THEY set sail from here next day, and sailed along the coast for two days with a fair wind. As they sailed along they saw Jason’s Beach, where the Argo is said to have been moored, and the mouths of various rivers: the Thermodon, the Iris, the Halys and then the Parthenius.3 After sailing past the Parthenius they arrived at Heraclea, a Greek city and colony of Megara, in the country of the Maryandyni. They anchored near the Acherusian Peninsula, where Heracles is said to have descended into the lower world to fetch Cerberus and where they still show evidence of his descent for a quarter of a mile down into the earth. The people of Heraclea sent the Greeks gifts of friendship consisting of four thousand bushels of barley-meal, two thousand jars of wine, twenty oxen and a hundred sheep. In this place a river called the Lycus, about two hundred feet broad, runs through the plain.
The soldiers held an assembly here and discussed the question of whether they should travel the rest of the way out of the area of the Euxine by land or by sea. An Achaean called Lycon stood up and spoke as follows: ‘I am surprised, my friends, at the generals for not making any attempt to provide us with money to buy food. The presents we have had cannot conceivably last us for .as much as three days, and we have nowhere to go to get food for ourselves. My view, therefore, is that we should ask the people of Heraclea for at least three thousand staters of Cyzicus.’
Someone else said: ‘At least ten thousand,’ and proposed the immediate election of delegates who should be sent to the city while the assembly was still in session, so that they should know what the answer was and take measures accordingly. They then proposed the names of delegates, first of all Chirisophus, because he had been appointed commander, and then some people put forward Xenophon’s name. Chirisophus and Xenophon were strongly opposed to the suggestion, since they both felt the same thing – that it was wrong to bring force to bear on a Greek city which was in friendly relations with them to secure anything which the people of the city would not give them of their own accord. As they were evidently against the plan, the soldiers sent Lycon the Achaean, Callimachus of Parrhasia and Agasias the Stymphalian, who went to Heraclea and told the people what the army had decided. Lycon was said to have added threats of what would happen to them, if they did not act as they were requested. The people of Heraclea listened to the delegates and said they would discuss the matter. They then immediately collected their property from outside the city, and brought inside the walls all the provisions which they had had outside for sale. The gates were shut and men under arms appeared on the fortifications.
As a result of this the people who had caused the trouble accused the generals of spoiling their plans. The Arcadians and Achaeans held meetings of their own, their chief leaden being Callimachus of Parrhasia and Lycon the Achaean. Their arguments were to the effect that it was a disgraceful thing for an Athenian and a Spartan, who had brought no troops into the army, to be in command of Peloponnesians;4 that they did the hard work and other people got the rewards for it, though it was they who had been responsible for the fact that they were still alive; the rest of the army hardly counted (and, in actual fact, more than half the army were Arcadians and Achaeans5); so, they said, if they had any sense, they should all come together, elect their own generals, and, by marching on independently of the rest, try to do themselves some good.
This was the course they decided upon. The Arcadians and Achaeans who were in Chirisophus’s or Xenophon’s command left them and joined up with the rest. They elected ten generals out of their own body and voted that these generals should carry out whatever was approved by a decision of the majority. Thus Chirisophus’s supreme command came to an end six or seven days after he had been appointed to it.
Xenophon’s intention now was to make the journey in their company, as he thought that this would be a safer thing to do than for each person to go on his way separately. Neon, however, persuaded him to go by himself. He had heard from Chirisophus that Cleander, the governor of Byzantium,6 had said that he would come with some triremes to Port Calpe, and so he gave Xenophon this advice with the idea that no one else should share the information but that just they and their soldiers should make the voyage out of the Euxine on these triremes. Chirisophus, who was discouraged by recent events and at the same time had, as a result of them, turned against the army, told Xenophon that he could do as he liked. Xenophon still aimed at leaving the army altogether and sailing away; but when he made a sacrifice to Heracles the Guider with a view to inquiring whether it would be a better and a wiser thing to march with the soldiers who remained there or to leave them altogether, the god made it clear by the appearance of the victims that he should march with them. Thus the army was split into three. The Arcadians and Achaeans, more than four thousand of them and all hoplites, constituted one body. Then there were about fourteen hundred hoplites with Chirisophus and about seven hundred peltasts, the Thracians that Clearchus had; and with Xenophon there were about seventeen hundred hoplites and about three hundred peltasts. Xenophon was the only one who had cavalry, a force of about forty horsemen.
The Arcadians got ships from the people of Heraclea and sailed first, with the idea of falling suddenly upon the Bithynians and getting as much booty as possible. They landed at Port Calpe somewhere about the middle of Thrace. Chirisophus started right away from the city of Heraclea and proceeded on foot through the Heraclean country. When he crossed the border into Thrace he marched along the coast, as he was by that time in bad health. Xenophon secured some ships and landed on the frontier between Thrace and the country belonging to Heraclea. He then marched by an inland route.