a philosopher, my fine young man, and very pretty reasoning too..."

Clearchus said "The sight of you, Phalinus, caused me much pleasure; and not only me, but all of us, I feel sure; for you are a Hellene even as we are--every one of us whom you see before you. In our present plight we would like to take you into our counsel as to what we had better do touching your proposals. I beg you then solemnly, in the sight of heaven--do you tender us such advice as you shall deem best and worthiest, and such as shall bring you honour of after time, when it will be said of you how once on a time Phalinus was sent by the great king to bid certain Hellenes yield up their arms, and when they had taken him into their counsel, he gave them such and such advice. You know that whatever advice you do give us cannot fail to be reported in Hellas."

Clearchus threw out these leading remarks in hopes that this man, who was the ambassador from the king, might himself be led to advise them not to give up their arms, in which case the Hellenes would be still more sanguine and hopeful. But, contrary to his expectation, Phalinus turned round and said: "I say that if you have one chance, one hope in ten thousand to wage a war with the king successfully, do not give up your arms. That is my advice. If, however, you have no chance of escape without the king's consent, then I say save yourselves in the only way you can." And Clearchus answered: "So, then, that is your deliberate view? Well, this is our answer, take it back. We conceive that in either case, whether we are expected to be friends with the king, we shall be worth more as friends if we keep our arms than if we yield them to another; or whether we are to go to war, we shall fight better with them than without."

So, no. You will not be getting our arms. Nor does the King attempt to do so.

The Greeks withdraw to rejoin their native allies, and then decide to strike off north because they already know the way they came has no food upon it. They shortly come upon the outliers of the King's army, who withdraw further before them. The King is so eager to be rid of them that he sends another embassy to discuss further options. After a further discussion Tissaphernes proposes to lead them safely out of Persia, arranging for them to purchase food along the way in return for their promise not to raid the countryside or wage war upon it. He then keeps them there for 20 days while preparing for his own journey, during which time the Greeks suspect treachery is brewing but choose to wait for the promised escort instead of having to fight all the long way out.

The Greatest Scandal of Our Lives

The USAID/State Department funding schemes are far vaster than Watergate, far bigger than Iran/Contra, embrace the gain-of-function scandal, a conspiracy to suppress free inquiry and expression, and even the financing of international terrorism.

The worst of it appears to me so far to be the erection of influence and psychological operations machinery to be used against the American people, at their own expense as taxpayers. The attempt at mind control and political influence by the administrative state is unacceptable and must be punished more harshly than it is easy to imagine. 

The terrorism-funding is nothing to sneeze at either. It’s quite enough for a scandal of its own. 

UPDATE: The USAID funding was being used to promote direct assaults on two sets of our Bill of Rights liberties, both those of the first and the second amendments. Our taxes were being used by our own government to set up organizations designed to destroy our rights, and to get other governments to do the same. 

17 Days of Trump, for Piano

 

Anabasis V: Scythed Chariots

In the great battle just described, there was an ineffective use of a rather innovative weapons system that was specifically designed to contest heavy infantry hoplite units. This was the scythed chariot, which is exactly what you would imagine it to be from the name. There's also a Wikipedia article on the subject.

For the most part these things were not highly effective. One can imagine them having a significant psychological effect on the unit being charged by them. 

Xenophon does tell of a time (395 BC), however, when several hundred Greeks, caught in the open by the Persians, were charged by just two scythed chariots, scattering the men and allowing many to be cut down by the cavalry (Hellenica, IV.1.17-19). Indeed, this was their proper function: to panic and disrupt the enemy, allowing mounted troops and infantry to charge the broken line.

Most famously, scythed chariots were used by Darius III against Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. There were two-hundred such chariots, says Diodorus Siculus, designed to astonish and terrify the enemy.

"From each of these there projected out beyond the trace horses scythes three spans long, attached to the yoke, and presenting their cutting edges to the front. At the axle housings there were two more scythes pointing straight out with their cutting edges turned to the front like the others, but longer and broader. Curved blades were fitted to the ends of these" (Library of History, XVII.53.2; also Arrian, III.8).

Diodorus records that, when the chariots attacked the phalanx, the Macedonians beat their shields with their spears, creating such a din that the horses shied, turning the chariots back on the Persians. Those that continued forward were allowed to pass as the soldiers opened wide gaps in the line. Some horses were killed as they charged ahead but the momentum of others allowed them to ride through, the blades of the chariots severing "the arms of many, shields and all, and in no small number of cases they cut through necks and sent heads tumbling to the ground with the eyes still open and the expression of the countenance unchanged, and in other cases they sliced through ribs with mortal gashes and inflicted a quick death" (XVII.58.2-5).

They're the kind of thing Hollywood would love, but definitely not the tank of the ancient world -- and ultimately no real threat to the dominance of heavy infantry on the battlefield of the era. 

Standing Down

There was a similar closure and folding-into-State of the US Information Agency during the Clinton administration. It resulted in a permanent loss of capacity and expertise in information warfare, which was thought not to be needed any longer due to the end of the Soviet Union. Russian Active Measures did take a while to get back to full speed, or whatever you would describe as their current speed; but after 9/11, we realized that we had lost a lot in terms of our ability to recognize and respond to dangerous messaging in the Islamic world. 

This one is way faster and more hostile. 

A brief message posted late Tuesday night on USAID’s website states, “On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally,” except for select employees in “mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs. Essential personnel expected to continue working will be informed by Agency leadership by Thursday, February 6, at 3:00pm (EST).”

The government will arrange return flights for all USAID workers stationed outside the United States within 30 days. The administration “will consider case-by-case exceptions and return travel extensions based on personal or family hardship,” such as children’s school term, “personal or familial medical needs, pregnancy, and other reasons.”

“Thank you for your service,” concludes the message.

We've seen a lot of demonstration that USAID was also performing improper functions -- maybe mostly performing improper functions -- so perhaps it is warranted. It won't be free, though.

Trump Hotel & Resort: Gaza

I was definitely not expecting the concept of the US taking over and developing a resort complex in the Gaza strip. 

Removing the people from Gaza, that I was expecting. That's the obvious solution to ending what the President called "the death, the destruction, and frankly bad luck" arising from the combination of history, distrust, and the poisonous Revolutionary Marxist political culture that was trained into Palestine for generations. Getting the world to agree to it, especially the host country for these new citizens, that's very hard -- but it is the obvious way to proceed, and frankly almost certainly to the benefit of the Palestinians of Gaza in the long run. It's ugly and the sort of ethnic cleansing that international diplomats claim to oppose (but that they don't seem too opposed to in Xinjiang). It's what happened in Syria, though, without the same level of protest from the diplomats of the world. 

Turning it into a resort community, that I was expecting. It's beachfront property on the Mediterranean Sea. Once you had cleared it out (and removed all the mines and bombs and other explosives), a resort community was the obvious usage. 

The US taking it over and turning it into a new International Zone of hotels and resorts, that's the part I never saw coming. Probably I should have, given who the President is and where his mind goes. And there is precedent for it -- Jerusalem's Old City is itself divided into quarters, two of which (the Christian and the Armenian Quarter) are led and governed by international organizations including the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as the Armenian Christian churches. They're fairly pleasant places to visit, by the way. The Armenian Mass is beautiful even though I don't understand the language at all; and the Franciscans who run the Catholic Mass do it in Latin, which is quite an experience sitting in Jerusalem. There are some fine hotels and restaurants that have grown up there to serve the wealthier pilgrims, and in spite of the nearby Muslim Quarter there is very little terrorism. 

Now if it were me, the last thing on earth I might do is insert the US and especially the US military into the middle of this nightmare. I'm not in charge, though. I would tend to advise staying a long way from Gaza as a general thing if anyone is interested in my opinion on the subject. Get private funding for this project, from the hotels or resorts or whatever; have them hire private security forces, deputized by Israel or something. It's not a wholly implausible idea. I just wouldn't want any part of it.

Anabasis IV: The Great Battle

In ancient times the region Cyrus has been traveling through, which is part of Anbar Province today, was called Arabia. Now that he has come into the region that is now Baghdad -- that city was not founded until the Islamic age -- it is known as Babylonia. Babylon itself is quite a bit further south, near the city of Hillah, Iraq. It is in this area of Mesopotamia where Baghdad now stands, at the time a place of villages and farms, that the Battle of Cunaxa ends up happening.

Cyrus believes he is closing on where his brother will meet him, so he holds a midnight muster to order and review his army. He places his Greek mercenaries on the army's right, anchored by the Euphrates. This is an interesting tactical decision. It gives his army an unbreakable core, as the Persian forces have nothing that can crack the Greek hoplites. The river protects them from being enveloped. His own forces in the center end up serving chiefly to cover the flank and rear of the Greek unit, so that as it successfully advances through its opponents it cannot be surrounded from behind.

Yet in doing this he ends up not placing them where they can fight the strongest and most central units of the King's army. He ends up in the center himself with his cavalry, to cover the Greek rear but also to strike as a cavalry reserve if weak points appear. To his left he puts his native troops.

They sleep in position and begin at dawn their advance. The Persian king chooses the stratagem of retreating before them for several days. This leads them to believe that he is choosing not to fight, and thus their army grows increasingly poor at keeping the discipline of their positions. Thus, when on the third day he turns and comes upon them strongly, they are not in order and scramble to get into place.

Cyrus realizes that his best card is not going to be very useful against his brother because it is on the right instead of in the center. He tries to reorder his forces but the Greek mercenary commander, Clearchus, refuses to attempt the ordered maneuver given that it would expose his flanks. Thus, the battle commences as described above. 

The Greeks meet no effective resistance, and exactly as expected press through the Persian army -- which is vastly, vastly larger but not coherent -- until their rear is in danger of being exposed. Cyrus defends their rear with his cavalry until he realizes that he has come close to where the King of Persia actually is, in the center of the Persian formation. Seeing that, he takes his own picked men -- his 'table companions' -- and tries to kill the King.

Cyrus' charge leads to a personal combat between himself and the King, whom Cyrus wounds through his breastplate. However, one of the King's companions kills Cyrus with a javelin through the face. (This Persian is not named at this time, but was one Mithridates who was reportedly later executed for it as he had stolen the honor of the King's kill.)  Cyrus' death leads to the defense of his body by his table companions, who all die in place. The Persians then pass into the camp and plunder all the baggage, leaving the remnants of Cyrus' army without supplies. Only then do they return to the Greek hoplites, who were coming back from a very successful day (so they thought).

When the Greeks meet the King and his reunited forces, they once again drive them with great success. The King's forces retreat before them, unable to resist the hoplite advance. Eventually the Greeks allow the retreat -- they are infantry after all, and have been fighting all day without food -- and return to their camp only to find it plundered. There is no supper to be had. 

And there has been no word from Cyrus. They are completely cut off from command, without clear intelligence about the battle, and hungry. 

Xenophon includes a touching brief biography of Cyrus, whom he apparently admired and considered a genuinely just and good man. Cyrus has the heroic virtues: courage, of course -- he once killed a she-bear in personal combat -- but also love of horses, great generosity, such honor that his word once given was thought completely reliable, and the ability to issue punishments to criminals with great firmness. One would regularly see on the bigger roads in his domain, Xenophon relates, men with amputated hands or feet: and therefore, he tells us, one could travel wherever one liked in Cyrus' domain with anything one choose to take without fear. Maimonides uses a similar argument as a proof of the existence of God; Genghis Khan's reign was reputedly also a place where 'a virgin dressed only in gold jewelry' could travel wherever she liked without fear of being troubled. Xenophon thought that Cyrus was a very good and virtuous man and, in the same way Aristotle would describe a generation later, therefore a good leader. The Greeks were there as his mercenaries, but they fought for him not only for gold but also because they thought he was worth fighting for. 

Dean’s List

My son absolutely astonished me today by bringing home a letter from his Dean. He had a really tough start to college due to COVID disrupting his Senior Year in High School and his Freshman year in college. He has taken to these Emergency Management studies, though. I’m proud of him. 

"Defending Democracy Together"

A big story this morning is that Bill Kristol has been outed as the recipient of millions of dollars of USAID (closed as of this morning!) and State Department money, laundered through the Rockfeller Philanthropy Advisors foundation. 

A part of this story nobody has yet mentioned that I've seen is that the particular focus of the Kristol entity is anti-Trump politics. This is the US government (in)directly funding political operations against a disfavored political party/candidate.

