Anabasis

After hearing the ambassadors, the Heracleots said that they would consider the matter; and immediately they set about gathering their property from the country and moved the market within the walls; meanwhile the gates had been closed and arms were to be seen upon the walls.

Thereupon those who had brought about this agitation accused the generals of spoiling their undertaking; and the Arcadians and Achaeans proceeded to band themselves together, under the leadership particularly of Callimachus the Parrhasian and Lycon the Achaean.

Their words were to this effect, that it was shameful that Peloponnesians should be under the command of an Athenian and a Lacedaemonian who contributed no troops to the army, and that the hardships should fall to themselves and the gains to others, all despite the fact that the preservation of the army was their achievement; for it was, they said, the Arcadians and Achaeans who had achieved this result, and the rest of the army amounted to nothing (in truth more than half the army did consist of Arcadians and Achaeans);

if they were wise, therefore, they would band together by themselves, choose generals from their own number, make the journey by themselves, and try to get a little good out of it.

This course was resolved upon, and whatever Arcadians or Achaeans there were with Cheirisophus and Xenophon left these commanders and joined forces, and they chose ten generals from their own number, decreeing that these ten were to do whatever might be decided upon by vote of the majority. So it was that the supreme command of Cheirisophus came to an end then and there, on the sixth or seventh day from the day of his election.

Xenophon, however, was desirous of making the journey in company with Cheirisophus, believing that this was a safer plan than for each of them to proceed independently; but Neon[*](Cheirisophus’ lieutenant (cp. Xen. Anab. 5.6.36).) urged him to go by himself, for he had heard from Cheirisophus that Cleander, the Lacedaemonian governor at Byzantium, had said he was coming to Calpe Harbour with triremes;

it was Neon’s purpose, then, that no one else should get a share in this opportunity, but that he himself and Cheirisophus and their soldiers should sail away upon the triremes, and this was the reason for his advice to Xenophon. As for Cheirisophus, he was so despondent over what had happened and, besides, felt such hatred toward the army for its action, that he allowed Neon to do whatever he chose.

For a time, indeed, Xenophon did try to get clear of the army and sail away home; but when he sacrificed to Heracles the Leader, consulting him as to whether it was better and more proper for him to continue the journey with such of the soldiers as had remained with him, or to be rid of them, the god indicated to him by the sacrifices that he should stay with them.

Thus the army was split into three parts: first, the Arcadians and Achaeans, more than four thousand in number, all hoplites; secondly, Cheirisophus’ troops, to the number of fourteen hundred hoplites and seven hundred peltasts, the latter being Clearchus’ Thracians; and thirdly, Xenophon’s force, numbering seventeen hundred hoplites and three hundred peltasts; Xenophon alone, however, had horsemen, to the number of about forty.

The Arcadians, managing to obtain ships from the Heracleots, set sail first, with the intention of making an unexpected descent upon the Bithynians and thus securing the greatest possible amount of booty; and they disembarked at Calpe Harbour, about midway of the Thracian coast.

But Cheirisophus went by land from the very beginning of his journey from the city of the Heracleots, travelling across country; when, however, he had entered Thrace, he proceeded along the coast, for the reason that he was ill.

Xenophon, finally, took ships, disembarked at the boundaries separating Thrace and the territory of Heracleia, and pursued his way through the back country.

The fortunes of the several divisions were as follows. The Arcadians after disembarking by night at Calpe Harbour proceeded to the first villages, about thirty stadia from the sea.

When daylight came, each general led his own company against a village, except that where a village seemed unusually large, the generals combined two companies for the attack upon it.

They also fixed upon a hill as the place where all the troops were afterwards to gather; and since their onset was unexpected, they took many captives and were in a fair way to secure a large number of sheep.

The Thracians who escaped them, however, began to gather—and many had escaped, inasmuch as they were light troops as against hoplites, from the very hands of the Arcadians. When they had come together in a body, they first attacked the company under Smicres, one of the Arcadian generals, as it was already withdrawing to the appointed place with a great quantity of booty.

For a while the Greeks fought as they marched, but at the crossing of a gorge the Thracians put them to rout, and they killed not only Smicres himself, but the rest of the company to a man; in another of the companies belonging to the ten generals, the one commanded by Hegesander, they left only eight men alive, Hegesander himself being one of them.

The other companies succeeded in getting together, some of them with difficulty, other without any difficulty; but the Thracians, having gained this success, kept shouting to one another and collecting their forces energetically during the night. At daybreak they proceeded to form their lines all round the hill where the Greeks were encamping, their troops consisting of horsemen in large numbers and peltasts, while still more were continually streaming together;

and they made attacks upon the hoplites without danger to themselves, inasmuch as the Greeks had neither bowman nor javelin-thrower nor horseman; so they would come running or riding up and throw their javelins, and when the Greeks charged upon them, they would easily get away;

and different parties kept attacking at different points. Hence on the one side many were being wounded, on the other side not a man; the result was, that the Greeks were not able to stir from the spot, and at last the Thracians were even cutting them off from their water supply.