§ 1. A commander is especially necessary to an army; for an army without a prudent commander is like a vast beast without a head, like Polyphemus, “a monster horrible, misshapen, huge, whose eye had been taken away.” For this reason Demades too called Alexander’s army a Cyclops, because all things were present to it except prudence, by which that mass might be governed.
An army without a commander is a crowd, a body without a soul, a bank of rowers without a helmsman. In sum, an army is worth as much as its governor. An army without a commander is a lion without eyes; a commander without a steadfast army is a head without a body. When Caesar proceeded in Spain against Petreius and Afranius, Pompey’s legates, he said, “I am going to an army without a commander”; when he proceeded into Thessaly against Pompey, “I am going to a commander without an army.” For the legates had steadfast legions, whereas a great part of Pompey’s men were recruits. Scipio, Pompey, Gracchus, Pelopidas, Epaminondas, and others have taught that good commanders with a middling army are of greater worth than a good army without a commander, for a good commander quickly forms a soldier.
§ 2. A commander of wars must be permitted great liberty in conducting the affair, nor should he be punished for an affair badly conducted. For since such great difficulties and such sudden changes arise in war that they cannot be foreseen by human counsel, liberty for a new counsel must be left in a new danger. Next, what is being done in the same camp is often unknown to each party, so far is it from being possible always to meet the contrivances of the enemy. Brutus was victorious against Octavius on his own wing; Cassius was defeated and, because he thought Brutus’s army had been routed, laid hands upon himself. Had he not done this, Roman affairs could have stood with equal fortune. The same occurred long before between the Aequi and the Romans, when Sempronius was consul, since each side believed itself defeated. Therefore, since such great confusion throws everything into disorder, magnanimous men should not be burdened with other dangers, but should rather be aided in adversity.
§ 3. Let him be prudent above all, since upon him depends the fortune of so many brave men and even of the kingdom. Let reason, not fortune, guide him in action; yet if fortune should invite him by an opportunity, let prudence govern that too. For an intelligence tested by dangers and affairs has been found able to accomplish very much in war, especially that virtue which the Greeks call ἀγχίνοιαν and the Latins call sagacity.
Great commanders have accomplished more by counsel than by force. The Carthaginians, because their commanders conducted wars with depraved counsel, crucified them even if prosperous fortune had followed. Valerius, book 2, chapter 7. For they attributed what the commanders had conducted well to the aid of the immortal gods, but what evil they had committed to their own fault. It is agreed that fortune is of no great importance. An army has scarcely perished except where there was an error in counsel. A provident commander is better than a bold one. And Caesar spoke truly: “It belongs no less to a commander to conquer by counsel than by the sword.”
§ 4. Let him be vigorous and energetic, not the shadow of a great name. Let him therefore be roused by dangers and animate others. Such was Lucius Marcellus: when he saw himself unexpectedly surrounded by the enemy, he charged into them and even carried off the spolia opima. Sempronius Tuditanus and Gaius Octavius, a tribune, passed through the enemy’s garrisons with twelve comrades. Vigor of mind and confidence produced victory. And when Leonidas was told that the Persians would create a cloud of arrows, he answered that he would fight in the shade. At times let the commander himself go before them by his example, as the greatest commanders have done. When, after Postumius’s exhortation, the soldiers asked what he commanded, he ordered them to imitate him; and, raising the standard, he went against the enemy and conquered.
§ 5. Let the commander of such great forces be blameless and injure no one; let him rouse all men by emulation of what is honorable and becoming. Such was the emperor Alexander, concerning whom his history bears witness: “Since, therefore, he was so great and such a commander at home and abroad, he entered upon the Parthian expedition. He conducted it with such great discipline and such great reverence for himself that it was said not soldiers but senators were crossing over. Wherever the legions made their march, the tribunes were girt for service, the centurions modest, and the soldiers amiable. Because of these so many and such great good qualities, the provincials received the emperor himself as a god. The soldiers themselves, moreover, so loved the young emperor as a brother, as a son, as a parent. They were honorably clothed, shod even for comeliness, nobly armed, and furnished also with horses and becoming saddlecloths and bridles, so that whoever saw Alexander’s army would recognize the Roman state. Finally, he labored to appear worthy of that name—indeed, to surpass that Macedonian—and he said that there ought to be a great difference between the Roman Alexander and the Macedonian.”
