The statements of Ktesias, though known to us only indirectly and not to be received without caution, afford ground for believing that Queen Parysatis decidedly wished success to her son Cyrus in his contest for the throne,—that the first report conveyed to her of the battle of Kunaxa, announcing the victory of Cyrus, filled her with joy, which was exchanged for bitter sorrow when she was informed of his death,—that she caused to be slain with horrible tortures all those, who though acting in the Persian army and for the defence of Artaxerxes, had any participation in the death of Cyrus—and that she showed favorable dispositions towards the Cyreian Greeks.[116] It seems probable, farther, that her influence may have been exerted to procure for them an unimpeded retreat, without anticipating the use afterwards made by Tissaphernes (as will soon appear) of the present convention. And in one point of view, the Persian king had an interest in facilitating their retreat. For the very circumstance which rendered retreat difficult, also rendered the Greeks dangerous to him in their actual position. They were in the heart of the Persian empire, within seventy miles of Babylon; in a country not only teeming with fertility, but also extremely defensible; especially against cavalry, from the multiplicity of canals, as Herodotus observed respecting Lower Egypt.[117] And Klearchus might say to his Grecian soldiers,—what Xenophon was afterwards preparing to say to them at Kalpê on the Euxine Sea, and what Nikias also affirmed to the unhappy Athenian army whom he conducted away from Syracuse[118]—that wherever they sat down, they were sufficiently numerous and well-organized to become at once a city. A body of such troops might effectually assist, and would perhaps encourage, the Babylonian population to throw off the Persian yoke, and to exonerate themselves from the prodigious tribute which they now paid to the satrap. For these reasons, the advisers of Artaxerxes thought it advantageous to convey the Greeks across the Tigris out of Babylonia, beyond all possibility of returning thither. This was at any rate the primary object of the convention. And it was the more necessary to conciliate the good-will of the Greeks, because there seems to have been but one bridge over the Tigris; which bridge could only be reached by inviting them to advance considerably farther into the interior of Babylonia. [116] Ktesiæ Persica, Fragm. c. 59, ed. Bähr; compared with the remarkable Fragment. 18, preserved by the so-called Demetrius Phalêreus: see also Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 17. [117] Herodot. i, 193; ii, 108; Strabo, xvii. p. 788. [118] Xen. Anab. v, 6, 16; Thucyd. vii.