Anabasis

So they lay there in great numbers as though the army had suffered a defeat, and great despondency prevailed. On the next day, however, no one had died, and at approximately the same hour as they had eaten the honey they began to come to their senses; and on the third or fourth day they got up, as if from a drugging.

From there they marched two stages, seven parasangs, and reached the sea at Trapezus, an inhabited Greek city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans in the territory of Colchis. There they remained about thirty days in the villages of the Colchians, and from these as a base plundered Colchis.

And the Trapezuntians supplied a market for the army, received the Greeks kindly, and gave them oxen, barley-meal, and wine as gifts of hospitality.

They likewise took part in negotiations with the Greeks in behalf of the near-by Colchians, who dwelt for the most part on the plain, and from these people also the Greeks received hospitable gifts of oxen.

After this they made ready the sacrifice which they had vowed;[*](See Xen. Anab. 3.2.9.) and a sufficient number of oxen had come to them so that they could pay their thank-offerings to Zeus for deliverance, to Heracles for guidance, and to the other gods according as they had vowed. They instituted also athletic games on the mountain side, just where they were encamped; and they chose Dracontius, a Spartan, who had been exiled from home as a boy because he had accidentally killed another boy with the stroke of a dagger, to look out for a race-course and to act as manager of the games.

When, accordingly, the sacrifice had been completed, they turned over the hides[*](The hides of the sacrificial victims, which were to be offered as prizes in the games. Cp. Hom. Il. 10.159.) to Dracontius and bade him lead the way to the place he had fixed upon for his race-course. He pointed out the precise spot where they chanced to be standing, and said, This hill is superb for running, wherever you please. How, then, they said, can men wrestle on ground so hard and overgrown as this is? And he replied, The one that is thrown will get hurt a bit more.

The events were, a stadium race[*](The regular short race in the Greek games, corresponding closely to our 220 yards dash.) for boys, most of them belonging to the captives, a long race,[*](The δόλιχος seems to have varied from six to twenty-four stadia.) in which more than sixty Cretans took part, wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium;[*](A combination of boxing and wrestling.) and it made a fine spectacle; for there were a great many entries and, inasmuch as the comrades of the contestants were looking on, there was a great deal of rivalry.

There were horseraces also, and the riders had to drive their horses down the steep slope, turn them around on the shore, and bring them back again to the altar.[*](The altar on which the sacrifices had been offered served as a starting-point for the races.) And on the way down most of the horses rolled over and over, while on the way up, against the exceedingly steep incline, they found it hard to keep on at a walk; so there was much shouting and laughter and cheering.