supper. When it was near day, he sent the youngest of his men to the
sick, telling them to rouse them and oblige them to proceed. At this
juncture Chirisophus sent some of his people from the village to see how
the rear were faring. The young men were rejoiced to see them, and gave
them the sick to conduct to the camp, while they themselves went
forward, and, before they had gone twenty stadia, found themselves at
the village in which Chirisophus was quartered. When they came together,
it was thought safe enough to lodge the troops up and down in the
village. Chirisophus accordingly remained where he was, and the other
officers, appropriating by lot the several villages that they had in
sight, went to their respective quarters with their men.

Here Polycrates, an Athenian captain, requested leave of absence, and
taking with him the most active of his men, and hastening to the village
to which Xenophon had been allotted, surprised all the villagers and
their head man in their houses, together with seventeen colts that were
bred as a tribute for the king, and the head man's daughter, who had
been but nine days married; her husband was gone out to hunt hares, and
was not found in any of the villages. Their houses were underground, the
entrance like the mouth of a well, but spacious below; there were
passages dug into them for the cattle, but the people descended by
ladders. In the houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with their
young; all the cattle were kept on fodder within the walls.[29] There
were also wheat, barley, leguminous vegetables, and barley wine[30] in
large bowls; the grains of barley floated in it even with the brim of
the vessels, and reeds also lay in it, some larger and some smaller,
without joints; and these, when any one was thirsty, he was to take in
his mouth and suck.[31] The liquor was very strong, unless one mixed
water with it, and a very pleasant drink to those accustomed to it.