Anabasis

So much, then, for your situation. And now, in the name of the gods, come, and consider how the case stands with me. At the time when I first set out to return home, I possessed, as I departed, abundant praise in your eyes, and I also possessed, through you, fair fame in the eyes of the Greeks at large. And I was trusted by the Lacedaemonians, for otherwise they would not have sent me back to you again.

Now, on the other hand, I am going away traduced by you before the Lacedaemonians and hated on your account by Seuthes, the man through whom I hoped to secure, by rendering him good service with your help, a fair place of refuge for myself and my children, in case children should ever be born to me.

And you, for whose sake I have incurred most hatred, and the hatred of men far stronger than I am, for whose sake I have not even to this moment ceased striving to accomplish whatever good I may, hold such an opinion of me as this!

You hold me in your power, then, and not as a captive that you have taken in flight or as a runaway slave; and if you do what you are proposing, be sure that you will have slain a man who has passed many sleepless nights for your sake, who has endured many toils and dangers with you, both in his turn and out of his turn, who has also, by the graciousness of the gods, set up with you many trophies of victory over the barbarians, and who, in order to prevent your becoming enemies to any one among the Greeks, has exerted himself to the very utmost of his power in opposition to you.