(no subject)

[timelets]

This was all sound, practical thinking on Hannibal’s part. [81] Anyone who claims that any aspect of generalship is more important than knowing the character and temperament of the enemy commander certainly does not know what he is talking about.
In a fight between individual soldiers, or between one rank and another, winning depends on seeing how to get through to the target—on spotting an exposed or undefended part of the opponent’s body. The same goes for those who lead whole armies, though they are concerned not with physical vulnerability, but any mental weakness that the opposing leader displays. Many commanding officers have lost their own lives and caused the utter ruin of their states as a result of complacency and general inertia; many others are so fond of wine that they cannot even get to sleep without drugging themselves with drink; others are so addicted to sex and its attendant derangement that they have been responsible for homes and cities being razed to the ground, and have brought personal disgrace upon themselves by the manner of their deaths.

Then again, impulsiveness, recklessness, irrational ardour, a false conception of one’s abilities, and arrogance are characteristics that make a man vulnerable to his enemies and highly dangerous to his friends; such a man reacts too readily to any plot, ambush, or trick.
...
He [Flaminius] gave no consideration to timing and terrain, and had no plan except to engage the enemy. He treated victory as a foregone con- clusion, and he had raised the hopes of the mob to such a pitch that soldiers under arms were outnumbered by non-combatants bearing chains and fetters and so on, who accompanied the army in the hope of booty.


--- Polybius, The Histories.

I wonder what he means by timing.