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[4]
Moreover, the rulers of the sea can do just what rulers of the land sometimes can do, -- ravage the territory of the stronger.1 For wherever there is no enemy (or wherever enemies are few), it is possible to put in along the coast and -- if there is an attack, -- to go on board one's ship and sail away; one who does this is less badly off than one who comes to help with infantry.
1 Cf. Pericles in Thuc. 1.143.3 and the Athenian raiding of the Peloponnesian coast (e.g. in 431, Thuc. 2.23.1). But the author need not refer here to the Peloponnesian War; in 455 Tolmides also proved the point (Thuc. 1.108.5).