ge than the
Persians, and at the same time, being light-armed troops, they lay
cooped up within the ranks of the heavy infantry, while the javelin
men again did not shoot far enough to reach the enemy's slingers. This
being so, Xenophon thought there was nothing for it but to charge, and
charge they did; some of the heavy and light infantry, who were
guarding the rear, with him; but for all their charging they did not
catch a single man.

The dearth of cavalry told against the Hellenes; nor were their
infantry able to overhaul the enemy's infantry, with the long start
they had, and considering the shortness of the race, for it was out of
the question to pursue them far from the main body of the army. On the 10
other hand, the Asiatic cavalry, even while fleeing, poured volleys of
arrows behind their backs, and wounded the pursuers; while the
Hellenes must fall back fighting every step of the way they had
measured in the pursuit; so that by the end of that day they had not
gone much more than three miles; but in the late afternoon they
reached the villages.

Here there was a return of the old despondency. Cheirisophus and the
eldest of the generals blamed Xenophon for leaving the main body to
give chase and endangering himself thereby, while he could not damage
the enemy one whit the more. Xenophon admitted that they were right in
blaming him: no better proof of that was wanted than the result. "The
fact is," he added, "I was driven to pursue; it was too trying to look
on and see our men suffer so badly, and be unable to retaliate.
However, when we did charge, there is no denying the truth of what you
say; we were not a whit more able to injure the enemy, while we had
considerable difficulty in beating a retreat ourselves. Thank heaven
they did not come upon us in any great force, but were only a handful
of men; so that the injury they did us was not large, as it might have
been; and at least it has served to show us what we need. At present
the enemy shoot and sling beyond our range, so that our Cretan archers
are no match for them; our hand-throwers cannot reach as far; and when
we pursue, it is not possible to push the pursuit to any great
distance from the main body, and within the short distance no
foot-soldier, however fleet of foot, could overtake another
foot-soldier who has a bow-shot the start of him. If, then, we are to
exclude them from all possibility of injuring us as we march, we must
get slingers as s