[17]
The Persian bows are also1 large, and consequently the Cretans could make good use of all the arrows that fell into their hands; in fact, they were continually using the enemy's arrows, and practised themselves in long-range work by shooting them into the air.2 In the villages, furthermore, the Greeks found gut in abundance and lead for the use of their slingers.
1 Xenophon remarks in Xen. Anab. 3.3.17 upon the large size of the stones employed in the Persian slings. The word “also” (καὶ) can hardly refer back to that remark, but it may be that some further observation of the same sort in the original text (see critical note) of the present passage served to introduce what Xenophon now goes on to say about the Persian bows. It is implied in “consequently” (ὥστε) that the Cretan bows were of approximately the same size as those of the Persians.
2 So that the arrows could be easily recovered.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 3. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1922.
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