Antidosis (116-120)

Timotheus was superior to all the rest in that he did not hold the same views as you with regard to the affairs of the Hellenes and of your allies and the manner in which they should be directed. For you elect as your generals men who have the most robust bodies[*] and who have served in many campaigns with foreign armies, thinking that under their leadership you will have some success. Timotheus, on the other hand, used these men as captains and division-commanders,

while he, himself, showed his ability in the very things which it is necessary for a good general to know. What, then, are the requisites of a good general and what ability do they involve? For they cannot be summed up in a word, but must be explained clearly. First of all is the ability to know against whom and with whose help to make war; for this is the first requisite of good strategy, and if one makes any mistake about this, the result is inevitably a war which is disadvantageous, difficult, and to no purpose.

Well, in this kind of sagacity there has never been anyone like him or even comparable with him, as may easily be seen from his deeds themselves. For, although he undertook most of his wars without support from the city, he brought them all to a successful issue, and convinced all the Hellenes that he won them justly. And what greater or clearer proof of his wise judgement could one adduce than this fact?

What, then, is the second requisite of a good general? It is the ability to collect an army which is adequate to the war in hand, and to organize and to employ it to good advantage. Now, that Timotheus understood how to employ his forces to good purpose, his achievements themselves have shown; that in the ability to recruit armies which were splendidly equipped and reflected honor upon Athens he excelled all other men, no one even of his enemies would dare to gainsay;

and, furthermore, in the power both to bear the privations and hardships of army life, and again to find abundant resources, who of the men who were with him in the field would not pronounce him incomparable? For they know that at the beginning of his campaigns, owing to the fact that he received nothing from Athens, he found himself in great extremities, but that, even with this handicap, he was able to bring his fortunes round to the point where he not only prevailed over our enemies but paid his soldiers in full.