ll
I take back to the king and bring you word from him again. Until I
come again, let the truce continue, and we will furnish you with a
market." All next day he did not come back, and the Hellenes were
troubled with anxieties, but on the third day he arrived with the news
that he had obtained from the king the boon he asked; he was permitted
to save the Hellenes, though there were many gainsayers who argued
that it was not seemly for the king to let those who had marched
against him depart in peace. And at last he said: "You may now, if you
like, take pledges from us, that we will make the countries through
which you pass friendly to you, and will lead you back without
treachery into Hellas, and will furnish you with a market; and
wherever you cannot purchase, we will permit you to take provisions
from the district. You, on your side, must swear that you will march
as through a friendly country, without damage--merely taking food and
drink wherever we fail to supply a market--or, if we afford a market,
you shall only obtain provisions by paying for them." This was agreed
to, and oaths and pledges exchanged between them--Tissaphernes and the
king's brother-in-law upon the one side, and the generals and officers
of the Hellenes on the other. After this Tissaphernes said: "And now I
go back to the king; as soon as I have transacted what I have a mind
to, I will come back, ready equipped, to lead you away to Hellas, and
to return myself to my own dominion."

IV

After these things the Hellenes and Ariaeus waited for Tissaphernes, 1
being encamped close to one another: for more than twenty days they
waited, during which time there came visitors to Ariaeus, his brother
and other kinsfolk. To those under him came certain other Persians,
encouraging them and bearing pledges to some of them from the king
himself--that he would bear no grudge against them on account of the
part they bore in the expedition against him with Cyrus, or for aught
else of the things which were past. Whilst these overtures were being
made, Ariaeus and his friends gave manifest signs of paying less
attention to the Hellenes, so much so that, if for no other reason,
the majority of the latter were not well pleased, and they came to
Clearchus and the other generals, asking what they were waiting for.
"Do we not know full well," they said, "that the king would give a
great deal to destroy us, so that other Hellenes may take warning and
think tw