Invasion of Scythia by Darius—Destruction of Crassus and his army by the Parthians—Retreat of Antony—Retreat and death of Julian—Retreat from Moscow.

Darius, son of Hystaspes, having gained possession of the vast empire which had been established by Cyrus, devoted his attention to the regulation of its internal policy: a task which we are led to believe he exercised with moderation and judgment. But the Persians were a warlike nation, less advanced in civilization than their sovereign; hence his care of the finances of the empire degraded him in their eyes, and comparing his character with that of their former princes, while they called Cyrus the father, and Cambyses the master, they denominated Darius the broker of the empire. It was probably under the knowledge of these feelings, that his wife, Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, thus addressed him:[187] “O king, though possessed of such ample means, thou sittest still, and gainest increase for the Persians neither of subjects nor power. But it befits a young man who is the master of vast resources, to manifest his worth in the performance of some mighty act, that the Persians may fully know they have a man for their king. Now, therefore, it profiteth thee twofold to do thus, both that the Persians may understand there is a man at their head, and also that they may be harassed by war, and for lack of leisure may not conspire against you. And now thou mightest distinguish thyself during thy youth, for the spirit groweth with the growing body; but it ageth also with the aging body, and is blunted towards all action.” Darius answered, “All these things which thou hast suggested, I have resolved to perform, for I mean to build a bridge from this mainland to the other, to march against the Scythians, and within a little while all these things shall be accomplished.” Atossa replied, “Do not go first against the Scythians, for they will be at your disposal at any time; but for my sake lead an army against Greece. For I have heard reports of the Grecian women, and wish much to have female slaves of LacedÆmon, and Argos, and Corinth, and Athens.”

Some time elapsed before Darius was at leisure to pursue his schemes of conquest; but after the Babylonian rebellion was quelled, when the prosperity of Asia was at its height, he determined to invade the Scythians under pretence of revenging the desolating incursion of their ancestors into Media, a century before. With this view he sent orders throughout his dominions, to some nations that they should prepare infantry, others a fleet, others construct a bridge across the Thracian Bosphorus, in which a Grecian artist, Mandrocles of Samos, was employed. The fleet, which was contributed by the Asiatic Greeks, he sent on to the Ister, or Danube, with orders to construct a bridge there also, which was done, two days’ sail from the mouth of the river; the land forces[188] he himself conducted through Thrace. Darius, though a wise prince, was not exempt from that inordinate spirit of boasting which has beset the eastern sovereigns in all ages. At the source of the river Tearus, where are hot and cold medicinal springs issuing from the same rock, he caused a column to be set up, with this inscription:—“The fountains of Tearus pour forth the best and fairest water of all rivers, and thither, on his march against the Scythians, came the best and fairest of all men, Darius, son of Hystaspes, King of the Persians, and of all the continent.” Another instance of this spirit occurs, when he ordered a pile of stones to be raised at the river Artiscus, as a monument of the magnitude of his army, each individual being ordered to contribute one stone to the heap. Passing onward,[189] he crossed the Ister, and entered Scythia, leaving the Ionians behind to protect his return, but with permission to depart home, unless he should reappear within sixty days. The Scythians did not attempt open resistance; they blocked up the wells and springs, and destroyed the forage throughout the country; and taking advantage of their own wandering habits, harassed the Persians by leading them a fruitless chase in pursuit of an enemy who seemed always within reach, and yet could never be overtaken. After wandering over a vast extent of desert, Darius began to weary of so unprofitable an occupation, and indulging a hope, perhaps, that the enemy would be complaisant enough to change their tactics for his own convenience, sent the following message to Idanthyrsus, the Scythian king: “O wonderful man, why wilt thou still fly, having the choice of these two things? If thou esteemest thyself capable to stand up against me, abide, and do battle; but if thou acknowledgest thyself to be the weaker, even then desist from flight, and come to my presence, bringing earth and water, gifts due to your master.” The proposal was conceived in the spirit of our own chivalrous ancestors, and from them might have met with a prompt acquiescence; but Idanthyrsus was not to be piqued into an act of imprudence, and in truth more wisdom is visible in his reply than in the request which led to it. “O Persian, this is my way: hitherto I have never fled for fear of any man, neither do I now fly before thee, nor act otherwise than I am wont in peace. And I will tell thee wherefore I decline a battle. We have neither towns nor tilled land, in defence of which we are compelled to fight; but if it be of importance to thee to bring us to battle, lo, there are the tombs of our ancestors; find them out, and endeavour to destroy them, and thou shalt then know whether we will fight for our sepulchres, or whether we will not. But, until this, unless we ourselves see reason, we will not fight. So much for fighting. For masters, we own none, save Jupiter, my ancestor, and Vesta, Queen of the Scythians. And instead of sending earth and water, I will send you such a present as befits the occasion; but as for calling thyself our master, I say, go hang.”[190] Now the Scythians were very angry at the bare mention of servitude, and sent one division to commune with the lonians who guarded the bridge, while the rest of them, instead of still retreating before the Persians, began to harass them by desultory attacks, in which the Scythians had always the advantage over the Persian cavalry; but when these fell back upon the infantry, they were secure from further molestation. These attacks were made continually by night and day. And now, says Herodotus, I will mention a very strange thing, that was of great service to the Persians against these assaults. Scythia produces neither ass nor mule, neither are there any such throughout the country, by reason of the cold. The noise of the asses therefore disordered the Scythian cavalry, and very often in a charge, when the horses heard them bray, they would start and fly aside in terror, pricking up their ears, for that they had never seen the like, nor heard such a sound. At length, when the country was exhausted, and it was known that Darius was in want, the Scythian princes sent a herald, bearing a present of a mouse, a bird, a frog, and five arrows. The Persians asked what was the meaning of this offering; but he replied, that his orders were merely to deliver it and depart immediately; and bade them, if they were skilled in such things, discover what these gifts should signify. Now Darius thought that the Scythians surrendered to him themselves, their land, and waters, arguing thus: that a mouse dwells in the earth, living on the same food as man, and a frog in the water, and that a bird is likest to a horse, and the arrows meant that they delivered up to him their power. But Gobryas conjectured that it meant this: “Unless, O Persians, you should become birds and soar into the skies, or mice and sink beneath the earth, or frogs and leap into the water, never shall ye return home, being stricken by these arrows.” Now that division of Scythians which had been sent to confer with the Ionians, when they arrived at the bridge, said, “Ye men of Ionia, we bring you liberty, if you will hearken to us. For we hear that Darius bade you depart home, after you had watched the bridge sixty days, if he should not return within that time: now therefore by so doing you will be free from blame, both towards him and towards us.” And when the Ionians had promised to do so, the Scythians returned in all haste.

Idanthyrsus, after sending the above alarming intimation, changed his tactics, and offered battle to Darius. It chanced that while the hostile armies were drawn up, waiting for the signal to engage, a hare jumped up from among the Scythians, who broke their ranks and joined unanimously in the chase. Darius inquired from what cause such a tumult arose, and hearing that the enemy were engaged in hunting the hare, he said to his confidential advisers, “These men hold us in great contempt; and now methinks Gobryas has spoken rightly concerning the Scythian presents. Since, therefore, things are so, we need good advice, how may we retreat in safety.” Gobryas made answer, “O king, I was pretty well acquainted by report with the poverty of these men, and now I am the more convinced of it, seeing how they make sport of us. Therefore it seems best to me, to light our fires as usual, so soon as the night comes on, and then shackling the asses, and leaving them behind, with such as are least able to bear fatigue, to depart before the Scythians can reach the Danube to destroy the bridge, and before such a plan, which might be our ruin, can be resolved upon by the Ionians.” This advice gave Gobryas: and when it was night, Darius left in the camp all those who were wearied, and of whose death least account was made, together with the asses, under pretence that he would himself attack the enemy with the flower of the army, and that the others should remain to protect the camp. So the Scythians seeing the fires, and hearing the asses as usual, suspected nothing: but the next morning, when the deserted Persians came and made submission, they set out with all speed, and arrived at the Danube before Darius, who had wandered from the direct way. Then they said, “Ye men of Ionia, ye act unjustly in staying here after the days that were numbered have passed away. Hitherto you have remained through fear; but now, destroy the bridge, and depart with all haste, rejoicing in your freedom, and acknowledging your obligation to the gods and the Scythians. And him that was heretofore your master we will so handle, that from henceforth he shall wage war upon no man.” Therefore the Ionians took counsel; and Miltiades the Athenian (the same who afterwards commanded at Marathon) that was their leader, and ruler over the Thracian Chersonese, was minded to take the counsel of the Scythians, and thus set free Ionia. But HistiÆus, of Miletus, said, on the contrary, that now each of them that were in council was ruler over his own city through the influence of Darius, which being destroyed, neither he himself nor any of them would retain his sovereignty, for every city would choose the government of the many rather than of one. Those, therefore, that had adopted Miltiades’ opinion, now came over to that of HistiÆus, and it was resolved to break up the Scythian end of the bridge for the distance of a bowshot, that they might appear to comply with what had been requested, and thus be secured from all attempts to destroy it. HistiÆus therefore replied, “O Scythians, you bring good advice, and urge it at a seasonable moment, and as your proposition guides us to our advantage, even so we are inclined to follow it carefully. For, as you see, we are breaking up the bridge, and we will manifest all zeal, desiring to be free. But while we are thus employed, it is fit time for you to go in search of the Persians, and to exact the vengeance that is due both to us and to you.” So the Scythians, a second time giving credit to the Ionians for speaking the truth, returned in quest of the Persians, but missed their track; so that the latter arrived at the passage without interruption, but coming there by night, and finding the bridge broken, they were thrown into much alarm lest the Ionians should have deserted them. There was in Darius’s train an Egyptian, whose voice was louder than that of any known man. Darius bade him stand on the bank, and call HistiÆus the Milesian, who heard him at the first shout, and reconstructed the bridge, so that the army passed over in safety. And the Scythians, judging of the Ionians from these transactions, say, on the one hand, that they are the basest and most unworthy of all freemen; and on the other, reckoning them as slaves, that of all such they best love their masters, and are least disposed to run away.[191]

