Book 2
3.19
In this Cyrus admired both the captain’s cleverness and the men’s obedience, and he was pleased to see that they were at the same time having their practice and enjoying themselves and also because that side was victorious which was armed after the fashion of the Persians. Pleased with this he invited them to dinner; and in his tent, observing some of them wearing bandages—one around his leg, another around his arm—he asked them what the matter was; and they answered that they had been hit with the clods.
3.20
And he inquired further, whether it had happened when they were close together or far apart. And they said it was when they were far apart. But when they came to close quarters, it was capital fun—so the cudgel-bearers said; but those who had been thoroughly drubbed with the cudgels cried out that it did not seem any fun to them to be beaten at close quarters, and at the same time they showed the marks of the cudgels on their arms and their necks and some also on their faces. And then, as was natural, they laughed at one another. On the following day the whole plain was full of men following their example; and if they had nothing more important to do, they indulged in this sport.
