take advice and do the best he could for them.'
[2] The exact locality, so called, is not known; doubtless it lay somewhere between Byzantium and Salmydessus, possibly at Declus (mod. Derkos); or possibly the narrow portion of Thrace between the Euxine, Bosphorus, and Propontis went by this name. See note in Pretor ad. loc., and 'Dict. Geog.' 'Thracia.'
Thereupon the soldiers accepted Coeratadas as their general, and retired without the walls. Their new general undertook to present himself to the troops next day with sacrificial beasts and a soothsayer, with eatables also and drinkables for the army. Now, as soon as they were gone out, Anaxibius closed the gates and issued a proclamation to the effect that 'any of the soldiers caught inside should be knocked down to the hammer and sold at once.' Next day, Coeratadas arrived with the victims and the soothsayer. A string of twenty bearers bearing barleymeal followed at his heels, succeeded by other twenty carrying wine, and three laden with a supply of olives, and two others carrying, the one about as much garlic as a single man could lift, and the other a similar load of onions. These various supplies he set down, apparently for distribution, and began to sacrifice.
Now Xenophon sent to Cleander, begging him to arrange matters so that he might be allowed to enter the walls, with a view to starting from Byzantium on his homeward voyage. Cleander came, and this is what he 39 said: 'I have come; but I was barely able to arrange what you want. Anaxibius insisted: 'It was not convenient that Xenophon should be inside while the soldiers are close to the walls without; the Byzantines at sixes and sevens moreover; and no love lost between the one party of them and the other.' Still, he ended by bidding you to come inside, if you were really minded to leave the town by sea with himself.' Accordingly Xenophon bade the soldiers good-bye, and returned with Cleander within the walls.
To return to Coeratadas. The first day he failed to get favourable signs at the sacrifice, and never a dole of rations did he make to the soldiers. On the second day the victims were standing ready near the altar, and so was Coeratadas, with chaplet crowned, all ready to sacrifice, when up comes Timasion the Dardanian, with Neon the Asinaean, and Cleanor of Orchomenus, forbidding Coeratadas to sacrifice: 'He must understand there was an end to his generalship, unless he gave them provisions.' The other bade them measure out the supplies, 'Pray, dole them out.' But when he found that he had a good deal short of a single day's provisions for each man, he picked up his paraphernalia of sacrifice and withdrew. As to being general, he would have nothing more to say to it.
II
Now these five were left--Neon the Asinaean, Phryniscus the Achaean, 1 Philesius the Achaean, Xanthicles the Achaean, Timasion the Dardanian--at the head of the army, and they pushed on to some villages of the Thracians facing Byzantium, and there encamped. Now the generals could not agree. Cleanor and Phryniscus wished to march to join Seuthes, who had worked upon their feelings by presenting one with a horse and the other with a woman to wife. But Neon's object was to come to the Chersonese: 'When we are under the wing of the Lacedaemonians,' he thought, 'I shall step to the front and command the whole army.'
Timasion's one ambition was to cross back again into Asia, hoping to be reinstated at home and end his exile. The soldiers shared the wishes of the last general. But, as time dragged on, many of the men sold their arms at different places and set sail as best they could; others [actually gave away their arms, some here, some there, and [1]] 3 became absorbed in the cities. One man rejoiced. This was Anaxibius, to whom the break-up of the army was a blessing. 'That is the way,' he said to himself, 'I can best gratify Pharnabazus.'
[1] The MSS. give the words so rendered--{oi de kai [didontes ta opla kata tous khorous]}, which some critics emend {diadidontes}, others bracket as suspected, others expunge.
But Anaxibius, while prosecuting his voyage from Byzantium, was met at Cyzicus by Aristarchus, the new governor, who was to succeed Cleander at Byzantium; and report said that a new admiral, Polus, if he had not actually arrived, would presently reach the Hellespont and relieve Anaxibius. The latter sent a parting injunction to Aristarchus to be sure and sell all the Cyreian soldiers he could lay hands on still lingering in Byzantium; for Cleander had not sold a single man of them; on the contrary, he had made it his business to tend the sick and wounded, pitying them, and insisting on their being received in the houses. Aristarchus changed all that, and was no sooner arrived in Byzantium than he sold no less than four hundred of them. Meanwhile Anaxibius, on his coasting voyage, reached Parium, and, according to the terms of their agreement, he sent to Pharnabazus. But the latter, learning that Aristarchus was the new governor at Byzantim, and that Anixibius had ceased to be admiral, turned upon him a cold shoulder, and set out concocting the same measures concerning the Cyreian army with Aristarchus, as he had lately been at work upon with Anaxibius.