Back before Trump came into power, Kristol was headlining a conference on American and Israeli Nationalism. Shockingly given his remarks on the subject since Trump became a leading figure, he was at the time a huge proponent of American Nationalism -- the conference was called "The Case for Nationalism" and he was the leading exponent of the American version. Once Trump came on the scene, he discovered that there was a lot more money to be made opposing the principle he had once intensely advocated. We knew, therefore, that he was not genuinely principled. 

But this rises above the level of scandal. This is money laundering US taxpayer funds into an active effort to inveigh against the election of a particular candidate in our internal elections. It is almost certainly illegal. Especially insofar as USAID's budget is informed by input from a certain intelligence agency, it is explicitly illegal for them to engage in information operations within the United States for the purposes of influencing American citizens. Even to the degree that influence cannot be shown in court, the administrative state funding efforts to sway voters on a partisan basis is going to violate who knows how many campaign finance laws. 

Anabasis III

Before we reach the great battle at Cunaxa, which is where modern Baghdad stands, some internal tensions start to appear. The army's core is of natures, Greek mercenaries and Persians who have some reason to be loyal to Cyrus (and therefore, because of the tight family relation, also some reasons to be loyal to his brother the Great King). It is noteworthy that the tensions erupt within the ethnic groups, and that it is the presence of both groups together that allows for them to be resolved. Diversity, in this case, is their strength.

Clearchus and Menon are two of the Greek mercenary captains, each of their own band. They quarrel, and a third of the captains -- Proxenus -- steps in to try to stop it, which further enrages Clearchus (who felt he was unduly offended by Menon's troops). Cyrus comes between them, and his argument that brings peace is this: "If you don't stop fighting right now, all these Persians 'friends' around us will kill us all." Cyrus is himself Persian, indeed a very Prince of Persia, a satrap, and a man to whom all these men have sworn bonds of friendship and loyalty. Nevertheless he knows that they will turn their knives on him if he loses the security of a united Greek bodyguard. The Greeks grasp and believe in his argument, and return to sensible behavior. 

A very young Grim at COP Dragon on the Euphrates during the Sunni Awakening.

We were in much the same position with our 'allies' in Iraq. They were working with us because the US forces were much stronger than anyone around them. They had bonds of friendship and loyalty with us, sealed with dinners and presents and payments of cash; also they had bonds with the enemies around us. If we had seemed to fall into weakness, as through disputes with each other, they would immediately realize that they were going to be killed by our enemies once we were too weak to support them. Each would have wanted to be the first to turn on us, in order to tell our enemies -- also their relatives or co-religionists -- that they were the ones who had done us in and removed us as a problem.

The Sunni tribal leaders we were working with often had the most to fear from their own minor cousins or outlying uncles. Those might advance themselves by treasonously reaching out to those contacts they had with relatives, friends, and our enemies -- and then acting at a moment of weakness to replace the traditional sheikhs or other leaders. The apparent friendship and peace was bought by strength, but they were always pulled in both directions by their pre-existing ties. If the facts on the ground changed, the pull in the other direction could instantly become too strong.

Later Cyrus and his army find that an enemy band ahead of them of about 2,000 cavalry is burning the land to make sure there is nothing to feed their army. One of Cyrus' allies, a fellow Persian, proposes to take some cavalry and go round them up. Cyrus approves this, but the traitor instead sends a messenger ahead to warn the Great King of the maneuver. The messenger further betrays his lord and brings the message to Cyrus. A council is called, with the Persians all present and the Greeks as well, and a death sentence is pronounced on the Persian traitor. Both the Greeks and the Persians unanimously proclaim his death, the Greeks providing an excuse for his relatives to agree. 

I would also like to draw attention to one moment of genuine excellence about the Persian conduct on this march. Herodotus says a lot in praise of the Persians, Greece's traditional enemies, and Xenophon observes at least one thing that really merits the same sort of praise. 

...once they found themselves involved in a narrow way, where the deep clay presented an obstacle to the progress of the wagons. Cyrus, with the nobles about him, halted to superintend the operation, and ordered Glus and Pigres to take a body of barbarians and to help in extricating the wagons. As they seemed to be slow about the business, he turned round angrily to the Persian nobles and bade them lend a hand to force the wagons out. 

