Anabasis

You amazing fellow, you have eyes but still do not perceive, and you have ears but still do not remember. You were present, surely, with the rest of these officers at the time when the King, after the death of Cyrus and in his elation over that event, sent and ordered us to give up our arms.

But when, instead of giving them up, we equipped ourselves with them, and went and encamped beside him, what means did he leave untried—sending ambassadors, begging for a truce, offering us provisions—until in the end he obtained a truce?

When, however, our generals and captains, following precisely the plan that you are now urging, went unarmed to a conference with them, relying upon the truce, what happened in that case? are they not at this moment being beaten, tortured, insulted, unable even to die, hapless men that they are, even though they earnestly long, I imagine, for death? And do you, knowing all these things, say that they are talking nonsense who urge self-defence, and do you propose that we should again go and try persuasion?

In my opinion, gentlemen, we should not simply refuse to admit this fellow to companionship with us, but should deprive him of his captaincy, lay packs on his back, and treat him as that sort of a creature. For the fellow is a disgrace both to his native state and to the whole of Greece, since, being a Greek, he is still a man of this kind.

Then Agasias, a Stymphalian, broke in and said: For that matter, this fellow has nothing to do either with Boeotia or with any part of Greece at all, for I have noticed that he has both his ears bored,[*](The Greeks considered it effeminate for a man to wear ear-rings. His bored ears, therefore, marked Apollonides as a barbarian.) like a Lydian’s.[*](The Lydians were proverbially effeminate.)

In fact, it was so. He, therefore, was driven away, but the others proceeded to visit the various divisions[*](The division (τάξις) was not a body of any specified size, but comprised the troops under the command of a single general (στρατηγός). See below.) of the army. Wherever a general was left alive, they would invite him to join them; where the general was gone, they invited the lieutenant-general; or, again, where only a captain was left, the captain.

When all had come together, they seated themselves at the front of the encampment, and the generals and captains thus assembled amounted in number to about one hundred. By this time it was nearly midnight.