§1. What Maharbal said to Hannibal—“The gods, clearly, have not given all things to the same man. You know how to conquer, Hannibal; you do not know how to use victory”—has happened to many. The use of victory hung upon a moment no less than the winning of it. The delay of that day is sufficiently believed to have been the salvation of the city and the empire. Thus the Romans believed, as Livy bears witness; and not without reason, for if he had come upon the stricken city, he could easily have occupied it. A victory purchased with much blood is very easily spoiled. Therefore this must be done: they must bring the war to an end, not celebrate a triumph. After the Teutons had been defeated, Marius throughout the whole night terrified their remnants by means of a few of his own men; on the following day he conquered them. Hermocrates the Syracusan provided for the security of his men by introducing fear of a new enemy. Frontinus, book 2, chapter 9: “Hermocrates the Syracusan, after defeating the Athenians in battle, feared that the captives, an immense body of whom he had reduced into his power, would be guarded with too little diligence, because the outcome of the engagement could impel the victors toward feasting and freedom from care. He pretended that the enemy cavalry would come on the following night; by this expectation he brought it about that the watches were kept more attentively than usual.” Lucius Martius, a Roman knight, diligently used his first victory. Frontinus, book 2, chapter 10: “Titus Martius, a Roman knight, who commanded the remnants of the army of the two Scipios, when two camps of the Carthaginians lay nearby, separated by a few miles, exhorted his soldiers and attacked the nearer camp in the dead of night. And when he had attacked an enemy disordered by confidence in victory and had not even left any messengers of the disaster, after giving the soldier a very brief time for rest, in the same night he hastily preceded the report of the deed and invaded the other camp of the same men. Thus, twice enjoying a similar outcome and destroying the Carthaginians everywhere, he restored to the Roman people the Spains which had been lost.”
§2. Victory, therefore, must be used seriously, successes must be pressed, and the terrified must be pursued. For since even in great battles, as affairs are now conducted, few are killed and the rest easily collect themselves again, a recent victory generally gives more advantage in time than it inflicts damage, especially if the enemy too has inflicted deaths of his own and fortune has a way of returning. Pisistratus and Cimon, Athenian commanders, made outstanding use of victory. Pisistratus the Athenian, says Frontinus, book 4, chapter 7, “when he had intercepted the fleet of the Megarians, by which they had put in at Eleusis by night in order to carry off the Athenian women engaged in the sacred rite of Ceres, and had avenged his own people by inflicting a great slaughter upon them, filled the same ships which he had captured with Athenian soldiers, placing certain matrons, in the garb of captives, where they could be seen. Deceived by this appearance, the Megarians poured forth to meet them as though they were their own men sailing back with success, and, being unarmed, were again overwhelmed.” Cimon, commander of the Athenians, after defeating the fleet of the Persians near the island of Cyprus, clothed his own soldiers in the arms of the captives and sailed in the same ships of the barbarians against the enemy in Pamphylia, near the river Eurymedon. Because the Persians recognized both the ships and the appearance of those standing upon them, they took no precaution. Thus, suddenly overwhelmed, they were defeated on the same day in both a naval and a land battle.
§3. As regards the defeated man, he must be treated in such a way that he either does not wish or is not able to rebel—indeed, that he neither wishes nor is able. That he does not wish it must be effected by kindness; that he is not able, by caution. The Romans established their empire in both ways. At the beginning they employed kindness: they received the defeated Tatius with the Sabines into the city. They also brought the Albans into the city together with their wealth, and thus took thought both for themselves and for the defeated, since they brought it about that they had, in place of enemies, friends and most faithful citizens. For afterward there was no distinction between Sabines, Albans, and others; all were Romans. It is not lawful to kill a captive who is not resisting, because when he is captured a pledge is given for his life; otherwise he would have defended himself. It is not lawful to rage against captives, as the Carthaginians did. Nevertheless, the goods of captives pass to the victor. The law is:
τὰ τῶν νικωμένων ἀγαθὰ τῶν νικώντων γίνεσθαι.
All the goods of the defeated pass to the victors. But if the Romans had wished to command that hostages, tributes, levies, and services be imposed upon the defeated, assuredly they would not have held those noble cities in obedience; they would have rebelled either among themselves or together with their neighbors. Afterward, when their power had matured, they did this and were more cruel in victory.
