History of the Peloponnesian War

“For if we go from here provided with an equipment of our own that is not only equal to theirs —except indeed as regards their fighting troops of heavy-armed men—but that even surpasses it in all respects, scarcely even so shall we be able to conquer Sicily or indeed to preserve our own army.

It is, in fact, as you must believe, a city that we are going forth to found amid alien and hostile peoples, and it behooves men in such an enterprise to be at once, on the very day they land, masters of the soil, or at least to know that, if they fail in this, everything will be hostile to them.