History of the Peloponnesian War

For not even have you, though practising from the very time of the Median war, brought it to perfection as yet; how then shall men who are agriculturalists and not mariners, and, moreover, will not even be permitted to practise, from being always [*](ἐφορμεῖν means properly to lie at anchor, or take up a station, with a hostile purpose; hence, to observe the movements of an enemy, with a view to attack him; or, frequently, to blockade him. ) observed by us with many ships, achieve any thing worth speaking of?

Against a few ships observing them they might run the risk, encouraging their ignorance by their numbers; but when kept in check by many, they will remain quiet; and through not practising will be the less skilful, and therefore the more afraid. For naval service is a matter of art, like any thing else;

and does not admit of being practised just when it may happen, as a by-work; but rather does not even allow of any thing else being a by-work to it.

"Even if they should take some of the funds at Olympia or Delphi, and endeavour, by higher pay, to rob us of our foreign sailors, that would be alarming, if we were not a match for them, by going on board ourselves and our resident aliens; but now this is the case; and, what is best of all, we have native steersmen, and crews at large, more numerous and better than all the rest of Greece.