Book 2
4
This was a most unexpected relief to the Medionians. They met in public assembly and deliberated on the whole business, and especially as to the inscribing the arms reserved for dedication. They decided, in mockery of the Aetolian decree, that the inscription should contain the name of the Aetolian commander on the day of battle, and of the candidates for succession to his office. And indeed Fortune seems, in what happened to them, to have designed a display of her power to the rest of mankind. The very thing which these men were in momentary expectation of undergoing at the hands of their enemies, she put it in their power to inflict upon those enemies, and all within a very brief interval. The unexpected disaster of the Aetolians, too, may teach all the world not to calculate on the future as though it were the actually existent, and not to reckon securely on what may still turn out quite otherwise, but to allow a certain margin to the unexpected. And as this is true everywhere and to every man, so is it especially true in war.