§ 6. Let him seek reputation from every quarter, not for the vanity of honor but for safety. Reputation is most powerful in war, and those whom reputation reports to have perished perish. Nowhere is an affair more tossed about by events; through the fall of one man a camp is conquered.
§ 7. Let him have piety especially at heart. Do not entrust yourself and your fortunes to an impious man. For in the end such men have at last perished miserably and have become examples. Even when the soldier is impious, he requires a pious commander.
§ 8. Wealthy men should ordinarily be selected, for they do not gape so eagerly after booty and are able to meet necessary expenditures.
§ 9. Let him have the affairs of the enemy thoroughly examined. Epaminondas used to say that the best commander was he who, although unable to learn the enemy’s affairs with certainty, at least knew them by conjecture.
§ 10. Let him be an example of temperance and labors to the army. The commander’s virtue is accustomed to be a great example. Cato was content with the wine which the rowers drank; Hannibal took food toward twilight; Aemilianus, Scipio, and Alexander took food while walking on the march. Masinissa, when ninety years old, took food standing.
§ 11. Let him be severe and be held to be such; let it scarcely be believed that he pardons offenses. For men swiftly and diligently obey such commanders, admire them, and, although they are sometimes angry with them, nevertheless revere them. Nothing except fear and severity restrains the soldiers’ wantonness, wickedness, hands stained with blood, and spirit gaping after plunder. But a reputation for severity causes offenses to be avoided, punishments to be rare, and exasperations of minds to be absent.
Meanwhile two reefs must be avoided in this sea. The first is excessive savagery, lest he seem to call tortures and insults discipline. The other is that the soldier not be at the discretion of commanders, but the commanders be dragged along by military violence. The former of these calls forth sudden mutinies, the latter destruction. By the military law of the Turks every offense is punished by death. They certainly have this advantage from it: that the rest of the soldiers do not readily riot; yet they do not dare to restrain the Janissaries by that severity.
§ 12. He will render severity tolerable, indeed lovable, by much affability: if he employs beneficence at the proper time; if he avoids savagery of words when decreeing punishments; if he visits and cares for the wounded. But there is no greater force which joins them more closely than common danger. For this reason commanders have been accustomed in battle to call soldiers comrades and brothers. For benevolence alone makes men faithful. Thus that distinguished commander in Tacitus, book 1 of the Annals: “And in order that he might soften the memory of the disaster also by affability, he went about among the wounded, extolled the deeds of each man, and inspected their wounds; by hope for one, glory for another, and conversation and care for all, he strengthened them for himself and for battle.”
§ 13. Let him have subordinate commanders, tribunes, and centurions who are strong in vehemence and speed, even if perhaps they lack prudence. It is expedient that some, but not all, be such. For certain things must be resolved suddenly and at the danger of a few, and these bold men rush upon them. Yet let him govern them himself, so that they expend their strength only at its proper time. For just as hunting dogs rise against the quarry with noble impetus but are held by leashes until the moment arrives, so these men ought to be esteemed highly, cherished, praised, and affected with rewards. They are accustomed to accomplish the greatest things and rouse others to equal distinctions. Indeed, let the commander not take it ill that he too is thought to be such, for the soldier rejoices in the ardor of his commander.
§ 14. Let him not change commanders. There is certainly something which I censure in the Roman military system. Since there were six tribunes in each legion, two commanded for two months, and thus after six months the command returned to the same men. Polybius: “Two tribunes make the entire inspection of the flank. Likewise, they are the men who conduct every other care of the camp. For, dividing themselves two by two, each pair commands for two months of a half-year’s span, and those whom that lot touches then preside over the entire administration of the camp.” The method by which the prefects commanded the allies was the same. At first light the horsemen and centurions come to the tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes to that of the consul; the consul gives the tribunes whatever order must be performed, the tribunes give it to the horsemen and centurions, and these to the common soldiers when the time for each matter comes.
