Book 6
1.15
For, be well assured, the war will be against strong forces and against a man who is so sagacious a general that374 B.C. whatsoever he undertakes to accomplish, whether it be by secrecy, or by getting ahead of an enemy, or by sheer force, he is not very apt to fail of his object. For he is able to make as good use of night as of day, and when he is in haste, to take breakfast and dinner together and go on with his labours. And he thinks it is proper to rest only after he has reached the goal for which he had set out and has accomplished the things that are needful; moreover, he has accustomed his followers also to the same habits. Yet he also knows how to satisfy the wishes of his soldiers when by added toils they have achieved some success; so that all who are with him have learned this lesson too, that from toils come indulgences.
1.16
Again, he has greater self-control than any man I know as regards the pleasures of the body, so that he is not prevented by such things, either, from doing always what needs to be done. Consider, therefore, and tell me, as beseems you, what you will be able to do and intend to do.
1.17
Thus he spoke. As for the Lacedaemonians, at the time they deferred their answer; but after reckoning up on the next day and on the third their regiments abroad, to see how many they numbered, and the regiments which were in the vicinity of Lacedaemon to be employed against the triremes of the Athenians and for the war upon their neighbours, they replied that at present they could not send him an adequate supporting force, and told him to go home and arrange his own affairs and those of his city as best he could.
