ἀνοήτους ἐξαπατᾷ καὶ σφάλλει περὶ τοῖς μείζοσι, μικρὰ πλεονεκτεῖν ἐπιτρέπουσα, τοῖς ἔμφροσι δὲ τὸ βεβαίως θαρσεῖν ὑπὲρ τῶν μειζόνων, ὅταν ἐν τοῖς ἐλάττοσιν αὐτοὺς διαταράττῃ, παρέχει. τοῦτο Λακεδαιμόνιοι παθόντες ἐν Πύλαις οὐκ ἀπηγόρευον οὐδὲ ἔδεισαν [B] τὸν Μῆδον ἐπιφερόμενον, τριακοσίους Σπαρτιατῶν καὶ τὸν βασιλέα περὶ τὰς εἰσβολὰς τῆς Ἑλλάδος προέμενοι· τοῦτο Ῥωμαῖοι πολλάκις παθόντες μείζονα κατώρθουν ὕστερον· ὁ δὴ καὶ βασιλεὺς ἐννοῶν καὶ λογιζόμενος οὐδαμῶς ἐσφάλη τῆς γνώμης. (Now since this was and is the Emperor’s behaviour after the war, he is naturally loved and “longed for by his friends,”(464) since he has admitted many of them to honour and power and freedom of speech, and has bestowed on them as well vast sums of money, and permits them to use their wealth as they please; but even to his enemies he is the same. The following may serve as a clear proof of this. Those members of the Senate who were of any account and surpassed the rest in reputation and wealth and wisdom, fled to the shelter of his right hand as though to a harbour, and, leaving behind their hearths and homes and children, preferred Paeonia(465) to Rome, and to be with him rather than with their dearest. Again, a division of the choicest of the cavalry together with their standards, and bringing their general(466) with them, chose to share danger with him rather than success with the usurper. And all this took place before the battle on the banks of the Drave, which the earlier part of my speech described to you. For after that they began to feel perfect confidence, though before that it looked as though the usurper’s cause was getting the upper hand, when he gained some slight advantage in the affair of the Emperor’s scouts,(467) which indeed made the usurper beside himself with joy and greatly agitated those who were incapable of grasping or estimating generalship. But the Emperor was unperturbed and heroic, like a good pilot when a tempest has suddenly burst from the clouds, and next moment, the god shakes the depths and the shores. Then a terrible and dreadful panic seizes on those who are inexperienced, but the pilot begins to rejoice, and is glad, because he can now hope for a perfect and windless calm. For it is said that Poseidon, when he makes the earth quake, calms the waves. And just so fortune deceives the foolish and deludes them about more important things by allowing them some small advantage, but in the wise she inspires unshaken confidence about more serious affairs even when she disconcerts them in the case of those that are less serious. This was what happened to the Lacedaemonians at Pylae,(468) but they did not despair nor fear the onset of the Mede because they had lost three hundred Spartans and their king(469) at the entrance into Greece. This often happened to the Romans, but they achieved more important successes later on. Wherefore, since the Emperor knew this and counted on it, he in no way wavered in his purpose.)