Note 92 — Chapter LXIX · CYRUS THE YOUNGER AND THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS.

Xen. Anab. i, 8, 22-29. The account of this battle and of the death of Cyrus by Ktesias (as far as we can make it out from the brief abstract in Photius—Ktesias, Fragm. c. 58, 59, ed. Bähr) does not differ materially from Xenophon. Ktesias mentions the Karian soldier (not noticed by Xenophon) who hurled the javelin; and adds that this soldier was afterwards tortured and put to death by Queen Parysatis, in savage revenge for the death of Cyrus. He also informs us that Bagapatês, the person who by order of Artaxerxes cut off the head and hand of Cyrus, was destroyed by her in the same way.

Diodorus (xiv, 23) dresses up a much fuller picture of the conflict between Cyrus and his brother, which differs on many points, partly direct and partly implied, from Xenophon.

Plutarch (Artaxerxes, c. 11, 12, 13) gives an account of the battle, and of the death of Cyrus, which he professes to have derived from Ktesias, but which differs still more materially from the narrative in Xenophon. Compare also the few words of Justin, v, 11.

Diodorus (xiv, 24) says that twelve thousand men were slain of the king’s army at Kunaxa; the greater part of them by the Greeks under Klearchus, who did not lose a single man. He estimates the loss of Cyrus’s Asiatic army at three thousand men. But as the Greeks did not lose a man, so they can hardly have killed many in the pursuit; for they had scarcely any cavalry, and no great number of peltasts,—while hoplites could not have overtaken the flying Persians.