[1] I.e. several ton weight.

The party with the guide made a circuit and surprised the enemy’s guards seated round their fire, and after killing some, and driving out the rest, took their places, thinking that they were in possession of the height.  As a matter of fact they were not, for above them lay a 6 breast-like hill[2] skirted by the narrow road on which they had found the guards seated.  Still, from the spot in question there was an approach to the enemy, who were seated on the pass before mentioned.

[2] Or, “mamelon.”

Here then they passed the night, but at the first glimpse of dawn they marched stealthily and in battle order against the enemy.  There was a mist, so that they could get quite close without being observed.  But as soon as they caught sight of one another, the trumpet sounded, and with a loud cheer they rushed upon the fellows, who did not wait their coming, but left the road and made off; with the loss of only a few lives however, so nimble were they.  Cheirisophus and his men, catching the sound of the bugle, charged up by the well-marked road, while others of the generals pushed their way up by pathless routes, where each division chanced to be; the men mounting as they were best able, and hoisting one another up by means of their spears; and these were the first to unite with the party who had already taken the position by storm.  Xenophon, with the rearguard, followed the path which the party with the guide had taken, since it was easiest for the beasts of burthen; one half of his men he had posted in rear of the baggage animals; the other half he had with himself.  In their course they encountered a crest above the road, occupied by the enemy, whom they must either dislodge or be themselves cut off from the rest of the Hellenes.  The men by themselves could have taken the same route as the rest, but the baggage animals could not mount by any other way than this.

Here then, with shouts of encouragement to each other, they dashed at the hill with their storming columns, not from all sides, but leaving an avenue of escape for the enemy, if he chose to avail himself of it.  For a while, as the men scrambled up where each best could, the natives kept up a fire of arrows and darts, yet did not receive them at close quarters, but presently left the position in flight.  No sooner, however, were the Hellenes safely past this crest, than they came in sight of another in front of them, also occupied, and deemed it advisable to storm it also.  But now it struck Xenophon that if they 13 left the ridge just taken unprotected in their rear, the enemy might re-occupy it and attack the baggage animals as they filed past, presenting a long extended line owing to the narrowness of the road by which they made their way.  To obviate this, he left some officers in charge of the ridge—­Cephisodorus, son of Cephisophon, an Athenian; Amphicrates, the son of Amphidemus, an Athenian; and Archagoras, an Argive