§ 1. When about to declare war, look around at everything belonging to your enemies and your neighbors; and if you perceive that everything favors you, dread the changes of the times. When about to wage war, first secure all that is your own in common, lest you be harmed; then see how you may conquer. When Hannibal was about to attack Gades, he sent thirteen thousand Spaniards and one thousand horsemen into Africa to protect it; from the cities of Africa he detached four thousand men to guard Carthage, having in them at once hostages and soldiers. When Lysander was about to besiege Athens, he drove everyone into it, so that he might oppress it by a failure of provisions. But this is hazardous: for that multitude could have been equipped and could have overwhelmed camp with camp.
§ 2. Mature counsel, therefore, must be employed, and war must not be undertaken except with the greatest care, so that both the justice of the cause and the forces may be weighed. Again and yet again, therefore, let recourse be had to counsel. For what does everything profit when the state is entangled in the difficulties of war? The savings of all are consumed in wars, and as much cannot be taken from those at peace as is spent upon wars. Anger must be conquered by counsel. There is a wise saying of Nazianzen:
Θυμὸν χαλίνῳ μὴ φρενῶν ἔξω πέσῃς.
“Bridle your spirit,” or “bridle your anger, lest you fall outside your mind.” I should prefer to adapt it to this place:
Θυμὸν χαλίνῳ μὴ θρόνου ἔξω πέσῃς.
“Bridle your anger, lest you fall from the throne.” Let the king and the counselors, when deliberating about war beneath a gilded canopy amid tapestries, believe that they are engaged in the battle line, and let them possess the spirit of those around whose ears missiles discharged from cannon whistle. If the repose of those deliberating were sometimes terrified by the ball of a single musket, they would decide upon wars much more calmly.
The Utopian prince acted rightly when, as a great number of counselors were deliberating about war and the decree of the senate in favor of war was now to be signed, he secretly arranged for soldiers to fire from a tower opposite the council chamber through its glass windows into the room, without any danger to those who were present but with immense alarm. When they saw shards of window glass flying, they all fled in different directions and sought safe places. The prince admonished them to stand unafraid amid danger, but in vain: fear overcame shame, and the prince alone was abandoned in what they believed to be danger. Courteously pardoning their fear, he said: “Let no one advise war unless he is also able to endure its dangers. You have abandoned me amid danger—lions in word, hares in deed.” We see these errors daily, and Thucydides teaches that they also existed of old:
μετ’ ἀσφαλείας μὲν δοξάζομεν, μετὰ δέους δ’ ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ ἐλλείπομεν.
While they are safe, they pronounce bold opinions; while they are in fear, they fail in the midst of the deed. In this matter nothing is more dangerous than a prince who, since he is a man, bears losses and insults in a human manner—that is, with a troubled spirit—and, so that he may seem to possess a lofty mind, bears them wrathfully. A faithful counselor will state his opinion not according to the prince’s passion but according to his safety. For a calm counselor is most necessary to an angry prince, since he will give the counsel which the prince himself, when calm, would approve. Many err in this matter when, in order to seize favor, they flatter the anger of the prince—an anger which the prince himself will soon put away. For the wills of princes are not always the same, as Pliny admonishes, but the wills of angry men vanish most swiftly. I remember having read in Euripides’ Suppliants these golden words:
Σφαλερὸν ἡγεμὼν θρασύς.
A bold, or boastful, prince is a precarious thing. If a deceitful flatterer is added to him—one who knows how to excite movement upon a slippery surface—he will cast everything headlong by his impetus; and when everything has failed, they will take refuge in the confidence of fools, which consists in promising fortune to themselves.
I therefore require counsel concerning wars to be slow and mature: one counsel surpasses many hands. Let them remember that none feel the evils of war sooner than those who set it in motion. Peter Gregory of Toulouse, the most prudent of jurists, advises and proves the point exceedingly well in book 11, chapter 2, section On the State: “In a few moments the counsel of a state produces results no less great than fortune does.” Aimoin also writes that all the Burgundians protected their state more by counsels than by arms. At the least, arms must be governed by counsel. For some men are excessively precipitate: while they wish to bring dangers upon others, they do not guard against them, although the power of fortune and Mars, common and uncertain to both sides, must be weighed; certainties must not be exchanged for uncertainties; and, as Sallust says, every war is easily undertaken but is ended with the greatest difficulty, nor are its beginning and end in the power of the same man. Anyone, even a coward, is permitted to begin it, but it is not laid aside except when the victors will it.
