The world has never ceased to thrill with a sympathetic memory of that glad cry of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand, “_Thalatta! Thalatta!_” (The sea! The sea!) It has a kinship with the feelings of the foot-sore and heart-sore children of Israel reaching the edge of the Promised Land. It stands out from above the usual crises of history as a temple dome above a town. It takes its place among such peaks of emotion as the view that Attila took of Rome, and the crusaders of the minarets of Jerusalem, the cry of “Land ho!” on the ships of Columbus. It finds a strangely modern parallel in the first ocean-glimpse of the American soldiers in Sherman’s march to the sea. Like all these picturesque incidents, it meant more than a merely dramatic moment to the history of mankind. It was a prelude in Greek history to the triumph of Alexander. It showed to the Greeks that their ambitions need not be confined to the small parishes they had dwelt in. It revealed the fact that the great realm of the Persian monarch, whom the Greeks always referred to as “The King,” was like Dead Sea fruit: brilliant in its shell, and hollow corruption at core. The only impetus the Greeks had felt towards a Panhellenic spirit had been inspired by the imminence of the Persian danger. They had with small bands of patriots dispersed the droves of oriental subjects brought against them, and yet they could not have dreamed that their success in an offensive war would be equal to the glory of the defensive struggle. But here was a lessening body of ten thousand Greeks, bound together by no common sentiment except a desire for money--which they did not get. And this comparative handful of mercenaries had ransacked the very innermost recesses of the Persian empire, and had never found an army great enough or brave enough to withstand it in open assault. The conquest of such an empire seemed to be within the grasp of any Greek commander. The first to attempt it was a second-rate Spartan king, Agesilaus, who failed. And the Persian empire resisted attack for five generations more, till the new blood of Macedonia and the unlimited ambitions of Alexander made the attempt. Until he came, the blows of the others were only so much callisthenics. When he came he was not loath to acknowledge, on the eve of the battle of Issus, the inspiration he owed to the feat of the Ten Thousand. Meanwhile, without reference to its remote bearings, the anabasis and catabasis of Xenophon’s army stand forth glorious in themselves. He himself sums up the achievement baldly at the conclusion of his work. [Sidenote: [401-399 B.C.]]