Anaxibius thereupon summoned Xenophon and bade him, by every manner of means, sail to the army with the utmost speed, and keep it together. 'He was to collect the scattered fragments and march them down to Perinthus, and thence convey them across to Asia without loss of time.' And herewith he put a thirty-oared galley at his srrvice, and gave him a letter of authority and an officer to accompany him, with an order to the Perinthians 'to escort Xenophon without delay on horseback to the army.' So it was that Xenophon sailed across and eventually reached the army. The soldiers gave him a joyous welcome, and would have been only too glad to cross from Thrace into Asia under his leadership.
But Seuthes, hearing that Xenophon had arrived, sent Medosades again, 10 by sea to meet him, and begged him to bring the army to him; and whatever he thought would make his speech persuasive, he was ready to promise him. But the other replied, that none of these things were open to him to do; and with this answer Medosades departed, and the Hellenes proceeded to Perinthus. Here on arrival Neon withdrew his troops and encamped apart, having about eight hundred men; while the remainder of the army lay in one place under the walls of Perinthus.
After this, Xenophon set himself to find vessels, so as to lose no time in crossing. But in the interval Aristarchus, the governor from Byzantium, arrived with a couple of war-ships, being moved to do so by Pharnabazus. To make doubly sure, he first forbade the skippers and shipmasters to carry the troops across, and then he visited the camp and informed the soldiers that their passage into Asia was forbidden. Xenophon replied that he was acting under the orders of Anaxibius, who had sent him thither for this express purpose; to which Aristarchus retorted, 'For the matter of that, Anaxibius is no longer admiral, and I am governor in this quarter; if I catch any of you at sea, I will sink you.' With these remarks he retired within the walls of Perinthus.
Next day, he sent for the generals and officers of the army. They had already reached the fortification walls, when some one brought word to Xenophon that if he set foot inside, he would be seized, and either meet some ill fate there or more likely be delivered up to Pharnabazus. On hearing this Xenophon sent forward the rest of the party, but for himself pleaded that there was a sacrifice which he wished to offer. In this way he contrived to turn back and consult the victims, 'Would the gods allow him to try and bring the army over to Seuthes?' On the one hand it was plain that the idea of crossing over to Asia in the face of this man with his ships of war, who meant to bar the passage, was too dangerous. Nor did he altogether like the notion of being blocked up in the Chersonese with an army in dire need of everything; where, besides being at the beck and call of the 15 governor of the place, they would be debarred from the necessities of life.
While Xenophon was thus employed, the generals and officers came back with a message from Aristarchus, who had told them they might retire for the present, but in the afternoon he would expect them. The former suspicions of a plot had now ripened to a certainty. Xenophon meantime had ascertained that the victims were favourable to his project. He personally, and the army as a whole, might with safety proceed to Seuthes, they seemed to say. Accordingly, he took with him Polycrates, the Athenian captain, and from each of the generals, not including Neon, some one man whom they could in each case trust, and in the night they set off to visit the army of Seuthes, sixty furlongs distant.
As they approached, they came upon some deserted watch-fires, and their first impression was that Seuthes had shifted his position; but presently perceiving a confused sound (the voices of Seuthes' people signalling to one another), the explanation dawned on him: Seuthes kept his watch-fires kindled in front of, instead of behind, his night pickets, in order that the outposts, being in the dark, might escape notice, their numbers and position thus being a mystery; whilst any party approaching from the outside, so far from escaping notice, would, through the glare of the fire, stand out conspicuously. Perceiving how matters stood, Xenophon sent forward his interpreter, who was one of the party, and bade him inform Seuthes that Xenophon was there and craved conference with him. The others asked if he were an Athenian from the army yonder, and no sooner had the interpreter replied, 'Yes, the same,' than up they leapt and galloped off; and in less time than it takes to tell a couple of hundred peltasts had come up who seized and carried off Xenophon and those with him and brought them to Seuthes. The latter was in a tower right well guarded, and there were horses round it in a circle, standing all ready bitted and bridled; for his alarm was so great that he gave his horses their provender during the day[2], and during the nights he kept watch
