Anabasis

I am here, Seuthes, not to present any demand, but to show you, if I can, that you were wrong in getting angry with me because in the name of the soldiers I zealously demanded from you what you had promised them; for I believed that it was no less to your advantage to pay them than it was to theirs to get their pay.

For, in the first place, I know that next to the gods it was these men who set you in a conspicuous position, since they made you king over a large territory and many people; hence it is not possible for you to escape notice, whether you perform an honourable deed or a base one.

Now it seemed to me an important thing that a man in such a place should not be thought to have dismissed benefactors without gratitude, an important thing also to be well spoken of by six thousand men,[*](cp. the enumeration of the Ten Thousand in Xen. Anab. 5.3.3, and see especially Xen. Anab. 7.2.3-4 and 6.) but most important of all that you should by no means set yourself down as untrustworthy in whatever you say.

For I see that the words of untrustworthy men wander here and there without result, without power, and without honour; but if men are seen to practise truth, their words, if they desire anything, have power to accomplish no less than force in the hands of other men; and if they wish to bring one to reason, I perceive that their threats can do this no less than present chastisement applied by others; and if such men make a promise to any one, they accomplish no less than others do by an immediate gift.