§4. But if it does not please the victors to admit them into the city and to the rights of citizens—as the Romans did when they were more powerful—let them make them allies and subjects. For after the Romans had acquired so many allies and citizens that they feared no other state, they made the defeated tributaries and subjects. In this kind of matter care must be taken that the subjects fare well; for thus the victors will bring it about that they do not fear being oppressed, and this security makes them faithful. Therefore let there be clemency in victory itself, because by the law of nations those who surrender are spared, so that hostility may cease after victory.
§5. A victory obtained in a just war against injury must also be just: it must not be grievous to the innocent; it must be welcome to auxiliaries and not burdensome to neighbors. To extort treasures by tortures, to slaughter the unarmed and those below the age of puberty, and to defile everything with lusts is unjust. The commander will avoid these things with greater care than the enemy’s arms, for through them he will lose the fruit of victory.
§6. Let victory be moderate, lest it range about proudly, cruelly, and intemperately. Pride has indeed overthrown very many in the midst of victory itself. Pontius, commander of the Samnites, had conquered the Romans at the Caudine Forks by a stratagem—that is, by the noblest victory, without blood; for he had surrounded them by an encirclement. Although his father had wisely advised him either to dismiss all of them unharmed or to kill all of them, he made them more hostile to himself by provoking them with insult, for he sent them beneath the yoke. In like manner Sesostris, king of the Egyptians, offended the world by the insolence of his victory, when he drove Pharian chariots by the necks of kings, and when in the regions which he had easily occupied he erected carvings of female genitals as a reproach of their cowardice. And so within a short time the kingdom of Egypt fell. A man will be modest if he knows that he was victor by occasion alone and that, through an easy change of occasion, he can be defeated. Polybius speaks truly:
κρατεῖ ἐπὶ πάντων μὲν τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων καιρὸς, μάλιστα δὲ τῶν πολεμικῶν.
In all human affairs, but especially in affairs of war, occasion prevails—often more than valor.
§7. Let cruelty also be absent. Anger against a suppliant enemy is unbecoming; clemency is divine. Those who have not been cruel and savage must be preserved. Machiavelli’s counsel is savage, book 3, chapter 31; for although he also approves other means, he nevertheless prefers the destruction of free cities. In On Princes, chapter 5: “When a territory under dominion has by ancient custom been free and its manner of living has been under its own law, a threefold method is offered for retaining your right over it. The first is that you utterly destroy it; the second, that you yourself migrate there to dwell; the last, that, exacting only an annual payment, you permit it to pass its life under its own laws and liberty. You are likewise to establish there a government of a few men who will take care that that dominion is preserved for you in friendship. Since that government has been established there by the prince, it knows that it cannot stand without his friendship and power, and therefore it will consider that all things must be earnestly done by it so that they may preserve that dominion for him. The Spartans and Romans can be examples for us. The Spartans possessed Athens and Thebes and established in them a government of a few, but nevertheless lost them. The Romans determined that Capua, Carthage, and Numantia were to be destroyed, and did not lose them. They wished to retain Greece approximately in the manner of the Spartans and did not abrogate its laws, but it did not answer their wishes, so that, in order to retain it, they were compelled to destroy many cities in that province. Therefore no counsel can be offered by which they may be securely possessed that is safer than destruction. For whoever gains power over a city accustomed to pass its life under its own laws and does not think that it ought to be destroyed should expect that it will destroy him. For at a time of revolt it always has something to which it may flee for refuge—namely, those ancient institutions of its own, which can never be handed over to oblivion either by length of time or by the conferral of benefits; and whatever is done, whatever is foreseen, unless the inhabitants have been drawn apart and dispersed, that name of liberty and those institutions never fall from their minds. At every turn of affairs an immediate return is made to them, just as we have seen done by the Pisans after so many years of that servitude into which the Florentines had driven them.”
