This event put heart into all the Scythians, and they no longer considered themselves worsted by the Sauromatians, seeing that the enemy had not carried off our greatest good, but that our noble disposition was left to us and our constancy in friendship. And the same thing frightened the Sauromatians extremely, for they calculated what sort of men we would be to fight with when we were prepared if we showed such endurance when we were surprised. So when night came they left most of the flocks, and burned the wagons and retreated. But Amizokes could no longer bear to see at the price of Dandamis's blindness, so he, too, put out his own eyes, and they were both permitted a quiet life by the Scythian commonwealth, and supported at the public expense with every honor.
What could you tell to match this, Mnesippos, if I should let you count up ten more in addition to your five, and not on oath, either, so that you might add plenty of inventions? And yet I gave you the bare facts. If you had told a story like this I know very well how much cleverness you would have mixed in your tale, what prayers Dandamis offered, and the manner of blinding him, and what he said and how he went off again, and how the Scythians received him with blessings, and the other devices you are wont to employ on your audience.
