four and five miles (fifty
stades) west of that important city, itself a port town. See
Smith, "Dict. Geog.," "Sinope"; and Kiepert, op. cit. chap. iv.
60.

At Harmene the army halted five days; and now that they seemed to be 17
so close to Hellas, the question how they were to reach home not
empty-handed presented itself more forcibly to their minds than
heretofore. The conclusion they came to was to appoint a single
general, since one man would be better able to handle the troops, by
night or by day, than was possible while the generalship was divided.
If secrecy were desirable, it would be easier to keep matters dark, or
if again expedition were an object, there would be less risk of
arriving a day too late, since mutual explanations would be avoided,
and whatever approved itself to the single judgement would at once be
carried into effect, whereas previously the generals had done
everything in obedience to the opinion of the majority.

With these ideas working in their minds, they turned to Xenophon, and
the officers came to him and told him that this was how the soldiers
viewed matters; and each of them, displaying a warmth of kindly
feeling, pressed him to accept the office. Xenophon partly would have
liked to do so, in the belief that by so doing he would win to himself
a higher repute in the esteem of his friends, and that his name would
be reported to the city written large; and by some stroke of fortune
he might even be the discoverer of some blessing to the army
collectively.

These and the like considerations elated him; he had a strong desire
to hold the supreme command. But then again, as he turned the matter
over, the conviction deepened in his mind that the issue of the future
is to every man uncertain; and hence there was the risk of perhaps
losing such reputation has he had already acquired. He was in sore
straights, and, not knowing how to decide, it seemed best to him to
lay the matter before heaven. Accordingly, he led two victims to the
altar and made sacrifice to Zeus the King, for it was he and no other
who had been named by the oracle at Delphi, and his belief was that
the vision which he had beheld when he first essayed to undertake the
joint administration of the army was sent to him by that god. He also
recalled to mind a circumstance which befell him still earlier, when 23
setting out from Ephesus to associate himself with Cyrus (6);--how an
eagle screamed on his right