Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

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

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.)

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. )