lead, and
communicate the stimulus of honor to others. Do you show yourselves now
the best among the captains--more worthy of being generals than the
generals themselves. Begin at once, and I desire only to follow you. But
if you order me into the front rank, I shall obey without pleading my
youth as an excuse--accounting myself to be of complete maturity, when
the purpose is to save myself from ruin."

All the captains who heard Xenophon cordially concurred in his
suggestion, and desired him to take the lead in executing it. One captain
alone--Apollonides, speaking in the Boeotian dialect[37]--protested
against it as insane; enlarging upon their desperate position, and
insisting upon submission to the King as the only chance of safety. "How?
(replied Xenophon). Have you forgotten the courteous treatment which we
received from the Persians in Babylonia when we replied to their demand
for the surrender of our arms by showing a bold front? Do not you see the
miserable fate which has befallen Klearchus, when he trusted himself
unarmed in their hands, in reliance on their oaths? And yet you scout our
exhortations to resistance, again advising us to go and plead for
indulgence! My friends, such a Greek as this man, disgraces not only his
own city, but all Greece besides. Let us banish him from our councils,
cashier[38] him, and make a slave of him to carry baggage." "Nay
(observed Agasias of Stymphalus), the man has nothing to do with Greece:
I myself have seen his ears bored, like a true Lydian."[39] Apollonides
was degraded accordingly.

Xenophon with the rest then distributed themselves in order to bring
together the chief remaining officers in the army, who were presently
convened, to the number of about one hundred. The senior captain of the
earlier body next desired Xenophon to repeat to this larger body the
topics upon which he had just before been insisting. Xenophon obeyed,
enlarging yet more emphatically on the situation, perilous, yet not
without hope--on the proper measures to be taken--and especially on the
necessity that they, the chief officers remaining, should put themselves
forward prominently, first fix upon effective commanders, then
afterwards submit the names to be confirmed by the army, accompanied
with suitable exhortations and encouragement. His speech was applauded
and welcomed, especially by the Lacedaemonian general Cheirisophus, who
had joined Cyrus with a body of 700 heavy-armed foot-soldiers a