Anabasis

Xenophon, however, becoming apprehensive lest, if he should leave unoccupied the hill he had just captured, the enemy might take possession of it again and attack the baggage train as it passed (and the train stretched out a long way because of the narrowness of the road it was following), left three captains upon the hill, Cephisodorus, son of Cephisophon, an Athenian, Amphicrates, son of Amphidemus, also an Athenian, and Archagoras, an Argive exile; while he himself with the rest of the troops proceeded against the second hill, which they captured in the same fashion as the first.

There still remained a third round hill,[*](The one originally mentioned by the Carduchian guide. See Xen. Anab. 4.1.25, Xen. Anab. 4.2.6.) far the steepest of them all, the one that rose above the guard post, by the fire, which had been captured during the night by the volunteers.

But when the Greeks got near this hill, the barbarians abandoned it without striking a blow, so that everybody was filled with surprise and imagined that they had quit the place out of fear that they might be surrounded and blockaded. As it proved, however, they had seen, looking down from their height, what was going on farther back, and were all setting out to attack the Greek rearguard.[*](i. e. the three companies left upon the first hill, which the main body of Xenophon’s troops had now passed by. See below.)

Meanwhile Xenophon proceeded to climb the abandoned height with his youngest troops, ordering the rest to move on slowly in order that the hindmost companies might catch up; then they were to advance along the road and halt under arms on the plateau[*](Into which the ἔκβασις, or way out, ultimately led.) at the top of the pass.

At this time Archagoras the Argive came up in flight and reported that the Greeks had been dislodged from the first hill, that Cephisodorus and Amphicrates had been killed, and likewise all the rest except such as had leaped down the rocks and reached the rearguard.[*](In this case the reference is manifestly to the division behind the baggage train (sec. 9).)

After accomplishing this achievement the barbarians came to a hill opposite the round hill,[*](See sec. 14 above.) and Xenophon, through an interpreter, held a colloquy with them in regard to a truce and asked them to give back the bodies of the Greek dead.

They replied that they would give them back on condition that the Greeks should not burn their houses. To this Xenophon agreed. But while the rest of the army was passing by and they were engaged in this conference, all the enemy from that neighbourhood had streamed together to the spot;

and as soon as Xenophon and his men began to descend from the round hill, in order to join the rest of the Greeks at the place where they were halted under arms, the enemy took this opportunity to rush upon them in great force and with a great deal of uproar. When they had reached the crest of the hill from which Xenophon was descending, they proceeded to roll down stones. They broke one man’s leg, and Xenophon found himself deserted by the servant who was carrying his shield;