Book 6
2.16
and, in the third place, that, equipped in the same armour in which they were armed when their infantry defeated our infantry, they have cavalry now coming to meet our cavalry; that they have rejected the bow and the javelin, and that each man has adopted one heavy lance and is resolved to ride up and fight hand to hand?
2.17
And again, what would you have done, if you heard that chariots are coming which are not, as before, to stand still facing back as if for flight, but that the horses harnessed to the chariots are covered with mail, while the drivers stand in wooden towers and the parts of their body not defended by the towers are completely panoplied in breast-plates and helmets; and that scythes of steel have been fitted to the axles, and that it is the intention to drive these also into the ranks of the enemy?
2.18
Or again, if you heard that theyand fills them with new enthusiasm have camels on which they will ride up to us, and a hundred horses could not endure the sight of any one of them? And again, that they are coming with towers, from which they will protect their comrades and by throwing missiles hinder us from fighting in a fair field?
2.19
If any one reported to you that this was the condition of things among the enemy, what would you, who are now so frightened, have done, seeing that you were terrified when the report came that Croesus had been elected commander-in-chief of the enemy—Croesus, who was a worse coward than the Syrians; for the Syrians fled because they were defeated in the battle, whereas Croesus, instead of standing by his allies, beat a hasty retreat when he saw that they were defeated?
