Homer is therefore deserving of praise in representing <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Odysseus&groupId=801&placeId=1446">Odysseus</a>, the most capable of commanders, as observing the stars to direct not only his course at sea, but his operations on land.
For those accidents which take us by surprise and cannot be accurately foreseen are quite sufficiently numerous to expose us to great and frequent difficulties,
I mean sudden rains and floods, exceeding great frosts and snowfalls, a foggy and clouded state of the atmosphere and the like,
and if we pay no attention even to such things as can be foreseen, we are sure to fail in most enterprises by our own fault.
So that none of the above-mentioned matters must be neglected, if we are not to commit such blunders as many other generals are said to have committed besides those I am about to cite as examples.
Walbank Commentary