§ 44. So much for the expedition; now a word or two concerning this famous Xenophon. If his expedition had indeed made the figure in the contemporary world that it does in his _Anabasis_ and in modern histories, who can doubt that he would have been recognized as one of the chief military leaders of the age; and, as his services were in the market, that he would have been at once employed, either as a general or as a minister of war, in the memorable campaigns which occupied the Greeks after his return? Why did he never command an army again[106:1]? Why was he never tried as a strategist against Epaminondas, the rising military genius of the age? The simple fact is that he has told us the whole story of his Retreat from his own point of view; he has not failed to put himself into the most favourable light; and it is more than probable that the accounts given by the other mercenaries did not place him in so preeminent a position. The _Anabasis_ is a most artistic and graceful self-panegyric of the author, disguised under an apparently candid and simple narrative of plain facts, perhaps even brought out under a false name,--Themistogenes of Syracuse,--to help the illusion; nor was it composed at the spur of the moment, and when there were many with fresh memories ready to contradict him, but after the interest in the affair had long blown over, and his companions and rivals were scattered or dead. [Sidenote: A special favourite of Grote.] It is of course an excellent text for Grote to develop into his favourite historical sermon, that the broad literary and philosophical culture of the Athenian democracy fitted any man to take up suddenly any important duties, even so special as the management of a campaign. But however true or false this may be, it is certain that Xenophon's contemporaries did not accept him as a military genius, and that he spent his after years of soldiering in attendance upon a second-rate Spartan general as a volunteer and a literary panegyrist. [Sidenote: Xenophon on Agesilaus and Epaminondas.] [Sidenote: Injustice of the Hellenica.]