These and the like considerations elated him; he had a strong desire to hold the supreme command.  But then again, as he turned the matter over, the conviction deepened in his mind that the issue of the future is to every man uncertain; and hence there was the risk of perhaps losing such reputation has he had already acquired.  He was in sore straights, and, not knowing how to decide, it seemed best to him to lay the matter before heaven.  Accordingly, he led two victims to the altar and made sacrifice to Zeus the King, for it was he and no other who had been named by the oracle at Delphi, and his belief was that the vision which he had beheld when he first essayed to undertake the joint administration of the army was sent to him by that god.  He also recalled to mind a circumstance which befell him still earlier, when 23 setting out from Ephesus to associate himself with Cyrus[6];—­how an eagle screamed on his right hand from the east, and still remained perched, and the soothsayer who was escorting him said that it was a great and royal omen[7]; indicating glory and yet suffering; for the punier race of birds only attack the eagle when seated.  “Yet,” added he, “it bodes not gain in money; for the eagle seizes his food, not when seated, but on the wing.”

[6] Cf.  “Cyrop.”  II. i. 1; an eagle appears to Cyrus on the frontiers
    of Persia, when about to join his uncle Cyaxares, king of Media,
    on his expedition against the Assyrian.

[7] It is important to note that the Greek word {oionos}, a solitary
    or lone-flying bird, also means an omen.  “It was a mighty bird and
    a mighty omen.”

Thus Xenophon sacrificed, and the god as plainly as might be gave him a sign, neither to demand the generalship, nor, if chosen, to accept the office.  And that was how the matter stood when the army met, and the proposal to elect a single leader was unanimous.  After this resolution was passed, they proposed Xenophon for election, and when it seemed quite evident that they would elect him, if he put the question to the vote, he got up and spoke as follows:—­

“Sirs, I am but mortal, and must needs be happy to be honoured by you.  I thank you, and am grateful, and my prayer is that the gods may grant me to be an instrument of blessing to you.  Still, when I consider it closer, thus, in the presence of a Lacedaemonian, to be preferred by you as general, seems to me but ill conducive either to your interests or to mine, since you will the less readily obtain from them hereafter anything you may need, while for myself I look upon acceptance as even somewhat dangerous.  Do I not see and know with what persistence these Lacedaemonians prosecuted the war till finally they forced our State to acknowledge the leadership of Lacedaemon?  This confession once extorted from their antagonists, they ceased warring at once, and the siege of the city was at an end.  If, with these facts before my eyes, I seem to be doing all I can to neutralise their