PHARNABAZUS now became alarmed at the possibility of the army marching into his province, and so he sent to the admiral Anaxibius, who was at Byzantium, begging him to transport the army across from Asia, and promising to give him all the necessary help in doing so. Anaxibius summoned the generals and captains to Byzantium and promised that, if they crossed the straits, the soldiers would have a chance of earning money. The rest of the officers said that they would discuss the proposal and then report back, but Xenophon told him that he was going to leave the army at once and that he wanted to sail away. Anaxibius, however, urged him to cross over with the others and then leave, and Xenophon agreed to do this.
Meanwhile Seuthes,1 the Thracian, sent Medosades to Xenophon with a message asking him to join with him in trying to get the army to cross the straits. He said that if Xenophon helped him in this, he would not be sorry for it. Xenophon’s reply was: “The army will cross the straits in any case. As far as this is concerned there is no need to pay anything to me or anybody else. Once it has crossed, I am going to leave it; so Seuthes should get in touch with those who are staying and whom he thinks to be reliable people to help him.’
After this the whole army crossed to Byzantium.2 Anaxibius, however, failed to produce any pay for them. Instead he had it proclaimed that the soldiers were to take their arms and baggage and march out of the city: he was going to send them home and at the same time count their numbers. The soldiers were angry at this announcement, because they had no money to buy themselves provisions for their journey, and they did their packing in an unwilling way.
Xenophon had become a friend of Cleander, the Spartan governor, and, as he intended to sail away at once, he went to say goodbye to him. Cleander, however, said to him: ‘Don’t go away. If you do, you will be under suspicion. Even now some people are saying that it is your fault that the army is not moving out of here fast.’
Xenophon replied: ‘I am not responsible for that. It is the soldiers themselves, who are short of provisions and for that reason are not keen on marching out.’
‘All the same,’ said Cleander, ‘I advise you to go out of the city as though you are going to accompany the army. Once the army is outside, then you can leave them.’
‘Very well,’ Xenophon said, ‘we will go to Anaxibius and get this settled.’
So they went to him and told him of their conversation. Anaxibius said that Xenophon should act as had been suggested and that the army were to pack up their equipment and march out as quickly as possible. He also gave notice that whoever was not on the parade for taking the numbers would be laying himself open to blame.
After this they marched out of the city, the generals first and the rest after. They had all marched right outside, except for a few, and Eteonicus had taken up his position by the gates, so that, when they were all outside, he could shut the gates and put the bar across. At this point Anaxibius called for the generals and captains and spoke to them as follows: ‘You can get your supplies from the Thracian villages. There is a lot of barley and wheat and other food to be found there. When you have got your supplies, march on the Chersonese, where Cyniscus will give you your pay.’
Some of the soldiers heard this, or else one of the captains told the army about it. Meanwhile the generals were discussing the question whether Seuthes was going to be a friend or a foe, and whether they would have to march over the Holy Mountain or make a detour through central Thrace. While these conversations were going on, the soldiers seized hold of their arms and ran back to the gates, so as to get back inside the wall. When Eteonicus and his men saw the hoplites charging down, they shut the gates and put the bar across. The soldiers hammered at the gates, saying that they were being treated extremely unfairly, and were being pushed outside into enemy country, and they threatened to break the gates down unless the people inside opened them voluntarily. Some ran down to the sea and got into the city over the breakwater running out from the wall; some of the soldiers, who were still inside, when they saw what was happening at the gates hacked through the bar with axes and threw the gates open; and then they all rushed in.
When Xenophon saw what was going on, fearing that the army might start looting and that irreparable damage might be done both to the city and to the interests of himself and the soldiers, he ran forward and rushed inside the gates with the crowd. The people of Byzantium, seeing the army forcing its way in, fled out of the market-place. Some took refuge in their ships and some in their houses; those who happened to be indoors ran out into the streets; some dragged down the triremes into the water with the idea of getting away safe on them; and they all thought they were lost men, as though the city had been captured by the enemy. Eteonicus fled to the citadel. Anaxibius ran down to the sea and sailed round to the citadel too in a fishing boat. He then immediately sent for troops from the garrison of Chalcedon, as those he had in the citadel did not seem to be capable of holding out against the Greeks.
As soon as the soldiers saw Xenophon, a lot of them rushed up to him and said: ‘Now is your chance, Xenophon, to become a great man. You have a city, you have triremes, you have money, you have an army in us. Now, if you wanted to, you could do good to us and we could make you great.’
Xenophon replied : ‘You are speaking sense, and that is what I shall do. If this is what you want, fall in at once in your proper formations.’ He said this with the intention of calming them down, and not only gave the order himself but told the others to pass on the command to fall in. They then began to arrange themselves in their detachments, and soon the hoplites were standing in eight ranks and the peltasts had run round to their positions on the two wings. The place where they were was called the Thracian Square and was as good a place as one could want for a parade, since it was clear of houses and the ground was level.
