Anabasis

Yes, said Tissaphernes, and for my part, if you generals and captains care to come to me, I will give you, publicly, the names of those who tell me that you are plotting against me and the army under my command.

And I, said Clearchus, will bring them all, and in my turn will make known to you whence come the reports that I hear about you.

After this conversation Tissaphernes showed all kindness, inviting Clearchus at that time to stay with him and making him his guest at dinner. On the following day, when Clearchus returned to the Greek camp, he not only made it clear that he imagined he was on very friendly terms with Tissaphernes and reported the words which he had used, but he said that those whom Tissaphernes had invited must go to him, and that whoever among the Greeks should be convicted of making false charges ought to be punished, as traitors and foes to the Greeks.

Now Clearchus suspected that the author of these slanders was Menon, for he was aware that Menon had not only had meetings with Tissaphernes, in company with Ariaeus, but was also organizing opposition to his own leadership and plotting against him, with the intention of winning over to himself the entire army and thereby securing the friendship of Tissaphernes.

Clearchus desired, however, to have the entire army devoted to him and to put the refractory out of the way. As for the soldiers, some of them made objections to Clearchus’ proposal, urging that the captains and generals should not all go and that they should not trust Tissaphernes.

But Clearchus vehemently insisted, until he secured an agreement that five generals should go and twenty captains; and about two hundred of the soldiers also followed along, with the intention of going to market.

When they reached Tissaphernes’ doors, the generals were invited in—Proxenus the Boeotian, Menon the Thessalian, Agias the Arcadian, Clearchus the Laconian, and Socrates the Achaean—while the captains waited at the doors.

Not long afterward, at the same signal, those within were seized and those outside were cut down. After this some of the barbarian horsemen rode about over the plain and killed every Greek they met, whether slave or freeman.