Anabasis

The people of Miletus also were planning to do the very same thing, namely, to go over to Cyrus, but Tissaphernes, finding out about it in time, put some of them to death and banished others. Cyrus thereupon took the exiles under his protection, collected an army, and laid siege to Miletus both by land and by sea, and endeavoured to restore the exiles to their city; and this, again, made him another pretext for gathering an army.

Meanwhile he sent to the King and urged, on the ground that he was his brother, that these Ionian cities should be given to him instead of remaining under the rule of Tissaphernes, and his mother co-operated with him in this. The result was that the King failed to perceive the plot against himself, but believed that Cyrus was spending money on his troops because he was at war with Tissaphernes. Consequently he was not at all displeased at their being at war, the less so because Cyrus regularly remitted to the King the tribute which came in from the cities he chanced to have that belonged to Tissaphernes.

Still another army was being collected for him in the Chersonese which is opposite Abydus, in the following manner: Clearchus[*](For the reason for his banishment see Xen. Anab. 2.6.2-4.) was a Lacedaemonian exile; Cyrus, making his acquaintance, came to admire him, and gave him ten thousand darics.[*](The daric was a Persian gold coin, equivalent in weight of gold to 1 2s. 2 1/2d. or $5.40, but in purchasing power to a much larger sum.) And Clearchus, taking the gold, collected an army by means of this money, and using the Chersonese as a base of operations, proceeded to make war upon the Thracians who dwell beyond the Hellespont, thereby aiding the Greeks.[*](i.e. the Greeks on the European side of the Hellespont, who suffered from the incursions of their Thracian neighbours.) Consequently, the Hellespontine cities of their own free will sent Clearchus contributions of money for the support of his troops. So it was that this army also was being secretly maintained for Cyrus.