Anabasis

Meanwhile some of the people on the mountain came down and actually requested Xenophon himself to help them obtain the truce. He agreed to do so, told them to have no fear, and gave them his word that they would suffer no harm if they were obedient to Seuthes. But they, as it proved, were talking about this matter merely in order to spy out the situation.

All this happened during the day, but in the night that followed the Thynians issued from the mountain and made an attack. And the master of each separate house acted as guide to that house; for in the darkness it would have been difficult to find the houses in these villages in any other way; for each house was surrounded by a paling, made of great stakes, to keep in the cattle.

When they had reached the doors of a particular house, some would throw in javelins, others would lay on with their clubs, which they carried, so it was said, to knock off the heads of hostile spears, and still others would be setting the house on fire, meanwhile calling Xenophon by name and bidding him come out and be killed, or else, they said, he would be burned up then and there.

And now fire was already showing through the roof, and Xenophon and his men inside the house had equipped themselves with breastplates and were furnished with shields and swords and helmets, when Silanus the Macistian, a lad of about eighteen years, gave a signal with the trumpet; and on the instant they leaped forth with swords drawn, and so did the Greeks from the other houses.