§ 1. Whole states experience war more readily than a few men define it. War, as Lipsius defines it, is “force and arms directed against a foreign prince or people.” Without doubt he understands force inflicted by a supreme prince or by a state; for if it is inflicted by a faction or by a few persons without public counsel, these are robberies rather than wars. The Hebrews call it מלחמה and מלחמת, from לחם, which means to eat, to devour. For it is ὁ πόλεμος ὁ δημοβόρος—war that devours the people. Hence the divine Spirit in Scripture gives a mouth to the sword, and men are said to perish in the mouth of the sword. Deuteronomy 32:42: “I shall make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh.” War, therefore, is a horrible beast which with innumerable arrows sucks the blood of the dying, cuts their flesh with swords, and tries to fill its pierced belly with dismembered flesh, yet is never sated even when drunk.
§ 2. The evils of war are innumerable; none is graver than that such great distinctions and triumphs are sought from the slaughter of men. We behold beasts tearing one another and hunts, but cruelty ceases once it is fed; for a man to have killed a man is glorious. It seems sufficient cause for so sacred an animal to be killed if the killer acquires the name of victor. For how many nations have perished through no fault of their own, but through most cruel ambition? I do not deny that those who have been ministers of just wars and have received wounds for their fatherland are to be adorned with deserved rewards. Yet I deplore this calamity of the human race: that whole nations fall for leaves of laurel; that wars are sown by a desire to triumph; and that there should be greater glory in having killed many men than in having saved many.
We admire Alexander, Caesar, Muhammad, and Tamerlane, and it is held the summit of praise to have killed many guilty and many innocent men without distinction. By the same title you could praise the Nemean lion, the Lernaean hydra, and the Calydonian boar. Caesar’s avowal is foul: that 1,192,000 men were killed by him—and he is not yet speaking of the civil war. Pompey inscribed in Minerva’s shrine that 2,180,000 men had been routed, put to flight, killed, or received in surrender by him. What is this, O my God, that in human society, even among cultivated minds, to have killed many should hold the summit of praise? Such savagery cannot be veiled by the pretext of justice, for those who waged unjust wars also possessed that glory.
We complain of these things in vain. Wars existed when the world was born, and the day of decision will find men still at war. The world was too narrow for two brothers, since Cain thought Abel was going to be more blessed than he. The wars of the Giants followed, and the Flood enclosed the discordant in one abyss. After the Flood, Noah and his sons at first governed one family, until the earth was divided and Nimrod reigned in the plain of Shinar. Indeed, grave wars occurred while Noah, Shem, Japheth, and Ham were still alive; nor could great-grandfathers, grandfathers, and fathers reconcile their descendants to peace. Those wars are narrated in Genesis 14. They occurred 344 years after the Flood, at which time Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor were alive, so that it was astonishing that tyrannies had arisen so quickly. For the battle which Moses recounts was not the first. Those kings had already served Chedorlaomer, king of the Elamites, for twelve years; therefore they had been conquered in war twelve years before, and wars were already customary. An indication of this is that Chedorlaomer had kings allied with him and, although he reigned in Elymais, far distant from the Canaanites, nevertheless oppressed them with servitude.
Moreover, these wars were cruel. Genesis 14:5: “Therefore, in the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer came, and the kings who were with him; and they struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim with them, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the Horites in the mountains of Seir, as far as the plains of Paran, which is in the wilderness.” Wars have continued in this discipline and sequence down to our own times.
§ 3. Even the most just wars have this common evil: that discipline lies prostrate in them and vices grow strong. For since in war there are the greatest labors and continual dangers, the minds of foolish soldiers are detained by the sweetness of pleasures and of every vice, lest they desert the camp. Hence nothing corrupts morals as much as military service, in which most things are committed with impunity. War therefore makes men savage and desirous of every evil. Deeds that are judged disgraceful in a state and well-ordered city are games in a camp. For what form of evil is usually absent in captured cities? Thus those who contaminate victory with enormous crimes are much more pitiable than those whom they butcher. For greater crimes are usually committed while a city is being captured than those for which it deserves to be captured.
