Out of Context: Gaius Petronius Arbiter on Reorganizing

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized…. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."


Gaius Petronius Arbiter died in AD 66. He is the reputed author of the Satyricon, a literary portrait of Roman society of the 1st century ad. He was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero.