impulse, the most notorious deceiver will always find new persons to trust him,—still such misjudgment on the part of an officer of age and experience is difficult to explain.[133] Polyænus intimates that beautiful women, exhibited by the satrap at his first banquet to Klearchus alone, served as a lure to attract him with all his colleagues to the second; while Xenophon imputes the error to continuance of a jealous rivalry with Menon. The latter,[134] it appears, having always been intimate with Ariæus, had been thus brought into previous communication with Tissaphernes, by whom he had been well received, and by whom he was also encouraged to lay plans for detaching the whole Grecian army from Klearchus, so as to bring it all under his (Menon’s) command, into the service of the satrap. Such at least was the suspicion of Klearchus; who, jealous in the extreme of his own military authority, tried to defeat the scheme by bidding still higher himself for the favor of Tissaphernes. Imagining that Menon was the unknown calumniator who prejudiced the satrap against him, he hoped to prevail on the satrap to disclose his name and dismiss him.[135] Such jealousy seems to have robbed Klearchus of his customary prudence. We must also allow for another impression deeply fixed in his mind; that the salvation of the army was hopeless without the consent of Tissaphernes, and, therefore, since the latter had conducted them thus far in safety, when he might have destroyed them before, that his designs at the bottom could not be hostile.[136] [131] Xenophon seems to intimate that there were various stories current, which he does not credit, to the disparagement of Menon,—καὶ τὰ μὲν δὴ ἀφανῆ ἔξεστι περὶ αὐτοῦ ψεύδεσθαι, etc. (Anab. ii, 6, 28). Athenæus (xi, p. 505) erroneously states that Xenophon affirmed Menon to be the person who caused the destruction of Klearchus by Tissaphernes. [132] Xenophon in the Cyropædia (viii, 8, 3) gives a strange explanation of the imprudent confidence reposed by Klearchus in the assurance of the Persian satrap. It arose (he says) from the high reputation for good faith which the Persians had acquired by the undeviating and scrupulous honor of the first Cyrus (or Cyrus the Great), but which they had since ceased to deserve, though the corruption of their character had not before publicly manifested itself. This is a curious perversion of history to serve the purpose of his romance. [133] Macciavelli, Principe, c. 18, p. 65. [134] Polyæn. vii, 18. [135] Xen. Anab. ii, 5, 27, 28. [136] Compare Anab. ii, 4, 6, 7; ii, 5, 9.