he point of departure, and therefore would not stay
to earn it. The shortcomings of Seuthes were now made up with immense
interest, so that Xenophon became better off than any man in the army;
though he himself slurs over the magnitude of the present, by
representing it as a delicate compliment to restore to him a favorite
horse.

Thus gratefully and instantaneously did Zeus the Gracious respond to the
sacrifice which Xenophon, after a long omission, had been admonished by
Eukleides to offer. And doubtless Xenophon was more than ever confirmed
in the belief, which manifests itself throughout all his writings, that
sacrifice not only indicates, by the interior aspect of the immolated
victims, the tenor of coming events--but also, according as it is
rendered to the right god and at the right season, determines his will,
and therefore the course of events, for dispensations favorable or
unfavorable.

But the favors of Zeus the Gracious, though begun, were not yet ended.
Xenophon conducted the army through the Troad,[113] and across Mount
Ida, to Antandrus; from thence along the coast of Lydia, through the
plain of Thebe and the town Adramyttium, leaving Atarneus on the right
hand, to Pergamus[114] in Mysia; a hill town overhanging the river and
plain of Kaikus. This district was occupied by the descendants of the
Eretrian[115] Gongylus, who, having been banished, for embracing the
cause of the Persians when Xerxes invaded Greece, had been rewarded
(like the Spartan king Demaratus) with this sort of principality under
the Persian empire. His descendant, another Gongylus, now occupied
Pergamus, with his wife Hellas and his sons Gorgion and Gongylus.
Xenophon was here received with great hospitality. Hellas acquainted
him, that a powerful Persian, named Asidates, was now dwelling, with his
wife, family, and property, in a tower not far off on the plain; and
that a sudden night march, with 300 men, would suffice for the capture
of this valuable booty, to which her own cousin should guide him.
Accordingly, having sacrificed and ascertained that the victims were
favorable, Xenophon communicated his plan after the evening meal to
those captains who had been most attached to him throughout the
expedition, wishing to make them partners in the profit. As soon as it
became known, many volunteers, to the number of 600, pressed to be
allowed to join. But the captains repelled them, declining to take more
than 300, in order that the b