A sure sign of such great impiety is that, amid present danger and the slaughter of the dying, they undertake no serious thought for salvation. They have death upon their lips and experience what that author says:
Κοινὸς Ἐνυάλιος, καὶ τὸν κτείνοντα κτείνει.
Death is common to all; it kills the killer.
This is what shows a mind hardened by evils and stubborn against divine grace: not to die steadfastly, but to die fixed in one’s vices; to be moved by no danger to repentance, but to grow hardened in the very evils. The reason is that riches are the end of such great contests:
To such a degree the love of gold alone knows not how
To fear steel and death. Laws are lost without distinction;
And you, riches, vilest part of things,
Have stirred up the contest.
§ 4. Hence neither superstition deterred pagans from the shrines of their gods, nor religion Christians from violating sacred buildings.
The humanity of Fabius is praised because, when he had overthrown Tarentum, he did not rage against its gods but said that he was leaving the Tarentines their angry gods. Fabius is therefore praised because he preferred to abstain from plundering images rather than carry away many great things. The ancients, however, were more wicked even within the temples of their gods. Troy herself, as I said—Augustine says this in The City of God, Book I, chapter 4—“the mother of the Roman people, was unable in the consecrated places of her gods to defend her citizens from the fire and sword of the Greeks, who worshiped those same gods.” Indeed, in Juno’s asylum:
Phoenix and dire Ulysses, chosen guards,
Watched over the spoil; here from every side was heaped
The treasure of Troy, snatched from the burning sanctuaries,
Tables of the gods and bowls of solid gold,
And captive raiment. Boys and trembling mothers
Stand round in a long line.
Plainly, the place consecrated to so great a goddess was chosen not as one from which it was unlawful to lead captives away, but as one in which it pleased them to shut captives up.
To destroy those idols and brothels was not indeed a crime; but it is monstrous sacrilege when we see that Christians spare not even the churches and sacred things of Christians. Those Athenians, the inventors of all literature and humane culture, waged wars not for justice or piety, but for wealth, as those who sought their aid attest. For this reason the people of Egesta deceived the Athenians by a notable stratagem: intending to procure auxiliaries by means of money, they borrowed valuables from their neighbors, adorned their temples and houses, and, by producing a false belief in their riches, obtained assistance.
§ 5. A prince must always fear war, although his enemies are weak and by no means his equals. For the die of war is uncertain. Diogenes the Cynic reproached Philip, saying that he was a spectator of Philip’s folly, since, while possessing so many things, he put them all in danger and did so under no necessity. For what more insane thing can be conceived than that the lord of so many kingdoms should be exposed, like a target, to an uncertain missile? All things in human life are uncertain, but nothing is more uncertain than war. A single hour overturns acquired and expected riches and distinctions. What is gravest, in war it is not permissible to err twice. Indeed, it is also customary that those princes to whom the labor belongs do not receive its fruit. Others triumph and say:
Those who, with blood shed, won this fatherland.
But the gravest thing of all in war for a commander or a state is that they are frequently stripped of their goods by their own soldiers and tribunes and fall into great calamities. For very many of the soldiers find it profitable for war to be prolonged, something they easily accomplish through their idleness and negligence. The Carthaginians had ended their war against the Romans; peace and treaties had been made, when suddenly the army that was to be discharged made Matho and Spendius its commanders and brought upon the Carthaginians a war much more dangerous than the one that had been waged against the Romans. The same thing happened in Italy within the lifetime of our grandfathers, when affairs were peaceful: bands of soldiers occupied and plundered towns and citadels. Indeed, the illustrious warrior Francesco Sforza occupied Milan, for which he had fought. Most soldiers in Italy at that time were disposed in the same way, although they did not obtain a duchy. A prince must fear his own forces no less than those of another.