Then, if ever... good discipline was to be witnessed. Each of those addressed, just where he chanced to be standing, threw off his purple cloak, and flung himself into the work with as much eagerness as if it had been a charge for victory. Down a steep hill side they flew, with their costly tunics and embroidered trousers--some with the circlets round their necks, and bracelets on their arms--in an instant, they had sprung into the miry clay, and in less time than one could have conceived, they had landed the wagons safe on terra firma.

Herodotus claimed that the Persian nobility was raised from youth only to do three things: "to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth." That common discipline in the face of company hardship is exactly what you would expect of men like that.  

The Feast of Saint Brigid

A very welcome feast.

Today is the feast day of St. Brigid, which also marks the end of my beer fast through Dry January. I may have to reschedule the dry month for a less tiresome season in the future. Today as on other years, though, it is a festive day here. 

I did get a motorcycle ride today as hoped, too. Leaving behind a miserable January of intense cold, sickness, and sobriety is very welcome. To your health!

Impoundment

So for the last week I've been thinking that a lot of these moves we've seen have been about trying to push a court fight on the impoundment power. Today the Washington Post affirms that a document claiming that intent exists, although the Trump team denies writing it. 

The presentation, obtained by The Washington Post and other news outlets, outlines in new detail how the White House could revive an obscure and controversial power known as impoundment, potentially allowing Trump to cancel federal funds as he sees fit.

Under a law enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the president may invoke that authority only in limited cases with clear notice to Congress. But the slide deck suggests Trump officials may seek to trigger a court case that could declare that law unconstitutional, ultimately enabling Trump to reduce or eliminate entire funding categories on his own.

If there is to be any chance of saving the United States from the debt default that is otherwise coming on down the tracks like a freight train, Presidents will need to recover that power. Contra the Post, impoundment doesn't take away Congress' power of the purse -- only Congress can appropriate money, not Presidents. It does provide a check on that power, which Congress has been using ruinously for decades. Such checks and balances are a normal feature of the constitutional system. 

The Post also fails to note that this power was used first by Thomas Jefferson, and then by every president for over a century. It's the normal way our system has operated, in other words; it was cut off by statute as part of the fight against the hated Richard Nixon. The statute probably isn't constitutional, and certainly an originalist jurist will find much to support in an argument that the power was historically and widely used for a very long time.

Nor is this a terribly controversial thing to think: "Most recent presidents supported the restoration of the impoundment power, including Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Politicians such as John McCain, John Kerry, Al Gore, Pat Buchanan, Jeb Hensarling, Russ Feingold, Joe Lieberman, Judd Gregg and Paul Ryan also supported the restoration of the power."

It does suggest that the 'Anarcho-Capitalist' Argentina is behind these and also the personnel moves, which are designed to break the power of the administrative state and the spendthrift legislature so that the country can resume a sustainable financial course. Argentina is doing great, by the way.

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.

Anabasis I

The first four chapters of Book I of the Anabasis detail the development of Cyrus' determination to wage war against his brother Artaxerxes The Great King of Persia, the assembling of his army from many pieces gathered in secret, and its passage and assembly on a fairly leisurely march to the Euphrates river. At the time of their father's death, Cyrus was satrap in the west of the Persian lands, which are cut off by a kingdom called Cilicia, which is close to modern day Armenia (and indeed there would later be an Armenian kingdom by that name). Here's a better map to understand the problem Cyrus faces in getting his forces around Cilicia. The king of Cilicia also holds the rank of satrap, and is placed there kind of to keep an eye on the younger brother Cyrus, whom The Great King had initially tried to just kill at the time their father died; only his mother's intervention saved Cyrus and got him this solution. To win the surprise attack he needs, Cyrus has to make this maneuver through territory held by his watchdog without alerting his brother. 

Cyrus draws his army from multifarious sources and some clever stratagems that make it seem as if he is dutifully quelling several problems at once on the western frontier, all the while sending the proper tribute to his elder brother. As a result, he is able to assemble a substantial force of more than ten thousand hoplites, the elite heavy infantry of the Greek world, as well as certain supporting light infantry called peltasts. He invites the Queen of Cilicia to join him and, in the manner of a Bene Gesserit, she comes and convinces him to put on a display and revue of the army so she can take its full measure; she also, likewise in that same manner, sleeps with him. 

