In the article on "Retreat," in the "Encyclopædical Dictionary," it is said that the retreat of the ten thousand took place under the command of Xenophon. This is a mistake; he never commanded; he was merely at the head of a division of fourteen hundred men, at the end of the march. I see that these heroes scarcely arrived, after so many fatigues, on the borders of the Pontus Euxinus, before they indifferently pillaged friends and enemies to re-establish themselves. Xenophon embarked his little troop at Heraclea, and went to make a new bargain with a king of Thrace, to whom he was a stranger. This Athenian, instead of succoring his country, then overcome by the Spartans, sold himself once more to a petty foreign despot. He was ill paid, I confess, which is another reason why we may conclude that he would have done better in assisting his country. The sum of all this, we have already remarked, is that the Athenian Xenophon, being only a young volunteer, enlisted himself under a Lacedæmonian captain, one of the tyrants of Athens, in the service of a rebel and an assassin; and that, becoming chief of fourteen hundred men, he put himself into the pay of a barbarian. What is worse, necessity did not constrain him to this servitude. He says himself that he deposited a great part of the gold gained in the service of Cyrus in the temple of the famous Diana of Ephesus. Let us remark, that in receiving the pay of a king, he exposed himself to be condemned to death, if the foreigner was not contented with him, which happened to Major-General Doxat, a man born free. He sold himself to the emperor Charles VI., who commanded his head to be cut off, for having given up to the Turks a place which he could not defend. Rollin, in speaking of the return of the ten thousand, says, "that this fortunate retreat filled the people of Greece with contempt for Artaxerxes, by showing them that gold, silver, delicacies, luxury, and a numerous seraglio, composed all the merit of a great king." Rollin should consider that the Greeks ought not to despise a sovereign who had gained a complete battle; who, having pardoned as a brother, conquered as a hero; who, having the power of exterminating ten thousand Greeks, suffered them to live and to return to their country; and who, being able to have them in his pay, disdained to make use of them. Add, that this prince afterwards conquered the Lacedæmonians and their allies, and imposed on them humiliating laws; add also that in a war with the Scythians, called Caducians, towards the Caspian Sea, he supported all fatigues and dangers like the lowest soldier. He lived and died full of glory; it is true that he had a seraglio, but his courage was only the more estimable. We must be careful of college declamations.