Katha Cheppanaa

Retold from the "Anabasis" of Xenophon By Antony Marsden
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CHAPTER XXX


The rest of the story   is soon told, for though most of the army had many adventures yet before they returned to their homes, these adventures were mostly in Greek cities and connect with Greek affairs. The Great March itself, during which that small force of Greeks had defied the full power of the King and passed through the very heart of his realm, ended at Trebizond, a Greek colony on the shore of the Black Sea. Here the whole army rested for a month among friends, and held games, which were a part of the great sacrifice which they had vowed to the gods.

They had been thirteen thousand at the time of the last muster held by Cyrus; now battle, sickness and the cruel cold had reduced them to less than nine thousand. They were among friends for the present, but the greater part of them were still far from their own cities. It would take too long to tell how, the Great March finished, they made their way slowly westward along the shore of the Black Sea, afoot and plundering, since they could not afford to hire ships enough to take them, and seeing famous places, such as Jason's Beach where the first ship was supposed to have come to land, and the site of ancient Troy. At one time Xenophon even thought of founding a city in those parts, and settling there; but the soldiers would not agree.