Explore "The Retreat of the Ten Thousand" by C. Witt on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For some days after the repulse of Mithridates, the Hellenes were allowed to continue their march unmolested, but soon the Persians were again seen coming up behind them. Tissaphernes was now pursuing them with all the forces under his command, determined that they should not much longer escape his vengeance.
Keeping the main body of his army in the background, he brought to the front his numerous companies of light infantry, and commanded them to make use of their slings and bows. But the Hellenes, unawed by the overpowering numbers of the enemy, quickly brought forward their little band of Rhodians, whose leaden bullets carried farther than the heavy shot of the Persian slingers, and before the enemy was near enough to do them any harm, they had opened fire upon their close-packed ranks where every shot was certain to tell. The archers too discharged their arrows with equal effect, and so deadly was the assault, that Tissaphernes was obliged to withdraw his men out of range, and for the rest of that day, contented himself with following the Hellenes at a safe distance.