This too was an evil of Roman ambition. For hence an opportunity was sought to harm rivals and please the soldiers when two men held command either simultaneously, on alternate days, or in alternate months. This was praiseworthy: that each morning the tribunes came to the commander, and the horsemen and centurions to the tribunes, to receive orders. Indeed, the soldiers came to the centurions, as Josephus says in book 4 of The Jewish War. Yet it could scarcely have happened that all the soldiers came to the centurion. Rather, it must be understood that the subsignani came; I do not think that the velites came, for they were scattered along the rampart. He then gives the tribunes the watchword and other commands. But when the tribune seeks the watchword, he at the same time reports to the commander the number of soldiers present. Thus Appian, book 5. And in Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind, chapter 8: “That number of slaves was reported daily, like an army to its commander, to a man for whom two deputy slaves and a room a little larger ought already to have counted as wealth.” Present-day frauds teach how prudently this was instituted, for they present blind—that is, fictitious—names to princes. This has now passed so far into custom that stealing in that manner is accounted industry.
The sum of all ranks tended toward this: that all should receive the command without error and swiftly. Livy, book 44: “He took care that everything in the column should be done in order and without confusion, at the nod and command of the commander. When what was to be done was announced to all at the same time, not all heard it; having received an uncertain command, some added more of their own than had been ordered, others did less. Then discordant shouts arose in every place, and the enemy learned what was being prepared before the soldiers did. It therefore pleased him that the military tribune should secretly give the command to the chief centurion of the legion, and that he in turn should tell each centurion next to him in order what needed to be done, whether it had to be carried from the foremost standards to the rear of the column or from the rearmost to the front.”
§ 15. This also must be guarded against: that he should not place over others men infamous by some mark, although they appear to be excellent soldiers. What wonder is it that Elagabalus perished, concerning whom Herodian says: “Indeed, he placed a certain dancer over the armies, a man who in his youth had formerly performed publicly in the theater. He likewise placed one man from the stage over the youth, another over the senate, and another over the equestrian order. He entrusted the greatest offices of the empire to charioteers, comic performers, and actors of mimes. He gave the procuratorships of provinces to his slaves or freedmen according as each surpassed the rest in disgrace.”
Nero too, through the height of madness, sent a freedman to the army. Tacitus, book 14. But he was an object of ridicule to the enemy, among whom liberty was still vigorous and the power of freedmen was not yet known; and they marveled that the commander and army which had completed so great a war obeyed men of servile condition.
§ 16. Let him be diligent and seize whatever opportunity there is for acting and conquering. Francesco Carmagnola, commander of the Venetians, used an opportunity excellently. For when the camps were near one another and one of his cavalrymen had enmity with one of the enemy’s cavalrymen, and they wished to decide it by a duel, a place for the fight was appointed between the camps. While many hastened to the spectacle, the Venetian drew up the strength of his soldiers in the camp; suddenly attacking the unsuspecting enemy, he conquered and routed them.
The incident which I shall add shows how greatly opportunity prevails even against ingenuity. Cleomenes and the Argives had neighboring camps. The king announced everything by a herald; the Argives imitated him, so that when he dined, rested, or led out his men, they too repeatedly did the same things as though a common signal had been given. But on a certain day he secretly announced to his men that when the signal for dinner was given, they should take up arms. When this had been done, he came upon the Argives while they were dining and slew them. It was of such great importance to know what opportunity offered. Iphicrates the Athenian was in the utmost fear, but when he had learned that the Thracians would come by night from the hills through which alone there was a road to the camp, he secretly disposed his army along the sides of the road and kept very few fires burning in the camp. Then, attacking from the sides the multitude as it ran down, he slew it. How readily did a man of ingenuity turn the highest danger against the enemy and seek victory from their own counsel.