He moves them a little out of his most direct route to maintain the pretense that he is doing one of those dutiful quellings, such that there is very little violence in this first stage. He sends the Queen home with a unit of his men, two companies of whom -- a hundred hoplites -- are lost somewhat mysteriously.  As a consequence Tarsus -- yes of St. Paul fame, but currently the headquarters of the King of Cilicia -- does get sacked by the remaining force out of a sense of anger at their lost comrades. By the time Cyrus arrives, the king has withdrawn to a fortress; they meet and exchange a very large ransom (to Cyrus) for a set of 'honor gifts' (fine robes and golden fittings for horses, that sort of thing). Cyrus uses this and other monies to convince his mercenaries, who still haven't been told they are going to take on the Great King, to push on into Syria to the Euphrates.

You might ask about supply lines. Cyrus has been planning for this for some time, and he has his fleet meet him at a pair of twin fortresses in mutual opposition called the Gates of Syria. There are also merchants whose business model is to follow mercenary armies like this; soldiers, well paid and especially these by the time Cyrus is done bribing them, are expected usually to buy their own food and whatnot. However, Cyrus wants to push across the desert so he has made additional provision. 

A lot hinges on speed and surprise. Cyrus' force is chiefly made up of powerful units of infantry that can hold the ground against almost anything during the era; you will notice that the force that abandons its fortress and flees from them to warn the Great King has a reported 20-1 numerical advantage over them. Even so, better part of valor. That figure is probably inaccurate; the actual estimate of the big battle to come was roughly a 4-1 numerical advantage for the Persian Great King.

If you are reading the translation that I am, the translator dubiously chose to use 'miles' for the word representing distances, farsang. This is for the convenience of the reader, but the ancient term is interesting. The Greeks and Persians measure distances kind of like we Americans do, by using time. We say, "It's an hour and a half to the airport," which estimate does not deploy a unit of measure of distance at all. There's a rough equivalent because everyone was moving on foot, or usually a walking horse if traveling a long way; and most people in good shape who are used to it can get along about fifteen to twenty miles a day. That seems to be about the pace the army was moving on the way down to the Euphrates, although they take long rests in between stages -- days to as much as a month -- because they're pretending not to be advancing on the Great King and because it allows the army to assemble across several routes. Thus, the size of the force is concealed until its final assembly.

At the crossing of the Euphrates, Cyrus finally has to admit to his men that he's leading them against the Great King of Persia. They did not sign up for this, and are predictably upset. He has prepared a convincing argument, however, at least from the mercenary's perspective: about four months' pay as a bonus per man, in addition to their regular wages. On consideration, they elect to go with him. 

In the next section we will enter into what is present day Iraq, along the river Euphrates where I spent quite a bit of time myself.

Heady Days

A friend of mine just forwarded me a copy of that email sent to Federal employees. It's stunning reading. I'll give you one bit of it to get your heart going: 

If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but....

Emphasis added. Now you're talking.

Thoughts on the burgeoning revolution are everywhere. I don't think I'll try to add to them, not for now.

UPDATE: The 'office of gun violence prevention' is already gone.

The Year of the Snake

Today is the Lunar New Year. You can read about the zodiac system here. My wife and I were in China for the start of the Year of the Snake some 24 years ago today. It’s a highly festive occasion, the Lunar New Year. 

Fritz Leiber adopted “the Year of the [Animal]” for his fantasy world Nehwon, but he didn’t spell it all the way out.  Unlike Tolkien who would write volumes of backstory and create whole languages, Leiber preferred the illusion of depth. Each approach has its advantages, but Leiber’s was decidedly easier. Fantastic stories all the same. 

Heroic Literature and the Flu

I've been fighting the flu for a few days. For some reason, the experience made me realize a key difference between Arthurian and most other heroic fictions. If you read Robert E. Howard, for example, you will find his heroes suffering wounds, being enslaved, being thrown into dungeons to die, even being crucified; but they don't seem to get sick or suffer long periods of weakness from injury. 

Sir Thomas Malory's knights, by contrast, very often undergo periods of severe injury or illness that cause them to lose their prowess for a time. The story of Elaine of Astolat is driven by Lancelot getting seriously injured and needing to spend time in her care in order to recover. Often knights who are injured are cared for by religious men who were themselves formerly knights. It is a more complete picture of what a life of risk and hardship entails, and identifies ways in which good things can come out of such periods. (In Elaine's case, a very good thing might have happened if only Lancelot had not been so set upon Guinevere; instead it is of course a tragedy.) 

