[13] Moreover, all the generals had standards on their tents; and just as an intelligent serving-man in a city will know most of the houses, at any rate of the most important people, so the squires of Cyrus knew the ways of the camp and the quarters of the generals and the standards of each.

Thus, if Cyrus needed any one they had not to search and seek, but could run by the shortest road and summon him at once.

[14] Owing to this clear arrangement, it was easy to see where good discipline was kept and where duty was neglected.

With these dispositions Cyrus felt that if an attack should be made, by night or day, the enemy would find not so much a camp as an ambuscade.

[15] Nor was it enough, he considered, for a real master of tactics to know how to extend his front without confusion, or deepen his ranks, or get from column into line, or wheel round quickly when the enemy appeared on the right or the left or in the rear: the true tactician must also be able to break up his troops into small bodies, whenever necessary, and place each division exactly where it would be of the greatest use; he must know how to quicken speed when it was essential to forestall the enemy; these and a hundred other operations are part of his science, and Cyrus studied them all with equal care.