Complete Works of Xenophon (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (32 page)

By the time it was midday he was already upon the heights, and catching sight of the villages below he came riding up to the hoplites and said: “Now I am going to let the horsemen charge down to the plain on the run, and to send the peltasts against the villages. Do you, then, follow as fast as you can, so that if any resistance is offered, you may meet it.”
[45]
Upon hearing these words Xenophon dismounted from his horse. And Seuthes asked: “Why do you dismount, for there is need of haste?” “I know,” Xenophon replied, “that I am not the only one you need; and the hoplites will run faster and more cheerfully if I also am on foot leading the way.”
[46]
After this Seuthes went off, and with him Timasion at the head of about forty horsemen of the Greeks. Then Xenophon gave orders that the active men up to thirty years of age should move up from their several companies to the front. So he himself ran along with them, while Cleanor led the rest.
[47]
When they had reached the villages, Seuthes with about thirty horsemen rode up to him and said: “Here’s the very thing, Xenophon, that you were saying; these fellows are caught, but unhappily my horsemen have gone off unsupported, scattering in their pursuit, and I fear that the enemy may get together somewhere in a body and work some harm. On the other hand, some of us also must remain in the villages, for they are full of people.”
[48]
“Well,” Xenophon replied, “I myself with the troops I have will seize the heights, and do you direct Cleanor to extend his line through the plain alongside the villages.” When they had done these things, there were gathered together captives to the number of a thousand, two thousand cattle, and ten thousand smaller animals besides. Then they bivouacked where they were.

4.
On the following day, after Seuthes had burned up the villages completely and left not a single house, in order that he might inspire the rest of his enemies also with fear of the sort of fate they would suffer if they did not yield him obedience, he went back again.
[2]
Then he dispatched Heracleides to Perinthus to sell the booty, so that he might get money to pay the soldiers with; while he himself and the Greeks encamped on the plain of the Thynians, the inhabitants abandoning their homes and fleeing to the mountains.
[3]
There was deep snow on the plain, and it was so cold that the water which they carried in for dinner and the wine in the jars would freeze, and many of the Greeks had their noses and ears frost-bitten.
[4]
Then it became clear why the Thracians wear fox-skin caps on their heads and over their ears, and tunics not merely about their chests, but also round their thighs, and why, when on horseback, they wear long cloaks reaching to their feet instead of mantles.
[5]
And now Seuthes allowed some of his captives to go off to the mountains with word that if the Thynians did not come down to the plain to live and did not yield him obedience, he would burn up their villages also and their corn, and they would perish with hunger. Thereupon the women, children, and older men did come down, but the younger men bivouacked in the villages under the mountain.
[6]
And Seuthes, upon learning of this, ordered Xenophon to take the youngest of the hoplites and follow him. So they arose during the night, and at daybreak reached the villages. Now most of the villagers made their escape, for the mountain was close at hand; but all that he did capture, Seuthes shot down unsparingly.
[7]

There was a certain Episthenes of Olynthus who was a lover of boys, and upon seeing a handsome boy, just in the bloom of youth and carrying a light shield, on the point of being put to death, he ran up to Xenophon and besought him to come to the rescue of a handsome lad.
[8]
So Xenophon went to Seuthes and begged him not to kill the boy, telling him of Episthenes’ turn of mind, how he had once assembled a battalion with an eye to nothing else save the question whether a man was handsome, and that with this battalion he proved himself a brave man.
[9]
And Seuthes asked: “Would you even be willing, Episthenes, to die for this boy’s sake?” Then Episthenes stretched out his neck and said, “Strike, if the lad bids you and will be grateful.”
[10]
Seuthes asked the boy whether he should strike Episthenes in his stead. The boy forbade it, and besought him not to slay either. Thereupon Episthenes threw his arms around the boy and said: “It is time, Seuthes, for you to fight it out with me for this boy; for I shall not give him up.”
[11]
And Seuthes laughed and let the matter go. He resolved, however, to establish a camp where they were, in order that the people on the mountain should not be supplied with food from these villages, either. So he himself went quietly down the mountain and encamped upon the plain, while Xenophon with his picked men took quarters in the uppermost village below the summit and the rest of the Greeks close by, among the so-called “mountain” Thracians.
[12]

