Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/18

8 service under Cyrus, the younger brother of Artaxerxes king of Persia. He showed this letter to Socrates, and consulted him whether he should go. Socrates thought that there was a risk of Xenophon's getting into trouble with his countrymen if he were to join Cyrus, who was believed to have given assistance against them to the Spartans. He advised him to go to Delphi and consult the oracle. Xenophon went accordingly to Delphi; but having made up his own mind on the subject, he barred dissuasion by evasively asking of Apollo "what god he should sacrifice to in order to perform most propitiously the journey which he had in his mind?" The oracle directed him to sacrifice to "Jupiter the King." Having taken back this answer, he was reproved by Socrates, but told that he must now do as the god had directed. Accordingly he performed his sacrifice, and crossed the Archipelago to Ephesus, whence he proceeded to the rendezvous at Sardis.

In this story we see amusingly exhibited the wilfulness of the youthful Xenophon, and the practical shrewdness, mixed with superstition, of Socrates. There might be some risk of unpleasant consequences from taking service under Cyrus, yet, on the other hand, there was a chance of such a step turning out well. The offers of Cyrus had a peculiar fascination for the soldiers of fortune in Greece; and Socrates, even as a practical adviser, may have been not insensible to the same imaginative influence. He followed his own maxim, "In cases of doubt consult the gods," and despatched Xenophon to the oracle of Delphi.