After him Agasias got up, and said, “I swear to you, sirs, by the gods and goddesses, verily and indeed, neither Xenophon nor any one else among you bade me rescue the man.  I saw an honest man—­one of my own company—­being taken up by Dexippus, the man who betrayed you, as you know full well.  That I could not endure; I rescued him, I admit the fact.  Do not you deliver me up.  I will surrender myself, as Xenophon suggests, to Cleander to pass what verdict on me he thinks right.  Do not, for the sake of such a matter, make foes of the Lacedaemonians; rather God grant that[1] each of you may safely reach the goal of his desire.  Only do you choose from among yourselves and send with me to Cleander those who, in case of any omission on my part, may by their words and acts supply what is lacking.”  Thereupon the army granted him to choose for himself whom he would have go with him and to go; and he at once chose the generals.  After this they all set off to Cleander—­Agasias and the generals and the man who had been rescued by Agasias—­and the generals spoke as follows:  “The army has sent us to you, Cleander, and this is their bidding:  ’If you have fault to find with all, they say, you ought to pass sentence on all, and do with them what seems best; or if the charge is against one man or two, or possibly several, what they expect of these people is to surrender themselves to you for judgement.’  Accordingly, if you lay anything to the charge of us generals, here we stand at your bar.  Or do you impute the fault to some one not here? tell us whom.  Short of flying in the face of our authority, there is no one who will absent himself.”

[1] Reading with the best MSS., {sozoisthe}.  Agasias ends his sentence
    with a prayer.  Al. {sozesthe}, “act so that each,” etc.

At this point Agasias stepped forward and said:  “It was I, Cleander, 21 who rescued the man before you yonder from Dexippus, when the latter was carrying him off, and it was I who gave the order to strike Dexippus.  My plea is that I know the prisoner to be an honest man.  As to Dexippus, I know that he was chosen by the army to command a fifty-oared galley, which we had obtained by request from the men of Trapezus for the express purpose of collecting vessels to carry us safely home.  But this same Dexippus betrayed his fellow-soldiers, with whom he had been delivered from so many perils, and made off into hiding like a runaway slave, whereby we have robbed the Trapezuntines of their frigate, and must needs appear as knaves in their eyes for this man’s sake.  As to ourselves, as far as he could, he has ruined us; for, like the rest of us, he had heard how all but impossible it was for us to retreat by foot across the rivers and to reach Hellas in safety.  That is the stamp of man whom I robbed of his prey.  Now, had it been you yourself who carried him off, or one of your emissaries, or indeed any one short of a runaway from ourselves, be sure that I should have acted far otherwise.  Be assured that if you put me to death at this time you are sacrificing a good, honest man for the sake of a coward and a scamp.”