Not many days had passed after this when the Thracians on the mountain came down and entered into negotiations with Seuthes in regard to a truce and hostages. And Xenophon came and told Seuthes that his men were in bad quarters and the enemy were close at hand; he would be better pleased, he said, to bivouac in the open in a strong position than to be in the houses and run the risk of being destroyed. But Seuthes bade him have no fear and showed him hostages that had come from the enemy.
[13]
Meanwhile some of the people on the mountain came down and actually requested Xenophon himself to help them obtain the truce. He agreed to do so, told them to have no fear, and gave them his word that they would suffer no harm if they were obedient to Seuthes. But they, as it proved, were talking about this matter merely in order to spy out the situation.
[14]

All this happened during the day, but in the night that followed the Thynians issued from the mountain and made an attack. And the master of each separate house acted as guide to that house; for in the darkness it would have been difficult to find the houses in these villages in any other way; for each house was surrounded by a paling, made of great stakes, to keep in the cattle.
[15]
When they had reached the doors of a particular house, some would throw in javelins, others would lay on with their clubs, which they carried, so it was said, to knock off the heads of hostile spears, and still others would be setting the house on fire, meanwhile calling Xenophon by name and bidding him come out and be killed, or else, they said, he would be burned up then and there.
[16]
And now fire was already showing through the roof, and Xenophon and his men inside the house had equipped themselves with breastplates and were furnished with shields and swords and helmets, when Silanus the Macistian, a lad of about eighteen years, gave a signal with the trumpet; and on the instant they leaped forth with swords drawn, and so did the Greeks from the other houses.
[17]
Then the Thracians took to flight, swinging their shields around behind them, as was their custom; and some of them who tried to jump over the palings were captured hanging in the air, with their shields caught in the stakes, while others missed the ways that led out and were killed; and the Greeks continued the pursuit till they were outside the village.
[18]
Some of the Thynians, however, turned about in the darkness and hurled javelins at men who were running along past a burning house, throwing out of the darkness toward the light; and they wounded Hieronymus the Epitalian, a captain, and Theogenes the Locrian, also a captain; no one, however, was killed, but some men had clothes and baggage burned up.
[19]
Meanwhile, Seuthes came to their aid with seven horsemen of his front line and his Thracian trumpeter. And from the instant he learned of the trouble, through all the time that he was hurrying to the rescue, every moment his horn was kept sounding; the result was, that this also helped to inspire fear in the enemy. When he did arrive, he clasped their hands and said that he had supposed he should find many of them slain.
[20]

After this Xenophon asked Seuthes to give over the hostages to him and to join him on an expedition to the mountain, if he so pleased; otherwise, to let him go by himself.
[21]
On the next day, accordingly, Seuthes gave over the hostages — men already elderly and the most powerful, so it was said, of the mountaineers — and came himself with his troops. Now by this time Seuthes had a force quite three times as large as before; for many of the Odrysians, hearing what success Seuthes was enjoying, came down from the upper country to take service with him.
[22]
And when the Thynians saw from their mountain masses of hoplites, masses of peltasts, and troops of horsemen, they descended and besought him to grant them a truce, agreeing to do anything and everything and urging him to receive pledges.
[23]
Thereupon Seuthes summoned Xenophon, disclosed to him the proposals they were making, and said that he should not grant them a truce if Xenophon wanted to punish them for their attack.
[24]
And Xenophon said: “Why, for my part I think I have abundant satisfaction as it is, if these people are to be slaves instead of free men.” He added, however, that he advised Seuthes to take as hostages in the future those who were most capable of doing harm and to leave the old men at home. Thus it was that all the people in this region surrendered.

