Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/35

 XENOPHON AND PROXENUS. IS On receiving the invitation from Proxenus, Xenophoa felt much inclined to comply. To a member of that class of Knights, which three years before had been the mainstay of the atrocities of the Thirty, (how far he was personally concerned, we cannot say,) it is probable that residence in Athens was in those tunes not pecu- liarly agreeable to him. He asked the opinion of Sokrates ; who, apprehensive lest service under Cyrus, the bitter enemy of Athens, might expose him to unpopularity with his countrymen, recom- mended an application to the Delphian oracle. Thither Xenophon went ; but in truth he had already made up his mind beforehand. So that instead of asking, " whether he ought to go or refuse, he simply put the question, " To which of the gods must I sacri- fice, in order to obtain safety and success in a journey which I am now meditating ? " The reply of the oracle, indicating Zeus Basileus as the god to whom sacrifice was proper, was brought back by Xenophon ; upon which Sokrates, though displeased that the question had not been fairly put as to the whole project, never- theless advised, since an answer had now been given, that it should be literally obeyed. Accordingly Xenophon, having offered the sacrifices prescribed, took his departure first to Ephesus and thence to Sardis, where he found the army about to set forth. Proxenus presented him to Cyrus, who entreated him earnestly to take service, promising to dismiss him as soon as the campaign against the Pisidians should be finished. 1 He was thus induced to stay, yet only as a volunteer or friend of Proxenus, without accepting any special post in the army, either as officer or soldier. There is no reason to believe that his service under Cyrus had actually the effect apprehended by Sokrates, of rendering him unpopular at Athens. For though he was afterwards banished, this sentence was not passed against him until after the battle of Koroneia in 394 B. c., where he was in arms as a conspicuous officer under Agesilaus, against his own countrymen and their Theban allies, nor need we look farther back for the grounds of the sentence. Though Artaxerxes, entertaining general suspicions of his bro- ther's ambitious views, had sent down various persons to watch him, yet Cyrus had contrived to gain or neutralize these spies, and 1 Xen. Anab. iii, 1,4-9; v. 9, 22-24.