Comparison of Agesilaus and Pompey (4.1-4.2)

Furthermore, the chief task of a good general is to force his enemies to give battle when he is superior to them, but not to be forced himself to do this when his forces are inferior, and by so doing Agesilaüs always kept himself unconquered; whereas in Pompey’s case, Caesar escaped injury at his hands when he was inferior to him, and forced him to stake the whole issue on a battle with his land forces, wherein Caesar was superior, thus defeating him and becoming at once master of treasures, pro- visions, and the sea,—advantages which would have brought his ruin without a battle had they remained in his enemy’s control.

And that which is urged as an excuse for this failure is really a very severe accusation against a general like him. For that a youthful commander should be frightened by tumults and outcries into cowardly weakness and abandon his safest plans, is natural and pardonable; but that Pompey the Great, whose camp the Romans called their country, and his tent their senate, while they gave the name of traitors and rebels to the consuls and praetors and other magistrates at Rome,—that he who was known to be under no one’s command,