In my last volume, I brought down the History of Grecian affairs to the close of the Peloponnesian war, including a description of the permanent loss of imperial power, the severe temporary oppression, the enfranchisement and renewed democracy, which marked the lot of defeated Athens. The defeat of that once powerful city, accomplished by the Spartan confederacy,—with large pecuniary aid from the young Persian prince Cyrus, satrap of most of the Ionian seaboard,—left Sparta mistress, for the time, of the Grecian world. Lysander, her victorious admiral, employed his vast temporary power for the purpose of setting up, in most of the cities, Dekarchies or ruling Councils of Ten, composed of his own partisans; with a Lacedæmonian Harmost and garrison to enforce their oligarchical rule. Before I proceed, however, to recount, as well as it can be made out, the unexpected calamities thus brought upon the Grecian world, with their eventual consequences,—it will be convenient to introduce here the narrative of the Ten Thousand Greeks, with their march into the heart of the Persian empire and their still more celebrated Retreat. This incident, lying apart from the main stream of Grecian affairs, would form an item, strictly speaking, in Persian history rather than in Grecian. But its effects on the Greek mind, and upon the future course of Grecian affairs, were numerous and important; while as an illustration of Hellenic character and competence measured against that of the contemporary Asiatics, it stands preeminent and full of instruction. This march from Sardis up to the neighborhood of Babylon, conducted by Cyrus the younger and undertaken for the purpose of placing him on the Persian throne in the room of his elder brother Artaxerxes Mnemon,—was commenced about March or April in the year 401 B.C. It was about six months afterwards, in the month of September or October of the same year, that the battle of Kunaxa was fought, in which, though the Greeks were victorious, Cyrus himself lost his life. They were then obliged to commence their retreat, which occupied about one year, and ultimately brought them across the Bosphorus of Thrace to Byzantium, in October or November, 400 B.C.