And none of these things has happened by accident, but all of them have been due to
 natural causes; for it is not possible for people who are reared and governed as are the
 Persians, either to have a part in any other form of virtue or to set up on the field of
 battle trophies of victory over their foes. For effeminacy
 of the Persians see Isoc. 5.124 . For how could
 either an able general or a good soldier be produced amid such ways of life as theirs?
 Most of their population is a mob without discipline or experience of dangers, which has
 lost all stamina for war and has been trained more effectively for servitude than are the
 slaves in our country. Those, on the other hand, who stand highest in repute among them have never governed
 their lives by dictates of equality or of common interest or of loyalty to the state; on
 the contrary, their whole existence consists of insolence toward some, and servility
 towards others—a manner of life than which nothing could be more demoralizing to human
 nature. Because they are rich, they pamper their bodies; but because they are subject to
 one man’s power, they keep their souls in a state of abject and cringing fear, parading
 themselves at the door of the royal palace, prostrating themselves, and in every way
 schooling themselves to humility of spirit, falling on their knees before a mortal man,
 addressing him as a divinity, and thinking more lightly of the gods than of men. So it is that those of the Persians who come down to the sea, whom they term
 satraps, Viceroys of the king—provincial
 governors. do not dishonor the training which they receive at home, but cling
 steadfastly to the same habits: they are faithless to their friends and cowardly to their
 foes; their lives are divided between servility on the one hand and arrogance on the
 other; they treat their allies with contempt and pay court to their enemies. For example, they maintained the army under Agesilaus at their own expense for eight
 months, See Xen. Hell.
 3.4.26 ; Grote, Hist. ix. p. 92. but they deprived the
 soldiers who were fighting in the Persian cause of their pay for double that length of
 time; they distributed an hundred talents among the captors of Cisthene, Cisthene was probably a town in Asia Minor captured by Agesilaus in the campaign. but treated
 more outrageously than their prisoners of war the troops who supported them in the
 campaign against Cyprus .