Book 5
6.13
For we know that wherever we hold the upper hand, we should be able both to keep ourselves safe and to obtain provisions; but let us once get caught where we are weaker than the enemy, and it is perfectly clear that we shall be in the position of slaves. Upon hearing these words the Sinopeans told them to send ambassadors.
6.14
And they sent Callimachus the Arcadian, Ariston the Athenian, and Samolas the Achaean. These men accordingly set out.
6.15
At this time, as Xenophon’s eyes rested upon a great body of Greek hoplites, and likewise upon a great body of peltasts, bowmen, slingers, and horsemen also, all of them now exceedingly efficient through constant service and all there in Pontus,Xenophon uses the term Πόντος both of the Euxine Sea and of the region along its south-eastern coast. See below. where so large a force could not have been gathered by any slight outlay of money, it seemed to him that it was a fine thing to gain additional territory and power for Greece by founding a city.
6.16
It would become a great city, he thought, as he reckoned up their own numbers and the peoples who dwelt around the Euxine. And with a view to this project, before speaking about it to any of the soldiers, he offered sacrifices, summoning for that purpose Silanus the Ambraciot, who had been the soothsayer of Cyrus.
6.17
Silanus, however, fearing that this thing might come to pass and that the army might settle down somewhere, carried forth to the troops a report that Xenophon wanted them to settle down, so that he could found a city and win for himself a name and power.
6.18
As for Silanus, his own desire was to reach Greece as quickly as possible; for the three thousand darics, which he had received from Cyrus at the time when he sacrificed for him and had told the truth about the ten days,See Xen. Anab. 1.7.18. he had brought safely through.
