The important public proceedings above described not only restored
the influence of Xenophon, but also cleared off a great amount of
bad feeling, and sensibly abated the bad habits, which had grown up
in the army. A scene which speedily followed was not without effect
in promoting cheerful and amicable sympathies. The Paphlagonian
prince Korylas, weary of the desultory warfare carried on between
the Greeks and the border inhabitants, sent envoys to the Greek camp
with presents of horses and fine robes,[237] and with expressions of
a wish to conclude peace. The Greek generals accepted the presents,
and promised to submit the proposition to the army. But first they
entertained the envoys at a banquet, providing at the same time
games and dances, with other recreations amusing not only to them
but also to the soldiers generally. The various dances, warlike and
pantomimic, of Thracians, Mysians, Ænianes, Magnêtes, etc., are
described by Xenophon in a lively and interesting manner. They were
followed on the next day by an amicable convention concluded between
the army and the Paphlagonians.[238]
[237] Xen. Anab. vi, 1, 2. Πέμπει παρὰ τοὺς Ἕλληνας πρέσβεις,
ἔχοντας ἵππους καὶ στολὰς καλάς, etc.
The horses sent were doubtless native Paphlagonian; the robes
sent were probably the produce of the looms of Sinôpê and
Kotyôra; just as the Thracian princes used to receive fine woven
and metallic fabrics from Abdêra and the other Grecian colonies
on their coast—ὑφαντὰ καὶ λεῖα, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη κατασκευὴ, etc.
(Thucyd. ii, 96). From the like industry probably proceeded
the splendid “regia textilia” and abundance of gold and silver
vessels, captured by the Roman general Paulus Emilius along with
Perseus the last king of Macedonia (Livy, xlv, 33-35).
[238] Xen. Anab. vi, 1, 10-14.
Not long afterwards,—a number of transports, sufficient for the
whole army, having been assembled from Herakleia and Sinôpê,—all the
soldiers were conveyed by sea to the latter place, passing by the
mouth of the rivers Thermodon, Iris, and Halys, which they would have
found impracticable to cross in a land-march through Paphlagonia.
Having reached Sinôpê after a day and a night of sailing with a fair
wind, they were hospitably received, and lodged in the neighboring
seaport of Armênê, where the Sinopians sent to them a large present
of barley-meal and wine, and where they remained for five days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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