If Darius’s real object was to extend his empire, or take revenge upon the Scythians, his failure was complete and humiliating; if undertaken on the ground suggested by Atossa as a measure of policy, a safety–valve to guard against the explosion of Persian turbulence, his purpose probably was fully answered in the loss and suffering which the army underwent. But whatever were his motives, he escaped more easily and creditably than most generals who have presumed to contest the possession of their deserts with the numerous and active cavalry of Tartary and Persia. Troops of the highest character, irresistible where their proper arms and discipline can be made available, have often sunk under the fatigue and hardships of warfare against a new enemy, under a new sky, and have been conquered by circumstances, almost without the use of the sword. By varying the climate and natural features of the earth—by giving man a frame which, notwithstanding the wonderful flexibility which adapts it equally for the snows of Greenland and the vertical splendour of the torrid zone, is ill calculated for violent and sudden changes, Providence has set bounds in some degree to the march of ambition, and often turned the triumph of the conqueror into mourning. We shall devote the rest of this chapter to relating a few of the most striking disasters which have occurred from the neglect of these considerations, and the rash invasion of regions where the elements, the face of the country, or the manners of its inhabitants have presented invincible obstacles to the success of the attacking army.

The unfortunate expedition of Crassus against the Parthians furnishes us with a second testimony to the valour of the Scythian hordes. Expelled or emigrating from Scythia Proper, that tribe long dwelt to the eastward of the Caspian Sea, and successively obeyed the Mede, the Persian, and the Macedonian dynasties, until at length they shook off the yoke of the last, and planted a new race upon the throne of Cyrus. The motives of avarice and ambition which led Crassus to the fatal enterprise in which he fell, are well known. From the first he was marked out for destruction by superstitious terrors: as he quitted Rome he was solemnly devoted by a tribune to the infernal gods; ill–omened prodigies attended the passage of the Euphrates, and even the exhortations of the general were so equivocally worded, that, instead of raising, they damped the courage of his soldiers. Instead of penetrating through the friendly country of Armenia, where the mountains would have protected him from the enemy’s cavalry, and the king had promised not only a large reinforcement, but to provide food for the consumption of the Romans, Crassus was induced, by the treachery of a pretended friend, to plunge into the deserts of Mesopotamia, the region of all others best adapted to the operations of his enemies. We shall not detain the reader with the particulars of his advance, which for some time was unopposed; but when he was fairly involved in that inhospitable region, the enemy was not long in making his appearance.

“The enemies seemed not to the Romans at the first to be so great a number, neither so bravely armed as they thought they had been. For concerning their great number, Surenas[192] had of purpose hid them with certain troops he sent before; and to hide their bright armour he had cast cloaks and beasts’ skins over them; but when both the armies approached near the one to the other, and that the sign to give charge was lift up in the air, first they filled the field with a dreadful noise to hear; for the Parthians do not encourage their men to fight with the sound of a horn, neither with trumpets, but with great kettle–drums, hollow within, and about them they hang little bells and copper rings, and with them they all make a noise everywhere together; and it is like a dead sound mingled as it were with the braying or bellowing of a wild beast, and a fearful noise as if it thundered, knowing that hearing is one of the senses that soonest moveth the heart and spirit of any man, and maketh him soonest beside himself. The Romans being put in fear with this dead sound, the Parthians straight threw the clothes and coverings from them that hid their armour, and then showed their bright helmets and cuirasses of Margian tempered steel, that glared like fire, and their horses barbed with steel and copper. And Surenas also, general of the Parthians, who was a goodly personage and valiant as any other in all his host, though for his beauty somewhat effeminate, showed small likelihood of such courage: for he painted his face and wore his hair after the fashion of the Medes, when the other Parthians drew their hair back from the forehead in the Scythian manner to look more terrible. The Parthians at the first thought to have set upon the Romans with their pikes, to see if they could break their first ranks. But when they drew near, and saw the depth of their battell standing close together, firmly keeping their ranks, then they gave back, making as though they fled, and dispersed themselves; and yet, before they were aware, environed them on every side; whereupon Crassus commanded his shot and light–armed men to assail them; the which they did: but they went not far, they were so beaten in by arrows, and driven to retire to their force of the armed men. And this was the first beginning that both feared and troubled the Romans when they saw the vehemency and great force of the enemy’s shot, which brake their armours, and ran through everything it hit, were it never so hard or soft. The Parthians, thus still drawing back, shot altogether on every side at adventure: for the battell of the Romans stood so neare together, as, if they would, they could not miss the killing of some. These bowmen drew a great strength, and had much bent bowes, which sent the arrows from them with a wonderful force.[193] The Romans by means of these bowes were in hard state, for if they kept their ranks they were grievously wounded: again, if they left them, and sought to run upon the Parthians to fight at hand with them, they suffered none the less, and were no nearer to effecting anything. For the Parthians, in retreating, yet cease not from their shot, which no nation but the Scythians could better do than they. And it is an excellent contrivance that they do fight in their flight, and thereby shun the shame of flying. The Romans still defended themselves, and held it out so long as they had any hope that the Parthians would leave fighting when they had spent their arrowes, or would joyne battel with them. But after they understood that there were a great number of camels laden with quivers full of arrowes, where the first that had bestowed their arrowes fetched about to take new quivers; then Crassus, seeing no end to their shot, began to faint, and sent to Publius his son, willing him to charge upon the enemies before they were compassed in on every side. For it was on Publius’ side that one of the wings of the enemies battell was nearest unto them, and where they rode up and down to compasse them behind. Whereupon Crassus’ sonne, taking thirteene hundred horsemen with him (of the which a thousand were of the men of armes whom Julius CÆsar sent) and five hundred shot, with eight ensignes of footmen having targets, wheeling about, led them unto the charge. But they seeing him coming, turned straight their horses and fled, either because of the steadiness of his array, or else of purpose to beguile this young Crassus, inticing him thereby as far from his father as they could. Publius Crassus seeing them flie, cryed out, ‘These men will not abide with us;’ and so spurred on for life after them. Now the horsemen of the Romans being trained out thus to the chase, the footmen also were not inferior in hope, joy, or courage. For they thought all had been won, and that there was no more to do but to follow the chase: till they were gone far from the army, and then they found the deceit. For the horsemen that fled before them suddenly turned again, and a number of others besides came, and set upon them. Whereupon they stayed, thinking that the enemies, perceiving they were so few, would come and fight with them hand to hand. Howbeit the Parthians drew up again them their men at armes, and made their other horsemen wheele round about them, keeping no order at all: who gallopping up and down the plain, whirled up the sand–hills from the bottom with their horses’ feet, which raised such a wonderful dust, that the Romans could scarce see or speak to one another. For they being shut up into a little roome, and standing close one to another, were sore wounded with the Parthian arrowes, and died of a cruell lingering death, crying out for anguish and paine they felt; and being still harassed by the shot thereof, they died of their wounds, or striving by force to pluck out the forked arrow–heads that had pierced farre into their bodies through their veines and sinewes, thereby they opened their wounds wider, and so injured themselves the more. Many of them died thus, and such as died not were not able to defend themselves. Then when Publius Crassus prayed and besought them to charge the men at armes with the barded horse, they shewed him theirs hands fast nailed to the targets with arrowes, and their feet likewise shot through and nailed to the ground; so as they could neither flie, nor yet defend themselves. Thereupon himself encouraging his horsemen, went and gave charge, and did valiantly set upon the enemies, but it was with too great disadvantages, both for offence and also for defence. For himself and his men, with weak and light staves, brake upon them that were armed with cuirasses of steele, or stiff leather jackes. And the Parthians, in contrary manner, with mighty strong pikes gave charge upon these Gaules, which were either unarmed, or else but lightly armed. Yet those were they in whom Crassus most trusted, and with them did he wonderfull feates of war. For they seized hold of the Parthians’ pikes and took them about the middles and threw them off their horse, being scarce able to stir for the weight of their harnesse;[194] and there were divers of them also that lighting from their horse crept under their enemies’ horse bellies, and thrust their swords into them, which flinging and bounding in the aire for very paine, trampled confusedly both upon their masters and their enemies, and in the end fell dead among them. Moreover extream heat and thirst did marvellously comber the Gauls, who were used to abide neither of both: and the most part of their horses were slain, charging with all their power upon the Parthian pikes.

