The dialects of the Greeks are not especially different from each other. When I accompanied Clearchus and Cyrus to Cunaxa I had no difficulty understanding the Doric that the majority of the army, being composed mainly of Achaeans and Arcadians, spoke, and when I was granted leadership of the army after Clearchus' death by the vote of the soldiers there were no difficulties in communication. Some dialects are more difficult to understand than others--the speech of the Arcadians is notoriously backward--but no Greek has much difficulty in understanding the speech of a Dorian, or of an Aeolic-speaking Boeotian, though a barbarian might have trouble. The dialects of the Greeks are used even in cities where they are not normally spoken, and they are understood with little difficulty, as they differ mainly in vocabulary and in a very few verbal or nominal forms. For example, Doric is the traditional dialect of choral verse, and it is in this dialect that our great Athenian tragedians write their choral interludes, with no particular difficulty in understanding