Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/82

72 Byzantium, and who brought news that Anaxibius himself had been superseded. Anaxibius, wishing to do a last good turn to Pharnabazus, advised Aristarchus, when he had got to his government, to seize and sell for slaves as many of the Cyreian soldiers as he could lay hands on. Aristarchus, acting on this hint, appears actually to have sold four hundred of them whom he found in Byzantium—one of the most atrocious little acts in all history! And Anaxibius, being naturally anxious to get some reward for his zeal from Pharnabazus, sent to him; but the satrap, who had in the mean time learned that Anaxibius was no longer in power, promptly gave him the cold shoulder, and would have no communications with him.

The disappointed selfishness of Anaxibius now took a new direction, and he became as anxious to plant a thorn in the side of the Persian magnate as he had hitherto been to serve him. He called Xenophon, and "ordered" him by all means to sail back to the army, to keep it together and collect the scattered men, and bring over the force without delay into Asia. Xenophon does not tell us what were his own reflections upon this commission. Perhaps he could not have got home against the wishes of Anaxibius. Perhaps the feeling of old companionship with the army was strong upon him. He speaks as if he had at once accepted the task imposed upon him. In a ship, furnished by the ex-admiral, he crossed again to Thrace, and arrived among the army, by whom he was gladly welcomed. He got the men down to Perinthus, a port on the Sea of Marmora, and began to