History of the Peloponnesian War

For he has made it to consist of twelve hundred ships, those of the Boeotians carrying 120 men, and those of Philoctetes 50; meaning to show, as I think, the largest and the least; at any rate he has made no mention of the size of any others in the catalogue of the ships. And that they all were themselves rowers and fighting men, he has shown in the case of the ships of Philoctetes. For he has represented all the men at the oar as bowmen. And it is not probable that many supernumeraries would sail with them, except the kings and highest officers; especially as they were going to cross the open sea with munitions of war; and, on the other hand, had not their vessels decked, but equipped, after the old fashion, more like privateers.

Looking then at the mean of the largest and the smallest ships, they do not appear to have gone in any great number, considering that they were sent by the whole of Greece in common.

And the reason was not so much scarcity of men as want of money. For owing to difficulty of subsistence, they took their army the smaller, and such only as they hoped would live on the country itself while carrying on the war; and when on their arrival they were superior in battle, (and that they were so is evident, for they would not else have built the fortification for their camp,) they appear not even then to have employed all their force, but to have turned to the cultivation of the Chersonese, and to piracy, for want of food. And in this way the Trojans, owing to their being scattered, the more easily held out [*]( i. e. keeping the field, and not merely fighting from their walls.) by open force those ten years;

being a match for those who successively were left behind. But if they had gone with abundance of food, and in a body had continuously carried through the war, without foraging and agriculture, they would easily have conquered them in battle, and taken the place; since even though not united, but only with the part that was successively present, they held out against them. Now by pressing the siege, [I say,] they would have taken Troy both in less time and with less trouble; but through want of money both the undertakings before this [*]( The plural pronoun in the Greek, is used with reference to τὰ τρωϊκά, the common term to signify the Trojan war.) were weak, and this itself, though more famous than the former, is shown by facts [*]( Or, inferior in the facts. ) to have been inferior to its fame, and to the present report of it, which has prevailed by means of the poets.