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Under these conditions, in order to reassure the anxious soldiers, the emperor gave orders that some of the prisoners, who were naturally slender, as almost all the Persians are, besides being now thin from exhaustion, should be placed before them; then, looking towards our men, he said: “Behold those whom your heroic hearts think to be men, mere ugly she-goats disfigured with filth, who, as abundant experience has shown, throw away their arms and [p. 473] take to flight before they come to grips.” 1

1 Agesilaus used a similar artifice against the Persians; cf. Xenophon, Ages., i. 28 (p. 73, L.C.L.); and Plut. Ages., 9, 5.

Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.

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