3. Of the rivers mentioned only the Parthenius (modern Bartin) is west of Sinope. If this sentence was written by Xenophon (and there is no good reason to think otherwise), his geography was astray – and his diary, for those who believe in one.
4. This Arcadian independence was portentous. Ever since the middle of the sixth century, it had been accepted that Sparta should lead the Arcadians, but in the course of the fifth century Arcadian Mantinea had inspired hostility to Sparta, and the mood of these Arcadians in 400 B.C. foreshadowed the assertion of Arcadian nationalism after the battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. If Xenophon, who showed in his History of Greece what he thought of it all, was writing this passage in the 360s, it must have given him satisfaction to recount how the Arcadians fared on their own and had to be rescued.