“At the length, they were driven to retire towards their footmen, and Publius Crassus among them, who was very ill by reason of the wounds he had received. And seeing a sand–hill by chance not farre from them, they went thither, and setting their horses in the middest of it, compassed it in round with their targets, thinking by this means to cover and defend themselves the better from the barbarous people: howbeit, they found it contrary. For the country being plain, they in the foremost ranks did somewhat cover them behind, but they that were behind standing higher than they that stood foremost (by reason of the nature of the hill that was highest in the middest) could by no means save themselves, but were all hurt alike, as well the one as the other, bewailing their inglorious and unavailing end. At that present time there were two Grecians about Publius Crassus, Hieronymus and Nicomachus, who dwelt in those quarters, in the city of CarrhÆ: they both counselled Publius Crassus to steale away with them, and flie to a city called IschnÆ, that was not farre from thence, and took the Romans’ part. But Publius answered them, that there was no death so cruel as could make him forsake those that died for his sake.[195] When he had so said, wishing them to save themselves, he embraced them, and took his leave of them: and being very sore hurt with the shot of an arrow through one of his hands, commanded his shield–bearer to thrust him through with a sword, and so turned his side to him for the purpose. And most part of the gentlemen that were of that company, slew themselves with their own hands. And for those that were left alive, the Parthians got up the sandhill, and fighting with them thrust them through with their speares and pikes, and took but five hundred prisoners. After that, they struck off Publius Crassus’ head, and thereupon returned straight to set upon his father, Crassus, who was then in this state.

“Crassus, the father, after he had willed his son to charge the enemies, and that one brought him word he had broken them, and pursued the chase; and perceiving also that they that remained in their great battell, did not presse upon him so neare as they did before, because that a great number of them were gone after the other; he then took courage, and keeping his men close, retired with them the best he could by a hill’s side, looking ever that his sonne would not be long before that he returned from the chase. But Publius seeing himselfe in danger, had sent divers messengers to his father, to advertise him of his distresse, whom the Parthians intercepted, and slew by the way; and the last messengers he sent escaping very hardly, brought Crassus newes that his sonne was but cast away, if he did not presently aid him, and that with a great power. But in the meane time the enemies were returned from his son’s overthrow with a more dreadfull noise, and cry of victory than ever before, and thereupon their deadly sounding drummes filled the air with their wonderful noise. The Romans then looked straight for a hot alarme; but the Parthians that brought Publius Crassus’ head upon the point of a lance, coming neere to the Romans, showed them his head, and asked them, in derision, if they knew what house he was of, and who were his parents: for it is not likely, said they, that so noble and valiant a young man should be the son of so cowardly a father as Crassus. This sight killed the Roman hearts more than any other danger throughout all the battell. For it did not set their hearts on fire, as it should have done, with anger and desire of revenge, but far otherwise, made them quake for fear. Yet Crassus selfe shewed more glorious in this misfortune than in all the warre beside. For riding by every band, he cried out aloud, ‘The grief and sorrowe of this losse, my fellowes, is no man’s but mine, mine onely: but the mighty fortune and honour of Rome remaineth still unvincible, so long as you are yet living. Now, if you pity my losse of so noble and valiant a son, my good soldiers, shew this in fury against the enemy; make them dearly buy the joy they have gotten; be revenged of their cruelty, and let not my misfortune fear you. For why! aspiring minds sometime must needs sustaine losse.’

“Crassus, using these persuasions to encourage his soldiers for resolution, found that all his words wrought none effect; but contrarily, after he had commanded them to give the shout of battell, he plainly saw that their heartes were done, for that their shout rose but faint, and not all alike. The Parthians on the other side, their shout was greate, and lustily they rang it out. Now when they came to joyne, the Parthians’ horsemen wheeling all round the Romans, still galled them with their archery, while their men at armes, giving charge upon the front of the Romans’ battell, with their great lances compelled them to draw into a narrow roome, a few excepted that valiantly and in desperate manner ran in among them, as men desiring, though they could do the enemy but little harm, rather to die quickly by a mortal wound. So were they soone dispatcht, with the great lances that ranne them through, head, wood and all, with such a force as oftentimes they ranne through two at once. Thus when they had fought the whole day, night drew on, and made them retire, saying that they would give Crassus that night’s respite, to lament and bewaile his sonne’s death: unlesse that otherwise he, wisely looking about him, thought it better for his safety to come and offer himself to King Arsaces’ mercy, than to tarry to be brought to him by force. So the Parthians camping hard by the Romans, were in very good hope to overthrow them the next morning.”

In this miserable condition the only hope of safety lay in the immediate prosecution of their retreat under cover of the night; and this measure was accompanied by the melancholy necessity of abandoning their wounded men to the mercy of an implacable enemy. Crassus, overcome with sorrow, laid himself down with his head covered, and would see no man. His chief officers, therefore, among whom was Cassius, afterwards celebrated as one of the murderers of CÆsar, held a council of war, and resolved upon immediate departure; a step which held out the greater prospect of security, as the Parthians never attacked by night, nor indeed took up their quarters in near neighbourhood even to the weakest enemy, for they used no sort of fortification or defence, and if attacked in the dark their cavalry was difficult to be equipped and their skill in archery useless.[196] Those of the Romans who were capable of marching, retreated without further loss to the town of CarrhÆ; but the Parthians slew all that were left, to the number of 4000 and upwards. Surena, lest the fugitives should outstrip him by immediate flight, had recourse to a fraudulent negotiation, which was insultingly broken off as soon as his end was answered, and his troops collected before the city. Escape, therefore, was now more difficult than ever, and Crassus’ evil fortune, or want of penetration, led him again to place confidence in a traitor, who informed the enemy of the period fixed for departure, and completed his villainy by entangling the army in a morass. Cassius, mistrusting this man, returned to CarrhÆ. His guides advised him to remain there until the moon were out of the sign of Scorpio; but he answered, “I fear the sign of Sagittarius (the archer) more,” and, departing immediately, escaped to Assyria with 500 horsemen. Crassus, and the main body of the army, after long struggling, had overcome the difficulties in which they were involved, and were within a few furlongs of the hills, when they were overtaken and attacked by the Parthians.

