Anabasis [92]
and set sail from Harmene with a fair 1 breeze, two days' voyage along the coast. [As they coasted along they came in sight of Jason's beach[1], where, as the story says, the ship Argo came to moorings; and then the mouths of the rivers, first the Thermodon, then the Iris, then the Halys, and next to it the Parthenius.] Coasting past [the latter], they reached Heraclea[2], a Hellenic city and a colony of the Megarians, situated in the territory of the Mariandynians. So they came to achorage off the Acherusian Chersonese, where Heracles[3] is said to have descended to bring up the dog Cerberus, at a point where they still show the marks of his descent, a deep cleft more than two furlongs down. Here the Heracleots sent the Hellenes, as gifts of hospitality, three thousand measures of barley and two thousand jars of wine, twenty beeves and one hundred sheep. Through the flat country here flows the Lycus river, as it is called, about two hundred feet in breadth.
[1] I have left this passage in the text, although it involves, at first sight, a topographical error on the part of whoever wrote it, and Hug and other commentators regard it as spurious. Jason's beach (the modern Yasoun Bouroun) and the three first-named rivers lie between Cotyora and Sinope. Possibly the author, or one of his editors, somewhat loosely inserted a recapitulatory note concerning the scenery of this coasting voyage at this point. "By the way, I ought to have told you that as they coasted along," etc.
[2] One of the most powerful of commercial cities, distinguished as Pontica (whence, in the middle ages, Penteraklia), now Eregli. It was one of the older Greek settlements, and, like Kalchedon (to give that town its proper name), a Megaro-Doric colony. See Kiepert, op. cit. chap. iv. 62.
[3] According to another version of the legend Heracles went down to bring up Cerberus, not here, but at Taenarum.
The soldiers held a meeting, and took counsel about the remainder of the journey: should they make their exit from the Pontus by sea or by land? and Lycon the Achaean got up and said: "I am astonished, sirs, that the generals do not endeavour to provide us more efficiently with provisions. These gifts of hospitality will not afford three days' 4 victuals for the army; nor do I see from what region we are to provide ourselves as we march. My proposal, therefore, is to demand of the Heracleots at least three thousand cyzicenes." Another speaker suggested, "not less than ten thousand. Let us at once, before we break up this meeting, send ambassadors to the city and ascertain their answer to the demand and take counsel accordingly." Thereupon they proceeded to put up as ambassadors, first and foremost Cheirisophus, as he had been chosen general-in-chief; others also named Xenophon.
But both Cheirisophus and Xenophon stoutly declined, maintaining both alike that they could not compel a Hellenic city, actually friendly, to give anything which they did not spontaneously offer. So, since these two appeared to be backward, the soldiers sent Lycon the Achaean, Callimachus the Parrhasian, and Agasias the Stymphalian. These three went and announced the resolutions passed by the army. Lycon, it was said, even went so far as to threaten certain consequences in case they refused to comply. The Heracleots said they would deliberate; and, without more ado, they got together their goods and chattels from their farms and fields outside, and dismantled the market outside and transferred it within, after which the gates were closed, and arms appeared at the battlements of the walls.
At that check, the authors of these tumultuary measures fell to accusing the generals, as if they had marred the proceeding; and the Arcadians and Archaeans banded together, chiefly under the auspiecs of the two ringleaders, Callimachus the Parrhasian and Lycon the Achaean. The language they held was to this effect: It was outrageous that a single Athenian and a Lacedaemonian, who had not contributed a soldier to the expedition,
[1] I have left this passage in the text, although it involves, at first sight, a topographical error on the part of whoever wrote it, and Hug and other commentators regard it as spurious. Jason's beach (the modern Yasoun Bouroun) and the three first-named rivers lie between Cotyora and Sinope. Possibly the author, or one of his editors, somewhat loosely inserted a recapitulatory note concerning the scenery of this coasting voyage at this point. "By the way, I ought to have told you that as they coasted along," etc.
[2] One of the most powerful of commercial cities, distinguished as Pontica (whence, in the middle ages, Penteraklia), now Eregli. It was one of the older Greek settlements, and, like Kalchedon (to give that town its proper name), a Megaro-Doric colony. See Kiepert, op. cit. chap. iv. 62.
[3] According to another version of the legend Heracles went down to bring up Cerberus, not here, but at Taenarum.
The soldiers held a meeting, and took counsel about the remainder of the journey: should they make their exit from the Pontus by sea or by land? and Lycon the Achaean got up and said: "I am astonished, sirs, that the generals do not endeavour to provide us more efficiently with provisions. These gifts of hospitality will not afford three days' 4 victuals for the army; nor do I see from what region we are to provide ourselves as we march. My proposal, therefore, is to demand of the Heracleots at least three thousand cyzicenes." Another speaker suggested, "not less than ten thousand. Let us at once, before we break up this meeting, send ambassadors to the city and ascertain their answer to the demand and take counsel accordingly." Thereupon they proceeded to put up as ambassadors, first and foremost Cheirisophus, as he had been chosen general-in-chief; others also named Xenophon.
But both Cheirisophus and Xenophon stoutly declined, maintaining both alike that they could not compel a Hellenic city, actually friendly, to give anything which they did not spontaneously offer. So, since these two appeared to be backward, the soldiers sent Lycon the Achaean, Callimachus the Parrhasian, and Agasias the Stymphalian. These three went and announced the resolutions passed by the army. Lycon, it was said, even went so far as to threaten certain consequences in case they refused to comply. The Heracleots said they would deliberate; and, without more ado, they got together their goods and chattels from their farms and fields outside, and dismantled the market outside and transferred it within, after which the gates were closed, and arms appeared at the battlements of the walls.
At that check, the authors of these tumultuary measures fell to accusing the generals, as if they had marred the proceeding; and the Arcadians and Archaeans banded together, chiefly under the auspiecs of the two ringleaders, Callimachus the Parrhasian and Lycon the Achaean. The language they held was to this effect: It was outrageous that a single Athenian and a Lacedaemonian, who had not contributed a soldier to the expedition,