nal ambitions and
the kind of charges brought against our common city, and of which you
are as well aware as I am, is to state what you consider to be the best
course: am I to stay where I am, or shall I sail back home, and explain
the position of affairs out here?"

No one ventured to suggest any other course than that he should obey the
authorities, and do what he was sent to do. Callicratidas then went up
to the court of Cyrus to ask for further pay for the sailors, but
the answer he got from Cyrus was that he should wait for two days.
Callicratidas was annoyed at the rebuff: to dance attendance at the
palace gates was little to his taste. In a fit of anger he cried out
at the sorry condition of the Hellenes, thus forced to flatter the
barbarian for the sake of money. "If ever I get back home," he added,
"I will do what in me lies to reconcile the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians." And so he turned and sailed back to Miletus. From
Miletus he sent some triremes to Lacedaemon to get money, and convoking
the public assembly of the Milesians, addressed them thus:--

"Men of Miletus, necessity is laid upon me to obey the rulers at home;
but for yourselves, whose neighbourhood to the barbarians has exposed
you to many evils at their hands, I only ask you to let your zeal in the
war bear some proportion to your former sufferings. You should set
an example to the rest of the allies, and show us how to inflict the
sharpest and swiftest injury on our enemy, whilst we await the return
from Lacedaemon of my envoys with the necessary funds. Since one of the
last acts of Lysander, before he left us, was to hand back to Cyrus the
funds already on the spot, as though we could well dispense with them. I
was thus forced to turn to Cyrus, but all I got from him was a series of
rebuffs; he refused me an audience, and, for my part, I could not induce
myself to hang about his gates like a mendicant. But I give you my word,
men of Miletus, that in return for any assistance which you can render
us while waiting for these aids, I will requite you richly. Only by
God's help let us show these barbarians that we do not need to worship
them, in order to punish our foes."

The speech was effective; many members of the assembly arose, and not
the least eagerly those who were accused of opposing him. These, in some
terror, proposed a vote of money, backed by offers of further private
contributions. Furnished with these sums, and having procured f