On the next day, the army sailed forward, under the command of
Cheirisophus, to Herakleia; near which town they were hospitably
entertained, and gratified with a present of meal, wine, and
bullocks, even greater than they had received at Sinôpê. It now
appeared that Xenophon had acted wisely in declining the sole
command; and also that Cheirisophus, though elected commander, yet
having been very long absent, was not really of so much importance
in the eyes of the soldiers as Xenophon. In the camp near Herakleia,
the soldiers became impatient that their generals (for the habit
of looking upon Xenophon as one of them still continued) took no
measures to procure money for them. The Achæan Lykon proposed that
they should extort a contribution of no less than three thousand
staters of Kyzikus (about sixty thousand Attic drachmæ, or ten
talents, equal to two thousand three hundred pounds) from the
inhabitants of Herakleia; another man immediately outbid this
proposition, and proposed that they should require ten thousand
staters—a full month’s pay for the army. It was moved that
Cheirisophus and Xenophon should go to the Herakleots as envoys with
this demand. But both of them indignantly refused to be concerned in
so unjust an extortion from a Grecian city which had just received
the army kindly, and sent handsome presents. Accordingly, Lykon
with two Arcadian officers undertook the mission, and intimated
the demand, not without threats in case of non-compliance, to
the Herakleots. The latter replied that they would take it into
consideration. But they waited only for the departure of the envoys,
and then immediately closed their gates, manned their walls, and
brought in their outlying property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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