h our arms, than without
them." Phalinus, in retiring, said that the King proclaimed a truce so
long as they remained in their present position--but war, if they moved,
either onward or backward. And to this Klearchus acceded, without
declaring which he intended to do.

Shortly after the departure of Phalinus, the envoys despatched to Ariaeus
returned; communicating his reply that the Persian grandees would never
tolerate any pretensions on his part to the crown, and that he intended
to depart early the next morning on his return; if the Greeks wished to
accompany him, they must join him during the night. In the evening,
Klearchus, convening the generals and the captains, acquainted them that
the morning sacrifice had been of a nature to forbid their marching
against the King--a prohibition, of which he now understood the reason,
from having since learnt that the King was on the other side of the
Tigris, and therefore out of their reach--but that it was favorable for
rejoining Ariaeus. He gave directions accordingly for a night-march back
along the Euphrates, to the station where they had passed the last night
but one prior to the battle. The other Grecian generals, without any
formal choice of Klearchus as chief, tacitly acquiesced in his orders,
from a sense of his superior decision and experience, in an emergency
when no one knew what to propose. The night-march was successfully
accomplished, so that they joined Ariaeus at the preceding station about
midnight; not without the alarming symptom, however, that Miltokythes
the Thracian deserted to the King at the head of 340 of his countrymen,
partly horse, partly foot.

The first proceeding of the Grecian generals was to exchange solemn
oaths of reciprocal fidelity and fraternity with Ariaeus. According to an
ancient and impressive practice, a bull, a wolf, a boar, and a ram, were
all slain, and their blood allowed to run into the hollow of a shield;
in which the Greek generals dipped a sword, and Ariaeus, with his chief
companions, a spear. The latter, besides the promise of alliance,
engaged also to guide the Greeks in good faith down to the Asiatic
coast. Klearchus immediately began to ask what route he proposed to
take; whether to return by that along which they had come up, or by any
other. To this Ariaeus replied, that the road along which they had
marched was impracticable for retreat, from the utter want of
provisions through seventeen days of desert; but that