5.
And now they crossed over to the country of the Thracians above Byzantium, in the so-called Delta; this was beyond the domain of Maesades, being the land of Teres the Odrysian.
[2]
There Heracleides presented himself, with the proceeds from the sale of the booty. And Seuthes, leading forth three pairs of mules — for there were no more than three — and the yokes of oxen besides, called Xenophon and bade him take for himself and then distribute the rest among the generals and captains.
[3]
Xenophon replied: “Well, for my part I am content to get something at a later time; give rather to these generals and captains who have followed with me.”
[4]
So one of the mule teams was given to Timasion the Dardanian, one to Cleanor the Orchomenian, and one to Phryniscus the Achaean, while the yokes of oxen were distributed among the captains. Seuthes also paid over the wages of the troops, but for twenty days only of the month that had now passed; for Heracleides said that he had not obtained any more than that from his sale.
[5]
Xenophon was angered at this, and said to him with an oath: “It seems to me, Heracleides, that you are not caring for Seuthes’ interest as you should; for if you were, you would have brought back with you our wages in full, even if you had to borrow something, in case you could not do it in any other way, or to sell your own clothes.”
[6]

This made Heracleides not only angry, but fearful that he might be banished from the favour of Seuthes, and from that day he slandered Xenophon before Seuthes to the best of his ability.
[7]
As for the soldiers, they held Xenophon to blame for their not having received their pay; and Seuthes, on the other hand, was angry with him because he was insistent in demanding their pay for the soldiers.
[8]
Hitherto, he had continually been mentioning the fact that upon his return to the coast he was going to give Xenophon Bisanthe and Ganos and Neonteichos, but from this time he did not allude to a single one of these places again. For Heracleides had put in this slanderous suggestion with the rest, that it was not safe to be giving over fortresses to a man who had a force of troops.
[9]

Hereupon Xenophon began to consider what it was best to do about continuing the march still farther inland; Heracleides, on the other hand, took the rest of the generals in to visit Seuthes and bade them say that they could lead the army just as well as Xenophon, while at the same time he promised them that within a few days they would have their pay in full for two months and urged them to continue the campaign with Seuthes.
[10]
And Timasion said: “Well, so far as I am concerned, I shall undertake no campaign without Xenophon even if there is going to be five months’ pay.” And Phryniscus and Cleanor agreed with Timasion.
[11]
Thereupon Seuthes fell to abusing Heracleides because he had not invited Xenophon in also. The upshot of this was, that they invited Xenophon by himself. And he, comprehending the rascality of Heracleides, in wanting to make him an object of suspicion to the other generals, brought with him when he came all the generals and the captains.
[12]
When all of them had been prevailed upon, they continued the march with Seuthes, and, keeping the Pontus upon the right through the country of the millet-eating Thracians, as they are called, arrived at Salmydessus. Here many vessels sailing to the Pontus run aground and are wrecked; for there are shoals that extend far and wide.
[13]
And the Thracians who dwell on this coast have boundary stones set up and each group of them plunder the ships that are wrecked within their own limits; but in earlier days, before they fixed the boundaries, it was said that in the course of their plundering many of them used to be killed by one another.
[14]
Here there were found great numbers of beds and boxes, quantities of written books, and an abundance of all the other articles that shipowners carry in wooden chests. After subduing the country in this neighbourhood they set out upon their return.
[15]
By that time Seuthes had an army larger than the Greek army; for more and still more of the Odrysians had come down from the interior, and the peoples that from time to time were reduced to obedience would join in the campaign. And they went into camp on the plain above Selymbria, at a distance of about thirty stadia from the coast.
[16]
As for pay, there was none to be seen as yet; and not only did the soldiers entertain very hard feelings toward Xenophon, but Seuthes no longer felt kindly toward him, and whenever Xenophon came and wanted to have a meeting with him, it would straightway be found that he had engagements in abundance.