m
on general principles disinclined to make any bombastic statement
about myself. Yet since this too is one of the factors contributing
to supremacy in war and is believed among all men to be of greatest
importance,--I mean that men who are to fight well must secure an
excellent general--necessity itself has rendered quite indispensable
some remarks about myself, their purpose being to enable you to realize
still more the fact that not only are you such soldiers that you could
conquer even without a good leader, but I am such a leader that I can
win even with poor soldiers. I am at that age when persons attain their
greatest perfection both of body and intellect and suffer deterioration
neither through the rashness of youth nor the feebleness of old age, but
are strongest because in a condition half-way between the two. Moreover I
possess such a nature and such a training that I can with greatest ease
discern what requires to be done and make it known. Experience, which
causes even the ignorant and the uneducated to appear to be of some
value, I have been acquiring through my whole political and whole
military career. From boyhood till now I have been continually exercised
in similar pursuits; I have been much ruled and done much ruling, from
which I have learned on the one hand what kind of orders and of what
magnitude must be issued, and on the other how far and in what way one
must render obedience. I have been subject to terror, to confidence: as a
result I have made it my custom neither to entertain any fear too readily
nor to venture on any hazard too heedlessly. I have met with good
fortune, I have met with failure: consequently I find it possible to
avoid both despair and excess of pride.

[-18-] "I speak to you who know these facts and make you who hear them
my witnesses not in the intention of uttering idle boasts about
myself,--your consciousness of the truth being sufficient glory for
me,--but to the end that you may in this way bring home to yourselves
how much better we are equipped than our opponents. For, while they are
inferior to us in quantity both of soldiers and of money and in diversity
of equipment, in no one respect are they so strikingly lacking as in the
age and inexperience of their general. About him I need in general make
no exact or detailed statement, but to sum up I will say this, which you
all understand, that he is a veritable weakling in body and has never
himself been victor in any im