“May be, however, you are in good heart about the fighting, but annoyed to think that Tissaphernes will not guide us any more, and that the king will not furnish us with a market any longer.  Now, consider, is it better for us to have a guide like Tissaphernes, whom we know to be plotting against us, or to take our chance of the stray people whom we catch and compel to guide us, who will know that any mistake made in leading us will be a sad mistake for their own lives?  Again, is it better to be buying provisions in a market of their providing, in scant measure and at high prices, without even the money to pay for them any longer; or, by right of conquest, to help ourselves, applying such measure as suits our fancy best?

“Or again, perhaps you admit that our present position is not without its advantages, but you feel sure that the rivers are a difficulty, and think that you were never more taken in than when you crossed 22 them; if so, consider whether, after all, this is not perhaps the most foolish thing which the barbarians have done.  No river is impassable throughout; whatever difficulties it may present at some distance from its source, you need only make your way up to the springhead, and there you may cross it without wetting more than your ankles.  But, granted that the rivers do bar our passage, and that guides are not forthcoming, what care we?  We need feel no alarm for all that.  We have heard of the Mysians, a people whom we certainly cannot admit to be better than ourselves; and yet they inhabit numbers of large and prosperous cities in the king’s own country without asking leave.  The Pisidians are an equally good instance, or the Lycaonians.  We have seen with our own eyes how they fare:  seizing fortresses down in the plains, and reaping the fruits of these men’s territory.  As to us, I go so far as to assert, we ought never to have let it be seen that we were bent on getting home:  at any rate, not so soon; we should have begun stocking and furnishing ourselves, as if we fully meant to settle down for life somewhere or other hereabouts.  I am sure that the king would be thrice glad to give the Mysians as many guides as they like, or as many hostages as they care to demand, in return for a safe conduct out of his country; he would make carriage roads for them, and if they preferred to take their departure in coaches and four, he would not say them nay.  So too, I am sure, he would be only too glad to accommodate us in the same way, if he saw us preparing to settle down here.  But, perhaps, it is just as well that we did not stop; for I fear, if once we learn to live in idleness and to batten in luxury and dalliance with these tall and handsome Median and Persian women and maidens, we shall be like the Lotus-eaters[5], and forget the road home altogether.

[5] See “Odyssey,” ix. 94, “ever feeding on the Lotus and forgetful of
    returning.”