A third army was being collected for him in the Chersonese, over against Abydos, the origin of which was as follows:  There was a Lacedaemonian exile, named Clearchus, with whom Cyrus had become associated.  Cyrus admired the man, and made him a present of ten thousand darics[2].  Clearchus took the gold, and with the money raised 9 an army, and using the Chersonese as his base of operations, set to work to fight the Thracians north of the Hellespont, in the interests of the Hellenes, and with such happy result that the Hellespontine cities, of their own accord, were eager to contribute funds for the support of his troops.  In this way, again, an armament was being secretly maintained for Cyrus.

[2] A Persian gold coin = 125.55 grains of gold.

Then there was the Thessalian Aristippus, Cyrus’s friend[3], who, under pressure of the rival political party at home, had come to Cyrus and asked him for pay for two thousand mercenaries, to be continued for three months, which would enable him, he said, to gain the upper hand of his antagonists.  Cyrus replied by presenting him with six months’ pay for four thousand mercenaries—­only stipulating that Aristippus should not come to terms with his antagonists without final consultation with himself.  In this way he secured to himself the secret maintenance of a fourth armament.

[3] Lit. “guest-friend.”  Aristippus was, as we learn from the “Meno”
    of Plato, a native of Larisa, of the family of the Aleuadae, and a
    pupil of Gorgias.  He was also a lover of Menon, whom he appears to
    have sent on this expedition instead of himself.

Further, he bade Proxenus, a Boeotian, who was another friend, get together as many men as possible, and join him in an expedition which he meditated against the Pisidians[4], who were causing annoyance to his territory.  Similarly two other friends, Sophaenetus the Stymphalian[5], and Socrates the Achaean, had orders to get together as many men as possible and come to him, since he was on the point of opening a campaign, along with Milesian exiles, against Tissaphernes.  These orders were duly carried out by the officers in question.

[4] Lit. “into the country of the Pisidians.”

[5] Of Stymphalus in Arcadia.

II

But when the right moment seemed to him to have come, at which he 1 should begin his march into the interior, the pretext which he put forward was his desire to expel the Pisidians utterly out of the country; and he began collecting both his Asiatic and his Hellenic armaments, avowedly against that people.  From Sardis in each direction his orders sped:  to Clearchus, to join him there with the whole of his army; to Aristippus, to come to terms with those at home, and to despatch to him the troops in his employ; to Xenias the Arcadian, who was acting as general-in-chief of the foreign troops in the cities, to present himself