(no subject)

[timelets]

...if someone bears in mind the part played by the extraordinary and the unexpected on those occasions, and remembers how many myriads of men were, for all their fearlessness and their armament, destroyed by the resolve and the resources of those who faced danger intelligently and rationally, he will not be dismayed by immense quantities of supplies and weapons, and hordes of troops, into abandoning all hope and failing to fight for his land and the country of his birth.

--- Polybius, The Histories.