[101] We know from Plutarch (Artaxer. c. 13) that Ktesias distinctly asserted himself to have been present at this interview, and I see no reason why we should not believe him. Plutarch indeed rejects his testimony as false, affirming that Xenophon would certainly have mentioned him, had he been there; but such an objection seems to me insufficient. Nor is it necessary to construe the words of Xenophon, ἦν δ᾽ αὐτῶν Φαλῖνος ~εἶς Ἕλλην~, (ii, 1, 7) so strictly as to negative the presence of one or two other Greeks. Phalinus is thus specified because he was the spokesman of the party—a military man. [102] Xen. Anab. ii, 1, 12 μὴ οὖν οἴου τὰ μόνα ἡμῖν ἀγαθὰ ὄντα ὑμῖν παραδώσειν· ἀλλὰ σὺν τούτοις καὶ περὶ τῶν ὑμετέρων ἀγαθῶν μαχούμεθα. [103] Xen. Anab. ii, 1, 14-22. Diodorus (xiv, 25) is somewhat copious in his account of the interview with Phalinus. But he certainly followed other authorities besides Xenophon, if even it be true that he had Xenophon before him. The allusion to the past heroism of Leonidas seems rather in the style of Ephorus. Shortly after the departure of Phalinus, the envoys despatched to Ariæus returned; communicating his reply, that the Persian grandees would never tolerate any pretensions on his part to the crown, and that he intended to depart early the next morning on his return; if the Greeks wished to accompany him, they must join him during the night. In the evening, Klearchus, convening the generals and the lochages (or captains of lochi), acquainted them that the morning sacrifice had been of a nature to forbid their marching against the king,—a prohibition of which he now understood the reason, from having since learnt that the king was on the other side of the Tigris, and therefore out of their reach,—but that it was favorable for rejoining Ariæus. He gave directions accordingly for a night-march back along the Euphrates, to the station where they had passed the last night but one prior to the battle. The other Grecian generals, without any formal choice of Klearchus as chief, tacitly acquiesced in his orders, from a sense of his superior decision and experience, in an emergency when no one knew what to propose. The night-march was successfully accomplished, so that they joined Ariæus at the preceding station about midnight; not without the alarming symptom, however, that Miltokythês the Thracian deserted to the king, at the head of three hundred and forty of his countrymen, partly horse, partly foot.