History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides
Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Crawley, Richard, translator. London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1914.
Posting his youngest soldiers to dash out wherever the enemy should attack them, he himself with three hundred picked men in the rear intended to face about during the retreat and beat off the most forward of their assailants.
Meanwhile, before the enemy approached, he sought to sustain the courage of his soldiers with the following hasty exhortation:—