“Then compassing Crassus in the middest of them, covering him round with their targets, they spake nobly, that never an arrow of the Parthians should touch the body of their general, before they were slain, one after another, and that they had fought it out to the last man in his defence. Hereupon Surena, perceiving the Parthians were not so courageous as they were wont to be, and that if night came upon them, and that the Romans did once recover the high mountains, they could never possibly be met withall againe: he thought cunningly to beguile Crassus once more by this device. He let certain prisoners go of purpose, before whom he made his men give out this speech, that the King of Parthia would have no more mortal war with the Romans; but far otherwise; he rather desired their friendship, by shewing them some notable favour, as to use Crassus very courteously. And to give colour to this bruit, he called his men from fight, and going himself in person towards Crassus with the chiefest of the nobility of his boast, in quiet manner, his bow unbent, he held out his right hand, and called Crassus to talk with him of peace, and said unto him, ‘Though the Romans had felt the force and power of their king, it was against his will; howbeit that now he was very willing and desirous to make them taste of his mercy, and was contented to make peace with them, and to let them go where they would.’ All the Romans besides Crassus, were glad of Surena’s words. But Crassus, that had been deceived before by their crafty fetches and devices; considering also no cause apparent to make them change thus suddenly, would not hearken to it, but first consulted with his friends. Howbeit the soldiers, they cried out on him to go, and fell at words with him, saying that he would fain set them to fight with an enemy, with whom he had not the heart to talk unarmed. Crassus tried entreaty first, saying that if they would but persevere for the remainder of the day, they might depart at night through the mountaines and straight passages, where their enemies would not follow them: and pointing them the way with his finger, he prayed them not to be faint–hearted, nor to despair of their safety, seeing they were so neare it. But in the end, Crassus perceiving that they fell to mutiny, and, beating of their harnesse, did threaten him if he went not, fearing there they would do him some villainy, went towards the enemy, and coming backe a little, said only these words: ‘O Octavius, and you, Petronius, with all you Roman gentlemen that have charge in this army, you all see now how I against my will am enforced to go to the place I would not, and can witnesse with me how I am driven with shame and force; yet I pray you, if your fortunes be to escape this danger, that ye will report wheresoever you come, that Crassus was slaine, not delivered up by his own soldiers into the hands of the barbarous people, but deceived by the fraud and subtilty of his enemies.’

“Octavius would not tarry behind on the hill, but went down with Crassus: but Crassus sent away his sergeants that followed him. The first that came from the Parthians unto Crassus were two mongrell Grecians, who, dismounting from their horse, saluted him, and prayed him to send some of his men before, and Surena would shew them, that both himself and his train came unarmed towards him. Crassus thereto made him answer, that if he had made any account of his life, he would not have put himself into their hands. Notwithstanding he sent two brethren before, called the Roscii, to know what number of men, and to what end they met so many together. These two brethren came no sooner to Surena but they were staid, and himselfe in the mean time kept on his way a horsebacke, with the noblest men of his army. Now when Surena came neare to Crassus, ‘Why, how now,’ quoth he, ‘what meaneth this? a consul and lieutenant–generall of Rome on foot, and we on horseback!’ Therewithal he straight commanded one of his men to bring him a horse. Crassus answered Surena again: ‘In that neither of them offended, each coming to the meeting according to the custom of his country.’ Surena replied, ‘As for the treaty of peace, that was already agreed upon between the king Hyrodes and the Romans: howbeit that they were to go to the river and there to set down the articles in writing; for you Romans,’ said he, ‘do not greatly remember the capitulations you have agreed upon.’ With those words, he gave him his right hand. As Crassus was sending for a horse; ‘You shall not need, saith Surena, for, look, the king doth present you with this.’ And straight one was brought him, with a golden bridle; upon which his grooms mounted Crassus immediately, and following him behind, lashed his horse to make him run the swifter. Octavius, seeing that, first laid hand on the bridle, then Petronius; and after them, all the rest of the Romans also gathered about Crassus to stay the horse, and to take him from them by force, that pressed him on of either side. So they thrust one at another at the first very angrily, and at the last fell to blowes. Then Octavius drew out his sword, and slew one of the barbarous noblemen’s horsekeepers; and another came behind him, and slew Octavius, and on the other side came PomaxÆthres, one of the Parthians, and slew Crassus. As for them that were there, some of them were slain in the field fighting for Crassus, and others saved themselves by flying to the hill. The Parthians followed them, and told them that Crassus had paid the paine he deserved, and for the rest, that Surena bad them come down with safety. Then some of them yielded to their enemies; and others dispersed themselves when night came, and of them very few escaped with life. Others being followed and pursued by the natives, were all put to the sword. So as it is thought there were slain in this overthrow above twenty thousand men, and ten thousand taken prisoners.”[197]

Not many years subsequent to this signal overthrow the Roman eagle again swooped upon Assyria, and was again compelled to wing back its disastrous flight to a more congenial soil and climate. Encouraged by the Syrian victories of his lieutenant Ventidius (the only Roman down to the time of Trajan who ever celebrated a triumph over the Parthians), and desirous to efface the stain upon the empire’s honour by extorting the restoration of the captured standards and prisoners, Antony led into Media an army of 100,000 men. But his enterprise, like those of his predecessors, proved barren alike of profit or renown: for if he could boast that the enemy, far from gaining any advantage over his veteran troops, were uniformly baffled and repulsed during a long and dangerous retreat, yet that retreat proved as calamitous as the advance had been useless; and the hardships of the desert were scarce less fatal to him than the Parthian arrows to Crassus.

“When they came to go down any steep hills, the Parthians would set upon them with their arrowes, because they could go down but fair and softly. But then again, the soldiers of the legion, that carried great shields, returned back and enclosed the light–armed in the middest amongst them, and did kneel one knee upon the ground, and so set downe their shields before them; and they of the second rank also covered them of the first rank, and the third also covered the second; and so from ranke to ranke all were covered. Insomuch that this manner of covering and shading themselves with shields was devised after the fashion of laying tiles upon houses, and to sight was like the steps of a theatre, and is a most strong defence and bulwarke against all arrowes and shot that falleth on it. When the Parthians saw this countenance of the Roman soldiers of the legion which kneeled on the ground in that sort upon one knee, supposing that they had beene wearied with travel, they laid down their bowes, and took their spears and launces, and came to fight with them man for man. Then the Romans suddenly rose upon their feete, and with the darts that they threw from them they slew the foremost, and put the rest to flight, and so did they the next day that followed. But by means of these dangers and letts, Antonius’ army could win no way in a day, by reason whereof they sufferred great famine: for they could have but little corne, and yet were they daily driven to fight for it; and besides that, they had no instruments to grind it, to make bread of it. For the most part of them had been left behind, because the beasts that carried them were either dead or else employed to carry them that were sore and wounded. For the famine was so extream great, that the eighth part of a bushell of wheate was sold for fifty drachmas,[198] and they sold barley bread by the weight of silver. In the end they were compelled to live on herbes and roots; but they found few of them that men do commonly eat of, and were enforced to taste of them that were never eaten before: among the which there was one that killed them, and made them out of their wits. For he that had once eaten of it, his memory went from him, and he knew not what he did, but only busied himself in moving and turning over every stone that he found, as though it had been a matter of great weight. All the campe over, men were busily stooping to the ground, digging and carrying off stones from one place to another; but at the last, they cast up a great deal of bile, and suddenly died, because they lacked wine, which was the only sovereigne remedy to cure that disease.”[199]

Such were their suffering till they crossed the Araxes and gained the rich and friendly country of Armenia. The retreat from Phraata, or Phraaspa, the extreme point of advance, a distance of three hundred miles, had occupied twenty–seven days, and been signalized by eighteen battles. On mustering the army it was found that twenty thousand infantry and four thousand horse, nearly a quarter of the whole force, had perished by the joint effects of sickness and the sword.

After a long series of wars waged with various success during a period of four hundred years, the plains of Assyria again beheld the destruction of a Roman army under circumstances of still greater interest. The emperor Julian, redoubted for his brilliant victories in Gaul and Germany, advanced with a veteran army of sixty–five thousand soldiers, to avenge the insulted majesty of the empire, and retaliate upon the Persian monarch (for a Persian dynasty again occupied the throne of Darius, long held by a Grecian, and then by a Parthian conqueror) for the invasion of Mesopotamia, in the reign of his predecessor Constantius. He directed his march towards Ctesiphon,[200] where he crossed the Tigris, and advanced into the central provinces, in hope, like Alexander at Arbela, to rest the issue of the war on the event of a single battle. Up to this point success attended his arms; but now the evils which had destroyed his predecessors began to work their fatal effect on him; where–ever he turned the country was laid waste, the treachery of his guides caused him to spend several days in fruitless wandering, which diminished the already scanty stores of the army, and at length, without a blow being struck, he found himself compelled to give the signal for retreat.