§ 6. Nor do victors obtain the praise they desired. Nothing is so receptive of malice and talk as war. Losses always occur, and princes are always blamed for losses. Seditions therefore readily arise from war, and the prince is unequal to them when enemies arise abroad and rioters at home: the latter withdraw the prince’s strength, while the former break it. Marcian therefore used most prudently to say that an emperor should not take up arms as long as he was permitted to cultivate peace. For since, even in a moderate government, it is difficult to satisfy even the modest expectation of a few, how can one man possibly please everyone through the injustices of wars, when he is useful to few, harmful to many, and burdensome to all? These things arise from the nature of war. No one securely enjoys his fortunes; death threatens everyone at every hour, and an enemy brandishes the sword that is now on the point of sticking in his throat. I therefore require the prince to be a guardian of peace. “Peace,” as Nazianzen says, “is a good praised by all, but preserved by few.”
Experience teaches that those who have triumphed most splendidly have been crushed by victorious envy. When Camillus triumphed after the plunder of Veii with white horses, he appeared to rival the gods; but he experienced that whatever exceeds the common lot is exposed to the envy of others. For all men envy those above them unless they are very good. They even envy friends and those who benefit them. Saul rejoiced in the deliverance given by David’s courage, yet envied his glory to such a degree that he appeared to prefer being conquered rather than conquering with praise for his own commander. Envy is blind and knows nothing except how to disparage virtues and corrupt honors and the rewards of labors. Why, then, should you look to praise when you sometimes see the senate and people disparaging a victor? Indeed, the greater the glory appears, the more maliciously they diminish it, speak against it, devise lawsuits, and decree exiles. I recommend these things, yet, as I suspect, I do not persuade. For the sweetness of glory is immense; it is more easily said to be despised than it is despised.
§ 7. War is easily begun and most difficult to settle. A spark struck from flint sets a forest alight; no force can extinguish that forest once the conquering flame exults through the dense trees. A dispute first arose between the Scots and Picts over a stolen dog; then killings arose, and at last they fought a regular battle under King Crachyntus. Hector Boece, History of Scotland, Book VI. On account of one fish which had been given to a certain Felestagoras, the Naxians were afflicted by many disasters; they raged with rapes and killings until, through excessive liberty, they fell into servitude. Athenaeus, Book VIII, chapter 7, and Aristotle, The Constitution of the Naxians. For that reason Archelaus, king of the Macedonians, acted neither politically nor civilly when he imposed upon the Thracian people a fine of one talent because they had sacrificed to the gods and eaten his dog, which had by chance strayed from the road. For from a trifling cause they had almost kindled a vast war. The Thracians behaved more moderately, for the present concealing the matter.
§ 8. Therefore, all who advise a prince to maintain peace—provided that a grievous war does not lie hidden under the name of peace—must be heard even amid the trumpets. Nor do I disapprove of Hanno, who, after the victory at Cannae, saw messengers measuring the number of slain cavalrymen by the rings they had brought and urged that ambassadors be sent concerning peace. If Carthage had listened to his counsel at that time, it perhaps would have survived Rome. Many certain evils therefore follow, but the good that is sought is uncertain. Orosius, Book I: “What else should wars be called but evils pressing upon either side? Evils of this sort, whether those which have been or those which now are, insofar as they exist, are either manifest sins or hidden punishments of sinners.” Proclus, in his commentary on the Alcibiades:
ὁ δ’ Ἄρης τὴν ὀνομασίαν ἔσχεν, ἀπὸ δ’ αἴρειν, ἢ ἀναιρεῖν, ἢ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρᾶς, ἤτοι βλάβης, κατὰ ἐναντίωσιν, ὡσανεὶ ἐκμαλισσομένων αὐτῷ τῶν πραγματευόντων, ἀπὸ τὸ ἄρσαι, ὅ ἐστιν ἁρμόσαι, ἡ γὰρ δραστικὴ δύναμις προσαρμόζει τὰ πράγματα.
