Anabasis quotes

"The sea! the sea!"

Conquerors do not, as a rule, give up their arms"; then turning to the others he added, "I leave it to you, my fellow-generals, to make the best and noblest answer, that ye may, to these gentlemen.

So the enemy will be mightily deceived; for on this day they will behold ten thousand Clearchuses instead of one, who will not suffer one man to play the coward.

"They would sooner die than give up their arms."

The thing is to get them to turn their thoughts to what they mean to do, instead of to what they are likely to suffer. Do that, and their spirits will soon revive wonderfully.

And now it is high time I brought my remarks to an end, for may be the enemy will be here anon. Let those who are in favour of these proposals confirm them with all speed, that they may be realised in fact; or if any other course seem better, let not any one, even though he be a private soldier, shrink from proposing it.

I look upon you as my country, my friends, my allies; with you I think I shall be honoured, wherever I be; without you I do not see how I can help a friend or hurt a foe.

At this very moment you would confer a great boon on the army, if you made it your business to appoint generals and officers to fill the places of those that are lost. For without leaders nothing good or noble, to put it concisely, was ever wrought anywhere; and in military matters this is absolutely true; for if discipline is held to be of saving virtue, the want of it has been the ruin of many ere now.

It was now mid-day, and the enemy was not yet in sight; but with the approach of afternoon was seen dust like a white cloud, and after a considerable interval a black pall as it were spread far and high above the plain.

Every city will march against us, and not unjustly, if, after refusing to hold one single barbarian city by right of conquest, we seize the first Hellenic city that we come to and make it a ruinous heap.

As they came nearer, very soon was seen here and there a glint of bronze and spear-points; and the ranks could plainly be distinguished. On the left were troopers wearing white cuirasses.

For my part, my prayer is that before I see such things wrought by you, I, at any rate, may lie ten thousand fathoms under ground!

Whether I am about to do right or not, I cannot say, but I choose yourselves; and, whatever betide, I mean to share your fate.

Who was there now to furnish them with a market? Separated from Hellas by more than a thousand miles, they had not even a guide to point the way.

Without a single mounted trooper to aid them in pursuit: was it not perfectly plain that if they won a battle, their enemies would escape to a man, but if they were beaten themselves, not one soul of them would survive?

Surely it is better to fight to-day after a good breakfast than to-morrow on an empty stomach.

O most marvellous of men! though you have eyes to see, you do not perceive; though you have ears to hear, you do not recollect.

You see, men, the perjury and the impiety of the king. You see the faithlessness of Tissaphernes, professing that he was next-door neighbour to Hellas, and would give a good deal to save us, in confirmation of which he took an oath to us himself, he gave us the pledge of his right hand, and then, with a lie upon his lips, this same man turned round and arrested our generals.