It is excessively harsh and barbarous to kill men lest they rebel at some time, when there are so many means of averting rebellion, such as migration, the removal of the noblemen, the introduction of colonies, the addition of citadels, and the taking away of arms. Nor is it doubtful that the Romans took the worst counsel for themselves when they destroyed Carthage, Numantia, and Corinth. For besides the fact that they fought against desperate men at the cost of great slaughter, they also diminished their own advantages: with the money and men by which they destroyed those cities, they could have acquired entire kingdoms. Nor was there any other cause than insatiable hatred or the empty glory of a name sought for commanders through the destruction of famous cities. Yet not even thus were they secure against rebellions. Let there be moderation, because victory stood at the distance of one blow: if in one moment he had anticipated you, the enemy sword which received your steel would have lodged in your throat. The pagan poet teaches us beautifully:
ῥεῖα μὲν γὰρ βριάει, ῥεῖα δὲ βριάοντα χαλέπτει,
ῥεῖα δ᾽ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει,
ῥεῖα δέ τ᾽ ἰθύνει σκολιὸν καὶ ἀγήνορα κάρφει
Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει.
Easily he exalts, and easily brings down the exalted.
Easily he diminishes the illustrious and increases the obscure.
Easily he straightens the crooked and reduces the proud to nothing—
high-thundering Jupiter, who inhabits the highest dwellings.
The Romans sometimes exercised victory more mercifully according to the character of the commander. Marcellus was mild in victory, as Silius relates in book 14; but such commanders were rare.
When the Ditmarsians, hard pressed by the Holsteiners, had fled into a church and hoped that they would be safe through its sacred character, the Holsteiners attempted, after applying fire, to burn them alive. But the former made a sortie, avenged the victor’s impious cruelty, and slew twelve commanders and counts and two thousand men.
§8. Nevertheless, a more severe vengeance is permitted against enemies who are savage and ignorant of human law. David sawed the people of the Ammonites and drove iron carts over them, not without a divine command, because they had deserved punishments of that kind. Otherwise one must deal very gently with those who, as subjects, serve their prince and neither examine the causes of the war nor are able to do so—indeed, even with those who appear to have rebelled. Sthenius had solicited the Mamertines to revolt, and Pompey was considering destroying them. Then Sthenius said: “You do what is not equitable, Magnus, because you prepare to kill so many innocent men on account of me alone, who am guilty.” Pompey rewarded this greatness of spirit with the safety both of Sthenius and of the city. How much more savagely did Severus act, who slaughtered indiscriminately all who had stood on Albinus’s side, though they pleaded in vain the necessity of the time? Indeed, severity is sometimes commanded. Saul was cast down from his kingdom because he had spared Agag, who deserved death. Because Ahab dismissed a man worthy of death, he was given in place of that man, and his people in place of the Syrian people.
§9. The Romans’ disposition in victory was sometimes more peaceable, but for the most part there was excessive cruelty and arrogance. It was ordinary for the defeated to be sold; it was customary for them to be preserved for a triumph—that is, for certain death. Many were also condemned to the gladiatorial school or to the beasts, so that it is no wonder that nations resisted them more fiercely. Otherwise, until the signal for retreat was given, the Romans slaughtered all, even dogs and animals, in order to terrify. But this is a cause for resisting more bravely.
§10. Victor, do not shatter everything; for there is a protection even in disaster. Remember that you are now destroying what is yours.
§11. I also counsel the victor to make peace. If the Carthaginians had listened to Hanno after the victory at Cannae, they would have obtained from the Romans an equitable and honorable peace, far better than that which Hannibal sought from Scipio before the battle. It has happened to many that, having been inexorable when they denied peace amid another’s disaster, they were afterward compelled, when fortune had changed, to seek it in vain. There is always a danger that the defeated may join themselves to someone more powerful and stir up a new war.
The defeated are wretched, but their last valor is more violent, because they fight for safety, while the victors fight for honor.
An equitable peace must be given; for no one will observe a harsh and insulting one any longer than is necessary. For who would persuade the Athenians to preserve peace with Minos when they were commanded to give
Each year seven
bodies of their children?
Peace is most welcome and most lasting when, contrary to expectation, it is given advantageously and unexpectedly to the defeated. For this brings it about that the defeated are drawn onto the victor’s side.
Restrain the victors, lest they scatter. A routed battle line has often routed its pursuers. Take care first that you are not conquered, and then that you conquer. When you have conquered, govern your spirit and show that you fought for the sake of peace. Those who cannot flee will fight, and they will either extort the peace denied them or impose their own upon the victor.