Anabasis

I am here, Seuthes, not to present any demand, but to show you, if I can, that you were wrong in getting angry with me because in the name of the soldiers I zealously demanded from you what you had promised them; for I believed that it was no less to your advantage to pay them than it was to theirs to get their pay.

For, in the first place, I know that next to the gods it was these men who set you in a conspicuous position, since they made you king over a large territory and many people; hence it is not possible for you to escape notice, whether you perform an honourable deed or a base one.

Now it seemed to me an important thing that a man in such a place should not be thought to have dismissed benefactors without gratitude, an important thing also to be well spoken of by six thousand men,[*](cp. the enumeration of the Ten Thousand in Xen. Anab. 5.3.3, and see especially Xen. Anab. 7.2.3-4 and 6.) but most important of all that you should by no means set yourself down as untrustworthy in whatever you say.

For I see that the words of untrustworthy men wander here and there without result, without power, and without honour; but if men are seen to practise truth, their words, if they desire anything, have power to accomplish no less than force in the hands of other men; and if they wish to bring one to reason, I perceive that their threats can do this no less than present chastisement applied by others; and if such men make a promise to any one, they accomplish no less than others do by an immediate gift.

Recall for yourself what amount you paid to us in advance in order to obtain us as allies. You know that it was nothing; but because you were trusted to carry out truthfully whatever you said, you induced that great body of men to take the field with you and to gain for you a realm worth not merely thirty talents, the sum which these men think they ought now to recover, but many times as much.

First of all, then, this trust, the very thing which gained your kingdom for you, is being sold for this sum.

Come, now, recall how great a thing you then deemed it to achieve the conquests which you now have achieved. For my part, I am sure you would have prayed that the deeds now done might be accomplished for you rather than that many times that amount of money might fall to your lot.

Now I count it greater hurt and shame not to hold these possessions firmly now than not to have gained them then, by so much as it is a harder fate to become poor after being rich than not to become rich at all, and by so much as it is more painful to be found a subject after being a king than not to become king at all.

You understand, then, that those who have now become your subjects were not persuaded to live under your rule out of affection for you, but by stress of necessity, and that unless some fear should restrain them, they would endeavour to become free again.

In which of these two cases, therefore do you think they would feel greater fear and be more moderate in their relations with you: if they should see the soldiers cherishing such feelings toward you that they would stay with you now if you so bade them and would quickly come back to you again if you needed them, and should see also that others, hearing many good things about you from these troops, would quickly present themselves to take service with you whenever you wished it—or if they should form the unkind opinion that no other soldiers would come to you, in consequence of a distrust resulting from what has now happened, and that these whom you have are more friendly to them than to you?

Again, it was by no means because they fell short of us in numbers that they yielded to you, but because they lacked leaders. Hence there is now danger on this count also, the danger that they may find leaders in some of these soldiers who regard themselves as wronged by you, or else in men who are even stronger than these are,—I mean the Lacedaemonians,—in case the soldiers promise to render them more zealous service if they now exact what is due from you, and in case the Lacedaemonians, on account of their needing the army, grant them this request.

Again, that the Thracians who have now fallen under your sway would far more eagerly go against you than with you, is quite certain; for when you are conqueror their lot is slavery, and when you are conquered it is freedom.

And if you need henceforth to take some thought for the sake of this land also, seeing that it is yours, in which case do you suppose it would be freer from ills: if these soldiers should recover what they claim and go away leaving a state of peace behind them, or if they should remain as in a hostile country and you should undertake to maintain an opposing camp with other troops, that would have to be more numerous than these and would need provisions?

And in which case would more money be spent, if what is owing to these men should be paid over to them, or if this sum should be left owing and you should have to hire other troops stronger than they are?

Yes, but Heracleides thinks, as he used to explain to me, that this sum of money is a very large one. Upon my word it is a far smaller thing now for you to receive or to pay this sum than it would have been before we came to you to receive or to pay a tenth part of it.

For it is not number that determines what is much and what is little, but the capacity of the man who pays and of him who receives. And as for yourself, your yearly income is going to be greater now than all the property you possessed amounted to before.

For my part, Seuthes, it was out of regard for you as a friend that I urged this course, in order that you might be deemed worthy of the good things which the gods have given to you and that I might not lose credit with the army.

For be well assured that at present if I should wish to inflict harm upon a foe, I could not do it with this army, and if I should wish to come to your assistance again, I should not find myself able to do that; such is the feeling of the army toward me.

And yet I make your own self my witness, along with the gods, who know, that I have neither received anything from you that was intended for the soldiers, nor have ever asked what was theirs for my private use, nor demanded from you what you had promised me;

and I swear to you that even if you had offered to pay what was due to me, I should not have accepted it unless the soldiers also were at the same time to recover what was due to them. For it would have been disgraceful to get my own affairs arranged and leave theirs in an evil state, especially since I was honoured by them.