“The very morning, however, upon which the army began to retrace its steps, a cloud of dust appeared in the distant horizon. Many thought that it was caused by the troops of wild asses which abound in those regions; others more justly augured from it an enemy’s approach. Being thus uncertain and fearful lest by advancing they should fall into some snare, the emperor put an early stop to their march, and the night was spent in watchfulness and continual alarm. At sunrise, the glitter of distant armour announced the presence of the royal forces, and the day was spent in a succession of desultory and unsuccessful attacks. In the evening the Romans arrived at a small town abounding in provisions, where they spent two days. Resuming their march, upon the first day they were exposed only to the same interruptions as before, but upon the third day, when the army had reached the district called Maranga, about dawn there appeared a vast multitude of Persians, with Merenes, general of the cavalry, two sons of the king, and many of the chief nobility.

“All the troops were armed in iron, every limb being protected by thick plates, the rigid joinings of which were adapted to the joints of the body; and a mask, fashioned to resemble the face, was so carefully fitted upon their heads, that, their whole bodies being plated with metal, the darts which struck them could pierce nowhere, except at the eyes or nostrils, before which there were narrow apertures for sight and breathing. Those who were armed with lances remained immoveable, as if fixed with brazen chains: while near them the archers (from its very cradle the nation has grown powerful by its great reliance on that art) stretched their supple bows, with disparted arms, till the string touched their right breasts, while their left hands were in contact with the arrow head; and the shafts, thus skilfully driven, flew shrilly whistling, charged with deadly wounds. After them the affrighted mind could hardly bear the fearful aspect and savage yawns of the glittering elephants; by whose roar and smell, and unusual appearance, the horses were yet more terrified. Those who guided them wore hafted knives tied to their right hands, remembering the injury received from these animals at Nisibis;[201] that if the frantic animal became unmanageable by his driver, to prevent his carrying destruction into the ranks of his own army, as then happened, they might pierce the spine, where the skull is connected with the neck. For it was long ago discovered by Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, that such was the speediest way of killing these beasts. All this being observed, not without much dread, the emperor proceeded with all confidence to draw up the infantry for battle in a half–moon with curving flanks;[202] and lest the advance of the archers should scatter our close array, he broke the efficacy of their arrow–flight by a rapid onset; and the word to engage being as usual given, the dense infantry of Rome dashed in the firm front of the enemy by a most spirited charge. The conflict growing hot, the clang of shields, and the melancholy crash of men and armour, leaving now no room for inactivity, covered the ground with gore and corpses; but the slaughter of the Persians was the greatest, who being often slack and faint in close conflict, fought at heavy disadvantage when foot was opposed to foot; though they use to battle bravely at a distance, and if they find themselves compelled to give way, deter the enemy from pursuit by a shower of arrows shot behind them. The Parthians then being routed by their overpowering strength, our soldiery, long since relaxed by a blazing sun, at the signal of recall went back to their tents, inspirited to higher daring for the future. In this battle the Persian loss appeared, as I have said, to be the greater; our own was very light.” Milton has a gorgeous description of the Parthian power and method of making war, in which his immense learning is profusely introduced to illustrate this subject

“The Parthian king
In Ctesiphon[203] hath gathered all his host
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
He marches now in haste: see though from far
His thousands, in what martial equipage
They issue forth; steel bows and shafts their arm
Of equal dread in flight, or in pursuit;
All horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
See how in warlike muster they appear,
In rhombs and wedges, and half–moons and wings.

“He looked, and saw what numbers numberless
The city gates out–poured, light–armed troops
In coats of mail and military pride;
In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice
Of many provinces from bound to bound
From Arachosia,[204] from Candaor east,
And Margiana to the Hyrcanian cliffs
Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales,
From Atropatia, and the neighbouring plains
Of Adiabene, Media, and the south
Of Susiana, to Balsara’s haven.
He saw them in their forms of battle ranged,
How quick they wheeled, and flying, behind them shot
Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
Of their pursuers, and overcame by flight;
The fields, all iron, cast a gleaming brown:
Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor on each horn
Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight,
Chariots or elephants indorsed with towers
Of archers, nor of labouring pioneers
A multitude, with spades and axes armed
To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill
Or where plain was raise hill, or overlay
With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke;
Mules after these, camels, and dromedaries,
And waggons fraught with utensils of war.
Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp
When Agrican with all his northern powers
Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
The city of Gallaphrone, from thence to win
The fairest of her sex, Angelica
His daughter, sought by many prowest knights
Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemain.
Such and so numerous was their chivalry.”[205]

“After the battle,” Ammianus continues, “three days being passed in repose, that each might cure his own or his neighbour’s wounds, intolerable want of victuals began to afflict us; and the burning both of corn and green crops having reduced men and horses to the extremity of distress, a large part of the provisions brought by the chief officers of the army for their own use was distributed to the indigent soldiery. And the emperor, who, in place of delicacies prepared with regal luxury, satisfied his hunger under a small tent, with a scanty portion of meal and water, which even the labouring common soldier would have disdained; careless of his own safety, performed whatever services were required in the tents of his poor comrades. Then having withdrawn awhile to an anxious and uncertain repose, devoted not to sleep, but to some literary work, written in the camp, and under the tent–skins, in emulation of Julius Caesar, in the dead of night, while deeply meditating upon some philosopher, he beheld, as he acknowledged to his friends, that vision of the genius of the empire which he had seen in Gaul, when about to reach the dignity of Augustus,[206] pass sorrowfully from the tent in mourning habit, his head and horn of abundance covered with a veil. For a moment he was fixed in amazement; yet, superior to all fear, he commended futurity to the gods. As he rose from his lowly couch, to supplicate the powers of heaven with the rites deprecatory of misfortune, a blazing torch appeared to flash across the sky, and vanished, leaving him filled with horror lest it were the star of Mars which thus openly menaced him.”[207]

Before daybreak he consulted the Etruscan soothsayers, who still retained the monopoly of this profitable art, concerning the meaning of this portent. They replied that on no account should anything be commenced, in obedience to the rules of their science, which forbade the giving battle, or undertaking military operations, subsequent to the appearance of such a meteor: but the emperor neglected their predictions, and gave order to march. Taught by experience not rashly to close with the firm ranks of the legions, the Persians hovered all around, and while Julian, unarmed by reason of the heat, advanced to reconnoitre in front, he was alarmed by tidings of an attack upon the rear. Forgetful or careless of his want of armour, he hurried to the spot, which was scarcely reached when a fresh alarm came that the van, which he had quitted, was similarly menaced, and at the same moment the iron–clothed Parthian cavalry, supported by elephants, dashed in upon the flank. The light–armed troops, encouraged by their sovereign’s presence, rushed forwards, and put to flight these formidable assailants; and while Julian, forgetting the prudence of a general in his ardour, cheered them on, a dart grazed his uplifted arm, and penetrated deep into his unprotected side. He tried to draw it out, but the sharp edges cut the tendons of his fingers; and falling in a swoon from his horse, he was borne back by his attendants to the camp. The prince being withdrawn, it is scarce credible with what ardour the soldiery, heated by rage and anger, flew to their revenge, and though the dust blinded them, and the heat relaxed their sinews, yet, as if released from discipline by the fall of their leader, they rushed prodigal of life upon the enemies’ steel. The Persians, on the other hand, shot still more eagerly, till they were almost hidden by the constant arrow flight; while the bulk and nodding plumes of the elephants stationed in their front struck terror into horse and man. Night put an end to a bloody and indecisive contest, in which fifty of the chief Persian nobility fell, including the two generals, Merenes and Nohodares.

