to us. So long as we have
the mastery, we shall be able to protect ourselves and get provisions;
but if we are once caught at the mercy of our foes, it is plain, we
shall be reduced to slavery." On hearing this the ambassadors bade
them send an embassy, which they did, to wit, Callimachus the
Arcadian, and Ariston the Athenian, and Samolas the Achaean.

So these set off, but meanwhile a thought shaped itself in the mind of
Xenophon, as there before his eyes lay that vast army of Hellene
hoplites, and that other array of peltasts, archers, and slingers,
with cavalry to boot, and all in a state of thorough efficiency from
long practice, hardened veterans, and all collected in Pontus, where
to raise so large a force would cost a mint of money. Then the idea
dawned upon him: how noble an opportunity to acquire new territory and 15
power for Hellas, by the founding of a colony--a city of no mean size,
moreover, said he to himself, as he reckoned up their own numbers--and
besides themselves a population planted on the shores of Pontus.
Thereupon he summoned Silanus the Ambraciot, the soothsayer of Cyrus
above mentioned, and before breathing a syllable to any of the
soldiers, he consulted the victims by sacrifice.

But Silanus, in apprehension lest these ideas might embody themselves,
and the army be permanently halted at some point or other, set a tale
going among the men, to the effect that Xenophon was minded to detain
the army and found a city in order to win himself a name and acquire
power, Silanus himself being minded to reach Hellas with all possible
speed, for the simple reason that he had still got the three thousand
darics presented to him by Cyrus on the occasion of the sacrifice when
he hit the truth so happily about the ten days. Silanus's story was
variously received, some few of the soldiers thinking it would be an
excellent thing to stay in that country; but the majority were
strongly averse. The next incident was that Timasion the Dardanian,
with Thorax the Boeotian, addressed themselves to some Heracleot and
Sinopean traders who had come to Cotyora, and told them that if they
did not find means to furnish the army with pay sufficient to keep
them in provisions on the homeward voyage, all that great force would
most likely settle down permanently in Pontus. "Xenophon has a pet
idea," they continued, "which he urges upon us. We are to wait until
the ships come, and then we are suddenly to turn round to the