THEY then crossed over to the Thracians above Byzantium in the part called ‘the Delta’. This was no longer the territory of Maesades, but had belonged to Teres, the son of Odryses. Here Heraclides arrived with what he had got from selling the booty. Seuthes produced three pairs of mules (which were all there were) and some yokes of oxen, and then sent for Xeno-phon. He asked him to accept these and portion out the rest among the generals and captains. Xenophon’s answer was, ‘Speaking for myself, I shall be quite satisfied to take something next time. I advise you to give these to the generals and captains who have served with me.’
So Timasion the Dardanian got one of the pairs of mules, and Cleanor of Orchomenus and Phryniscus the Achaean got the other two pairs. The yokes of oxen were shared out among the captains. The month had now expired, but Seuthes only gave the soldiers twenty days’ pay, as Heraclides said that this was all he had been able to sell of the booty. Xenophon was angry at this and spoke seriously about it to Heraclides. ‘In my opinion,’ he said, ‘you are not looking after Seuthes as you should. If you were doing so, you would have come back with the full pay, even if you had had to borrow the money, and, if you couldn’t do it any other way, you would have sold the shirt off your back.’
This made Heraclides angry and at the same time afraid that he might lose the confidence of Seuthes, and so, from that day onward, he did all he could to produce ill feeling on the part of Seuthes towards Xenophon. The soldiers blamed Xenophon for not getting their pay, and Seuthes became unfriendly to him because he was constantly demanding the soldiers’ pay from him. Up till then he had been always telling him that, when they got to the sea, he would give him Bisanthe and Ganus and the New Fort, but now he no longer referred to these places. This was the result of some more insinuations from Heraclides, who said that it was not safe to give fortified positions to a man with an army behind him.
Xenophon therefore began to wonder what he ought to do with regard to the projected march even further into the interior. Heradides kept on bringing the other generals before Seuthes and telling them to say that they could lead the army just as well as Xenophon. He promised that in a few days they should have two months’ full pay, and urged them on to join in the march with Seuthes. Timasion said: ‘As far as I am concerned, I would not serve without Xenophon, even if I was going to get five months’ pay,’ and Phryniscus and Cleanor agreed with him.
Seuthes then reproached Heraclides for not calling in Xenophon at the same time, and the next dung was that they summoned Xenophon by himself. Xenophon, however, saw what Heraclides’s game was, namely, that he wanted to make him unpopular with the other generals, and so he took with him to the interview all the other generals and the captains as well. The whole lot of them were persuaded by what Seuthes said, and they marched out with him to Salmydessus, keeping the Euxine on their right, and going through the country of the Thracians who are called the ‘Melinophagi’. In this part great numbers of ships sailing into the Euxine get stranded and wrecked since there are sand-banks stretching far out to sea. The Thracians who live here put up pillars to mark their own sectors of the coast, and each takes the plunder from the wrecks on his own bit of ground. They used to say that in the past, before they put up the boundary marks, great numbers of them killed each other fighting for the plunder. Round here were found numbers of couches, boxes, written books and a lot of other things of the sort that sea-captains carry in their wooden chests.7
They subdued the people in this district and then marched back again. By this time Seuthes had an army of his own bigger than the Greek army, as still more of the Odrysae had come down to him in great numbers, and other tribes kept joining bis army directly they submitted to him. They camped about three miles from the sea in a plain above Selymbria. There was still no sign of pay, and the soldiers were extremely angry with Xenophon about it. Seuthes, too, was no longer on friendly terms with him, and whenever he went to him with the intention of speaking with him, there were now always various excuses that he was busy.