Often I have mused on how non-Arthurian fairy tales are very good models for how to live life up until adulthood; once you have married, you're just supposed to live 'happily ever after.' (Chesterton thought so too; two chapters of Orthodoxy are on the subject of fairy stories as a model for life.) Only the Arthurian stories seem to provide much help for those who aren't still coming of age, but are grown men expected to deal with the hardships and temptations of life. 

Hopefully I'll be mostly better in another day or two. Once I am, I'm hoping to start the winter reading/commentary that we usually do here. I think this year I will not do a philosophical work but one allied to philosophy: Xenophon's Anabasis, a heroic story that involves quite a bit of hardship and suffering. Xenophon was an Athenian who didn't really get along with the leadership of Athens, partly because of his friendship with Socrates, and partly because he preferred Sparta's ideals and ways. Anabasis is the story of his leadership of a group of Greek mercenaries, "The Ten Thousand," as they survive a losing battle in Persia and then have to walk all the way back to Greece. 

If any of you wish to join me, I'll hopefully be starting that series soon. (UPDATE: I will be reading the Rex Warner translation, because I have it on hand. The Gutenberg translation is by E. J. Chinnock. I doubt the differences will be major, but if we run into anything confusing the Greek is available to check which translation was most accurate.)

A young death

My young nephew, not quite 40, died suddenly this week. It was a shock and yet not completely unexpected, given the complicated state of his mental and physical health. He was struck down savagely by bipolar disease at the age of 18, a blow that was followed by some of the predictable physical catastrophes that strike people given to passing out in snowdrifts, as well as bolts from the blue like cancer. At his memorial service this Saturday in Philadelphia, I will read (or have someone read for me) this elegy:

I have an affectionate but long-distance perspective to offer on our departed loved one, Luke.

He would call or text occasionally, to offer a cheerful greeting or update, or sometimes to ask very simply and directly for help. I was never present for the crisis times and can only imagine how devastating they were. The picture his life presented to me was of a young man whose life was upended by illness, and who tried diligently for 20 years to build a nest in a hurricane. He never gave up his search for a loving home and meaningful work, and what more does any of us ever want?

God rest you, my young nephew: your illness and trouble are over now.

Bounty Hunting

You've got to set priorities in this kind of work. Is it really worth it?

It's not. I did it for a while in Savannah going on thirty years ago, and it was not at all worth it.

I do have a friend who is a bounty hunter currently though. She's the wife of the guy I go to for motorcycle repairs when it's more than I can handle. Locally the bounty hunting is run through the school board(!). It's a little complicated, but somehow bail bonds turned out to be a worthwhile investment for them. 

Happy Songs

James linked a piece by Sippican Cottage on happy songs. (Thanks to Tex, I knew of them from the Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys). He warns that "The possibility of a thousand-way tie is more likely than a Top Ten list."

Fair enough! But it strikes me as odd that there are no bluegrass songs on the list. It's the happiest music of all!

Well, as long as you don't pay close attention to the words.

Simplicity in Cooking

I gather from our fantasy movies that are roughly Medieval in setting that people think the Medievals were inclined to nothing but roasted meat -- spiced with salt if anything -- bread and beer. Fancy people preferred wine, but otherwise just ate better versions of the same thing: salt and pepper, white bread instead of brown. It was a simple time, rustic and basic.

Yet in fact: 

...it is certainly quite odd by modern culinary lights to cook a capon in red wine, cut it up, and then fry the pieces before serving them with the cooking broth reduced to a sauce flavored with spices, thickened with the liver and white meat pounded into a paste and with powdered almonds. Like other similar dishes, this one (Brouet of Capon, recipe 35) is a harmonious composition, where the flavor and texture of the meat itself are mingled with the aroma and savor of a vivid sauce, making a unified impression as the dish gives the tongue a momentary surprise with its supple crispness.... We confess that we have lost both the desire for such culinary intricacy and the very notion of it, and that it is no longer of interest. Yet as historians... it is our job to highlight the gap between today's gastronomic system and that which informed medieval culinary practices. 

-Redon, Sabban & Serventi, trans. Edward Schneider, The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 22.

