Ἐνταῦθα τὸν θεὸν οὐκ ᾐτιάσατο ὁ Ξενοφῶν· συνέπραττον γὰρ καὶ οἱ Λάκωνες καὶ οἱ λοχαγοὶ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι στρατηγοὶ καὶ οἱ στρατιῶται, ὥστε ἐξαίρετα λαβεῖν καὶ ἵππους καὶ ζεύγη καὶ ἄλλα, ὥστε ἱκανὸν εἶναι καὶ ἄλλον ἤδη εὖ ποιεῖν. As soon as Thimbron arrived with his own forces, and the Cyreians became a part of his army, Xenophon took his leave of them. Having deposited in the temple at Ephesus that portion which had been confided to him as general, of the tithe set apart by the army at Kerasus for the Ephesian Artemis,[285] he seems to have executed his intention of returning to Athens.[286] He must have arrived there, after an absence of about two years and a half, within a few weeks, at farthest, after the death of his friend and preceptor Sokrates, whose trial and condemnation have been recorded in my last volume. That melancholy event certainly occurred during his absence from Athens;[287] but whether it had come to his knowledge before he reached the city, we do not know. How much grief and indignation it excited in his mind, we may see by his collection of memoranda respecting the life and conversations of Sokrates, known by the name of Memorabilia, and probably put together shortly after his arrival. [285] Xen. Anab. v, 3, 6. It seems plain that this deposit must have been first made on the present occasion. [286] Compare Anabasis, vii, 7, 57; vii, 8, 2. [287] Xenoph. Memorab. iv, 8, 4—as well as the opening sentence of the work. That he was again in Asia, three years afterwards, on military service under the Lacedæmonian king Agesilaus, is a fact attested by himself; but at what precise moment he quitted Athens for his second visit to Asia, we are left to conjecture. I incline to believe that he did not remain many months at home, but that he went out again in the next spring to rejoin the Cyreians in Asia,—became again their commander,—and served for two years under the Spartan general Derkyllidas before the arrival of Agesilaus. Such military service would doubtless be very much to his taste; while a residence at Athens, then subject and quiescent, would probably be distasteful to him; both from the habits of command which he had contracted during the previous two years, and from feelings arising out of the death of Sokrates. After a certain interval of repose, he would be disposed to enter again upon the war against his old enemy Tissaphernes; and his service went on when Agesilaus arrived to take the command.[288] [288] See Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 2, 7—a passage which Morus refers, I think with much probability, to Xenophon himself. The very circumstantial details, which Xenophon gives (iii, 1, 11-28) about the proceedings of Derkyllidas against Meidias in the Troad, seem also to indicate that he was serving there in person.