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Observing the recklessness of the enemy, he said that he himself was buying security with time; for a good general, like a physician, needed to operate with steel only as a last resort. 1 Nevertheless he attacked at the proper time and routed the Numantians. 2

1 Cf. Aulus Gellius, xiii. 3. 6, where Scipio quotes a similar aphorism of his father's.

2 Appian relates that Numantia was reduced by systematic siege (Wars in Spain, 89 ff.).

Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.

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