Ares—read Mars—is said from αἴρειν and ἀναιρεῖν, “taking away”; or from ἀρᾶς, “curse” and “harm”; or, by the contrary sense, as they speak more gently, from ἄρσαι, which is “to fit together,” for an effective force fits things together and orders them. Am I mistaken in thinking that the Latin word arma also comes from this? The end of war therefore falls somewhere other than men supposed. Carthage refused peace: victorious in battles, but conquered in war, it paid for its pride with destruction. The ruin of victorious Rome was not dissimilar; other ages seized the fortunate and crushed them.
Many things foreign to men’s purposes have happened. Augustus appointed the Danube and Euphrates as the boundaries of the empire, but in vain. From one side the Euphrates stirs up war; from the other Germany, and the conspiring Dacian descends from the Danube. The Euphrates indeed floods fertile and soft Asia; the Dacian and the trans-Danubian peoples invade Pannonia, Thrace, Greece, and Italy; those beyond the Rhine exchange Gaul, Italy, Spain, and Africa itself for their frigid Boötes. History has taught us the disasters of the ancients; we shall teach our descendants:
Lately the Getic tyrant attempted to destroy
Italy, coming sworn from his native Danube
To level these citadels to the ground.
All the peoples, Capitolinus bears witness, had conspired from the Illyrian frontier as far as Gaul: the Marcomanni, Narisci, Hermunduri, Quadi, Suebi, Sarmatians, Laringes, and Buri, and others—the Victoriati, Sosibes, Sicobotes, Rhoxolani, Basternae, Alavi, Peucini, and Costoboci. At great labor to himself, therefore, he conquered the fiercest peoples, but without profit. The cause was the diversity of the enemy and of his own men. It matters greatly with what enemies an affair is conducted. When Eudamidas the Spartan was urged to remember the victories obtained against the Persians and to fight the Macedonians, he replied: “You do not understand that this is the same as if one who had conquered a thousand sheep were to fight fifty wolves.” Plutarch, Apophthegms.
§ 9. War must also be avoided because its companion is the enormous poverty of all. The treasury is exhausted; subjects are despoiled; the soldiers’ ill-gotten goods are ill dissipated; and the supports of life are consumed by devastation and fires. Rarely is the victor happier; the conquered is always poorer. That poverty, however, is an evil counselor and an incitement to crimes, since men strive by robbery to recover what was lost through the calamities of war. “The poor perish in war,” as a defender of wars rightly said to Antisthenes; but Antisthenes also rightly answered, “More men become poor.”
§ 10. Not only war itself, but also the fear of war sends poverty and hunger before it. No honor worthy of the plow remains; the farmers flee, the fields lie neglected, and cities are deserted. Let those about to wage war not imagine that they will inflict many losses but suffer few; for it usually happens that those who inflict many things upon others also suffer many themselves, since it is most difficult to defend oneself but very easy to do harm.
In addition to those losses, there is also added the labor by which citizens are worn away.
By an excellent device Phocion drew the Athenians away from zeal for war against the Thebans. For when his arguments had failed to dissuade them, but war had been decreed contrary to his speech and Phocion himself appointed commander, he said, “Come, follow me after taking five days’ provisions.” When the old men refused, their zeal for war abated.
§ 11. If anything should happen that makes war appear necessary, let the state ponder this with itself: after the war it will obtain nothing better than peace. But peace already exists and can be preserved by acting civilly and overlooking small losses. That maxim of Seneca is surely golden: “Peace never provoked is happier than peace restored by much blood.” Within a few years we have seen wars and peace in Europe; after all were wearied by disasters, they drew breath in peace. Saint Augustine’s judgment on this matter is excellent, The City of God, Book IV, chapter 15: “It is greater happiness to have a neighbor in concord than to subjugate one at war.” Rome waged war with its neighbors for four hundred years, inflicted and received disasters; meanwhile so many citizens were slain and wounded, lands were devastated two hundred times, and spoils were driven off. Who is so estranged from all reason that he would not judge that Rome would have been happier if it had not worn away its citizens in continual wars and had lived in concord with its neighbors?
