The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 02: (From the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era)
History
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 02: (From the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era)
World history
[Footnote 28: Spelman quotes a description of the bulimia from Galen, in
which it is said to be "a disease in which the patient frequently craves
for food, loses the use of his limbs, falls down, turns pale, feels his
extremities become cold, his stomach oppressed, and his pulse feeble."
Here, however, it seems to mean little more than a faintness from long
fasting.]
However, as it was late, they went with the water-carriers within the
rampart, to the head man of the village, and here Chirisophus and as
many of the troops as could come up encamped; but of the rest, such as
were unable to get to the end of the journey spent the night on the way
without food or fire, and some of the soldiers lost their lives on that
occasion. Some of the enemy too, who had collected themselves into a
body, pursued our rear, and seized any of the baggage-cattle that were
unable to proceed, fighting with one another for the possession of them.
Such of the soldiers also as had lost their sight from the effects of
the snow, or had their toes mortified by the cold, were left behind. It
was found to be a relief to the eyes against the snow, if the soldiers
kept something black before them on the march, and to the feet, if they
kept constantly in motion, and allowed themselves no rest, and if they
took off their shoes in the night. But as to such as slept with their
shoes on, the straps worked into their feet, and the soles were frozen
about them, for when their old shoes had failed them, shoes of raw hides
had been made by the men themselves from the newly skinned oxen.
From such unavoidable sufferings some of the soldiers were left behind,
who, seeing a piece of ground of a black appearance, from the snow
having disappeared there, conjectured that it must have melted, and it
had in fact melted in the spot from the effect of a fountain, which was
sending up vapor in a wooded hollow close at hand. Turning aside
thither, they sat down and refused to proceed farther. Xenophon, who was
with the rear-guard, as soon as he heard this tried to prevail on them
by every art and means not to be left behind, telling them, at the same
time, that the enemy were collected and pursuing them in great numbers.
At last he grew angry, and they told him to kill them, as they were
quite unable to go forward. He then thought it the best course to strike
a terror, if possible, into the enemy that were behind, lest they should
fall upon the exhausted soldiers. It was now dark, and the enemy were
advancing with a great noise, quarrelling about the booty that they had
taken, when such of the rear-guard as were not disabled started up and
rushed toward them, while the tired men, shouting as loud as they could,
clashed their spears against their shields. The enemy, struck with
alarm, threw themselves among the snow into the hollow, and no one of
them afterward made himself heard from any quarter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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