This is a great sentiment... but it is not really by Petronious. But its false attribution is key to the depth of its satire. That it has since been quoted by scholars as genuine has only added to its power as an epithet of inefficiency. The best research can find no reference to it prior to the immediate post WW2 period. It is reputed to have been found as a barrack room noticeboard comment in a British Army base in Occupied West Germany. No doubt a Classical Scholar Conscript who found himself compelled to anonymously criticise the inefficiencies of army management. P.S. The Roman Petronius died at his own hand on the orders of Nero in 66AD (CE for the politically correct) - Some quotes of this have him as a General or Admiral, Roman or Greek. He was Rome's great Satirist.