This success, however, was dearly purchased by the death of Julian, which occurred soon after he reached the camp. He made a short address to those officers who surrounded his bed, expressing his willingness to die, and a hope that the empire would devolve on a worthy successor, declining to interfere, or in any way direct their choice; and breathed his last while arguing upon the nature of the soul. Among the tumult and intrigues consequent upon the election of a new emperor, Jovian, a household officer of the highest rank, was chosen, rather as a means of reconciling the disputes of others of higher pretensions, than for his personal merits, which rose not above mediocrity. The news of Julian’s death was carried to Sapor the Persian king by deserters, and he, inspirited by the death of his most formidable enemy, pursued the retreating army with increased vigour. On one occasion the heavy–armed horse and elephants broke the Jovian and Herculean legions which had been trained to war in the able school of Diocletian; on another the Persian cavalry broke into the camp, and penetrated almost to the emperor’s tent. At length, after five days of constant harass and alarm, they reached the town of Dura on the Tigris. Four days were here consumed in repelling the unceasing attacks of the Persians, until the army, impatient of this daily annoyance, hopeless of bringing the enemy to battle, and stimulated by a notion that the Roman frontier was at no great distance, impatiently demanded permission to recross the Tigris. The emperor and his officers in vain pointed out to them the river swollen by the summer floods, and entreated them not to trust its dangerous whirlpools: they represented that most of the troops were unable to swim, and showed the enemy, who lined the opposite bank of the overflowed river. But when these arguments proved vain, and dissatisfaction seemed ready to end in mutiny, a reluctant order was given that the Gauls and Germans, trained to the passage of rapid rivers from their youth, should first risk the attempt; in expectation that the others’ obstinacy would be overcome by the spectacle of their fate, or else that their success would embolden and encourage the less able. Accordingly, as soon as the fall of night concealed their purpose, they passed the river, swimming or supported by skins, occupied the opposite bank, and made slaughter of the Persians, who had been lulled to sleep by the fancied security of their position. Their comrades, informed of their success by signal, were only restrained from emulating their courage and success by the engineers undertaking to construct a bridge upon inflated hides. But these attempts were baffled by the strength of the stream, and at the end of two days, all sorts of food being consumed, the soldiery, reduced to want and desperation, were loud in complaint of the ignoble death for which they were reserved.

This would have been the time for a vigorous and decisive blow; but the Persian king was staggered in his confidence by the Romans’ obstinate and successful resistance. The destruction among his troops had been severe; the loss of elephants unequalled in any former war: while his foes were seasoned and encouraged by a continuance of successful resistance, and, instead of being intimidated by the death of their noble general, seemed rather to consult revenge than safety, careless whether they were extricated from their difficulty by a brilliant victory or a memorable death. These considerations, and the yet unbroken power of the empire, induced him to send ambassadors to treat of peace. But the conditions proposed were hard and humiliating, and four days were spent amid the agonies of famine in fruitlessly discussing what was best to be done, which if diligently employed would have brought the army into the fruitful district of Corduene, distant but a hundred and fifty miles from the scene of their sufferings. Five provinces situated east of the Tigris were to be given up, together with three important fortresses in Mesopotamia, Castra Maurorum, Singara, and Nisibis, the latter uncaptured since the Mithridatic wars, and regarded as the especial key of the East. The strong expression of Ammianus is, that it would have been better to have fought ten battles, than to have surrendered one of these things. But a crowd of flatterers surrounded the timid prince; they urged the necessity of a speedy return, lest other pretenders to the empire should start up, and his weak and easy temper was readily persuaded to acquiesce.

The delay occasioned by these negotiations, in which, in return for such important concessions, even the safe passage of the Tigris was not provided for, proved fatal to numbers, who, impatient of the sufferings which they endured, plunged secretly into the stream, and were swallowed up by its eddies, or, if they reached the shore, were slain or sold into a distant captivity by the Saracens and Persians. And when at last the trumpet gave the signal of passage, it was wonderful to see how every one hurried to escape the danger which they still feared upon the eastern bank. Wicker vessels hastily constructed, to which their beasts of burthen were attached, or the hides of sheep and oxen, were the precarious means of transport to which most were reduced: the emperor and his suite crossed in a few small boats which had laboriously accompanied the march, and continued to ply backwards and forwards, as long as any remained upon the farther shore. News came meanwhile that the Persians were constructing a bridge, with intent of falling suddenly and secretly upon the exhausted enemy; but either the intelligence was false, or the betrayal of their intention caused the Persians to desist from the meditated treachery, and Jovian, released from this apprehension, arrived by long and fatiguing marches at the town of Hatra, of ancient fame in the wars of Trajan and Severus. From hence, for seventy miles, an arid plain extended, offering only salt, fetid water, and the bitter, nauseous herbs of the desert: and such provision as opportunity afforded was made for the further march by filling the water vessels, and slaughtering camels and other beasts of burthen. But a six days’ march, through a country where not even grass was to be found, reduced them to extremity; and it was with no small joy that they hailed a convoy of provisions, doubly welcome as providing for the relief of present distress, and assuring the fidelity of Procopius and Sebastian, the powerful officers whom Julian had sent to co–operate with him in Armenia. Passing Thilsaphata the army at length reached Nisibis, and found an end of its distresses under the walls of the city, which the emperor was unwilling, perhaps ashamed, to enter.

In all these cases the thirst of conquest worked its own punishment by subjecting its votaries to the guidance of will instead of reason, and like all other passions, when indulged, misleading them both as to the character and the probable consequence of their actions. The expedition of Darius is said, indeed, to have been prompted by policy; but we look in vain for prudence and sound judgment in his unavailing pursuit of the Scythians, in his protracted stay, in the treacherous abandonment of a part of his army, or in his hurried retreat; while his resolution (if Herodotus be credited) of destroying the bridge, and thus, in case of reverses, cutting off all hope of escape, could only have been suggested by a frantic presumption in his own power and fortune. In the other cases an eager desire and hope of terminating the war by one decisive blow, and a well–grounded confidence that in fair field no troops would stand the shock of the Roman legions, stifled the voice of common sense, of wisdom and of experience, which concurred in teaching that the desired opportunity was attainable only by the enemy’s misconduct, and that the failure of success necessarily involved severe misfortune. We may draw from hence a lesson touching the pernicious influence of power and prosperity upon the mind. The warning of Amasis to Polycrates[208] contains valuable instruction, though we reject the superstitious and unworthy notion of the Deity upon which it is founded, and the equally superstitious remedy proposed. It is true that a life of unbroken prosperity is frequently terminated by some memorable reverse, but the effect of such prosperity upon ourselves is the greatest of evils, and the parent of all the others which may befall us: and this chapter may be considered as a supplement to the one which has been devoted to the effects of absolute power upon the morals and intellect; for the judicial blindness produced by an inferior degree of grandeur and good fortune resembles that species of insanity which we have noticed, and differs from it rather in degree than in nature. History abounds in examples of such infatuation; the most striking and perhaps the most important of them, it has been reserved for our own age to witness.

If ever there was an instance of a powerful mind delivered over for its ruin to a strong delusion, it is to be found in Napoleon’s campaign in Russia. An unparalleled series of victories appears to have confirmed the turn of his mind to fatalism, and to have inspired a belief that no difficulties were insuperable by his genius and fortune. It is in such a belief, and in his natural resoluteness of purpose, aggravated into inflexibility by the habit of dictating to all who came within his widely extended sphere, that we must look for the explanation of conduct into which no man would have been betrayed while in the full and sane possession of his judgment, however just and unbounded his confidence in himself and his troops. That he was fully aware of the difficulties which he was about to meet (it is impossible that they should have escaped his penetration) is evident from his own declarations. “For masses like those we are about to move, if precautions be not taken, the grain of no country can suffice. The result of my movements will be to assemble four hundred thousand men on a single point. There will be nothing to expect from the country, and it will be necessary to have everything within ourselves.”[209] Immense preparations were accordingly made, but made in vain, for a very small portion of them ever reached the borders of Russia, and those too late to supply the needs of the army. It is here that the obstinacy and infatuation of which we have spoken first appear. Too impatient to wait for the supplies which he had declared indispensable, and unable to resist the temptation of endeavouring to gain his object by one decisive stroke, Napoleon plunged headlong into a savage country, without a commissariat, and with a most insufficient hospital department, and suffered grievous loss before an enemy was even seen. Without anything approaching to a general action, the effective force under his immediate command was reduced in six weeks, between the passage of the Niemen and his departure from Witepsk, from two hundred and ninety–seven thousand to one hundred and eighty–five thousand; and was besides in so shattered and unsoldier–like a condition, that a fortnight later, at Smolensk, Napoleon himself declared halt or retreat to be impracticable. “This army cannot stop: with its composition, and in its disorganized state, movement alone supports it. We may advance at its head, but not stop or retreat. It is an army of attack, not of defence; of operation, not of position.”[210] The desperate enterprise was therefore pursued, and the nominal victory of Borodino, which cost in killed and wounded thirty thousand men, gave Moscow into his hands—the specious prize which he hazarded so much to gain. But the advantages hoped from its possession vanished when in his grasp, and this seeming success proved but a snare to disguise his failure, and ensure destruction by delaying retreat.

