herodotus

Lacedemonians alone: of these I say, first that it is not possiblethat they will ever accept thy terms, which carry with them servitudefor Hellas; and next I say that they will stand against thee in fight,even if all the other Hellenes shall be of thy party: and as fornumbers, ask now how many they are, that they are able to do this; forwhether it chances that a thousand of them have come out into thefield, these will fight with thee, or if there be less than this, oragain if there be more." 103. Xerxes hearing this laughed, and said:"Demaratos, what a speech is this which thou hast uttered, saying thata thousand men will fight with this vast army! Come tell me this:--thou sayest that thou wert thyself king of these men; wilt thoutherefore consent forthwith to fight with ten men? and yet if yourState is such throughout as thou dost describe it, thou their kingought by your laws to stand in array against double as many as anotherman; that is to say, if each of them is a match for ten men of myarmy, I expect of thee that thou shouldest be a match for twenty. Thuswould be confirmed the report which is made by thee: but if ye, whoboast thus greatly are such men and in size so great only as theHellenes who come commonly to speech with me, thyself included, thenbeware lest this which has been spoken prove but an empty vaunt. Forcome, let me examine it by all that is probable: how could a thousandor ten thousand or even fifty thousand, at least if they were allequally free and were not ruled by one man, stand against so great anarmy? since, as thou knowest, we shall be more than a thousand comingabout each one of them, supposing them to be in number five thousand.If indeed they were ruled by one man after our fashion, they mightperhaps from fear of him become braver than it was their nature to be,or they might go compelled by the lash to fight with greater numbers,being themselves fewer in number; but if left at liberty, they woulddo neither of these things: and I for my part suppose that, even ifequally matched in numbers, the Hellenes would hardly dare to fightwith the Persians taken alone. With us however this of which thouspeakest is found in single men,[96] not indeed often, but rarely; forthere are Persians of my spearmen who will consent to fight with threemen of the Hellenes at once: but thou hast had no experience of thesethings and therefore thou speakest very much at random." 104. To thisDemaratos replied: "O king, from the first I was sure that if Iuttered the truth I should not speak that which was pleasing to thee;since however thou didst compel me to speak the very truth, I toldthee of the matters which concern the Spartans. And yet how I am atthis present time attached to them by affection thou knowest betterthan any; seeing that first they took away from me the rank andprivileges which came to me from my fathers, and then also they havecaused me to be without native land and an exile; but thy father tookme up and gave me livelihood and a house to dwell in. Surely it is notto be supposed likely that the prudent man will thrust aside