portant battle either on land or on the sea.
Indeed, at Phillipi and in the same conflict I won the day, whereas he
was defeated.

"To this degree do we differ from each other, and usually victories fall
to the better equipped. And if they have any strength at all, you would
find it to exist in their heavy-armed force on land; as for their ships,
they will not so much as be able to sail out against us. You yourselves
can of course see the size and stoutness of our vessels, which are such
that if the enemy's were equivalent to them in number, yet because of
these advantages the foe could do no damage either by charges from the
side or by charges from the front. For first the thickness of the timbers
and second the very height of the ships would certainly check them, even
if there were no one on board to defend them. Where will any one find a
chance to assail ships which carry so many archers and slingers striking
assailants, moreover, from the towers up aloft? If any one should
approach, how could he fail to get sunk by the very number of the oars
or how could he fail to be plunged under water when shot at by all the
warriors on the decks and in the towers? [-19-] Do not think that they
have any nautical ability because Agrippa won a sea-fight off Sicily:
they contended not against Sextus but against his slaves, not against a
like equipment with ours but against one far inferior. If, again, any one
makes much of their good fortune in that combat, he is bound to take into
equal consideration the defeat which Caesar himself suffered at the hands
of Sextus. By this comparison he will find that conditions are not the
same, but that all our advantages are more numerous and greater than
theirs. And, in general, how large a part does Sicily form of the whole
empire and how large a fraction of our equipment did the troops of Sextus
possess, that any one should properly fear Caesar's armament, which is
precisely the same as before and has grown neither larger nor better,
just on account of his good luck, instead of taking courage from the
defeat that he endured? Reflecting on this fact I have not cared to
risk our first engagement with the infantry, where they appear to have
strength in a way, in order that no one of you should be liable to
discouragement as a result of any failure in that department: instead,
I have chosen to begin with the ships where we are strongest and have a
vast superiority over our antagonists, to the end