We probably shall never be satisfied as to the real origin of the conflagration of Moscow. If the voluntary act of the Russian people, it deserves to be classed, with the abandonment of Athens, among the noblest acts of patriotism recorded; but with this difference, that the Athenians trusted their property to the victor’s mercy, the Russians inflicted on themselves the utmost losses of war, rather than allow an invader to profit by the shelter of their homes. That a rugged but deep love of their country did animate even those among them who had least to love, is certain. Palaces and hamlets were alike committed to the flames; the serf and the prince were equally indignant at their national injuries. “It is an admitted fact, that when the French, in order to induce their refractory prisoners to labour in their service, branded some of them in the hand with the letter N. as a sign that they were the serfs of Napoleon, one peasant laid his hand upon a block of wood, and struck it off with the axe which he held in the other, in order to free himself from the supposed thraldom.”[211]

Napoleon depended on the possession of Moscow as a sure means of dictating peace to Russia on his own terms. As formerly at Vienna and Berlin, he expected to give laws in the Kremlin to a conquered nation; and his disappointment in finding this vantage–ground crumble under his feet was extreme. It was lost, however, irrecoverably lost, for the Russians had no longer anything to hope or fear for their capital, and Moscow, ruined and deserted, was no place for the invader to pass a five–months’ winter in. Policy therefore prompted an immediate retreat, sufficient time being allowed to refresh and re–organize the army; but Napoleon still clung with obstinacy to his original plan of dictating a peace to Alexander from his capital, and sacrificed a fortnight of precious time to this deceitful hope. It was frustrated; the Russian monarch refused to listen to any overtures of peace, and the French, who on the 12th of September had hailed Moscow as the goal of their labours, quitted it on the 19th of October, to retrace their steps over a ravaged country through a numerous and exasperated enemy.

We must touch very lightly upon the horrors of the retreat, confining ourselves to a brief statement of the leading facts, and of the results of the whole. Famine, cold, and the sword combined to punish an unjust aggression. When the French left Moscow they numbered one hundred and twenty thousand men under arms, with an immense train of baggage and camp followers: in twenty–six days, from October 19th to November 13th, when the Emperor quitted Smolensk, their organized force was reduced to thirty–six thousand men, and they had lost three hundred cannon. Napoleon’s partisans have tried to shelter him from blame, by alleging the premature rigour of winter as the cause of this wholesale destruction. No doubt cold was the main agent in it, but the nature of a Russian winter was well known, and should have been considered in the scheme of the campaign; and so far was it from being premature, that the frost did not begin till November 7th, only three days before the French van and the Emperor arrived at Smolensk. Other causes aided to produce this result. Napoleon intended to return to the above–named town by the unwasted route of Kalouga and Medyn, but the Russian army barred his way, and, after an obstinate contest,[212] turned him back on the ravaged country through which he had already passed. Here neither food, shelter, nor clothing could be procured, and thousands fell victims rather to the want of all appliances to bear it, than to the intolerable severity of the winter itself. Numbers fell in battle, or were intercepted and slain, or made prisoners by the ever active hostility of the Cossacks who hovered round their march: still the loss sustained in warfare was small in comparison to that which resulted from the combined operation of hunger and cold. The appearance of this new enemy, and its effects, moral and physical, are powerfully, though rather theatrically, described by the Comte de Segur, himself a sharer in the miseries which he describes.

“On the 6th of November the sky declared itself. Its azure disappeared. The army marched enveloped in cold vapours, which soon thickened into a vast cloud, and descended in large flakes of snow upon us. It seemed as if the sky were coming down, and uniting with this hostile land and people to complete our ruin. All things are indistinguishable; while the soldier struggles to force his way through the drifting whirlwind, the driven snow fills up all hollows, and its surface conceals unknown depths which yawn under our feet. The men are swallowed by them, and the weakest, resigning themselves to fate, there find a grave. Those who follow turn aside, but the storm dashes in their faces the snow from heaven and the drift from the earth, and seems to oppose itself rancorously to their march. The Russian winter under this new form attacks them from all sides; it pierces their thin dress and torn shoes. Their wet clothes freeze on them, a sharp and strong wind impedes their breath, which at the instant of expiration forms round the mouth icicles depending from the beard. The wretches, shivering, still drag themselves on, till the snow which clogs their feet, or some chance obstacle, causes them to stumble and fall. There they groan in vain: the snow soon covers them; slight elevations alone distinguish them: behold their graves! Everywhere the road is strewn with these undulations like a burial–ground: the most fearless, the most unfeeling are moved, and turn aside their eyes as they pass in haste. But before, around, every thing is snow—the sight is lost in this immense and sad uniformity; the imagination is astounded: it is like a huge winding–sheet, with which nature envelops the army. The only objects which appear from out it are sombre pines, trees of the tombs, with their funereal verdure; and the gigantic fixedness of their black trunks and their deep gloom complete this desolate aspect of a general mourning, and of an army dying amid the decease of nature.... Then comes the night, a night of sixteen hours! But on that snow which covers all things, one knows not where to stop, where to rest, where to find roots for food, or dry wood for firing. However, fatigue, darkness, and repeated orders stop those whom their own physical and moral force, and the efforts of their officers, have retained together. They seek to establish themselves; but the ever–active storm scatters the first preparations for a bivouac. The pines, laden with hoar–frost, resist the flames; and the snow upon them, mixed with that which falls continually from the sky, and that lying on the earth, which melts with the efforts of the soldier and the first effect of the fires, extinguishes those fires and the strength and courage of the men.

“When the flame at length is raised, officers and soldiers prepare around it their sad meal, composed of lean and bloody fragments of flesh, torn from wornout horses, and, for a very few, some spoonfuls of rye flour diluted with snow–water. The next day soldiers, laid stone–dead in circles, mark the bivouacs, and the ground about them is strewed with the bodies of many thousand horses.

“From this day, men began to reckon less upon each other. In this army, lively, susceptible of all impressions, and inclined to speculate from its advanced civilization, disorder soon gained footing, discouragement and insubordination spread rapidly, the imagination wandering without bounds in evil as well as good. Henceforward at every bivouac, at every difficult passage, some portion of the yet organized troops detached itself, and fell into disorder. Yet there were some who resisted this mighty contagion: they were the officers, subalterns, and seasoned soldiers. These were extraordinary men; they encouraged themselves by repeating the name of Smolensk, which they felt they were approaching, and where everything had been promised to them.

“Thus since this deluge of snow, and the redoubled cold which it announced, all, officers and soldiers alike, preserved or lost their strength of mind, according to their age, their character, and temperament. He of our chiefs, whom till then we had seen the strictest in maintaining discipline, now found himself no longer in his element. Thrown out of all his fixed ideas of regularity and method, he was reduced to despair by so universal a disorder, and judging sooner than others that all was lost, he felt himself ready to abandon all.”[213]

The army quitted Smolensk in four divisions: that under the command of the Emperor, which led the way, marched on the 14th November. Ney, who throughout this long retreat brought up the rear, who distinguished himself amid its horrors by indomitable courage and constancy, and was hailed by the general voice as the hero of the army, remained behind until the 17th. On the 20th all were once more united at Oreza, after seven days of almost continued fighting, in which nothing but the sluggishness of the Russian general saved the French from destruction, and Napoleon from captivity or death. Opposed with fifteen thousand men, half starved and half armed, to a force treble that number, and in good condition, the Russians must have overthrown him by mere physical force, had they ventured upon a vigorous attack; but even in his distresses the presence of Napoleon inspired awe. At no time do the brilliant qualities of the French troops appear more conspicuous than in this disastrous retreat: headed on all sides, inclosed by an overwhelming force, every general outmanoeuvred or cut his way through the enemy,[214] fortunate if it cost him but half of his corps to preserve the remainder from the disgrace of surrender. Between Smolensk and Oreza the army was still further reduced to twelve thousand men, who still preserved their arms and their discipline, encumbered with thirty thousand stragglers, who grievously increased its wants and its embarrassments, without adding a single bayonet to its strength.

