Cilicians kept guard.
Hence he descended into a large and beautiful plain, well watered, and
abounding with all kinds of trees, as well as vines. It also produced
great quantities of sesamum, panic, millet,[32] wheat, and barley. A
chain of hills, strong and high, encompasses it on all sides from sea to
sea. 23. Descending through this plain, he proceeded, in four days'
march, a distance of twenty-five parasangs, to Tarsus, a large and
opulent city of Cilicia. Here was the palace of Syennesis, the king of
the Cilicians; and through the midst of the city runs a river, called
the Cydnus, the breadth of which is two plethra. 24. This city the
inhabitants, with Syennesis, had deserted for a strong-hold upon the
mountains, except those who kept shops.[33] Those also remained behind,
who lived near the sea at Soli and at Issi.

25. Epyaxa, the wife of Syennesis, had arrived at Tarsus five days
before Cyrus. But in passing over the mountains which skirt the plain,
two companies of Menon's troops had perished; some said that they had
been cut to pieces by the Cilicians, while committing some
depredations; others, that being left behind, and unable to find the
rest of the army or their road, they had been destroyed while wandering
about. They amounted to a hundred heavy-armed men. 26. When the rest of
Menon's troops came up, full of resentment at the fate of their
comrades, they plundered both the city of Tarsus and the palace in it.
Cyrus, on entering the city, sent for Syennesis to come to him; but
Syennesis answered, that he had never yet put himself in the power of
one stronger than himself; nor would he then consent to go to Cyrus,
until his wife prevailed upon him, and he received solemn assurances of
safety. 27. Afterwards, when they had met, Syennesis gave Cyrus a large
sum of money for the support of his army, and Cyrus in return presented
him with such gifts as are held in estimation by a king, a horse with a
golden bit, a golden chain and bracelets, and a golden scimitar and
Persian robe. He also engaged that his country should no more be
plundered, and that he should receive back the captured slaves, if they
anywhere met with them.

[Footnote 15: [Greek: To te barbarikon kai to Hellenikon to entautha
strateuma].] There has been much dispute about the exact signification
of [Greek: entautha] in this place. Zeune would have it mean "illuc, in
illum locum ubi sunt Pisidae;" and Krueger thinks that "towards Sardis" is