the object to be accomplished as one of vast importance, and seen no other way which offered any prospect of the desired result.  Her failure, despite the success of her treachery, places her military weakness in the strongest possible light.  The Greeks, though deprived of their leaders, deceived, surprised, and hemmed in by superior numbers, amid terrific mountains, precipices, and snows, forced their way by sheer dogged perseverance through all obstacles, and reached Trebizond with the loss of not one fourth of their original number.

There was also another discovery made during the return which partly indicated the weakness of the Persian power, and partly accounted for it.  The Greeks had believed that the whole vast space enclosed between the Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian, and Jaxartes on the one hand, and the Arabian Desert, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the other, was bound together into one single centralized monarchy, all the resources of which were wielded by a single arm.  They now found that even towards the heart of the empire, on the confines of Media and Assyria, there existed independent tribes which set the arms of Persia at defiance; while towards the verge of the old dominion whole provinces, once certainly held in subjection, had fallen away from the declining State, and succeeded in establishing their freedom.  The nineteenth satrapy of Herodotus existed no more; in lieu of it was a mass of warlike and autonomous tribes—­Chalybes, Taochi, Chaldeans, Macronians, Scythians, Colchians, Mosynoecians, Tibarenians—­whose services, if he needed them, the King of Persia had to buy, while ordinarily their attitude towards him was one of distrust and hostility.  Judging of the unknown from the known, the Greeks might reasonably conclude that in all parts of the Empire similar defections had occurred, and that thus both the dimensions and the resources of the state had suffered serious diminution, and fell far below the conception which they had been accustomed to form of them.

The immediate consequence of the Cyreian expedition was a rupture between Persia and Sparta.  Sparta had given aid to Cyrus, and thus provoked the hostility of the Great King.  She was not inclined to apologize or to recede.  On the contrary, she saw in the circumstances of the expedition strong grounds for anticipating great advantages to herself from a war with so weak an antagonist.  Having, therefore, secured the services of the returned Ten Thousand, she undertook the protection of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia, and carried on a war upon the continent against the satraps of Lydia and Phrygia for the space of six years (B.C. 399 to B.C. 394).  The disorganization of the Persian Empire became very manifest during this period.  So jealous were the two satraps of each other, that either was willing at any time to make a truce with the Spartans on condition that they proceeded to attack the other; and, on one occasion, as much as thirty silver talents was paid by a satrap