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King Artaxerxes had learned some time before from Pharnabazus that Cyrus was secretly collecting an army to lead against him, and when he now learned that he was on the march, he summoned his armaments from every place to Ecbatana in Media. [2] When the contingents from the Indians and certain other peoples were delayed because of the remoteness of those regions, he set out to meet Cyrus with the army that had been assembled. He had in all not less than four hundred thousand soldiers, including cavalry, as Ephorus states. [3] When he arrived on the plain of Babylonia, he pitched a camp beside the Euphrates, intending to leave his baggage in it; for he had learned that the enemy was not far distant and he was apprehensive of their reckless daring. [4] Accordingly he dug a trench sixty feet wide and ten deep and encircled the camp with the baggage-waggons of his train like a wall. Having left behind in the camp the baggage and the attendants who were of no use in the battle, he appointed an adequate guard for it, and leading forward in person his army unencumbered, he advanced to meet the enemy which was near at hand. [5]

When Cyrus saw the King's army advancing, he at once drew up his own force in battle order. The right wing, which rested on the Euphrates, was held by infantry composed of Lacedaemonians and some of the mercenaries, all under the command of Clearchus the Lacedaemonian, and helping him in the fight were the cavalry brought from Paphlagonia, more than a thousand. The left wing was held by the troops from Phrygia and Lydia and about a thousand of the cavalry, under the command of Aridaeus. [6] Cyrus himself had taken a station in the centre of the battle-line, together with the choicest troops gathered from Persians and the other barbarians, about ten thousand strong; and leading the van before him were the finest-equipped cavalry, a thousand, armed with Greek breastplates and swords. [7] Artaxerxes stationed before the length of his battleline scythe-bearing chariots in no small number, and the wings he put under command of Persians, while he himself took his positions in the centre with no less than fifty thousand elite troops.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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