Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

Timotheus was popularly thought to be a lucky general, and some who were jealous of him painted pictures of cities entering into a trap of their own accord while he was asleep. [*](Of the many repetitions of this story it may suffice to refer to Plutarch’s Life of Sulla, chap. vi. (454 B); Moralia, 856 B; Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 43.) Whereupon Timotheus said, If I capture such cities as those while I am asleep, what do you think I shall do when I am awake ?

When one [*](Chares, according to Plutarch in his Life of Pelopidas, chap. ii. (278 D).) of the foolhardy generals was exhibiting to the Athenians a wound he had received, Timotheus said, But I was ashamed when, at the time I was commanding, you in Samos, [*](In 366 B.C.) a missile from a catapult fell near me.

When the prominent speakers brought forward Chares, and insisted that the general of the Athenians ought to be a man like him, Timotheus said, Not the general, but the man who carries the general’s bedding! [*](Cf. Moralia, 788 D.)

Chabrias used to say that those men commanded an army best who best knew what the enemy were about.

When he was under indictment for treason along with Iphicrates, [*](With Callistratus, rather than Iphicrates, in the year 366 B.C. Cf. Demosthenes, Against Meidias, 65.) Iphicrates rebuked him because, while he was in jeopardy, he went to the gymnasium,

and spent the usual time at his luncheon. His answer was, You may go unwashed and unfed, and I may have had my luncheon and a bath and rub-down, but you may rest assured that, if the Athenians reach any adverse decision regarding us, they will put us both to death.

He was wont to say that an army of deer commanded by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions commanded by a deer. [*](Ascribed to Philip by Stobaeus, Florilegium, liv. 61.)