n they were remonstrating with the generals on
what had occurred; exposing these magistrates to the utmost peril, and
putting the generals themselves to ignominy. "If such are to be our
proceedings (continued Xenophon), look you well into what condition the
army will fall. You, the aggregate body, will no longer be the sovereign
authority to make war or peace with whom you please; each individual
among you will conduct the army against any point which he may choose.
And even if men should come to you as envoys, either for peace or for
other purposes, they may be slain by any single enemy; so that you will
be debarred from all public communications whatever. Next, those whom
your universal suffrage shall have chosen commanders, will have no
authority; while any self-elected general who chooses to give the word,
Cast, Cast (_i.e._ darts or stones), may put to death without trial
either officer or soldier as it suits him; that is, if he finds you
ready to obey him, as it happened near Kerasus. Look now what these
self-elected leaders have done for you. The magistrate of Kerasus, if he
was really guilty of wrong towards you, has been enabled to escape with
impunity; if he was innocent, he has been obliged to run away from you,
as the only means of avoiding death without pretence of trial. Those who
stoned the heralds to death have brought matters to such a pass, that
you alone, of all Greeks, cannot enter the town of Kerasus in safety,
unless in commanding force; and that we cannot even send in a herald to
take up our dead (Klearetus and those who were slain in the attack on
the Kerasuntine village) for burial; though at first those who had slain
them in self-defence were anxious to give up the bodies to us. For who
will take the risk of going in as herald, from those who have set the
example of putting heralds to death? We generals were obliged to entreat
the Kerasuntines to bury the bodies for us."

Continuing in this emphatic protest against the recent disorders and
outrages, Xenophon at length succeeded in impressing his own sentiment,
heartily and unanimously, upon the soldiers. They passed a vote that the
ringleaders of the mutiny at Kerasus should be punished; that if any one
was guilty of similar outrages in future, he should be put upon his
trial by the generals, before the captains as judges, and if condemned
by them, put to death; and that trial should be had before the same
persons, for any other wrong committed