Anabasis

What fate, then, may you and I expect to suffer now, when the Lacedaemonians still have their old allies, when the Athenians and all who at that time were allied with them have been added to the number, when Tissaphernes and all the rest of the barbarians on the coast are hostile to us, and most hostile of all the King himself, up in the interior, the man whom we came to deprive of his empire, and to kill if we could? With all these banded together against us, is there any man so witless as to suppose that we should come off victorious?

In the name of the gods let us not be mad, nor let us perish disgracefully as enemies both to our native states and to our own friends and kinsmen. For all of them are in the cities which will take the field against us, and will do so justly if we, after refraining from the seizure of any barbarian city, conquerors though we were, are to take the first Greek city we have come to and pillage that.

For my part, therefore, I pray that sooner than live to behold this deed wrought by you, I may be laid ten thousand fathoms underground. And to you my advice is, that being Greeks you endeavour to obtain your just rights by obedience to the leaders of the Greeks. If you are unable to accomplish this, we must not at any rate, even though wronged, be deprived of our return to Greece.

And now it is my opinion that we should send messengers to Anaxibius and say to him: We have not made our way into the city to do any violence, but to obtain some good thing from you if we can, or if that is not possible, at least to show that we go forth, not because we are deceived, but because we are obedient.

This course was resolved upon, and they sent Hieronymus the Elean, Eurylochus the Arcadian, and Philesius the Achaean to bear this message. So they departed to perform their mission.

While the soldiers were still in session Coeratadas[*](cp. Xen. Anab. 7.1.13 and note thereon.) the Theban came in, a man who was going up and down Greece, not in exile, but because he was afflicted with a desire to be a general, and he was offering his services to any city or people that might be wanting a general; so at this time he came to the troops and said that he was ready to lead them to the Delta,[*](i.e. since he was the only Lacedaemonian among the generals.) as it is called, of Thrace, where they could get plenty of good things; and until they should reach there, he said he would supply them with food and drink in abundance.

When the soldiers heard this proposal and the word that came back at the same time from Anaxibius—his reply was, that if they were obedient they would not be sorry for it, but that he would report the matter to his government at home and would himself devise whatever good counsel he could in their case—

they thereupon accepted Coeratadas as general and withdrew outside the walls. And Coeratadas made an agreement with them that he would join the army on the next day with sacrificial victims and a soothsayer, as well as food and drink for the troops.

Meanwhile, as soon as they had gone forth from the city, Anaxibius closed the gates and made proclamation that any soldier who might be caught inside the city would be sold as a slave.

On the next day Coeratadas arrived with his sacrificial victims and his soothsayer, and there followed him twenty men loaded with barley-meal, another twenty with wine, three with olives, another man with as big a load of garlic as he could carry, and another with onions. After setting down all these things, as though for distribution, he proceeded to sacrifice.

And now Xenophon sent for Cleander and urged him to make arrangements so that he could enter within the wall and thus sail homeward from Byzantium.

When Cleander returned, he said that it was only with very great difficulty that he had accomplished the arrangement; for Anaxibius said it was not well to have the soldiers close by the wall and Xenophon within it; the Byzantines, moreover, were in a factious state and hostile to one another. Nevertheless, Cleander continued, he bade you come in if you are intending to sail away with him.

Xenophon accordingly took his leave of the soldiers and went back within the wall in company with Cleander. As for Coeratadas, on the first day he could not get good omens from his sacrifices nor did he serve out any rations at all to the troops; on the following day the victims were standing beside the altar and Coeratadas had on his chaplet, ready for the sacrifice, when Timasion the Dardanian, Neon the Asinaean, and Cleanor the Orchomenian came up and told him not to make the offering, for he was not to be leader of the army unless he should give them provisions.

So he ordered rations to be served out. When it proved, however, that his supply fell far short of amounting to a day’s food for each of the soldiers, he took his victims and went away, renouncing his generalship.

There now remained in command of the army Neon the Asinaean, Phryniscus the Achaean, Philesius the Achaean, Xanthicles the Achaean, and Timasion the Dardanian, and they proceeded to some villages of the Thracians which were near Byzantium and there encamped.

Now the generals were at variance in their views: Cleanor and Phryniscus wanted to lead the army to Seuthes, for he had been trying to persuade them to this course and had given one of them a horse and the other a woman; Neon wanted to go to the Chersonese,[*](cp. Xen. Anab. 5.6.23.) thinking that if the troops should fall under the control of the Lacedaemonians, he would be leader of the entire army; and Timasion was eager to cross back again to Asia, for he thought that in this way he could accomplish his return home. As for the troops, to return home was what they also desired.

As time wore on, however, many of the soldiers either sold their arms up and down the country and set sail for home in any way they could, or else mingled with the people of the neighbouring Greek cities.

And Anaxibius was glad to hear the news that the army was breaking up; for the thought that if this process went on, Pharnabazus would be very greatly pleased.

While Anaxibius was on his homeward voyage from Byzantium, he was met at Cyzicus by Aristarchus, Cleander’s successor as governor of Byzantium; and it was reported that his own successor as admiral, Polus, had by this time all but reached the Hellespont.

Anaxibius, then, charged Aristarchus to sell as slaves all the soldiers of Cyrus’ army that he might find left behind at Byzantium. As for Cleander, he had not sold one of them, but had even been caring for their sick out of pity and compelling the Byzantines to receive them in their houses; but the moment Aristarchus arrived he sold no fewer than four hundred.