Anabasis

And if you need henceforth to take some thought for the sake of this land also, seeing that it is yours, in which case do you suppose it would be freer from ills: if these soldiers should recover what they claim and go away leaving a state of peace behind them, or if they should remain as in a hostile country and you should undertake to maintain an opposing camp with other troops, that would have to be more numerous than these and would need provisions?

And in which case would more money be spent, if what is owing to these men should be paid over to them, or if this sum should be left owing and you should have to hire other troops stronger than they are?

Yes, but Heracleides thinks, as he used to explain to me, that this sum of money is a very large one. Upon my word it is a far smaller thing now for you to receive or to pay this sum than it would have been before we came to you to receive or to pay a tenth part of it.

For it is not number that determines what is much and what is little, but the capacity of the man who pays and of him who receives. And as for yourself, your yearly income is going to be greater now than all the property you possessed amounted to before.