previous next

Clearchus called together both the generals and commanders and took counsel with them on the situation. While they were discussing it, there came ambassadors from the King, the chief of whom was a man of Greece, Phalynus by name, who was a Zacynthian. They were introduced to the gathering and spoke as follows: "King Artaxerxes says: Since I have defeated and slain Cyrus, do you surrender your arms, come to my doors, and seek how you may appease me and gain some favour." [2] To these words each general gave a reply much like that which Leonides made when he was guarding the Pass of Thermopylae, and Xerxes sent messengers ordering him to lay down his arms.1 [3] For Leonides at that time instructed the messengers to report to the King: "We believe that if we become friends of Xerxes, we shall be better allies if we keep our arms, and if we are forced to wage war against him, we shall fight the better if we keep them." [4] When Clearchus had made a somewhat similar reply to the message, Proxenus the Theban said, "As things now stand, we have lost practically everything else, and all that is left to us is our valour and our arms. It is my opinion, therefore, that if we guard our arms, our valour also will be useful to us, but if we give them up, then not even our valour will be of any help to us." Consequently he gave them this message to the King: "If you are plotting some evil against us, with our arms we will fight against you for your own possessions." [5] We are told that also Sophilus, one of the commanders, said, "I am surprised at the words of the King; for if he believes that he is stronger than the Greeks, let him come with his army and take our arms away from us; but if he wishes to use persuasion, let him say what favour of equal worth he will grant us in exchange for them." [6] After these speakers Socrates the Achaean said, "The King is certainly acting toward us in a most astounding fashion; for what he wishes to take from us he requires at once, while what will be given us in return he commands us to request of him at a later time. In a word, if it is in ignorance of who are the victors that he orders us to obey his command as though we had been defeated, let him come with his numerous host and find out on whose side the victory lies; but if, knowing well enough that we are the victors, he uses lying words, how shall we trust his later promises?" [7]

After the messengers had received these replies, they departed; and Clearchus marched to the stopping-place whither the troops had retired who had escaped from the battle. When the entire force had gathered in the same place, they counselled together how they should make their way back to the sea and what route they should take. [8] Now it was agreed that they should not return by the same way they had come, since much of it was waste country where they could not expect provisions to be available with a hostile army on their heels. They resolved, therefore, to make toward Paphlagonia, and set out in that direction with the army, proceeding at a leisurely pace, since they gathered provisions as they marched.

1 See Book 11.5.5.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (1989)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (5 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: