[3] Thebe, a famous ancient town in Mysia, at the southern foot of Mt. 
    Placius, which is often mentioned in Homer ("Il.” i. 366, vi. 397,
    xxii. 479, ii. 691).  See “Dict.  Geog.” s.v.  The name {Thebes
    pedion} preserves the site.  Cf. above {Kaustrou pedion}, and such
    modern names as “the Campagna” or “Piano di Sorrento.”

[4] The site of Certonus is not ascertained.  Some critics have
    conjectured that the name should be Cytonium, a place between
    Mysia and Lydia; and Hug, who reads {Kutoniou}, omits {odeusantes
    par ’Atanea}, “they made their way by Atarneus,” as a gloss.

Here Xenophon was hospitably entertained at the house of Hellas, the wife of Gongylus the Eretrian[5], the mother of Gorgion and Gongylus.  From her he learnt that Asidates, a Persian notable, was in the plain.  “If you take thirty men and go by night, you will take him prisoner,” she said, “wife, children, money, and all; of money he has a store;” and to show them the way to these treasures, she sent her own cousin and Daphnagoras, whom she set great store by.  So then Xenophon, with these two to assist, did sacrifice; and Basias, an Eleian, the soothsayer in attendance, said that the victims were as promising as could be, and the great man would be an easy prey.  Accordingly, after dinner he set off, taking with him the officers who had been his staunchest friends and confidants throughout; as he wished to do them a good turn.  A number of others came thrusting themselves on their company, to the number of six hundred, but the officers repelled them:  “They had no notion of sharing their portion of the spoil,” they said, “just as though the property lay already at their feet.”

[5] Cf.  Thuc. i. 128; also “Hell.”  III. i. 6.

About midnight they arrived.  The slaves occupying the precincts of the tower, with the mass of goods and chattles, slipped through their fingers, their sole anxiety being to capture Asidates and his belongings.  So they brought their batteries to bear, but failing to take the tower by assault (since it was high and solid, and well supplied with ramparts, besides having a large body of warlike defenders), they endeavoured to undermine it.  The wall was eight clay bricks thick, but by daybreak the passage was effected and the wall undermined.  At the first gleam of light through the aperture, one of 14 the defendants inside, with a large ox-spit, smote right through the thigh of the man nearest the hole, and the rest discharged their arrows so hotly that it was dangerous to come anywhere near the passage; and what with their shouting and kindling of beacon fires, a relief party at length arrived, consisting of Itabelius at the head of his force, and a body of Assyrian heavy infantry from Comania, and some Hyrcanian cavalry[6], the latter also being mercenaries of the king.  There were eighty of them, and another detachment of light troops, about eight hundred, and more from Parthenium, and more again from Apollonia and the neighbouring places, also cavalry.