From there they marched four desert stages, twenty parasangs, keeping the Tigris river on the left. Across the river on the first stage was situated a large and prosperous city named Caenae, from which the barbarians brought over loaves, cheeses and wine, crossing upon rafts made of skins.

After this they reached the Zapatas river, which was four plethra in width. There they remained three days. During this time suspicions were rife, it is true, but no plot came openly to light.

Clearchus resolved, therefore, to have a meeting with Tissaphernes and put a stop to these suspicions, if he possibly could, before hostilities resulted from them; so he sent a messenger to say that he desired to meet him.

And Tissaphernes readily bade him come.When they had met, Clearchus spoke as follows: I know, to be sure, Tissaphernes, that both of us have taken oaths and given pledges not to injure one another; yet I see that you are on your guard against us as though we were enemies, and we, observing this, are keeping guard on our side.

But since, upon inquiry, I am unable to ascertain that you are trying to do us harm, and am perfectly sure that we, for our part, are not even thinking of any such thing against you, I resolved to have an interview with you, so that, if possible, we might dispel this mutual distrust.

For I know that there have been cases before now—some of them the result of slander, others of mere suspicion—where men who have become fearful of one another and wished to strike before they were struck, have done irreparable harm to people who were neither intending nor, for that matter, desiring to do anything of the sort to them.

In the belief, then, that such misunderstandings are best settled by conference, I have come here, and I wish to point out to you that you are mistaken in distrusting us.

For, first and chiefly, our oaths, sworn by the gods, stand in the way of our being enemies of one another; and the man who is conscious that he has disregarded such oaths, I for my part should never account happy. For in war with the gods I know not either by what swiftness of foot or to what place of refuge one could make his escape, or into what darkness he could steal away, or how he could withdraw himself to a secure fortress. For all things in all places are subject to the gods, and all alike the gods hold in their control.

Touching the gods, then, and our oaths I am thus minded, and to the keeping of the gods we consigned the friendship which we covenanted; but as for things human, I believe that at this time you are to us the greatest good we possess.