§1. Scipio prudently used to say that a road should be prepared for those fleeing. Themistocles even advised Xerxes to flee, lest he keep so great a multitude of barbarians within the vitals of Greece. Alfonso had the same judgment: he thought that a silver bridge should be laid down for a fleeing enemy. Iphicrates also followed fugitives gradually and did not press them toward rivers, lest they despair. After a city had been taken, when they ran together in the forum, he ordered the gates to be opened so that, as they poured out, they might be cut down without danger.
The reason is that, when necessity presses experienced and brave men, it penetrates everything. It is a hard weapon, and those who fought under the utmost necessity have rarely been defeated. Despair makes men mad: because they fear nothing, they either conquer or are conquered with great slaughter. Pontius, commander of the Samnites, gives that warning when they could satisfy the Romans neither by surrendering those responsible nor by any other means.
The prudence of the Roman legates was distinguished when they opened a road to the Etruscans. Livy, book 2:
“Manlius also presented himself in person to restore the battle-line; the recognized faces of the two consuls inflamed the spirits of the soldiers. At the same time the enemy’s battle-line was now weaker, since, trusting in their abundant multitude, they had withdrawn their reserves and sent them to attack the camp. Having made an assault upon it without a great struggle, they wasted time mindful of plunder rather than battle. The Roman triarii, who had been unable to sustain the first assault, sent messengers to the consuls to report the state of affairs, returned in a body to the praetorium, and of their own accord themselves renewed the battle.
“The consul Manlius, having been carried back into the camp, had opposed soldiers at every gate and blocked the enemy’s way. This despair inflamed rage rather than courage in the Etruscans. For, after they ran wherever the hope of an exit displayed itself and had several times made a vain assault, one body of young men attacked the consul himself, who was conspicuous by his arms. The first missiles were received by those standing around him; afterward the force could not be sustained. The consul, struck by a mortal wound, fell, and all around him were routed. The courage of the Etruscans increased. Terror drove the Romans in alarm throughout the camp, and matters would have come to the extremity had not the legates, after seizing the consul’s body, opened a way for the enemy through one gate. They broke out through it and, departing in a disordered column, encountered the other victorious consul. There they were cut down again and routed in every direction.”
And in book 4, when the Volsci had been surrounded and formed themselves into a circle, Messius exhorted them and led them out, and inflicted enormous slaughter upon the Romans:
“Are you,” he said, “going to expose yourselves defenseless and unavenged to the enemy’s weapons here? Why, then, do you have arms? Or why did you voluntarily undertake war—you who are turbulent in peace but sluggish in war? What hope is there for you while you stand here? Do you think that some god will protect you and carry you away from here? A road must be made by the sword. Go in this direction in which you see me go before you; you who wish to see your homes, parents, wives, and children, come with me. No wall and no rampart, but armed men, stand in the way of armed men. You are equal in courage, and superior in necessity, which is the last and greatest weapon.”
“After he had said this and was putting his words into action, they followed him with renewed shouting and made an assault where Postumius Albus had opposed his cohorts; and they moved the victors until the dictator came to his own men, who were now giving ground. The whole battle turned toward that point. The fortune of the enemy rested upon one man, Messius. There were many wounds on either side and much slaughter everywhere. By then not even the Roman commanders were fighting unwounded. Postumius alone, struck by a stone and with his head broken, withdrew from the battle-line. Neither the dictator’s wounded shoulder, nor Fabius’s thigh nearly fastened to his horse, nor the consul’s severed arm removed them from so uncertain a battle.
“Messius’s assault carried him with a body of the bravest young men through enemies laid low by slaughter to the camp of the Volsci, which had not yet been taken. The whole battle-line inclined to the same place. The consul, having pursued those pouring forth as far as the rampart, attacked the camp and rampart themselves; the dictator moved his forces toward the same place from the other side. The attack was no less spirited than the battle had been. They say that the consul even cast a standard within the rampart so that the soldiers would go up more fiercely, and that the first assault was made in recovering the standard.”
If they had furnished those surrounded with an opportunity to flee, they could have destroyed the enemy without receiving a wound; as matters stood, the battle was renewed more severely than at the beginning. For one man—made mad by despair and anger, and fearing death accompanied by torment—is stronger than three upon whom no necessity of fighting presses.
§2. Therefore, fugitives must be pressed cautiously, lest necessity make them resist, so that they may flee more readily thereafter, believing that the victors will not press fugitives toward destruction. For those oppressed by a peril on either side nevertheless wage a memorable battle. Necessity sharpens even cowardice, and often despair is the cause of hope. Curtius, book 4, taught this. By his own example, the courageous soldier Sempronius Gracchus, having fallen headlong into an ambush, brought it about that they did not fall unavenged. Livy, book 34.
The prudence of the Roman Senate also sufficiently taught us that an enemy must not be enclosed: they decreed that the Gauls, who desired ships, should be conveyed across and assisted with provisions. The Gauls were also given the power to flee through the Pomptine territory. When the Carthaginians, surrounded, were resisting in despair, Lucius Marcius gave them room to flee and cut them down without danger as they fled. Caesar did this to the Germans, and Hannibal at Lake Trasimene. Antigonus allowed the Aetolians who were breaking out to flee and then cut them down from behind. Agesilaus likewise let the Thebans out, and Themistocles let Xerxes out.
Pyrrhus’s precept was that fugitives should not be pressed forcefully, so that on another occasion they would flee more readily. For the man who knows that he will certainly die willingly desires to die together with others. “The one safety of the conquered is to hope for no safety.”
Datames even defeated Lucullus in this manner. Concerning Datames, Frontinus writes in book 2, chapter 7:
“Datames, commander of the Persians, when he learned that part of his cavalry was deserting while he was fighting Autophradates in Cappadocia, ordered all the rest to come with him. After overtaking the deserters, he praised them because they had briskly gone ahead of him and even exhorted them to attack the enemy courageously. Shame brought repentance upon the deserters; and because they did not suppose that their plan had been detected, they changed it. Thus, while he despaired of his life because of the desertion of his own men, he obtained the victory.”
Cato’s deed was certainly distinguished. When the Aetolians were attacking Ambracia, he arrived in a small vessel and by voice, hand, and gesture appeared to be summoning ships of his own men which were arriving; the Aetolians therefore desisted from the attack.
Among the laws of Lycurgus was this: not to kill fleeing enemies. The Spartans, the best of soldiers, therefore observed it, so that they preferred to see an enemy fleeing rather than resisting.