The original Greek narrative, on which Professor Witt has based his version, is, of course, the well-known _Anabasis_ of Xenophon, which is one of the most fascinating books in the world. And I agree with the translator in hoping that some of those who read the story for the first time in English will be led to study Greek sufficiently to read it again and again in the language of Xenophon himself. That remarkable personage, who in spite of his Spartan leanings was a thorough Athenian at heart--found himself on a sudden called upon to play the part of a leader: and played it to perfection. But if he deserved well of his countrymen and fellow soldiers by his service in the field, he has deserved still better of all later generations by the vigour, not of his sword, but of his pen. Perhaps we owe it to his Socratic training that whilst the memories were still fresh he sat down to describe the exploits of the Ten Thousand in a style admirably suited to the narrative; and produced a masterpiece. I do not think there is a dull page in the book. The incidents, albeit they took place in the broad noonday of Grecian history, are as thrilling as any tale told by the poets in the divine dawn of the highly gifted Hellenic race. The men themselves who play so noble a part are evidently true descendants of the Homeric heroes. If they have fits of black despondency--the cloud is soon dispelled when there is need for action, and by a sense of their own dignity. The spirit of their forefathers, who fought and won at Marathon and Salamis and Platææ, has entered into them. They enter the lists of battle with the same gaiety. They confront death with similar equanimity. Buoyancy is the distinctive note of the _Anabasis_. But there is another side to the matter. These Xenophontine soldiers are also true _enfants du siècle_. They bear the impress of their own half century markedly: and it was an age not by any means entirely heroic. It had its painful and prosaic side. ‘Nothing,’ a famous Frenchman, M. Henri Taine, has remarked in one of his essays entitled _Xénophon_, ‘is more singular than this Greek army--which is a kind of roving commonwealth, deliberating and acting, fighting and voting: an epitome of Athens set adrift in the centre of Asia: there are the same sacrifices, the same assemblies, the same party strifes, the same outbursts of violence; to-day at peace and to-morrow at war; now on land and again on shipboard; every successive incident serves but to evoke the energy and awaken the poetry latent in their souls.’ How does this happen? It is due, I think, to the Ten Thousand to admit: It was so, because in spite of personal defects they were true to themselves. ‘The Greeks,’ as the aged Egyptian priest exclaimed to Solon, in another context, ‘are always children.’