Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/193

 THE"* CROSS TO ASIA. 171 where the. army landed. Here lie found Eukleides, a Phliasian prophet with whom he had been wont to hold intercourse and offer sacrifice at Athens. This man, having asked Xenophon how much he had acquired in the expedition, could not believe him when he affirmed his poverty. But when they proceeded to offer sacrifice together, from some animals sent by the Lampsakenes as a present to Xenophon, Eukleides had no sooner inspected the entrails of the victims, than he told Xenophon that he fully credited the state- ment. " I see (he said) that even if money shall be ever on its way to come to you, you yourself will be a hindrance to it, even if there be no other (here Xenophon acquiesced) ; Zeus Meilichios (the Gracious) ' is the real bar. Have you ever sacrificed to him, with entire burnt-offerings, as we used to do together at Athens ?" " Never (replied Xenophon), throughout the whole march." . " Do so now, then (said Eukleides), and it will be for your advantage." The next day, on reaching Ophrynium, Xenophon obeyed the in- junction ; sacrificing little pigs entire to Zeus Meilichios, as was the custom at Athens during the public festival called Diasia. And on the very same day he felt the beneficial effects of the pro- ceeding ; for Biton and another envoy came from the Lacedaemo- nians with an advance of pay to the army, and with dispositions so favorable to himself, that they bought back for him his horse, which he had just sold at Lampsakus for fifty darics. This was equivalent to giving him more than one year's pay in hand (the pay which he would have received as general being four darics per month, or four times that of the soldier), at a time when he was known to be on the point of departure, and therefore would not stay to earn it. The short-comings of Seuthes were now made 1 It appears that the epithet Meilichios (the Gracious) is here applied to Zeus in the same euphemistic sense as the denomination Eumenides to the avenging goddesses. Zeus is conceived as having actually inflicted, or being in a disposition to inflict, evil ; the sacrifice to him under this surname re- presents a sentiment of fear, and is one of atonement, expiation or purifi- cation, destined to avert his displeasure ; but the surname itself is to be interpreted proleptice, to use the word of the critics it designates, not the actual disposition of Zeus (or of other gods), but that disposition which the sacrifice is intended to bring about in him. See Pausan. i, 37, 3 ; ii, 20, 3. K. F. Herrmann, Gottesdienstl. Alter- thiimer der Griechen,. ^8 ; Van Stcgcren, "De Grajcorum Diebus Festis, p 5 (Utr"ht. 1849).