Anabasis

From there they made ready to try to enter Cilicia. Now the entrance was by a wagon-road, exceedingly steep and impracticable for an army to pass if there was anybody to oppose it; and in fact, as report ran, Syennesis was upon the heights, guarding the entrance; therefore Cyrus remained for a day in the plain. On the following day, however, a messenger came with word that Syennesis had abandoned the heights, because he had learned that Menon’s army was already in Cilicia, on his own side of the mountains, and because, further, he was getting reports that triremes belonging to the Lacedaemonians[*](Cyrus had asked the Lacedaemonians to show themselves as good friends to him as he had been to them in their war against Athens (Xen. Hell. 2.1.1). The aid they now rendered (see also Xen. Anab. 1.4.2-3) was in response to that request.) and to Cyrus himself were sailing around from Ionia to Cilicia under the command of Tamos.

At any rate[*](i.e. whether or not the reasons just given were the true ones.) Cyrus climbed the mountains without meeting any opposition, and saw the camp where the Cilicians had been keeping guard. Thence he descended to a large and beautiful plain, well-watered and full of trees of all sorts and vines; it produces an abundance of sesame, millet, panic, wheat, and barley, and it is surrounded on every side, from sea to sea, by a lofty and formidable range of mountains.

After descending he marched through this plain four stages, twenty-five parasangs, to Tarsus,[*](The birth-place of the apostle Paul.) a large and prosperous city of Cilicia, where the palace of Syennesis, the king of the Cilicians, was situated; and through the middle of the city flows a river named the Cydnus, two plethra in width.

The inhabitants of this city had abandoned it and fled, with Syennesis, to a stronghold upon the mountains—all of them, at least, except the tavern-keepers; and there remained also those who dwelt on the sea-coast, in Soli and Issus.[*](Famous as the scene of one of the most important victories of Alexander the Great (333 B.C.).)

Now Epyaxa, the wife of Syennesis, had reached Tarsus five days ahead of Cyrus, but in the course of her passage over the mountains to the plain two companies of Menon’s army[*](cp. 20, above.) had been lost. Some said that they had been cut to pieces by the Cilicians while engaged in a bit of plundering; another story was that they had been left behind, and, unable to find the rest of the army or the roads, had thus wandered about and perished; at any rate, they numbered a hundred hoplites.

And when the rest of Menon’s troops reached Tarsus, in their anger over the loss of their comrades they plundered thoroughly, not only the city, but also the palace that was in it. As for Cyrus, after he had marched into the city he more than once summoned Syennesis to his presence; but Syennesis said that he had never yet put himself in the hands of anyone who was more powerful than he was, and he would not now put himself in the hands of Cyrus until his wife had won him over and he had received pledges.

When the two men finally met one another, Syennesis gave Cyrus a large sum of money for his army, while Cyrus gave him gifts which are regarded at court[*](i.e. such gifts as could be bestowed only by the Persian king. Cyrus is already assuming royal prerogatives.) as tokens of honour—a horse with a gold-mounted bridle, a gold necklace and bracelets, a gold dagger and a Persian robe—promising him, further, that his land should not be plundered any more and that they might take back the slaves that had been seized in case they should chance upon them anywhere.