Book 3
1.26
Such were Xenophon’s words; and upon hearing what he said the officers bade him take the lead, all of them except a man named Apollonides, who spoke in the Boeotian dialect. This man maintained that anyone who said he could gain safety in any other way than by winning the King’s consent through persuasion, if possible, was talking nonsense; and at the same time he began to recite the difficulties of their situation. Xenophon, however, interrupted him in the midst of his talk, and said:
1.27
You amazing fellow, you have eyes but still do not perceive, and you have ears but still do not remember. You were present, surely, with the rest of these officers at the time when the King, after the death of Cyrus and in his elation over that event, sent and ordered us to give up our arms.
1.28
But when, instead of giving them up, we equipped ourselves with them, and went and encamped beside him, what means did he leave untried—sending ambassadors, begging for a truce, offering us provisions—until in the end he obtained a truce?