[140] Respecting the value of a sign from Zeus Basileus, and the necessity of conciliating him, compare various passages in the Cyropædia, ii, 4, 19; iii, 3, 21; vii, 5, 57.
[141] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 12, 13. Περίφοβος δ᾽ εὐθὺς ἀνηγέρθη, καὶ τὸ ὄναρ τῆ μὲν ἔκρινεν ἀγαθόν, ὅτι ἐν πόνοις ὢν καὶ κινδύνοις φῶς μέγα ἐκ Διὸς ἰδεῖν ἔδοξε, etc. ... Ὁποῖον τι μὲν δή ἐστι τὸ τοιοῦτον ὄναρ ἰδεῖν, ἔξεστι σκοπεῖν ἐκ τῶν συμβάντων μετὰ τὸ ὄναρ. Γίγνεται γὰρ τάδε. Εὐθὺς ἐπειδὴ ἀνηγέρθη, πρῶτον μὲν ἔννοια αὐτῷ ἐμπίπτει· Τί κατάκειμαι; ἡ δὲ νὺξ προβαίνει· ἅμα δὲ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ εἰκὸς τοὺς πολεμίους ἥξειν, etc.
The reader of Homer will readily recall various passages in the Iliad and Odyssey, wherein the like mental talk is put into language and expanded,—such as Iliad, xi, 403—and several other passages cited or referred to in Colonel Mure’s History of the Language and Literature of Greece, ch. xiv, vol. ii, p. 25 seq.
A vision of light shining brightly out of a friendly house, counts for a favorable sign (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 587 C.).
[142] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 16, 25.
“Vel imperatore, vel milite, me utemini.” (Sallust, Bellum Catilinar. c. 20).
[143] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 26-30. It would appear from the words of Xenophon, that Apollonides had been one of those who had held faint-hearted language (ὑπομαλακιζόμενοι, ii, 1, 14) in the conversation with Phalinus shortly after the death of Cyrus. Hence Xenophon tells him, that this is the second time of his offering such advice—Ἃ σὺ πάντα εἰδὼς, τοὺς μὲν ἀμύνασθαι κελεύοντας φλυαρεῖν φῂς, πείθειν δὲ πάλιν κελεύεις ἰόντας;
This helps to explain the contempt and rigor with which Xenophon here treats him. Nothing indeed could be more deplorable, under the actual circumstances, than for a man “to show his acuteness by summing up the perils around.” See the remarkable speech of Demosthenes at Pylos (Thucyd. iv, 10).
[144] Xen. Anab. iii, 1, 36-46.
[145] Xen. Anab. iii, 2, 25.