Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/204

 196 of their cavalry, we must embark a multitude of infantry.

For what if the Sicilians in terror combine against us, and we make no friends except the Egestaeans who can furnish us with horsemen Capable of opposing theirs? To be driven from the reinforcements, because we were wanting in forethought at first, would be disgraceful. We must take a powerful armament with us from home, in the full knowledge that we are going to a distant land, and that the expedition will be of a kind very different from any which you have hitherto made among your subjects against some enemy in this part of the world, yourselves the allies of others. Here a friendly country is always near, and you can easily obtain supplies. There you will be dependent on a country which is entirely strange to you, and whence during the four winter months hardly even a message can be sent hither.

'I say, therefore, that we must take with us a large

heavy-armed force both of Athenians and of allies, whether our own subjects or any Peloponnesians whom we can persuade or attract by pay to our service; also plenty of archers and javelin-men to act against the enemy's cavalry. Our naval superiority must be overwhelming, that we may not only be able to fight, but may have no difficulty in bringing in supplies. And there is the food carried from home, such as wheat and parched barley, which will have to be conveyed in merchant-vessels ; we must also have bakers, drafted in a certain proportion from each mill, who will receive pay, but will be forced to serve, in order that, if