“Thus far I have confined myself to your side of the matter.  Bear with me, I beg you, while we examine mine.  When I first essayed to part with you and journey homewards, I was doubly blest.  From your lips I had won some praise, and, thanks to you, I had obtained glory from the rest of Hellas.  I was trusted by the Lacedaemonians; else would they not have sent me back to you.  Whereas to-day I turn to go, calumniated before the Lacedaemonians by yourselves, detested in your behalf by Seuthes, whom I meant so to benefit, by help of you, that I should find in him a refuge for myself and for my children, if children I might have, in after time.  And you the while, for whose sake I have incurred so much hate, the hate of people far superior to me in strength, you, for whom I have not yet ceased to devise all the good I can, entertain such sentiments about me.  Why?  I am no renegade or runaway slave, you have got hold of.  If you carry out what you say, be sure you will have done to death a man who has passed many a vigil in watching over you; who has shared with you many a toil and run many a risk in turn and out of turn; who, thanks to the gracious gods! has by your side set up full many a trophy over the barbarian; who, lastly, has strained every nerve in his body to protect you against yourselves.  And so it is, that to-day you can move freely, where you choose, by sea or by land, and no one can say you nay; and you, on 37 whom this large liberty dawns, who are sailing to a long desired goal, who are sought after by the greatest of military powers, who have pay in prospect, and for leaders these Lacedaemonians, our acknowledged chiefs:  now is the appointed time, you think, to put me to a speedy death.  But in the days of our difficulties it was very different, O ye men of marvellous memory!  No! in those days you called me ‘father!’ and you promised you would bear me ever in mind, ‘your benefactor.’  Not so, however, not so ungracious are those who have come to you to-day; nor, if I mistake not, have you bettered yourselves in their eyes by your treatment of me.”

With these words he paused, and Charminus the Lacedaemonian got up and said:  “Nay, by the Twins, you are wrong, surely, in your anger against this man; I myself can bear testimony in his favour.  When Polynicus and I asked Seuthes, what sort of a man he was?  Seuthes answered:—­he had but one fault to find with him, that he was too much the soldiers’ friend, which also was the cause why things went wrong with him, whether as regards us Lacedaemonians or himself, Seuthes.”

Upon that Eurylochus of Lusia, an Arcadian, got up and said (addressing the two Lacedaemonians), “Yes, sirs; and what strikes me is that you cannot begin your generalship of us better than by exacting from Seuthes our pay.  Whether he like it or no, let him pay in full; and do not take us away before.”

Polycrates the Athenian, who was put forward by Xenophon, said:  “If my eyes do not deceive me, sirs, there stands Heracleides, yonder, the man who received the property won by our toil, who took and sold it, and never gave back either to Seuthes or to us the proceeds of the sale, but kept the money to himself, like the thief he is.  If we are wise, we will lay hold of him, for he is no Thracian, but a Hellene; and against Hellenes is the wrong he has committed.”