Thus spoke Clearchus. Tissaphernes replied as follows: 16. "I am delighted, O Clearchus, to hear your judicious observations; for, with these sentiments, if you were to meditate anything to my injury, you would appear to be at the same time your own enemy. But that you may be convinced that you have no just cause for distrusting either the king or me, listen to me in your turn. 17. If we wished to destroy you, do we appear to you to be deficient in numbers either of cavalry or infantry, or in warlike equipments, with the aid of which we might be able to do you injury, without danger of suffering any in return? 18. Or do we seem to you likely to be in want of suitable places to make an attack upon you? Are there not so many plains, which, as the inhabitants of them are friendly to us,[110] you traverse with exceeding toil? See you not so many mountains before you to be crossed, which we might, by pre-occupying them, render impassable to you? Or are there not so many rivers, at which we might parcel you out[111] as many at a time as we might be willing to engage? Some of these rivers, indeed, you could not cross at all, unless we secured you a passage. 19. But even supposing that we were baffled in all these points, yet fire at least would prove its power over the produce of the soil; by burning which, we could set famine in array against you, which, though you were the bravest of the brave, you would find it difficult to withstand. 20. How then, having so many means of waging war with you, and none of them attended with danger to ourselves, should we select from amongst them all this mode, the only one that is impious in the sight of the gods, the only one that is disgraceful in the sight of men? 21. It belongs, altogether, to men who are destitute of means, deprived of every resource, and under the coercion of necessity, and at the same time devoid of principle, to seek to effect their purposes by perjury towards the gods, and breach of faith towards men. We, O Clearchus, are not so foolish or so inconsiderate; 22. or why, when we have the opportunity of effecting your destruction, have we made no such attempt? Be well assured, that the cause of this was my desire to prove myself faithful to the Greeks, and, in consequence of doing them service, to return supported by that very body of foreign troops, to whom Cyrus, when he went up, trusted only on account of the pay that he gave them. 23. As to the particulars in which you will be of service to me, some of them you have enumerated, but of the greatest of all I am myself fully conscious; for though it is permitted to the king alone to wear the turban upright on the head, yet perhaps another than he may, with your assistance, wear that upright which is on the heart."[112]