History of the Peloponnesian War

For of all the nations of Europe that lie between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine Sea, it was, for revenue of money and other wealth, the mightiest; though indeed for strength of an army and multitudes of soldiers, the same be far short of the Scythians.

For there is no nation, not to say of Europe but neither of Asia, that are comparable to this, or that as long as they agree, are able, one nation to one, to stand against the Scythians. And yet in matter of counsel and wisdom in the present occasions of life, they are not like to other men.

Sitalces therefore, king of this great country, prepared his army and, when all was ready, set forward and marched towards Macedonia: first, through his own dominion; then, over Cercine, a desert mountain dividing the Sintians from the Paeonians, over which he marched the same way himself had formerly made with timber when he made war against the Paeonians. Passing this mountain out of the country of the Odrysians, they had on their right hand the Paeonians and on the left the Sintians and Medes;

and beyond it they came to the city of Doberus in Paeonia.

His army, as he marched, diminished not any way, except by sickness, but increased by the accession of many free nations of Thrace that came in uncalled in hope of booty. Insomuch as the whole number is said to have amounted to no less than a hundred and fifty thousand men, whereof the most were foot, the horse being a third part or thereabouts.

And of the horse, the greatest part were the Odrysians themselves and the next most, the Getes. And of the foot, those swordsmen, a free nation that came down to him out of the mountain Rhodope, were the most warlike. The rest of the promiscuous multitude were formidable only for their number.