It is not unworthy of remark, that while there was nothing in which the Persian rulers displayed greater invention than in exaggerating bodily suffering upon a malefactor or an enemy,—at Athens, whenever any man was put to death by public sentence, the execution took place within the prison by administering a cup of hemlock, without even public exposure. It was the minimum of pain, as well as the minimum of indignity; as any one may see who reads the account of the death of Sokrates, given by Plato at the end of the Phædon. It is certain, that, on the whole, the public sentiment in England is more humane now than it was in that day at Athens. Yet an Athenian public could not have borne the sight of a citizen publicly hanged or beheaded in the market-place. Much less could they have borne the sight of the prolonged tortures inflicted on Damiens at Paris in 1757 (a fair parallel to the Persian σκάφευσις described in Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 16), in the presence of an immense crowd of spectators, when every window commanding a view of the Place de Grève was let at a high price, and filled by the best company in Paris. [25] Xen. Anab. i, 9, 13. [26] Xen. Anab. i, 6, 6. Of such virtues, (rare in an Oriental ruler, either ancient or modern,)—and of such secret preparations,—Cyrus sought to reap the fruits at the beginning of 401 B.C. Xenias, his general at home, brought together all the garrisons, leaving a bare sufficiency for defence of the towns. Klearchus, Menon, and the other Greek generals were recalled, and the siege of Miletus was relinquished; so that there was concentrated at Sardis a body of seven thousand seven hundred Grecian hoplites, with five hundred light armed.[27] Others afterwards joined on the march, and there was, besides, a native army of about one hundred thousand men. With such means Cyrus set forth, (March or April, 401 B.C.), from Sardis. His real purpose was kept secret; his ostensible purpose, as proclaimed and understood by every one except himself and Klearchus, was to conquer and root out the Pisidian mountaineers. A joint Lacedæmonian and Persian fleet, under the Lacedæmonian admiral Samius, at the same time coasted round the south of Asia Minor, in order to lend coöperation from the sea-side.[28] This Lacedæmonian coöperation passed for a private levy effected by Cyrus himself; for the ephors would not formally avow hostility against the Great King.[29] [27] Xen. Anab. i, 2, 2-3. [28] Xen. Hellen. iii, 1, 1. [29] Diodor. xiv, 21. The body of Greeks, immortalized under the name of the Ten Thousand, who were thus preparing to plunge into so many unexpected perils,—though embarking on a foreign mercenary service, were by no means outcasts, or even men of extreme poverty. They were for the most part persons of established position, and not a few even opulent. Half of them were Acadians or Achæans.