His only difficulties were from the nature of the country, which, after the Khabour is passed, becomes barren, excepting close along the river.

From want of fodder there was a great mortality among the baggage-animals; the price of grain rose; and the Greeks had to subsist almost entirely upon meat.

At last, when the Babylonian alluvium was reached, with its abundance of fodder and corn, signs of the enemy began to be observed.

Artaxerxes, who after some doubts and misgivings had finally determined to give his enemy battle in the plain, was already on his way from Babylon, with an army reckoned at 900,000 men and had sent forward a body of horse, partly to reconnoitre, partly to destroy the crops, in order to prevent Cyrus and his troops from benefiting by them.

Cyrus now advanced slowly and cautiously, at the rate of about fourteen miles a day, expecting each morning to fight a general engagement before evening came.