Book 6
1.11
To see whether my calculations are reasonable, he said, consider these points also. With Macedonia in our possession, the place from which the Athenians get their timber, we shall of course be able to construct far more ships than they. Again, who are likely to be better able to supply these ships with men, the Athenians or ourselves, who have so many serfs of so excellent a sort? And who are likely to be better able to maintain the sailors, we, who on account of our abundance even have corn to export to other lands, or the Athenians, who have not even enough for themselves unless they buy it?
1.12
Then as for money, we surely should be likely to enjoy a greater abundance of it, for we should not be looking to little islands for our revenues, but drawing upon the resources of peoples of the continent. For of course all who are round about us pay tribute as soon as Thessaly is under a Tagus. And you certainly know that it is by drawing upon the resources, not of islands, but of a continent, that the King of the Persians is the richest of mortals; and yet I think that it is even easier to reduce him to subjection than to reduce Greece. For I know that everybody there, save one person, has trained himself to servitude rather than to prowess, and I know what manner of force it was — both that which went up with Cyrus and that which went up with Agesilaus — that brought the King to extremities.
