Anabasis

But when Aristarchus came with his triremes and prevented our sailing across, at that moment—and surely it was exactly the proper step—I gathered you together so that we might consider what we should better do.

So you with your own ears heard Aristarchus direct you to march to the Chersonese and you heard Seuthes urge you to take the field with him, and then every man of you spoke in favour of going with Seuthes and every man of you voted to do so. What wrong, therefore, did I do in that matter, when I led you to the place where you had all decided to go?

I come now to the time when Seuthes began to play false with you in the matter of your pay: if I am his supporter in that, it would be just for you to blame me and hate me; but if the truth is that I, who before that was the most friendly to him of us all, am now most of all at variance with him, how can it be just in this case that, when I sided with you rather than with Seuthes, I should be blamed by you about the things in which I am at variance with him?

But it is possible, you might say, that I really have received from Seuthes the money that belongs to you, and am only tricking you.[*](i.e. by pretending to side with you against Seuthes.) Then this at least is clear: if Seuthes was in fact paying anything to me, he surely was not paying it with the understanding that he was both to lose whatever he gave me and at the same time was to pay other sums to you, but rather, I presume, if he was giving me anything, he was giving it with this understanding, that by giving a smaller sum to me he was to escape paying over the larger to you.

Now if you imagine that this is the case, it is within your power upon the instant to make this transaction a vain one for us both by exacting your money from him. For it is clear that, if I have received anything from Seuthes, he will demand it back from me, and, moreover, he will demand it back with justice if I am failing to fulfil to him the undertaking for which I was accepting his gifts.

>But it is far from being true, in my opinion, that I have received what belongs to you; for I swear to you by all the gods and goddesses that I have not even received what Seuthes promised to me for my own services; he is present here himself, and as he listens he knows as well as I do whether I am swearing falsely;

furthermore, to make your wonder the greater, I swear besides that I have not even received what the other generals have received—nay, not even so much as some of the captains.

And why, then, did I follow this course? I supposed, soldiers, that the more I helped this man to bear the poverty in which he then was, the more I should make him my friend when he should have gained power. But in fact I no sooner see him enjoying prosperity than I recognize his true character.

One might say, Are you not ashamed of being so stupidly deceived? I certainly should be ashamed, by Zeus, if I had been deceived by one who was an enemy; but for one who is a friend, to deceived seems to me more shameful than to be deceived.

For if there is such a thing as precaution toward friends, I know that we took every precaution not to afford this man a just pretext for not paying us what he had promised; for we neither did this man any wrong, nor did we mismanage his affairs, nor yet did we shrink like cowards from any service to which he summoned us.

But, you might say, sureties ought to have been taken at the time, so that he could not have deceived us even if he had wanted to do so. In reply to that, listen to words which I never should have spoken in this man’s presence if you had not seemed to me utterly senseless—or at least exceedingly thankless toward me.

Recollect in what sort of troubles you then found yourselves, troubles out of which I delivered you when I brought you to Seuthes. Did you not go to Perinthus, and did not Aristarchus the Lacedaemonian forbid your entering and shut the gates against you? So you encamped outside, under the sky, though it was midwinter, and you got your provisions by purchase at a market, though scanty were the supplies you saw offered for sale and scanty the means you had with which to buy;

yet you were compelled to remain upon the Thracian coast, for over against you lay triremes that prevented your crossing to Asia; and remaining there, you were of necessity in a hostile country, where there were many horsemen opposed to you and many peltasts;

as for ourselves, we had a force of hoplites to be sure, with which, in case we went in a body against the villages, we might perhaps have been able to obtain food, though by no means an abundant supply, but any force with which we could have pursued and captured either slaves or cattle we had not; for I had found[*](i.e. upon his return to the army. Division of cavalry and peltasts had existed during the retreat, and it would seem from the present passage that they were not broken up till after Xenophon set sail for Greece (Xen. Anab. 7.2.5, 8).) no division either of cavalry or of peltasts in existence any longer among you.

Now when you were in such straits, if I had obtained for you, without demanding into the bargain any pay whatsoever, simply an alliance with Seuthes, who possessed both the cavalry and the peltasts that you were in need of, would you have thought that I had carried through a bad plan on your behalf?

For you remember, I imagine, that when you had joined forces with these troops, you not only found food in greater abundance in the villages, for the reason that the Thracians were compelled to flee in greater haste, but you also got a larger share of cattle and captives.

In fact, we never saw the face of an enemy again after the cavalry had joined us, whereas up to that time the enemy had been following boldly at our heels with horsemen and peltasts and had prevented us from scattering in any direction in small parties and thus securing a greater abundance of provisions.

And if, then, the man who aided in providing you this security did not give you, besides, very generous pay for your security, is that such a dreadful misfortune? and do you think that on that account you cannot possibly let me go alive?

As matters stand now, what is your situation in departing from here? Have you not passed the winter amid an abundance of provisions, and, whatever you have received from Seuthes, is it not really so much clear gain? For it was the enemy’s possessions that you have been consuming. And while enjoying such fortune, you have not had to see any of your number slain nor have you lost any men alive.

And if any glorious deed was earlier performed by you against the barbarians in Asia, have you not at the same time kept that secure and likewise gained other glory besides in the present, by vanquishing, in addition, the Thracians in Europe against whom you took the field? For my part, I assert that for the very acts on account of which you now feel angry toward me, you should, in all justice, feel grateful to the gods, counting them as blessings.