y reason to complain of the ingratitude of the army.

Sec. 22. Xenophon takes leave of the army. Conclusion.

As soon as Thimbron arrived with his own forces, and the Cyreians became
a part of his army, Xenophon took his leave of them. Having deposited in
the temple at Ephesus[116] that portion which had been confided to him
as general, of the tenth set apart by the army at Kerasus for the
Ephesian Artemis, he seems to have executed his intention of returning
to Athens. He must have arrived there, after an absence of about two
years and a half, within a few weeks, at farthest, after the death of
his friend and preceptor Sokrates,[117] whose trial and condemnation
have been recorded in my last volume. That melancholy event certainly
occurred during his absence from Athens; but whether it had come to his
knowledge before he reached the city, we do not know. How much grief and
indignation it excited in his mind, we may see by his collection of
memoranda respecting the life and conversations of Sokrates, known by
the name of Memorabilia, and probably put together shortly after his
arrival.

That he was again in Asia three years afterwards, on military service
under the Lacedaemonian king Agesilaus, is a fact attested by himself;
but at what precise moment he quitted Athens for his second visit to
Asia, we are left to conjecture. I incline to believe that he did not
remain many months at home, but that he went out again in the next
spring to rejoin the Cyreians in Asia--became again their commander--and
served for two years under the Spartan general Derkyllidas before the
arrival of Agesilaus. Such military service would doubtless be very much
to his taste; while a residence at Athens, then subject and quiescent,
would probably be distasteful to him; both from the habits of command
which he had contracted during the previous two years, and from feelings
arising out of the death of Sokrates. After a certain interval of
repose, he would be disposed to enter again upon the war against his old
enemy Tissaphernes; and his service went on when Agesilaus arrived to
take the command.

But during the two years after this latter event, Athens became a party
to the war against Sparta, and entered into conjunction with the king of
Persia as well as with the Thebans and others; while Xenophon,
continuing his service as commander of the Cyreians, and accompanying
Agesilaus from Asia back into Greece, became engaged against the
Athen