History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

Such was the order and the composition of the two sides. The army of the Lacedaemonians appeared the larger;

but the number, either of the separate contingents or of the total on either side, I could not possibly state accurately. For on account of the secrecy of their polity the number of the Lacedaemonians was unknown; and that claimed for the others, on account of men's tendency to boast with regard to their own numbers, was discredited.