"
(30) And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the
concurrence of military virtue and learning (for what example should
come with any grace after those two of Alexander and Caesar?), were
it not in regard of the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one
other particular, as that which did so suddenly pass from extreme
scorn to extreme wonder: and it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who
went from Socrates' school into Asia in the expedition of Cyrus the
younger against King Artaxerxes. This Xenophon at that time was
very young, and never had seen the wars before, neither had any
command in the army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for
the love and conversation of Proxenus, his friend. He was present
when Falinus came in message from the great king to the Grecians,
after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they, a handful of men,
left to themselves in the midst of the king's territories, cut off
from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles.
The message imported that they should deliver up their arms and
submit themselves to the king's mercy.
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