Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

He came to Pericles’ door, and upon learning that Pericles was not at liberty, but was considering how to render his accounting to the Athenians, he said, Were it not better that he should consider how not to render it ? [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades, chap. vii. (194 E); Diodorus, xii. 38; Valerius Maximus, iii. 1, ext. 1.)

Summoned from Sicily by the Athenians to be tried for his life, he went into hiding, saying that it is silly for a man under indictment to seek a way to get off when he can get away. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades, chap. xxi. (202 C); Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 38.)

When somebody said, Don’t you trust your fatherland to decide about you ?he replied, Not I; nor would I trust even my mother, lest in a moment of thoughtlessness she unwittingly cast a black ballot instead of a white one. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades, chap. xxii. (202 D) and Aelian, xiii. 38.)

Hearing that sentence of death had been passed upon him and his companions, he said, Let us show them, then, that we are alive, and turning to the Spartan side he started the Decelean war against the Athenians. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades, chap. xxii. (202 D) and Aelian, xiii. 38; cf. also Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 40. 6.)

Lamachus reprimanded one of his captains who had made a mistake, and when the man vowed he would never do it again, Lamachus said, In war there is no room for two mistakes.

Iphicrates, who was reputed to be the son of a shoemaker, was looked down upon. The first occasion on which he won repute was when, wounded himself, he picked up one of the enemy alive, armour and all, and bore him to his own trireme.

Encamping in a friendly and allied country, he threw up a palisade and dug a ditch with all care, and to the man who said, What have we to fear ? he replied that the worst words a general could utter were the familiar I never should have thought it. [*](Cf. Polyaenus, Strategemata, iii. 9. 17. The saying is attributed to Scipio Africanus by Valerius Maximus, vii. 2, and to Fabius by Seneca, De ira, ii. 31. 4. Cicero, De officiis, i. 23 (81) states it as a general maxim.)

As he was disposing his army for battle against the barbarians he said he feared that they did not know the name of Iphicrates with which he was wont to strike terror to the hearts of his other foes. [*](Cf. Polyaenus, Strategemata, iii. 9. 25.)

When he was put on trial for his life [*](Together with Timotheus, for thinking it best not to fight at the Hellespont in 256 B.C. (Diodorus, xvi. 21).) he said to the informer, What are you trying to do, fellow ? At a time when war is all around us, you are persuading the State to deliberate about me instead of with me.

In reply to Harmodius, descendant of the Harmodius of early days, who twitted him about his lowly birth, he said, My family history begins with me, but yours ends with you. [*](Cf. De nobilitate, 21, in Moralia, vol. vii. p. 272 of Bernardakis’s edition.)

A certain speaker interrogated him in the Assembly: Who are you that you are so proud? Are you cavalryman or man-at-arms or archer or

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,

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.)

Hegesippus, nicknamed Topknot, [*](Because of his affectation in wearing his hair in a knot on the top of his head, in the very old-fashioned manner. Aeschines the orator regularly uses this name in speaking of him. For the crobylus see F. Studniczka, in the Appendix to Classen’s edition of Thucydides, i. 6. 3.) in a public address was inciting the Athenians against Philip, when someone in the Assembly commented audibly, You are bringing on war. Yes, by Heaven, I am, said he, and black clothes and public funerals and orations over the graves of the dead, if we intend to live as free men, and not to do what is enjoined upon us by the Macedonians.

Pytheas, while still young, came forward in the Assembly to oppose the resolutions proposed in honour of Alexander. When someone said, Have you the audacity, young as you are, to speak about such important matters ? he replied, As a matter of fact, Alexander, whom your resolutions declare to be a god, is younger than I am. [*](Cf. Moralia, 804 B. Similar derisive remarks about the deification of Alexander are attributed to other sharp-tongued Greeks. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, vi. 8 and vi. 63; Aelian, Varia Historia, ii. 19 and v. 12; Valerius Maximus, vii. 2, ext. 13. )