When the men had grounded arms and had calmed down a little, Xenophon called the army together and spoke as follows: ‘I am not surprised, soldiers, at your being angry and at your thinking that you have been deceived and treated outrageously. If, however, we give way to our feelings, and make the Spartans who are here pay for their deception, and sack the city which is in no way responsible, then we must consider what comes next. We shall be at war, declared by ourselves, with the Spartans and their allies. And from what we have seen or can recall of recent history we can imagine what sort of a war that would be. When we Athenians went to war with Sparta and her allies, we had at least three hundred triremes, either at sea or in the docks; we had a large reserve of money in the Acropolis, and a yearly revenue from taxation at home and abroad amounting to at least a thousand talents. We were masters of all the islands, and we held many cities both in Asia and Europe, including this city of Byzantium where we are at present; and yet we were worn down by the war to the fate which you all know about. What do you think, then, our fate would be now, when the Spartans not only have all their original-allies still available, but have been joined by the Athenians and all who then used to be allies of Athens, when Tissaphernes and all the other natives on the coast are our enemies, and our bitterest enemy of all is the King of Persia against whom we marched with the intention of depriving him of his empire and killing him, if we could? With all this together on one side, can anyone be so mad as to think that we should have a chance of winning? For heaven’s sake let us not go off our heads and die in dishonour, fighting against our own native cities and our own friends and kinsmen, all of whom are in the cities that would be making war on us. And they would be quite right in making war on us if, although with all the power in our hands we never wanted to get control of à foreign city, now we plunder the first Greek city to which we have come. I pray heaven that I may be buried ten thousand fathoms underground before I see such a thing done by you. My advice to you is that, since you are Greeks yourselves, you should try to get justice by obeying the leaders of the Greeks. If you are unsuccessful in this, we must put up with the injustice and at least not cut ourselves off from Greece. What we should do now, I think, is to send envoys to Anaxibius with this message: “We have entered the city with no intention of taking violent action. What we want is to obtain some practical help from you. If we receive none, we shall at least make it clear that we are leaving the city because we obey your orders, and not because of a trick.’”
This proposal was carried and they sent Hieronymus of Elis to deliver the message, with Eurylochus the Arcadian and Philesius the Achaean to accompany him. These men then went away to carry out their instructions.
But while the soldiers were still sitting down a Theban called Coiratadas came up to them. He was not an exile from Greece, but travelled about on the look-out for a job as a general,3 and advertising his abilities in that capacity if any city or nation needed one. On this occasion he came forward and said he was prepared to lead the army into the part of Thrace known as the Delta, where they would get a lot of booty; and he would supply them with food and drink to their heart’s content while they were on their way there. While the soldiers were listening to this proposal the reply from Anaxibius was brought back. He said that, if they obeyed, his orders, they would not be sorry for it; he would send in a report of the whole affair to his home government, and would like personally to do them what service he could.
After this the soldiers took Coiratadas as their general and marched out of the city walls. Coiratadas arranged that he would come back to the army on the following day with victims for sacrifice and a soothsayer, and also food and drink for the troops. As soon as they had left the city Anaxibius had the gates shut and issued a proclamation that any soldier found inside the walls would be sold as a slave. The next day Coiratadas arrived with the animals for a sacrifice and the soothsayer. In his company there were twenty men carrying barley meal, twenty more carrying wine and three carrying olives. One man had as big a load of garlic as could be carried, and another man an equal weight of onions. Coiratadas had these set out ready for distribution, and then made his sacrifice.
Xenophon asked Cleander to come and see him, and to arrange for him to come inside the city and take ship from Byzantium. When Cleander arrived he said: ‘Here I am, after having had a lot of trouble in arranging matters. Anaxibius says that he does not like the idea of the soldiers being outside the wall and Xenophon inside. The Byzantines too, he says, are split up into a number of hostile camps. All the same he said you could come in, if you are prepared to sail in his company.’
Xenophon then said goodbye to the soldiers and went inside the city with Cleander.
Meanwhile Coiratadas failed to secure favourable omens at his sacrifice on the first day, and did not distribute any food to the army. On the second day the victims were put in position by the altar and Coiratadas had put a garland on his head all ready for the sacrifice, when Timasion the Dardanian and Neon of Asine and Cleanor of Orchomenus came up to him and told him not to sacrifice, as he was not going to lead the army unless he produced supplies. Coiratadas then ordered the food to be distributed, but what he had was nothing like enough to provide one day’s rations for each man. He therefore went off, taking the animals of sacrifice with him and giving up the idea of holding the command.