Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/76

 {)4 HISTOKr OF GREECE. Phalinus, in retiring, said that the king proclaimed a truce so long as they remained in their present position, but war, if they moved, either onward or backward. And to this Klearchus acceded, without declaring which he intended to do. 1 Shortly after the departure of Phalinus, the envoys despatched to Ariaeus returned ; communicating his reply, that the Persian grandees would never tolerate any pretensions on his part to the crown, and that he intended to depart early the next morning on his return ; if the Greeks wished to accompany him, they must join him during the night In the evening, Klearchus, convening the generals and the lochages (or captains of lochi), acquainted them that the morning sacrifice had been of a nature to forbid their marching against the king, a prohibition of which he now under- stood the reason, from having since learnt that the king was on the other side of the Tigris, and therefore out of their reach, but that it was favorable for rejoining Ariaeus. He gave directions accordingly for a night-march back along the Euphrates, to the station where they had passed the last night but one prior to the battle. The other Grecian generals, without any formal choice of Klearchus as chief, tacitly acquiesced in his orders, from a sense of his superior decision and experience, in an emergency when no one knew what to propose. The night-march was successfully accomplished, so that they joined Ariaeus at the preceding station about midnight ; not without the alarming symptom, however, that Miltokythes the Thracian deserted to the king, at the head of three hundred and forty of his countrymen, partly horse, partly foot The first proceeding of the Grecian generals was to exchange solemn oaths of reciprocal fidelity and fraternity with Ariaeus. Ac- cording to an ancient and impressive practice, a bull, a wolf, a boar, and a ram, were all slam, and their blood allowed to run into the hol- low of a shield ; in which the Greek generals dipped a sword, and Ariaeus, with his chief companions, a spear. 2 The latter, besides tts 1 Xen. Anab. ii, 1, 14-22. Diodorus (xiv, 25) is somewhat copious in his account of the interview with Phalinus. But he certainly followed other authorities besides Xenophon, if even it be true that he had Xenophon before him. The allusion to the past heroism of Leonidas seems rather in the style of Ephorus. It is difficult to see how they could get a wolf in Babylonia for the sacri &-x (Zug der Zehn Tausend, p. 51).
 * Xen. Anab. ii. 2, 7-9. Koch remarks, however, with good reason, thai