We stood in silent formation, facing the hills to the east whence the king's troops would be arriving. Hardly a man stirred. The only movement was the occasional distant rider galloping from or toward the army, retrieving messages from the outposts and carrying Cyrus' orders to his far wings. The moment was otherworldly and eerie, tens of thousands of men motionless and silent-that brief moment before engagement when the lines are orderly, the troops confident, the horses calm, and the Homeric glory of battle is most apparent and anticipated.
The distant hills facing us began shimmering in the mid-afternoon heat, becoming hazy and ill-defined. Small flies buzzed about our faces, and sweat trickled down my sides under the corselet. My scalp burned and itched under the helmet, the felt caul lining my head underneath already drenched with perspiration. The initial tension, the sharp knot I had felt in my stomach while making my preparations, had given way to a dull, throbbing ache, a weight in the lower belly and knees, a pervasive background presence of anticipation and fear. Some men, even officers, became restless in the heat, shifting on their feet, gulping fetid water from their skins and chatting idly with their companions. A few set the rims of their heavy shields on the ground leaning against their knees, to free up their hands while they wrung out their caps. Others simply sank down into the dust where they were, grunting loudly as they sat, concluding that whatever repose they were able to afford their tense limbs was worth the difficulty of standing up again under the weight of their gear.
The sun beat on us relentlessly, turning the outside of our armor and helmets hot to the touch, steaming our bodies inside like loaves of bread in an oven. The haziness increased, and we had almost begun to doubt we would be seeing action that day at all, when we noticed the distinct outline of a brownish cloud floating up from the horizon. At first it was so distant and faint that when I pointed it out to Xenophon, he simply dismissed it as the effect of heat waves on the sand as the sun burned hotter. After a few minutes, however, we saw that the cloud was drifting closer, becoming denser and more ominous as it approached-the dust raised by the million marching feet of Artaxerxes' army.
The horizon at the top of the distant hills darkened to black, and then thickened in a wavy line, from the downstream course of the Euphrates at the right of our present location, in a wide arc almost to the farthest left of our view-and then the line began spreading and thickening like the dark shadow of a cloud, moving toward us, inexorable and plaguelike, as the massed forces of five times a hundred thousand men and horses approached us in formation. Certainly no sight ever seen by mortals, not the sacking of Thebes nor the destruction of Ilium, surely not even the war between the gods and the Titans, was a match for this sight of the king's enormous army, for pure, destructive splendor. Here and there shone sparkles of light as the sun reflected off glittering armor and polished bridle bits, and within moments the occasional shouts of officers' orders, the whinnying of horses and the thunderous, rhythmical tramping-above all the tramping-were carried floating and wafting to our ears by stray gusts of wind.
Earlier in the day Cyrus had warned us not to be unnerved by the battle cries of the barbarians. As a Persian himself, he was well accustomed to their practiced technique of trying to break their enemies' concentration even before coming to blows, by emitting an ear-piercing shriek that would carry for miles, designed to strike terror into the hearts of all who heard it. But this time the prince was wrong: The barbarians came marching in complete and utter silence, without a sound from their men other than the insistent tramping. In its own way, this was even more unnerving, making them seem more like shades or gods than creatures of flesh and blood.
I glanced at Xenophon, who stood transfixed by the sheer wonder at seeing in this barren, empty landscape the vast multitude of men and animals suddenly appearing from nowhere. Only Clearchus seemed unmoved by the spectacle. He trotted ceaselessly up and down the lines on his enormous, frothing war-charger, fine-tuning placements here, berating an officer there, his long, carefully dressed braids flying out behind him from under his full-faced Spartan battle helmet-a terrifying sight, only his glittering eyes and bushy chin exposed from beneath the polished bronze.
Cyrus pounded up to our lines, searching out Clearchus, who calmly finished bellowing orders to his captains before he turned to the prince, waiting impatiently on his skittish horse. "Your highness!" Clearchus exulted, a murderous glint flashing through the deep eye sockets of his bronze helmet, "This is your Greek army! These are the men who will lead you to victory!"
Cyrus ignored Clearchus' boasting. "Victory! Victory over the enemy's auxiliaries perhaps. The false king and his Immortals are marching against us in the center of their forces-if we defeat them there, the battle is won. You are on the wrong end of our lines, General! Fall back and cross with your men to the left!"
Clearchus gaped at Cyrus in astonishment, then scanned the approaching forces more carefully and saw that what the prince said was true-the enemy was so numerous that the king's center actually faced our far left, so much did the king's lines overlap and extend beyond ours. Still, the value of shifting his troops to the other end of the line at this late hour was dubious, and the prince's implicit questioning of his tactical skills was intolerable. He whipped his helmet off in a rage.
"Wrong end, my ass! The first rule of battle, Prince, is to position your strongest troops to anchor the right. Absent us, the king's cavalry will cut through your right like butter and fold you up from behind. With our forces hard against the river, we can't be outflanked on this side at least. Believe it-I've been doing this since before you were born. As long as I command the Greek troops they stay on your right."
Now it was Cyrus' turn to gape at his subordinate's direct challenge, and after an astonished pause, he lit into the Spartan with a barrage of oaths and insults that made my hair rise, even under the soaked helmet and caul. Proxenus, Xenophon, and I froze as we watched Cyrus and Clearchus rant at each other, shouting and gesturing as the vast forces of the enemy continued their inexorable march toward us across the plain. Artaxerxes would not wait for our tactical dispute to be resolved before launching his troops into battle. I despaired at seeing the two generals at the point of coming to blows, but Clearchus remained unyielding. There are few men more stubborn than an old soldier, and none more stubborn than a Spartan. The prince finally raised the palm of his hand sharply, cutting off Clearchus in mid-sputter.