37.
"And if indeed they come, as these men say they will, I think Sicily more sufficient to dispatch the war than Peloponnesus, as being in all respects better furnished, and that this our own city is much stronger than the army which they say is now coming, though it were twice as great as it is.
For I know they neither bring horses with them nor can they get any here, save only a few from the Egestaeans, nor have men of arms so many as we, in that they are to bring them by sea.
For it is a hard matter to come so far as this by sea, though they carried no men of arms in their galleys at all, if they carry with them all other their necessaries, which cannot be small against so great a city.
[2]
So that I am so far from the opinion of these others that I think the Athenians, though they had here another city as great as Syracuse, and confining on it, and should from thence make their war, yet should not be able to escape from being destroyed, every man of them, much less now, when all Sicily is their enemy.
For in their camp, fenced with their galleys, they shall be cooped up and from their tents and forced munition never be able to stir far abroad without being cut off by our horsemen.
In short, I think they shall never be able to get landing, so much above theirs do I value our own forces.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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