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.)