which no one checks,
spills the blood of numbers of people, and at last sheds his own.
Such persons assert what has never been investigated as certain facts,
consider that to modify their opinion is as dishonourable as to be
conquered, believe that institutions which are just flickering out of
existence will last for ever, and, thus overturn great States, to the
destruction of themselves and all who are connected with them. Living
as they do in a fool's paradise, resplendent with unreal and short-lived
advantages, they forget that, as soon as they put it out of their power
to hear the truth, there is no limit to the misfortunes which they may
expect.

XXXI. When Xerxes declared war against Greece, all his courtiers
encouraged his boastful temper, which forgot how unsubstantial his
grounds for confidence were. One declared that the Greeks would not
endure to hear the news of the declaration of war, and would take to
flight at the first rumour of his approach; another, that with such a
vast army Greece could not only be conquered, but utterly overwhelmed,
and that it was rather to be feared that they would find the Greek
cities empty and abandoned, and that the panic flight of the enemy
would leave them only vast deserts, where no use could be made of their
enormous forces. Another told him that the world was hardly large enough
to contain him, that the seas were too narrow for his fleets, the camps
would not take in his armies, the plains were not wide enough to deploy
his cavalry in, and that the sky itself was scarcely large enough to
enable all his troops to hurl their darts at once. While much boasting
of this sort was going on around him, raising his already overweening
self-confidence to a frantic pitch, Demaratus, the Lacedaemonian,
alone told him that the disorganized and unwieldy multitude in which he
trusted, was in itself a danger to its chief, because it possessed
only weight without strength; for an army which is too large cannot
be governed, and one which cannot be governed, cannot long exist. "The
Lacedaemonians," said he, "will meet you upon the first mountain in
Greece, and will give you a taste of their quality. All these thousands
of nations of yours will be held in check by three hundred men: they
will stand firm at their posts, they will defend the passes entrusted to
them with their weapons, and block them up with their bodies: all Asia
will not force them to give way; few as they are, they will sto