Anabasis

But if you dismiss us with a refusal, where, bethink you, could you ever again secure so large a force to help fight your battles?

To these words the chief of the Mossynoecians replied that they desired this arrangement and accepted the alliance.

Well, then, said Xenophon, what use will you want to make of us if we become your allies, and what assistance will you, in your turn, be able to render us in the matter of our passage through this territory?

They replied: We are able to invade this land of your enemies and ours from the opposite side, and to send to you here not only ships, but men who will aid you in the fighting and will guide you on your way.

After confirming this agreement by giving and receiving pledges they departed. The next day they returned, bringing with them three hundred canoes, each made out of a single log and each containing three men, two of whom disembarked and fell into line under arms, while the third remained in the canoe.

Then the second group took their canoes and sailed back again, and those who stayed behind marshalled themselves in the following way. They took position in lines of about a hundred each, like choral dancers ranged opposite one another, all of them with wicker shields covered with white, shaggy ox-hide and like an ivy leaf in shape, and each man holding in his right hand a lance about six cubits long, with a spearhead at one end[*](cp. Xen. Anab. 4.7.16 and note thereon.) and a round ball at the butt end of the shaft.

They wore short tunics which did not reach their knees and were as thick as a linen bag for bedclothes, and upon their heads leathern helmets just such as the Paphlagonian helmets, with a tuft in the middle very like a tiara in shape; and they had also iron battle-axes.

After they had formed their lines one of them led off, and the rest after him, every man of them, fell into a rhythmic march and song, and passing through the battalions and through the quarters of the Greeks they went straight on against the enemy, toward a stronghold which seemed to be especially assailable.

It was situated in front of the city which is called by them Metropolis and contains the chief citadel of the Mossynoecians. In fact, it was for the possession of this citadel that the war was going on; for those who at any time held it were deemed to be masters of all the other Mossynoecians, and they said that the present occupants did not hold it by right, but that it was common property and they had seized it in order to gain a selfish advantage.

The attacking party was followed by some of the Greeks, not under orders from their generals, but seeking plunder. As they approached, the enemy for a time kept quiet; but when they had got near the stronghold, they sallied forth and put them to flight, killing a considerable number of the barbarians and some of the Greeks who had gone up the hill with them, and pursuing the rest until they saw the Greeks coming to the rescue;

then they turned and fell back, and after cutting off the heads of the dead men displayed them to the Greeks and to their own enemies, at the same time dancing to a kind of strain which they sang.

And the Greeks were exceedingly angry, not only because the enemy had been made bolder, but because the Greeks who went to the attack with the barbarians had taken to flight, though in very considerable numbers—a thing which they had never done before in the course of the expedition.

Then Xenophon called the Greeks together and said: Fellow-soldiers, do not by any means lose heart on account of what has happened; for be sure that a good thing also has happened, no less important than the evil thing.

In the first place, you know that those who are to guide us are really enemies to the people whose enemies we also are compelled to be; secondly, and touching our own men, those among them who took little thought of the battle formation we use and got the idea that they could accomplish the same results in company with the barbarians as they could with us, have paid the penalty,—another time they will be less likely to leave our ordered lines.