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18“I speak to you who know that what I say is true, and make you who hear it my witnesses to its truth, not with the intention of uttering idle boasts about myself,—enough for me, so far as fame is concerned, is your consciousness of it,—but to the end that you may in this way bring home to yourselves how much better we are equipped than our opponents. 2For while they are inferior to us not only in number of troops and in abundance of money, but also in diversity of equipment, yet in no one respect are they so lacking as in the youth and inexperience of their commander. About his deficiencies in general I do not need to speak precisely or in detail, 3but I will sum up the whole matter and say, what you also know, that he is a veritable weakling in body and has never by himself been victor in any important battle either on the land or on the sea. Indeed, at Philippi, in one and the same conflict, it was I that conquered and he that was defeated.
4“So great is the difference between us two; but, as a rule, it is those who have the better equipment that secure the victories. Now if our opponents have any strength at all, you will find it to exist in their heavy-armed force and on land; as for their ships, they will not even be able to sail out against us at all. 5For you yourselves, of course, see the length and beam of our vessels, which are such that even if the enemy’s were a match for them in number, yet because of these advantages on our side they could do no damage either by charging bows-on or by ramming our sides. For in the one case the thickness of our timbers, and in the other the very height of our ships, would certainly check them, even if there were no one on board to ward them off. 6Where, indeed, will anyone find a chance to assail ships which carry so many archers and slingers, who have the further advantage of striking their assailants from the towers aloft? But if anyone should manage to come up close, how could he fail to get sunk by the very number of our oars, or how could he fail to be sent to the bottom when shot at by all the warriors on our decks and in our towers?
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