Anabasis

One might say, Are you not ashamed of being so stupidly deceived? I certainly should be ashamed, by Zeus, if I had been deceived by one who was an enemy; but for one who is a friend, to deceived seems to me more shameful than to be deceived.

For if there is such a thing as precaution toward friends, I know that we took every precaution not to afford this man a just pretext for not paying us what he had promised; for we neither did this man any wrong, nor did we mismanage his affairs, nor yet did we shrink like cowards from any service to which he summoned us.

But, you might say, sureties ought to have been taken at the time, so that he could not have deceived us even if he had wanted to do so. In reply to that, listen to words which I never should have spoken in this man’s presence if you had not seemed to me utterly senseless—or at least exceedingly thankless toward me.

Recollect in what sort of troubles you then found yourselves, troubles out of which I delivered you when I brought you to Seuthes. Did you not go to Perinthus, and did not Aristarchus the Lacedaemonian forbid your entering and shut the gates against you? So you encamped outside, under the sky, though it was midwinter, and you got your provisions by purchase at a market, though scanty were the supplies you saw offered for sale and scanty the means you had with which to buy;

yet you were compelled to remain upon the Thracian coast, for over against you lay triremes that prevented your crossing to Asia; and remaining there, you were of necessity in a hostile country, where there were many horsemen opposed to you and many peltasts;

as for ourselves, we had a force of hoplites to be sure, with which, in case we went in a body against the villages, we might perhaps have been able to obtain food, though by no means an abundant supply, but any force with which we could have pursued and captured either slaves or cattle we had not; for I had found[*](i.e. upon his return to the army. Division of cavalry and peltasts had existed during the retreat, and it would seem from the present passage that they were not broken up till after Xenophon set sail for Greece (Xen. Anab. 7.2.5, 8).) no division either of cavalry or of peltasts in existence any longer among you.

Now when you were in such straits, if I had obtained for you, without demanding into the bargain any pay whatsoever, simply an alliance with Seuthes, who possessed both the cavalry and the peltasts that you were in need of, would you have thought that I had carried through a bad plan on your behalf?

For you remember, I imagine, that when you had joined forces with these troops, you not only found food in greater abundance in the villages, for the reason that the Thracians were compelled to flee in greater haste, but you also got a larger share of cattle and captives.

In fact, we never saw the face of an enemy again after the cavalry had joined us, whereas up to that time the enemy had been following boldly at our heels with horsemen and peltasts and had prevented us from scattering in any direction in small parties and thus securing a greater abundance of provisions.

And if, then, the man who aided in providing you this security did not give you, besides, very generous pay for your security, is that such a dreadful misfortune? and do you think that on that account you cannot possibly let me go alive?

As matters stand now, what is your situation in departing from here? Have you not passed the winter amid an abundance of provisions, and, whatever you have received from Seuthes, is it not really so much clear gain? For it was the enemy’s possessions that you have been consuming. And while enjoying such fortune, you have not had to see any of your number slain nor have you lost any men alive.

And if any glorious deed was earlier performed by you against the barbarians in Asia, have you not at the same time kept that secure and likewise gained other glory besides in the present, by vanquishing, in addition, the Thracians in Europe against whom you took the field? For my part, I assert that for the very acts on account of which you now feel angry toward me, you should, in all justice, feel grateful to the gods, counting them as blessings.

So much, then, for your situation. And now, in the name of the gods, come, and consider how the case stands with me. At the time when I first set out to return home, I possessed, as I departed, abundant praise in your eyes, and I also possessed, through you, fair fame in the eyes of the Greeks at large. And I was trusted by the Lacedaemonians, for otherwise they would not have sent me back to you again.

Now, on the other hand, I am going away traduced by you before the Lacedaemonians and hated on your account by Seuthes, the man through whom I hoped to secure, by rendering him good service with your help, a fair place of refuge for myself and my children, in case children should ever be born to me.

And you, for whose sake I have incurred most hatred, and the hatred of men far stronger than I am, for whose sake I have not even to this moment ceased striving to accomplish whatever good I may, hold such an opinion of me as this!

You hold me in your power, then, and not as a captive that you have taken in flight or as a runaway slave; and if you do what you are proposing, be sure that you will have slain a man who has passed many sleepless nights for your sake, who has endured many toils and dangers with you, both in his turn and out of his turn, who has also, by the graciousness of the gods, set up with you many trophies of victory over the barbarians, and who, in order to prevent your becoming enemies to any one among the Greeks, has exerted himself to the very utmost of his power in opposition to you.

In fact, you are now free to journey in security whithersoever you may choose, whether by land or by sea. And you, at the moment when such abundant freedom reveals itself to you, when you are sailing to the very place where you have long been eager to go and the mightiest are suing for your aid, when pay is within sight and the Lacedaemonians, who are deemed the most powerful leaders, have come to lead you—do you, I say, think that now is the proper time to put me to death with all speed?

It was not so, surely, in the days when we were in straits, O you who remember better than all other men; nay, then you called me father, and you promised to keep me for ever in memory as a benefactor! Not by any means, however, are these men, who have now come after you, wanting in judgment; therefore, I imagine, they also think none the better of you for behaving in this manner towards me. With these words he ceased speaking.

Then Charminus the Lacedaemonian arose and said: No, by the twin gods; I, at any rate, think you are unjust in being angry with this man; for I can bear witness for him myself. When I and Polynicus asked Seuthes about Xenophon, to learn what sort of a man he was, Seuthes had no fault to find with him save that, as he said, he was too great a friend of the soldiers, and on that account, he added, things went the worse for him, both so far as we the Lacedaemonians were concerned and on his own account.

After him Eurylochus of Lusi rose and said: Yes, and I believe, men of Lacedaemon, that you ought to assume leadership over us in this enterprise first of all, in exacting our pay from Seuthes whether he will or no, and that you should not take us away till that is done.