Anabasis

Recall for yourself what amount you paid to us in advance in order to obtain us as allies. You know that it was nothing; but because you were trusted to carry out truthfully whatever you said, you induced that great body of men to take the field with you and to gain for you a realm worth not merely thirty talents, the sum which these men think they ought now to recover, but many times as much.

First of all, then, this trust, the very thing which gained your kingdom for you, is being sold for this sum.

Come, now, recall how great a thing you then deemed it to achieve the conquests which you now have achieved. For my part, I am sure you would have prayed that the deeds now done might be accomplished for you rather than that many times that amount of money might fall to your lot.

Now I count it greater hurt and shame not to hold these possessions firmly now than not to have gained them then, by so much as it is a harder fate to become poor after being rich than not to become rich at all, and by so much as it is more painful to be found a subject after being a king than not to become king at all.