In this consultation about entering upon war, the prince must also weigh the counselors themselves: who they are, who advise it, and who dissuade from it. At court there are Furies and firebrands of war: nobles for whom servitude is harsher in peace, when they are compelled to obey upright laws, and from which they free themselves amid the license of war; there are restless men who neither rest themselves nor permit others to rest; there are exiles who, from fear of punishment, drive the hesitant prince to arms against those by whom they were justly expelled. There are men who, under the pretext of the public cause, desire either to avenge themselves upon their enemies or to become rich from princes’ pay and expenditures and from plunder taken from subjects. There are many who readily give counsel about conducting a war but afterward refuse to undergo the danger. There are those who look only to present things and desire to satisfy a blazing anger, but do not consider public and private evils. Yet a prudent prince, or governor of the state, will weigh all these things before he undertakes war. For once war has been instituted, as Thucydides says, princes are ill spoken of and blamed for the losses. I locate counsel concerning war in this: that, by as much as youth abounds in fierce martial spirit, by so much the senate should judge it to be its own duty to foresee and unfold every possible event.
§ 3. Let it consider these things. First: Who is the enemy? Is he a Carthaginian? An Asiatic? Is he strong only in impetus, or also in stratagems and prudence? He is foolish who prepares a war of a thousand rams against fifty wolves. These things deservedly come under consideration, lest anyone rashly turn his own fortune and that of others according to hope and fear. An enemy who was not feared has caused the Romans, although they waged war so providently, and others too, greater trouble. Andriscus, a man of the lowest condition and an imaginary king of Macedonia, slew the praetor Juventius. Numantia, a single city, resisted for fourteen years and, after Roman armies had been slaughtered, afflicted the Romans with shameful treaties. The Cretans defeated Marcus Antonius when, in his confidence of victory, he had more chains than weapons in his men’s hands. In the Social War Rutilius and Caepio were slain and routed. Julius Caesar, after losing his army, was brought bloodied into the city, and all Italy was despoiled more grievously than by Hannibal. In the Servile War, under the leadership of Eunus, the camps of Manilius, Lentulus, Piso, and Hypsaeus were cut down; and in the other war, under King Athenion, the camps of Servilius and Lucullus were captured, because they went against a despised enemy with less deliberation. Spartacus also and his allies plundered the camps of Clodius and Glaber, and then other camps. In the Apennines Spartacus cut down the army of Lentulus and destroyed the camp of Gaius Cassius; elated by these victories, he deliberated about invading the city of Rome. At last the forces of the entire empire rose against the mirmillo. He had earlier been neglected, and the war had been waged rashly until danger aroused their counsels. I have narrated only a few things; but I do not know whether, during the entire time of the empire—if one excepts the Second Punic War—the Romans were conquered with so much disgrace as in these incidental affairs and by these despised enemies, against whom their commanders cast themselves without mature counsel. But they learned through disasters.
Βουλῆς γὰρ ὀρθῆς οὐδὲν ἀσφαλέστερον.
Ἱερὸν ἀληθῶς ἐστιν ἡ συμβουλία.
Nothing is safer than right counsel; counsel is in truth a sacred thing. When wars are undertaken without this sacred thing, men sing that refrain of fools: “I did not think”—a capital fault in war. Then this too must be weighed: no one is more easily oppressed than one who feels secure. Nothing ought to be despised in war. Nor should those who are cautious be called timid:
ἀμαθία μὲν θράσος, λογισμὸς δὲ ὄκνον φέρει.
Ignorance brings boldness; reasoning brings fear. Set before yourself everything that is to be feared before war. Second: for this reason the Spartans must be praised, who punished a commander with death if he had conquered rashly and without counsel. The Carthaginians acted more harshly: if he had erred, they drove him to the cross—although this punishment could be excused in rashness alone. For they judged that a commander’s rashness had betrayed the fatherland, even if fortune had averted the mischance. Everything must be foreseen and nothing scorned, since the destinies of kingdoms are moved by small moments. Wars depend upon reputation, and by it they are often concluded.
Among the Romans an account of the deed performed was demanded; but if anyone had managed the matter badly through ignorance or accident, he was in no other danger. Few offended through malice. Sergius and Verginius, through mutual hatred, caused a great disaster at Veii: Sergius refused to ask assistance from Verginius, his rival and colleague; Verginius refused to bring it to Sergius without being asked. One must therefore deliberate slowly, since, although you foresee many things, you will be harmed by countless others from the quarter whence you did not expect it. Let counsels therefore go before. Once counsel has been taken, war must be undertaken zealously, for:
Ἐν γὰρ χερσὶ τέλος πολέμου, ἐπέων ἐνὶ βουλῇ.
The end of war lies in hands; the end of words, in counsel.