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In one of Xenophon's most moving passages, as the exhausted troops climb slowly up one more mountain, there suddenly rises from the front rank a tremendous cry. "Xenophon, hearing this, thought that more enemies were attacking in front; for some were following behind them from the burning countryside . . . But when the shouts grew louder and nearer, as each group came up it went pelting along to the shouting men in front, and the shouting was louder and louder as the crowds increased. Xenophon mounted his horse, and took Lycios with his horsemen, and galloped to bring help. Soon they heard the soldiers shouting 'Sea! Sea!' and passing the word along . . . When they all reached the summit then they embraced each other, captains and officers and all, with tears running down their cheeks.''
They had reached the coast of the Black Sea. The long battle odyssey of some 1,500 miles was over, for here were Greek cities, and here should have been an end of fighting. But the end of fighting brought the beginning of distrust. The soldiers turned against each other. Xenophon had to use all his oratorical skill to keep them from stoning him to death because the troops suspected he planned to use them to found a city instead of taking them home. The glorious march up country ends on this pitiful note of bickering and betrayal. Scarcely half the Greeks who had started to overthrow Persia survived, and they were all much poorer than when they began. Only the world was richer by Xenophon's Anabasis.