Note 64 — Chapter LXIX · CYRUS THE YOUNGER AND THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS.

Xen. Anab. i, 4, 18. Compare (Plutarch, Alexand. 17) analogous expressions of flattery—from the historians of Alexander, affirming that the sea near Pamphylia providentially made way for him—from the inhabitants on the banks of the Euphrates, when the river was passed by the Roman legions and the Parthian prince Tiridates, in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (Tacitus, Annal. vi. 37); and by Lucullus still earlier (Plutarch, Lucull. c. 24).

The time when Cyrus crossed the Euphrates, must probably have been about the end of July or beginning of August. Now the period of greatest height, in the waters of the Euphrates near this part of its course, is from the 21st to the 28th of May; the period when they are lowest, is about the middle of November (see Colonel Chesney’s Report on the Euphrates, p. 5). Rennell erroneously states that they are lowest in August and September (Expedit, of Xenophon, p. 277). The waters would thus be at a sort of mean height, when Cyrus passed.

Mr. Ainsworth states that there were only twenty inches of water in the ford at Thapsakus, from October 1841 to February 1842; the steamers Nimrod and Nitocris then struck upon it (p. 72), though the steamers Euphrates and Tigris had passed over it without difficulty in the month of May.