The Athenians desired peace only when they wore mourning; even now princes turn their minds to peace when they see the treasury exhausted and men wounded from battle. Guevara speaks most prudently in Book III, chapter 15 of the Dial: “No one is so foolish and uncultivated that he would not pronounce happier the man who uses a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face than the man who tears that same cloth to dry the blood from his head.” Accordingly, one who wages an unnecessary war for the sake of peace acts just like a man who prefers a scar to unbroken skin, although a scar is never pleasing except when compared with a wound.
§ 12. But what if we consider nature itself? Nature implanted strength and rage in beasts in place of virtue, but gave justice to man; and even upon the hearts of robbers she engraved that great maxim: “What you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another.” Why do we rush into mutual butcheries? No animal rages against its own kind. Juvenal, Satire XV:
Yet serpents have greater concord: a beast of similar
Markings spares its kindred. When did a stronger lion
Ever tear the life from a lion? In what forest did a boar
Ever expire beneath the tusks of a larger boar?
The Indian tigress maintains perpetual peace with the raging tigress;
Savage bears agree among themselves.
But for man it was too little to have drawn forth lethal iron
From the accursed anvil, although the first smiths, accustomed
To forging so many rakes and hoes, and wearied by mattock and plowshare,
Did not know how to hammer out swords.
We behold peoples whose rage is not satisfied
With having killed someone, but who have believed breasts,
Arms, and faces to be a kind of food.
But what is accomplished by wars? Subjects are granted license for crimes, men are butchered, and the innocent are despoiled—and these things for the most part without justice. For what will the soldiers possess if each man possesses his own? Seneca, On Benefits, Book IV. Princes, therefore, if they wish to be good and to be accounted good, must act so that they do not draw enemies to themselves, but repel the wicked. Plato very properly preferred the Lydians to the Spartans: the former had hands hardened by agricultural labor, whereas the Spartans dragged along arms enervated by brandishing spears. Nature, therefore, which taught us society, also taught us peace and friendship with all with whom it can exist. For without a friend life is the mutual tearing of a lion and a wolf.
Antiquity itself teaches us this, suffusing the warrior with a certain horror as a man acting against nature. Tertullian, On the Pallium: “Why do you not look at those garments? Or also at those modes of dress which, through the novelty of their clothing, pretend to religion: when, because of their attire all in white, and because of the mark of their life and the privilege of their headdress, men are initiated into the rites of Ceres; and when, because of the different performance of dark clothing and a grim fleece over the head, they flee to the mountains of Bellona.” And in Against the Nations: “Today in that place blood consecrated to Bellona, taken from a slashed thigh and caught in a small shield, is given to her initiates.” What else do grim fleeces, flight to the mountains, and the drinking of blood signify but that those who rejoice especially in war have departed from human beings and been transformed into a bestial nature?
§ 13. Finally, this is most detestable in war: not only that, when war descends, innocent and guilty fall alike, but that the good suffer even more. For because the wicked value life little and conscience still less, they are prone to every kind of injury; but the good, because they desire neither to inflict injury nor to plunder, are compelled to mutter over and endure their losses. If the wicked clash with the wicked, the injury is usually thought small by some; but these men also err. For although the loss may not be deemed great in the slaughter of the wicked, it is nevertheless itself an injury for a wicked man to fall by another’s fury, and for the man who rages to fall as well, when, had he been removed by a bloodless death, he might have been saved. The price of a Christian soul is great; when it casts away temporal life amid slaughter, it often gives up hope of eternal life. Hence it comes about that even the good do not kill an enemy except when necessary. I judge plainly golden that maxim of a pagan man, Tacitus, Histories, Book I: “Among good men it is equally wretched to kill and to perish.”
