Turtle-bile, and Dercyllidas’s pits

It is possible also to take a trial of this drug even at leisure, and to wonder how much strength there is from it, and in war better than missiles. A horse would fall otherwise, the nostrils sprinkled with the bile of a sea-turtle; and, given up by his own, it is our gain. For he will stand up if someone mix saffron and myrrh together with lily equally and apply it to his snout. Fallen mules will also stand up. But the juice of karpasos is more death-dealing to horses. They would also die if they became entangled with phalangia and with a salamander, and with ivy-tear and storax-juice. They are harmed too by the smoke from a menstrual rag. Let these things have been said otherwise.

Dercyllidas the Lacedaemonian, having brought an infantry phalanx against the opponents' horse, stationing them in the brick-shape and back-to-back in depth, ordered those behind, sitting under the shield, to dig pits with the daggers as fast as possible. Then he led the hoplites into the middle; and they were a defense. For the pits are most hostile to the horsemen.