Quod non pro paucitate diffidendum, si Dominus cum bellatoribus fuerit
The Lord Fights with the Few
A king should not despair at small numbers when the Lord is with those who fight, as shown in the examples of Gideon, the Maccabees, and Orosius.
You shouldn't trust in large numbers or lose heart because your forces are few when it comes to war, if the Lord is with those who fight — the most famous war waged through Gideon with the Lord directing it, the books of the Maccabees, and the history of Orosius all make this clear, where it is written (Book XI, c. 9).
Xerxes' Immense Army
Xerxes commanded an overwhelmingly vast army and fleet of allied and Persian forces, so immense that rivers, lands, and seas could scarcely sustain them.
Xerxes, king of the Persians, is said to have had seven hundred thousand armed men from his kingdom, and three hundred thousand from his allies, and also beaked ships — one thousand two hundred of them — and cargo ships, three thousand in number, so that deservedly, for so unexpected an army and an immense fleet, rivers barely sufficed for drinking, lands barely for landing, and seas barely for passage, as is recorded.
Leonidas at Thermopylae
Leonidas with four thousand men held the narrows of Thermopylae against Xerxes' horde, and when surrounded, dismissed his allies but resolved with his Spartans to break through the enemy camp by night.
Against such an incredible column in our own times — whose number is now harder to muster than it was then to conquer — Leonidas, king of the Spartans, with four thousand men, stood firm in the narrows of Thermopylae. Xerxes, however, scorning the smallness of the opposing force, orders the battle to be joined and the fighting to begin, and over three continuous days it was not a battle between two peoples but the slaughter of one. But on the fourth day, when he saw Leonidas surrounded by the enemy on every side, he urges his allied auxiliaries to withdraw from the battle and escape to the summit of the mountain, and to save themselves for better times: but for himself and his Spartans, another fate had to be faced — that he owed more to his homeland than to his life. After dismissing the allies, he urges the Spartans above all about glory, that nothing should be hoped for from life: neither to expect the enemy nor daylight, but that under cover of night the camp must be broken through, weapons mingled, and columns thrown into confusion.
The Spartans' Night Assault
Six hundred Spartans charged into a camp of six hundred thousand, throwing it into chaos and cutting down all in their path, victorious in death.
Nowhere are victors more honorably destined to fall than in the enemy's camp. Therefore, persuaded that they would rather die, they arm themselves for vengeance on the coming death, as if they themselves were both to demand and to avenge their own destruction. Amazing to say — six hundred men burst into a camp of six hundred thousand. An uproar arises throughout the entire camp. The Persians even help the Spartans with mutual slaughter of their own men. The Spartans, looking for their king and not finding him, cut everything down and lay it low, range through the whole camp, and among the dense piles of bodies they scarcely pursue the scattered men — victors without a doubt, had they not chosen to die. »
Read the original Latin
Quod non in multitudine fidendum, nec pro paucitate diffidendum in bello sit, si Dominus cum bellatoribus fuerit, et famosissimum bellum per Gedeonem Domino disponente actum, et libri Machabaeorum, et historia Orosii demonstrat, in qua scriptum est (lib. XI, c. 9). « Xerxes rex Persarum septingenta millia armatorum de regno, et trecenta de auxiliis, rostratas etiam naves mille ducentas, onerarias autem tria millia numero habuisse narratur, ut merito inopinato exercitui immensaeque classi, vix ad potum flumina, vix terras ad ingressum, vix maria ad cursum suffecisse memoratum sit. Huic tam incredibili temporibus nostris agmini, cujus numerum nunc difficilius est astrui, quam tunc fuit vinci, Leonida rex Spartanorum cum quatuor millibus hominum in angustiis Thermopylarum obstitit. Xerxes autem, contemptu paucitatis objectae, iniri pugnam, conseri manum imperat, ac per triduum continuum non duorum pugna, sed caedes unius populi fuit. Quarto autem die cum videret Leonida undique hostem circumfundi, hortatur auxiliares socios, ut subtrahentes se pugnae in cacumen montis evadant, ac se ad meliora tempora reservent: sibi vero cum Spartanis suis aliam sortem esse subeundam, plus se patriae debere quam vitae. Dimissis sociis Spartanos admonet de gloria plurimum, de vita nihil sperandum: neque exspectandum vel hostem, vel diem, sed occasione noctis perrumpenda castra, commiscenda arma, conturbanda agmina fore.
Nusquam victores honestius quam in castris hostium esse perituros. Persuasi igitur mori malle, in ultionem futurae mortis armantur, tanquam ipsi interitum suum et exigerent et vindicarent. Mirum dictu, sexcenti viri castra sexcentorum millium irrumpunt. Tumultus totis castris oritur. Persae quoque ipsi Spartanos mutuis suis caedibus adjuvant. Spartani quaerentes regem, nec invenientes, caedunt sternuntque omnia, castra pervagantur universa, et inter densas strues corporum raros homines vix sequuntur, victores sine dubio nisi mori elegissent. »
On the Person and Ministry of the King (De regis persona et regio ministerio) companion
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