§ 14. Advantages and spoils nevertheless arise from wars. So it is—rather, from victory, and indeed a bloodless and successful victory; otherwise spoil is bought dearly with much blood. But let us call a province reduced to servitude and the soldiers’ riches from plunder “advantages.” Yet they are not advantages unless compared with losses. You prefer to have slaves for neighbors rather than robbers and pirates, but it was better to have friends. Nor are you happier through another’s unhappiness unless you made those men unhappy from necessity. Orosius speaks truly: “As happily as Rome conquers, so unhappily is everything outside Rome conquered.” Guevara aptly compares this wheel to buckets of a water-raising machine: unless those that have ascended are emptied, the others cannot ascend full. So great, therefore, is another’s unhappiness, from which such great profits arise that they are believed to be well purchased by dangers to life.
Yet the victor is not happy even so. Rome seized the riches of the world partly by war and partly through the avarice of governors, but, crushed beneath the spoils of the conquered world, it perished. Nature placed enmity between the dragon and the elephant. The dragon drinks the blood of the conquered elephant with such avidity that it either bursts or is crushed by the bulk of its falling enemy. This usually happens when soldiers’ minds, thirsting for plunder, are suddenly filled by its abundance and are stuffed so full that they can in no way digest their fortune—indeed, can no longer act bravely or live.
§ 15. To this cruel vanity that drags men into wars there is added another arrangement, plainly unjust, which deservedly ought to deter everyone from war. Nearly all the distinctions belong to the commander alone; the name of the prince alone is inscribed upon trophies. Curtius says in Book VIII that the Greeks acted badly in inscribing only the names of kings upon trophies. Let that itch therefore trouble the prince. What do you, O soldier, hope for after victory? So many thousands of comrades lie dead, and they indeed with praise, but nevertheless as a nameless multitude. A much greater part wanders about, needy, mutilated in body, and surviving its own triumph with disgrace. The commander is carried through the city high upon a chariot, seeks applause, and desires to be seen. Yet even that wise Roman Cicero, who desired those things, judges them empty delights and almost the amusements of boys, in the speech Against Piso. But if they are judged the greatest things, they certainly do not belong to the soldiers.
Today soldiers are chosen for the most part from the lowest common people. They are fed like sacrificial victims, and certainly not liberally; they are ruled most harshly, yet still aspire to war. Formerly, in order to escape the military oath, men hid in workhouses, cut off their own thumbs, and sought other opportunities of escape. Now those whom desperation or a desire for license does not permit to remain at home run to it voluntarily. From this another and sorrowful evil arises: that they desire wars and repose is hateful to them. The song of Philemon the comic poet displays an ill-disposed suspicion, but in war it is true:
Οὔτε γὰρ ἰατρὸς, οὐδὲ εἷς, ἂν εὖ σκοπῇς,
Τοὺς αὑτοῦ αὐτῷ βούλεθ’ ὑγιαίνειν φίλους·
Οὔτι στρατιώτης πόλιν ὁρᾷ ἄνευ κακοῦ.
For no physician, if you consider the matter well, greatly desires his friends to be healthy, nor does a soldier desire to see his own city without misfortune. The desire for war holds them because they have learned no other art of passing life honorably. Hence the Italian proverb is commonly repeated: “War sows thieves, whom peace reaps with the sword and the noose.” For in truth, wholly devoted to idleness, luxury, and cruelty, they turn to robbery and theft. The cause of these evils is the corruption of our military service. Formerly, such was military discipline that the soldier earnestly desired to lay down his arms, received discharge as a benefit of the highest order, and returned to the fields—even men who had been consuls and celebrated triumphs. Veterans thought themselves so well treated if, when released from service, lands were given to them for their campaigns. Now many place everything in the military art and therefore retain their arms, as though life itself must be broken off together with war.
Kings must guard against nothing more than employing these men as counselors concerning the undertaking of war. For they fill the kings’ minds with disturbance and vain hope, with no other end than that, when necessity presses, they themselves may be applied to affairs. It certainly happens that where military service is prolonged, a few tribunes and common soldiers are more powerful than the greatest governments. How small a part of Rome—not to say of the whole empire, but of one city—were the Praetorian soldiers; yet how often did they make emperors and kill the emperors they had made? Therefore, when there is war, affairs at home are uncertain and those abroad are afflicted.