method of procedure which you advise, and thus the matter stands.  If there are sure to be vessels enough to make it impossible for a single man to be left behind, go by sea we will; but if part of us are to be left while part go by sea, we will not set foot on board the vessels.  One fact we plainly recognise, strength is everything to us.  So long as we have the mastery, we shall be able to protect ourselves and get provisions; but if we are once caught at the mercy of our foes, it is plain, we shall be reduced to slavery.”  On hearing this the ambassadors bade them send an embassy, which they did, to wit, Callimachus the Arcadian, and Ariston the Athenian, and Samolas the Achaean.

So these set off, but meanwhile a thought shaped itself in the mind of Xenophon, as there before his eyes lay that vast army of Hellene hoplites, and that other array of peltasts, archers, and slingers, with cavalry to boot, and all in a state of thorough efficiency from long practice, hardened veterans, and all collected in Pontus, where to raise so large a force would cost a mint of money.  Then the idea dawned upon him:  how noble an opportunity to acquire new territory and 15 power for Hellas, by the founding of a colony—­a city of no mean size, moreover, said he to himself, as he reckoned up their own numbers—­and besides themselves a population planted on the shores of Pontus.  Thereupon he summoned Silanus the Ambraciot, the soothsayer of Cyrus above mentioned, and before breathing a syllable to any of the soldiers, he consulted the victims by sacrifice.

But Silanus, in apprehension lest these ideas might embody themselves, and the army be permanently halted at some point or other, set a tale going among the men, to the effect that Xenophon was minded to detain the army and found a city in order to win himself a name and acquire power, Silanus himself being minded to reach Hellas with all possible speed, for the simple reason that he had still got the three thousand darics presented to him by Cyrus on the occasion of the sacrifice when he hit the truth so happily about the ten days.  Silanus’s story was variously received, some few of the soldiers thinking it would be an excellent thing to stay in that country; but the majority were strongly averse.  The next incident was that Timasion the Dardanian, with Thorax the Boeotian, addressed themselves to some Heracleot and Sinopean traders who had come to Cotyora, and told them that if they did not find means to furnish the army with pay sufficient to keep them in provisions on the homeward voyage, all that great force would most likely settle down permanently in Pontus.  “Xenophon has a pet idea,” they continued, “which he urges upon us.  We are to wait until the ships come, and then we are suddenly to turn round to the army and say:  ’Soldiers, we now see the straits we are in, unable to keep ourselves in provisions on the return voyage, or to make our friends at home a little present at the end of our journey.  But if you like to select some place on the inhabited seaboard of the Black Sea which may take your fancy and there put in, this is open to you to do.  Those who like to go home, go; those who care to stay here, stay.  You have got 20 vessels now, so that you can make a sudden pounce upon any point you choose.’”