Chabrias

died 357 BC · Athenian general · saying preserved by Plutarch (c. 46–120 AD)

Chabrias was a prominent Athenian general of the 4th century BC, active in campaigns across the Aegean and in Egypt. The Greek biographer Plutarch, writing centuries later in the ‘Moralia,’ records Chabrias’s maxim that an army of deer led by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions led by a deer — the ancient seed of the line now misattributed to Napoleon.

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“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep”

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