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Updated: June 1, 2025
It was only on the pressing instance of Anaxibius that he was induced to go back to Chrysopolis and conduct the army across; on the understanding that he should depart immediately afterwards. Here at Byzantium, he received his first communication from the Thracian prince Seuthês; who sent Medosadês to offer him a reward if he would bring the army across.
In truth Kleander was very uneasy so long as the soldiers were within the walls, and was well aware that it might be no easy matter to induce them to go away. For Anaxibius had practised a gross fraud in promising them pay, which he had neither the ability nor the inclination to provide.
Anxious to meet Pharnabazus and make sure of his bribe, Anaxibius impressed his parting injunction upon Aristarchus to sell for slaves all the Cyreians whom he might find at Byzantium on his arrival, and then pursued his voyage along the southern coast of the Propontis to Parium.
If then Kleander begins by shutting us out from Byzantium, and next enjoins the Lacedæmonian governors in the other cities to do the same, proclaiming us lawless and disobedient to Sparta if, besides, the same representation should be conveyed to the Lacedæmonian admiral of the fleet, Anaxibius we shall be hard pressed either to remain or to sail away; for the Lacedæmonians are at present masters both on land and at sea.
Cleander went back to Byzantium, and the Greeks marched from Calpe to Chrysopolis, which faces Byzantium. Here the whole force was at last carried over to the opposite shore, and once more found itself on European soil, having received promises of pay from the admiral Anaxibius.
Hence Kleander, while urgent with Xenophon to defer his departure until he had conducted the army outside of the walls, added "Go forth as if you were about to march along with them; when you are once outside, you may depart as soon as you please;" Xenophon replied that this matter must be settled with Anaxibius, to whom accordingly both of them went, and who repeated the same directions, in a manner yet more peremptory.
We have here a Lacedæmonian governor, not scrupling to lay a snare of treachery, as flagrant as that which Tissaphernês had practised on the banks of the Zab, to entrap Klearchus and his colleagues and that too against a Greek, and an officer of the highest station and merit, who had just saved Byzantium from pillage, and was now actually in execution of orders received from the Lacedæmonian admiral Anaxibius.
Neither Anaxibius nor Eteonikus took the smallest means of resistance, nor stayed to brave the approach of the soldiers, whose wrath they were fully conscious of having deserved. Both fled to the citadel the former first running to the seashore, and jumping into a fishing-boat to go thither by sea.
Such behavior could not fail to provoke the most violent indignation in the bosoms of the soldiery; and Anaxibius had therefore delayed giving the order until the last soldiers were marching out, thinking that the army would hear nothing of it until the generals came out of the gates to inform them; so that the gates would be closed, and the walls manned to resist an assault from without.
Though it was plain to Xenophon that he was here making himself a sort of instrument to the fraud which Anaxibius had practised upon the army, yet he had no choice but to obey. Accordingly, he as well as the other generals put themselves at the head of the troops, who followed, however reluctantly, and arrived most of them outside of the gates. Anaxibius knew well what he was doing.
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