to hold the supreme command. But then again, as he turned the matter
over, the conviction deepened in his mind that the issue of the future
is to every man uncertain; and hence there was the risk of perhaps
losing such reputation has he had already acquired. He was in sore
straights, and, not knowing how to decide, it seemed best to him to
lay the matter before heaven. Accordingly, he led two victims to the
altar and made sacrifice to Zeus the King, for it was he and no other
who had been named by the oracle at Delphi, and his belief was that
the vision which he had beheld when he first essayed to undertake the
joint administration of the army was sent to him by that god. He also
recalled to mind a circumstance which befell him still earlier, when 23
setting out from Ephesus to associate himself with Cyrus[6];--how an
eagle screamed on his right hand from the east, and still remained
perched, and the soothsayer who was escorting him said that it was a
great and royal omen[7]; indicating glory and yet suffering; for the
punier race of birds only attack the eagle when seated. "Yet," added
he, "it bodes not gain in money; for the eagle seizes his food, not
when seated, but on the wing."

[6] Cf. "Cyrop." II. i. 1; an eagle appears to Cyrus on the frontiers
of Persia, when about to join his uncle Cyaxares, king of Media,
on his expedition against the Assyrian.

[7] It is important to note that the Greek word {oionos}, a solitary
or lone-flying bird, also means an omen. "It was a mighty bird and
a mighty omen."

Thus Xenophon sacrificed, and the god as plainly as might be gave him
a sign, neither to demand the generalship, nor, if chosen, to accept
the office. And that was how the matter stood when the army met, and