We had hardly started off that day when he appeared again at our rear, this time accompanied by two hundred cavalry and four hundred light infantry. His herald bore a flag of truce, and although we did not halt our march to receive him, Xenophon and several junior officers held back and waited for him to approach, neglecting to call any supporting infantry for protection.This was a mistake, for as soon as a sufficient gap had opened up between Xenophon's group and the army, Mithradates' cavalry whipped their horses along our flanks, seeking to drive a wedge between us and the main body of our troops and cut us down. We galloped frantically back to the safety of our troops, narrowly avoiding being encircled, but Mithradates' near approach nevertheless caught the army unprepared. Both the arrows from the Persian cavalry and the missiles from their well-trained slingers caused a number of casualties among our rearguard before we were finally able to drive them away by sheer force of numbers.
