They are numerous, you say, and if they are in good heart, we shall soon know it.
[32] Now, if they cannot find us and imagine that we have disappeared from fear of them, you may take it as certain that they will be quit of the terror we have inspired.

Courage will spring up in its place, and grow the greater the longer we lie hid.

But if we march straight on then, we shall find them still mourning for the dead whom we have slain, still nursing the wounds we have inflicted, still trembling at the daring of our troops, still mindful of their own discomfiture and flight.

[33] Gobryas," he added, "be assured of this; men in the mass, when aflame with courage, are irresistible, and when their hearts fail them, the more numerous they are the worse the panic that seizes them.
[34] It comes upon them magnified by a thousand lies, blanched by a thousand pallors, it gathers head from a thousand terror-stricken looks, until it grows so great that no orator can allay it by his words, no general arouse the old courage by a charge, or revive the old confidence by retreat; the more their leader cheers them on, the worse do the soldiers take their case to be.

[35] Now by all means let us see exactly how things stand with us.