Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/68

58 Mosynæci, whose metropolis they plundered; and then came upon another settlement of the Chalybes, engaged in the manufacture of iron, and apparently peaceable in habits. Without further difficulty they reached Cotyora, a Greek colony from Sinope, and half-way between that place and Trebizond. At this point they had marched in eight months 1860 geographical miles from the plains of Babylon. The Cyreians were not admitted into the town of Cotyora, but they encamped under the walls, and remained here for forty-five days, during which time the thought of remaining altogether appears to have occurred to the minds of some. After all the difficulties they had surmounted, there still lay great obstacles between them and their Grecian fatherland. In the first place, unless they could procure shipping for the force, they would have to pass through the hostile country of Paphlagonia, intersected by four broad rivers—the Thermodon, the Iris, the Halys, and the Parthenius. Negotiations were therefore opened with the people of Sinope to supply them with ships. But, in the mean time, when Xenophon contemplated the brilliant little army still left with him, the idea arose in his mind that it would be a noble thing to employ this force in some enterprise of conquest and colonisation on the Euxine itself. He seems to have thought of attacking and conquering Phasis, or some other non-Hellenic city, and of settling down in the conquered territory with such of the soldiers as might be willing to remain. Patriotically, he thought of the prestige