dom; and, to take only the Hellenic towns, they are
very numerous for one island. Besides Naxos and Catana, which I expect
to join us from their connection with Leontini, there are seven others
armed at all points just like our own power, particularly Selinus and
Syracuse, the chief objects of our expedition. These are full of heavy
infantry, archers, and darters, have galleys in abundance and crowds to
man them; they have also money, partly in the hands of private persons,
partly in the temples at Selinus, and at Syracuse first-fruits from some
of the barbarians as well. But their chief advantage over us lies in
the number of their horses, and in the fact that they grow their corn at
home instead of importing it.

"Against a power of this kind it will not do to have merely a weak naval
armament, but we shall want also a large land army to sail with us, if
we are to do anything worthy of our ambition, and are not to be shut out
from the country by a numerous cavalry; especially if the cities should
take alarm and combine, and we should be left without friends (except
the Egestaeans) to furnish us with horse to defend ourselves with. It
would be disgraceful to have to retire under compulsion, or to send
back for reinforcements, owing to want of reflection at first: we must
therefore start from home with a competent force, seeing that we are
going to sail far from our country, and upon an expedition not like any
which you may undertaken undertaken the quality of allies, among your
subject states here in Hellas, where any additional supplies needed were
easily drawn from the friendly territory; but we are cutting ourselves
off, and going to a land entirely strange, from which during four months
in winter it is not even easy for a messenger get to Athens.

"I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of heavy
infantry, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our
subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or for money in
Peloponnese, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to make
head against the Sicilian horse. Meanwhile we must have an overwhelming
superiority at sea, to enable us the more easily to carry in what we
want; and we must take our own corn in merchant vessels, that is to say,
wheat and parched barley, and bakers from the mills compelled to serve
for pay in the proper proportion; in order that in case of our being
weather-bound the armament may not want provision