“Can you suppose that the herds of elephants are greater than of other cattle when the animal is known to be rare, hard to be caught, and harder still to tame?[274] It is the same spirit of falsehood which magnifies the number of horse and foot possessed by the enemy; and with respect to the river, why, the wider it spreads the liker it becomes to a placid pool. Rivers, as you know, that are confined between narrow banks and choked by narrow channels flow with torrent speed, while on the other hand the current slackens as the channel widens out. Besides, all the danger is at the bank where the enemy waits to receive us as we disembark; so that, be the breadth of the river what it may, the danger is all the same when we are in the act of landing. But let us suppose that these stories are all true, is it then, I ask, the monstrous size of the elephants or the number of the enemy that you dread? As for the elephants, we had an example of them before our eyes in the late battle when they charged more furiously upon their own ranks than upon ours, and when their vast bodies were cut and mangled by our bills and axes. What matters it then whether they be the same number as Porus had, or be 3000, when we see that if one or two of them be wounded, the rest swerve aside and take to flight. Then again, if it be no easy task to manage but a few of them, surely when so many thousands of them are crowded together, they cannot but hamper each other when their huge unwieldy bodies want room either to stand or run. For myself, I have such a poor opinion of the animals that, though I had them, I did not bring them into the field, being fully convinced they occasion more danger to their own side than to the enemy. “But it is the number, perhaps, of the horse and foot that excites your fears! for you have been wont, you know, to fight only against small numbers, and will now for the first time have to withstand undisciplined multitudes! The river Granicus is a witness of the courage of the Macedonians unconquered in fighting against odds;[275] so too is Cilicia deluged with the blood of the Persians, and Arbela, where the plains are strewn with the bones of your vanquished foes. It is too late, now that you have depopulated Asia by your victories, to begin counting the enemy’s legions. When we were crossing the Hellespont, it was then we should have thought about the smallness of our numbers, for now Scythians follow us, Bactrian troops are here to assist us, Dahans and Sogdians are serving in our ranks. But it is not in such a throng I put my trust. It is to your hands, Macedonians, I look. It is your valour I take as the gage and surety of the deeds I mean to perform.