The use of advanced pre-cooking techniques to create flavor and differentiate texture is not wholly lost. When describing how to create a venison braise, for example, I advised browning the meat, then the vegetables in the grease used to brown the meat, then assembling them together and braising them to get a richer flavor than you would get from just putting it all in the pot with liquid alone. There are still some modern recipes with pre-cooking stages, some of which use fire as did the Medieval ones.

It is much less common, though. We tend to give our recipes variety by changing the ingredients instead: for lunch we will have venison, last night roast beef, perhaps chicken for dinner. At a time when there was less variety of ingredients and more time to devote to the exercise of cooking in the kitchen, these more sophisticated approaches made more sense. 

In any case our ancestors were much different from how we often imagine them as a culture. They were smarter, more sophisticated, and rather wiser than we often give them credit for having been. 

Shuttering FEMA

In NC, our new President suggests shuttering FEMA and just sending money to the states as necessary. 

That's only a very slight change from what is done now. For the most part, local responders are the front line -- we were the ones out the morning of Helene and for weeks afterwards -- with the state stepping in to provide support that the local organizations don't have. (For example, we have Swiftwater teams and rescuers -- I am one myself -- but the state has Swiftwater teams that have more equipment than we do locally, especially including boats.) The State governor declares a state of emergency, and that opens up a big funding window for local responders as well as increased ability for the National Guard to support us. FEMA's chief role is to coordinate providing additional Federal funding, and occasionally to provide personnel that mostly help fill out forms and verify the details so that money can flow. 

Their direct aid provision role is quite limited; I never once saw a FEMA employee doing anything, although I've heard there were some teams triaged to other areas. Other states, though, will also send resources across state borders to help (as in California now, where fire departments have deployed strike teams from as far away as, yes, North Carolina in support of local crews).

In general I'm always in favor of closing down parts of the Federal government, or government in general. Making things voluntary whenever we can, privatizing when we can't rely on volunteer resources alone, localizing when we can't privatize, driving things down to the lowest possible level is always what I like to see. Therefore, instinctively I like this idea.

It would require some combination of cutting red tape on all those forms and verification processes, and/or funding state/local employees to do the same stuff where tape can't get cut.

"As Equals"

Today the NYT ethicist asks the question, "What's the rule about looking at women in public?"

Glancing at someone in a public place is always permissible; there’s often a fleeting moment of mutual acknowledgment — perhaps a slight nod or smile — before both parties look away. This momentary connection is part of how we experience our shared social world. No doubt if you find the person attractive, your glance may well linger involuntarily for a moment. But prolonging that moment further can cross a line. We can’t control our initial notice of others; we can control our subsequent choices. I suspect your ‘‘quick’’ glance wasn’t so quick.

In public settings, it’s generally intrusive to display sexual interest. That it may sometimes be welcomed doesn’t change the situation. Yes, a brief friendly glance that produces a smile and a direct reciprocating look can mean you’re being invited to maintain eye contact. But if there’s any doubt, the unease caused by leering is bad enough that you should err on the side of averting your gaze. In your case, there normally should be doubt. Being aware of whatever shortcomings we may have in the skills of everyday life can guide us toward better practices. Just as people who know they have a poor sense of direction learn to check maps more often, someone who struggles to read social signals around looking would do well by being reserved and not risk making others uncomfortable. It’s a matter of taking the trouble to do what, for you, doesn’t come naturally, and adopting habits that respect everyone’s dignity.

When it comes to men looking at women, in particular, there’s a broader social context in which women often experience unwanted attention or feel unsafe. The sexual etiquette I’ve described allows men and women to enjoy public spaces as equals. 

Something weird is going on with these definitions of  'equality.' The other day we were talking about an assumption that women would need rights men don't have in order to have equality. Here we've got a rule that applies to men only -- though especially to men who 'have trouble reading social signals,' meaning unequally even among men -- which somehow make men and women 'equals' in public spaces.

In Iraq we were given similar advice: not to look at or acknowledge the presence of women at all. That was only a stronger version of this advice -- to err on the side of caution by looking away -- but it certainly wasn't effective at creating a more equal society. I gather that the ethicist thinks this is going to work better because the intent is now to avoid offending the women, as opposed to avoid creating an offense to which their male 'guardians' would be obligated to respond. It's nevertheless strange that 'the rule' in New York City, of all places, should so closely resemble the rules in Baghdad or Kuwait City.