Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

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