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[18] Then Cyrus summoned Silanus, his Ambraciot soothsayer, and gave him three thousand darics; for on the eleventh day before this, while sacrificing, he had told Cyrus that the King would not fight within ten days, and Cyrus had said: “Then he will not fight at all, if he will not fight within ten days; however, if your prediction proves true, I promise you ten talents.1” So it was this money that he then paid over, the ten days having passed.

1 Hence 10 (Attic) talents = 3,000 (Persian) darics. A talent was 60 minas, and therefore a mina was counted equivalent to 5 darics. The discrepancy between this result and the values stated previously (see notes on i. 9 and iv. 13) is explained by the fact that silver was worth much more at this time, relatively to gold, than at present.

Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 3. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1922.

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hide References (10 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.28
  • Cross-references to this page (6):
    • Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, THE CASES
    • Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, NEGATIVE SENTENCES
    • Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, PARTICLES
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
    • Smith's Bio, Sila'nus
  • Cross-references in notes to this page (2):
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (1):
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