asked:  “Does he play the popular leader?” and Heracleides answered:  “Exactly so.”  “Well then,” said they, “he will oppose our taking away the troops, will he not?” “To be sure he will,” said Heracleides; “but you have only to call a meeting of the whole body, and promise them pay, and little further heed will they pay to him; they will run off with you.”  “How then are we to get them collected?” they asked.  “Early to-morrow,” said Heracleides, “we will bring you to them; and I know,” he added once more, “as soon as they set eyes on you, they will flock to you with alacrity.”  Thus the day ended.

The next day Seuthes and Heracleides brought the two Laconian agents to the army, and the troops were collected, and the agents made a statement as follows:  “The Lacedaemonians have resolved on war with Tissaphernes, who did you so much wrong.  By going with us therefore you will punish your enemy, and each of you will get a daric a month, the officers twice that sum, and the generals quadruple.”  The soldiers lent willing ears, and up jumped one of the Arcadians at once, to find fault with Xenophon.  Seuthes also was hard by, wishing to know what was going to happen.  He stood within ear shot, and his interpreter by his side; not but what he could understand most of what was said in Greek himself.  At this point the Arcadian spoke:  “For the matter of that, Lacedaemonians, we should have been by your sides long ago, if Xenophon had not persuaded us and brought us hither.  We have never ceased campaigning, night and day, the dismal winter through, but he reaps the fruit of our toils.  Seuthes has enriched him privately, but deprives us of our honest earnings; so that, standing here as I do to address you first, all I can say is, that if I might see the fellow stoned to death as a penalty for all the long dance he has led us, I 10 should feel I had got my pay in full, and no longer grudge the pains we have undergone.”  The speaker was followed by another and then another in the same strain; and after that Xenophon made the following speech:—­

“True is the old adage; there is nothing which mortal man may not expect to see.  Here am I being accused by you to-day, just where my conscience tells me that I have displayed the greatest zeal on your behalf.  Was I not actually on my road home when I turned back?  Not, God knows, because I learned that you were in luck’s way, but because I heard that you were in sore straits, and I wished to help you, if in any way I could.  I returned, and Seuthes yonder sent me messenger after messenger, and made me promise upon promise, if only I could persuade you to come to him.  Yet, as you yourselves will bear me witness, I was not to be diverted.  Instead of setting my hand to do that, I simply led you to a point from which, with least loss of time, I thought you could cross into Asia.  This I believed was the best thing for you, and you I knew desired it.