§1. It is expedient for the victor to accept peace; for the defeated it is necessary. Indeed, it is sometimes advantageous to be defeated, so that men whose ferocity has been broken may learn to endure peace.
§2. Although he has been struck by a great disaster, nevertheless let him retain his spirit—indeed, also his arms: peace is better concluded beneath a shield. The Romans, defeated in three immense battles, to which the disaster in Spain was joined, retained their empire for this reason alone: that they did not fall in spirit. After the battle of Cannae the citizens were conspiring, the allies defected, and Hannibal sold the bankers’ stalls. Nevertheless, Roman valor—or Roman fear of Carthaginian cruelty and perfidy—stood firm. By receiving disaster bravely, they made a step toward victory. Barbarians have sometimes imitated that valor. After Avaricum had been taken by assault, Vercingetorix neither failed in spirit nor hid himself in concealment, but moved about before the eyes of his fellow citizens and retained authority and praise amid adversity. Caesar, book 7.
§3. Let the defeated man, therefore, display his former courage and spirit and hope for better things, for the saddest things have passed. The fortune of one hour has accomplished little if the spirit is erect. A man who has often been defeated in battle can be victor in the war.
After the Venetians had been defeated in a very grievous battle by Francesco, Duke of Milan, when almost no one had escaped, within three days they repaired their army and compelled the enemy to seek peace. For Francesco Foscari, their doge, cast money into their midst and admonished all to contribute according to his example; he brought it about that all understood what greatness of spirit could accomplish. Egnatius, book 3, chapter 2.
§4. Defeated, strive with every force, art, and vigilance to spoil the fruit of victory; rouse your heart and discover every kind of honorable stratagem. The victor’s freedom from care will furnish an opportunity. Do not pursue only old devices. New ones must always be discovered. Thucydides, book 1:
ἥκιστα γὰρ πόλεμος ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς χωρεῖ, αὐτὸς δὲ ἀφ᾽ αὑτοῦ τὰ πολλὰ τεχνᾶται πρὸς τὸ παρατυγχάνον.
War can least of all be conducted according to settled prescriptions; of itself it skillfully contrives many things in response to the events which occur.
§5. If the victor commands moderate terms, let them be accepted; if grievous ones, let the defeated commit themselves to a powerful prince as dediticii, men who have surrendered. The Campanians, hard pressed by their neighbors, surrendered themselves to the Romans, and their enemies were destroyed. When the Florentines were being oppressed by Castruccio the Sienese, they received Robert, king of Naples, into their city. The forces of Castruccio, and afterward those of the Sienese too, were worn down.
§6. Draw your arms also. For if, after a great disaster, you trouble the unwary victor by skirmishes and small losses, you recover authority and tear the reputation of his victory. Let necessity remove sloth, for its bites are most grievous when it has been provoked. By whatever art you can, restore Mars in hope of peace. Pompey, defeated in Spain and driven from Italy, did not regard those disasters; defeated at Pharsalia, he sought Egypt. War was renewed in Africa, Spain, Philippi, and Sicily. Antony was afraid and did not renew the war, although he could easily have gathered Egypt and the aid of many nations; instead, he preferred to perish alone.
§7. A defeat is to be concealed as far as possible, but in such a way that remedies are not delayed. Meanwhile, cities must be occupied at the opportune time and fortified, and those who are wavering must be retained in obedience. Forces will never be lacking if you deliberate.
§8. All these things tend toward this: that you enter upon an equitable and entirely unsuspected peace. Such a peace is generally best agreed upon between those who appear equal. Can a prince make peace in such a manner that he compels private persons to remit the losses inflicted upon them? We certainly see it done in this way. Others think restitution should be made at common expense. It is, however, more difficult to make peace than to wage war. The English boast that they have defeated the French in war; they complain that they have been defeated in peace.
§9. Therefore let both the victor grant peace and the defeated accept it, for peace is the end of war. “For so great,” says Augustine in books 19, chapters 11 and 12, of The City of God, “is the good of peace that, even among earthly and mortal things, nothing is customarily heard with greater pleasure, nothing is desired with more longing, and, finally, nothing better can be found. If at some time we wish to speak at somewhat greater length about it, we shall not, as I judge, be burdensome to our readers, both on account of the end of this city, concerning which our discourse is, and on account of the very sweetness of peace, which is dear to all. For whoever in any manner observes human affairs and our common nature recognizes with me that, just as there is no one who does not wish to rejoice, so there is no one who does not wish to have peace. Since even those who desire wars desire nothing other than to conquer, they therefore desire to arrive through war at a glorious peace. For what else is victory but the subjection of those who resist? When this has been accomplished, there will be peace. Wars, therefore, are waged with the intention of peace, even by those who endeavor to exercise military valor in commanding and fighting. Hence it is evident that peace is the desirable end of war. For every man, even by waging war, seeks peace, but no one seeks war by making peace. For even those who wish the peace in which they live to be disturbed do not hate peace, but desire that it be changed according to their own judgment. They do not, therefore, wish that there be no peace, but that it be the peace which they wish. Finally, even if they have separated themselves from others through sedition, they do not accomplish what they intend unless they maintain some kind of appearance of peace with the very men who have joined or conspired with them. Accordingly, robbers themselves, in order that they may be enemies of the peace of others more violently and securely, wish to have peace among their associates. But even if one man is so preeminent in strength and so wary of accomplices that he commits himself to no associate, and, laying snares for and prevailing over those upon whom he can, acts as a plunderer after they have been oppressed and killed, he certainly maintains some kind of shadow of peace with those whom he cannot kill and from whom he wishes what he does to lie hidden.”
Although that peace is sought as something firm, nevertheless it will not exist without some war or suspicion of war. Injuries and suspicions have altogether filled human life, even the life of friends. “But not even the saints,” says Augustine, book 19, chapter 10, of The City of God, “and the faithful worshipers of the one true and supreme God are safe from their deceits and manifold temptation. For in this place of weakness and in evil days even this anxiety is not useless, so that the security where peace is most complete and certain may be sought with more fervent desire.”
Let us therefore aspire to this peace not only through wars but also through the peace of the human city: the most ordered and most concordant fellowship of enjoying God; peace where there is no evil and no contradiction; blessed and full peace; the peace of the Jerusalem above. You, O God, grant it in your strength, with abundance in your towers.
THE END.