ls of the army hung perpetually bands of the enemy,
snatching away disabled baggage animals and fighting with each other
over the carcases. And in its track not seldom were left to their fate
disabled soldiers, struck down with snow-blindness or with toes 12
mortified by frostbite. As to the eyes, it was some alleviation
against the snow to march with something black before them; for the
feet, the only remedy was to keep in motion without stopping for an
instant, and to loose the sandal at night. If they went to sleep with
the sandals on, the thong worked into the feet, and the sandals were
frozen fast to them. This was partly due to the fact that, since their
old sandals had failed, they wore untanned brogues made of
newly-flayed ox-hides. It was owing to some such dire necessity that a
party of men fell out and were left behind, and seeing a black-looking
patch of ground where the snow had evidently disappeared, they
conjectured it must have been melted; and this was actually so, owing
to a spring of some sort which was to be seen steaming up in a dell
close by. To this they had turned aside and sat down, and were loth to
go a step further. But Xenophon, with his rearguard, perceived them,
and begged and implored them by all manner of means not to be left
behind, telling them that the enemy were after them in large packs
pursuing; and he ended by growing angry. They merely bade him put a
knife to their throats; not one step farther would they stir. Then it
seemed best to frighten the pursuing enemy if possible, and prevent
their falling upon the invalids. It was already dusk, and the pursuers
were advancing with much noise and hubbub, wrangling and disputing
over their spoils. Then all of a sudden the rearguard, in the
plenitude of health and strength (2), sprang up out of their lair and
run upon the enemy, whilst those weary wights (3) bawled out as loud as
their sick throats could sound, and clashed their spears against their
shields; and the enemy in terror hurled themselves through the snow
into the dell, and not one of them ever uttered a sound again.

(2) Hug, after Rehdantz, would omit the words "in the plenitude of
health and strength."

(3) Or, "the invalids."

Xenophon and his party, telling the sick folk that next day people
would come for them, set off, and before they had gone half a mile
they fell in with some soldiers who had laid down to rest on the snow
with their cloaks wrapped round