Hitherto its retreat had been unopposed, the Russian army having been unwilling or unable to head the French and compel them to force a passage by the sword; and being in possession of Oreza, it passed the river Dnieper at that town without opposition. But Admiral Tchitchagoff, the general in command of the Moldavian army, which was opposed to the Austrians on the south–eastern end of the French base of operation, finding them slack and unenterprising in the cause of an ally, or master rather, to whom in truth they owed little good will, left merely a division in the duchy of Warsaw to observe their movements, and himself marched upon Minsk and Borizoff, to cut off Napoleon’s retreat. At the latter town there was a bridge over the Beresina, the place itself being on the eastern bank, and on the possession of the town and command of the bridge depended the means of crossing that river. Tchitchagoff however, owing to some mistake of the French general opposed to him, had taken that town, and though afterwards expelled, had made the bridge impassable in his retreat. It was necessary, therefore, to seek a passage elsewhere, and a place above Borizoff, called Studzianka, was selected, where the river was only fifty–five fathoms across. The chance seemed desperate, for the opposite heights were occupied by six thousand Russians, and bridges were to be built, and the army was to defile across them under their fire; but desperate as it was, this seemed their only hope, and Napoleon quitting the highway plunged into the thick pine–woods which border the Beresina, to conceal his march. The joy of the army may well be imagined, when, in traversing these forests, they met the division of Victor, of fifty thousand men, in good order, which had been employed in checking Wittgenstein upon the western flank. “They were ignorant of our disasters, which had been carefully hidden even from their chiefs. So that when, instead of a grand victorious column returning from Moscow, they saw behind Napoleon nothing but a train of squalid spectres, covered with rags, with women’s pelisses, pieces of carpet, or squalid cloaks scorched red and burnt into holes by the fires, their feet wrapped up in tatters of all sorts, they stopped in terror. They saw with affright these poor fleshless soldiers file past, with faces like the grave, bristled with ghastly beards, without arms, without shame, marching in disorder with downcast heads, eyes fixed on the earth, and silent like a troop of captives.”[215] So contagious was this spectacle, that on the first day two corps of Victor’s army fell into the same state of disorganization.

Among other attempts to deceive Tchitchagoff and make him believe that a passage would be attempted elsewhere, some Jews had been interrogated concerning the passes of the river; and to secure the breach of their faith, they had been sworn to meet the army on the Beresina, below Borizoff, with intelligence of the enemy. The stratagem succeeded; they carried a false report to the Admiral, and he and Napoleon turned their backs on each other, and while the latter marched up the river to Studzianka, the former marched down it to a ford at Oukoholda. All night the French laboured to construct a bridge, expecting momentarily the first salvo of the Russian artillery. Napoleon passed a restless and agitated night in a chÂteau near the river, continually repairing to the spot on which his last hope of escape rested. At morning, when all were prepared for a desperate and almost hopeless struggle, they were equally astonished and delighted to see the Russian watch–fires abandoned and the opposing force in full retreat. Napoleon would scarce believe the tidings, and when at last convinced by the evidence of his own eyes, he cried in transport, “Then I have outwitted the Admiral.”[216]

That day, November 26th, two bridges were completed, and the opposite bank was occupied by Ney. Two days and two nights elapsed before the Russians came up, but this valuable respite was lost, owing to the breaking of the bridge for artillery, and the insubordination of the stragglers, which rendered it impossible to force them across. On the night of the 26th they were dispersed among the neighbouring villages; on the 27th men, horses, and carriages rushed in an overwhelming mass, and choked the narrow entrance of the bridges: all efforts to restore order were fruitless, and it was necessary to employ force to clear a passage for the Emperor. A corps of grenadiers of the Guard declined from mere pity to open for themselves a way through these wretches. On the approach of night another simultaneous movement drove them all to seek shelter in the village of Studzianka, which was torn down to furnish materials for fires, from which they could not be moved; and thus another night was lost.

On the 28th, while Tchitchagoff on the right bank in vain endeavoured to drive Ney back upon the bridges, Wittgenstein, with vastly superior forces, attacked Victor, who still remained on the left bank with 6000 men to cover the retreat of his unhappy comrades. The first thunder of the artillery drove this confused mass pell–mell from their bivouacs to the bridge, and the first Russian bullet which fell among them seemed the signal of distraction and despair. The horrors of the scene which ensued are almost too great for description. The more desperate forced a way sword in hand through the crowd; others, prompted by a horrible avarice, crushed their fellow–creatures under their carriage–wheels, rather than abandon the booty hitherto preserved with such labour; while those who felt themselves unequal to the struggle sat apart in silence, their eyes fixed on the snow which was soon to be their tomb. Once driven from the direct passage, men struggled in vain to climb the sides of the bridge; they were mercilessly forced back into the river: even women, their infants in their arms, shared this fate.

In the midst of this disorder the bridge for artillery broke, and all upon it, hurried on by the press, were ingulfed in the stream. The shriek of the perishing multitude rose high above the storm and the battle: a witness of the scene declared that for weeks that horrible sound never quitted his ears. Artillery and waggons then poured to the other bridge, and on the steep and icy bank whole ranks were prostrated under their wheels, or crushed between their unmanageable weights. The noise of the storm, the roaring of cannon, the combined whistling of the wind and bullets, the bursting of shells, the cries, the groans, the fearful imprecations of the crowd, united in as horrible a concert as ever was presented to human ears. At nine at night Victor, who till then had kept Wittgenstein in check, commenced his retreat, and opened a dreadful passage through the wretches whom he had hitherto defended. A rear–guard was still left, and the bridges were allowed to stand that night, but in vain; men seemed to lose their reason with their discipline, and to be stupified by the horrors of their situation. The baggage and plunder, to which they clung so obstinately, was burnt: still it was impossible to drive them on. The next morning the French set fire to the bridge, and numbers lost their lives in a final effort of despair, endeavouring to swim the icy river or to cross upon the burning rafters. After the thaw, according to the Russian reports, 36,000 bodies were found in the Beresina.[217]

The French, having forced back and defeated Tchitchagoff, were now delivered from all immediate danger; and Napoleon, who had hitherto refused to quit the army, hastened to Paris, where internal affairs called for his presence, leaving Murat his successor in command. From this time forward the Russians, except Platoff and his Cossacks, desisted from the pursuit; but this alleviation of their misfortunes was fully compensated by other evils. A change had already taken place in the weather; the storms which had hitherto been experienced were succeeded by a still more dreadful calm. Icy needles were seen floating in the air; the very birds fell stiff and frozen, everything possessing life or motion seemed congealed by the intensity of cold.

“In this empire of death we passed on like unhappy spirits. The dull, uniform sound of our march, the crackling of the snow, the low groans of dying men, alone broke this mighty melancholy silence. There was no more anger, no more imprecations, nothing to indicate a trace of heat; strength scarce remained even for prayer, and the majority fell even without complaint, whether through weakness or resignation, or that men only complain when they hope to move, and believe that they are pitied.

“In fact, when for an instant they stopped through exhaustion, the winter laid her icy hand on them, and seized them as her prey. It was in vain then that, feeling themselves numbed, they arose, and speechless, stupified, advanced some paces like automatons: the blood freezing in their veins checked the beating of their hearts, and thence rushed to the head; then stricken by death, they staggered like drunken men. Real tears of blood dropped from their eyes, inflamed by the unvaried glare of snow, by want of sleep, and by the smoke of the bivouacs; deep sighs burst from their breasts; they looked to heaven, to us, and to the earth with a dismayed, fixed, and wild eye; it was their last adieu, perhaps a reproach to that savage nature which so tormented them. Soon they dropped, on their knees first, then on their hands; their heads wandered still some moments to right and left; a few sounds of agony escaped from the gasping mouth, which in its turn fell on the snow, and reddened it with livid blood, and their sufferings were over.

“Such were the last days of the grand army; its last nights were still more dreadful. When surprised by the dark at a distance from all dwellings, they stopped on the border of some wood; there they lighted fires, before which they spent the night, upright and immoveable as spectres. Unable to get enough of heat, they crowded so close to them, that their clothes and even frozen portions of their bodies were burnt. Then a horrible pain compelled them to enlarge their circle, and on the morrow they endeavoured in vain to rise.”[218]

We trace no further the details of suffering too great for human endurance. Sixty thousand men are computed to have crossed the Beresina. Loison, with 15,000, advanced from Wilna to meet and protect them; he lost 12,000 by three days of frost. Other reinforcements joined the retreat; yet of this total, amounting fully to 80,000 men, there recrossed the Niemen but 20,000 stragglers, nine cannon, and 1000 infantry and cavalry under arms, and the merit of preserving this remnant belongs to Ney alone. Murat, to whom Napoleon at his departure intrusted the command–in–chief, and other marshals, had ceased to issue orders, or commanding, had ceased to be obeyed: Ney alone retained some influence and authority. Ever last in the retreat, with a rearguard sometimes of twenty men, he opposed a bold front to his pursuers, and pre–eminently merited the title of “bravest of the brave,” when the tried valour of others was changed into confusion and despair.

Scott’s summary of the total loss in the campaign runs thus:—

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