resolved to sacrifice five hundred every year; and to this day they
still continue to sacrifice them. 13. Again, when Xerxes, having
collected that innumerable army of his, came down upon Greece a second
time, our ancestors on that occasion, too, defeated the ancestors of
these Barbarians, both by land and sea; of which exploits the trophies
are still to be seen as memorials; the greatest of all memorials,
however, is the liberty of the states in which you were born and bred,
for you worship no man as master, but the gods alone. Of such ancestors
are you sprung.

14. "Nor am I going to say that you dishonour them. It is not yet many
days since you arrayed yourselves in the field against the descendants
of those Barbarians, and defeated, with the help of the gods, a force
many times more numerous than yourselves. 15. On that occasion you
showed yourselves brave men to procure a throne for Cyrus; and now, when
the struggle is for your own lives, it becomes you to be more valiant
and resolute. 16. At present, too, you may justly feel greater
confidence against your adversaries; for even then, when you had made no
trial of them, and saw them in countless numbers before you, you yet
dared, with the spirit of your fathers, to advance upon them, and now,
when you have learned from experience of them, that, though many times
your number, they shrink from receiving your charge, what reason have
you any longer to fear them? 17. And do not consider it any
disadvantage, that the troops of Cyrus, who were formerly arrayed on our
side, have now left us; for they are far more cowardly than those who
were defeated by you; at least[130] they deserted us to flee to them,
and those who are so ready to commence flight it is better to see posted
on the side of the enemy than in our own ranks.

18. "If, again, any of you are disheartened because we have no cavalry,
and the enemy have a great number, consider that ten thousand cavalry
are nothing more than ten thousand men; for no one ever perished in
battle of being bitten or kicked by a horse; it is the men that do
whatever is done in the encounter. 19. Doubtless we, too, rest upon a
surer support than cavalry have, for they are raised upon horses, and
are afraid, not only of us, but also of falling, while we, taking our
steps upon the ground, shall strike such as approach us with far greater
force, and hit much more surely the mark at which we may aim. In one
point alone, indeed, have th