Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

In the Civil War, [*](Usually called the Social War (ὁ συμμαχιὸς πόλεμος), 90-88 B.C.) when he found himself

surrounded by a trench and cut off by the enemy, he held out and bided his own time. Pompaedius [*](Or possibly Poppaedius.) Silo said to him, If you are a great general, Marius, come down and fight it out. Marius replied, If you are a great general, make me fight it out when I do not wish to do so ! [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of C. Marius, chap. xxxiii. (424 D).)