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Accordingly Timasion of Dardanus was chosen instead of Klearchus; Xanthiklês in place of Sokratês; Kleanor in place of Agias; Philesius in place of Menon; and Xenophon instead of Proxenus. The captains, who had served under each of the departed generals, separately chose a successor to the captain thus promoted.
Timasion and Thorax employed it as a means of alarming the Herakleotic and Sinopian traders in the camp; telling them that unless they provided not merely transports, but also pay for the soldiers, Xenophon would find means to detain the army in the Euxine, and would employ the transports when they arrived not for the homeward voyage, but for his own projects of acquisition.
On the first day, the sacrifices being unfavorable, no distribution took place; on the second day, Koeratadas was standing with the wreath on his head at the altar, and with the victims beside him, about to renew his sacrifice when Timasion and the other officers interfered, desired him to abstain, and dismissed him from the command.
If Silanus gained little by his manoeuvre, Timasion and his partners gained still less. For so soon as it became known that the army had taken a formal resolution to go back to Greece, and that Xenophon himself had made the proposition, the Sinopians and the Herakleots felt at their ease. They sent the transport vessels, but withheld the money which they had promised to Timasion and Thorax.
And Timasion, seconded by Thorax, not only strenuously urged the army to return, but went so far as to promise to them, on the faith of the assurances from Herakleia and Sinôpê, future pay on a liberal scale, to commence from the first new moon after their departure; together with a hospitable reception in his native city of Dardanus on the Hellespont, from whence they could make incursions on the rich neighboring satrapy of Pharnabazus.
But now there is no longer any necessity; since Herakleia and Sinôpê are sending transports, and Timasion promises pay to you from the next new moon. Nothing can be better; you will go back safely to Greece, and will receive pay for going thither. I desist at once from my scheme, and call upon all who were favorable to it to desist also.
This news spread so much terror both at Sinôpê and Herakleia that large offers of money were made from both cities to Timasion, on condition that he would ensure the departure of the army, as soon as the vessels should be assembled at Kotyôra.
These Timasion had little or no means of procuring; so that considerable delay took place, during which the soldiers, receiving no pay, fell into much distress. Many of them were even compelled to sell their arms in order to get subsistence; while others got permission to settle in some of the neighboring towns, on condition of being disarmed.
Xenophon then moved that the army should break up immediately, and march to some well-stored villages, rather more than two miles distant; that the march should be in a hollow square, with the baggage in the centre; that Cheirisophus, as a Lacedæmonian, should lead the van; while Kleanor, and the other senior officers, would command on each flank, and himself with Timasion, as the two youngest of the generals, would lead the rear guard.
The summons was obeyed with unusual alacrity, and Xenophon then addressed them refraining, with equal generosity and prudence, from saying anything about the last proposition which Timasion and others had made to him. Had he mentioned it, the question would have become one of life and death between him and those other officers. Xenophon defends himself against false accusations.
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