“[That] which,” says Calvin, “some here ask — whether it is lawful to overwhelm enemies by guile and through ambushes — arises from crass ignorance.” But these two questions on this matter — the tenth and eleventh — St. Augustine treats in this place. With Calvin, then, as judge, [was] that so great a man [Augustine] crassly unskilled? This [is] too crass a reproach of Calvin, too crass an impudence; but he himself adds two reasons. The former: “For it is certain that wars are waged not by striking alone, but that those are reckoned the best leaders who are strong in art and counsel more than in force.” The latter: “Then, [that] as each has become an old hand by long use, so [he is] the best soldier.” How certain these [reasons] are, we shall see afterward; but be it [so], let them be most certain — is it not on that account [still] to be inquired into? Many [things] are certain to some, which are not [certain] to others: many [things] are inquired into, which are certain to all. But they are inquired into for this, that they may be more explained, [that] their reason be investigated, [that] they may turn out more certain. What [is] clearer than that God is? yet Calvin proves it (Institutes bk. 1, ch. 3 and 4). What [is] more certain to Christians than that Sacred Scripture is of the highest faith and authority? yet the same [Calvin] proves this — although he interweaves not a few false [things] — in the same bk., ch. 7. I will not bring forward [others] who, either here or elsewhere, discuss this most noble question — Theologians, Jurisconsults, Politicians, Heretics, who are indeed many; but, lest anyone could doubt, I will bring forward the several [points]. First: All fraud and guile ought to be absent from a good man — of which kind we all ought to be; let it be far [from us] always. For that [fraud] too greatly repugns fidelity, truth, and simplicity — [things] much commended in scripture and in the doctrine of the profane wise men (Gen. 20; ch. 25, 27)
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(Gen. 20; 25; 27; Job 1:1 & 8; ch. 2:3; Prov. 3:32; ch. 10:9 & 20; ch. 11:5; ch. 28:10 & 18; Phil. 2:15; Eph. 6:5; Cicero, bk. 1 On Duties). On the contrary, how often, and how gravely, are the crafty, the cunning, the old-hands [veteratores], the double-hearted, blamed? Secondly: It is the law of nature, that what we do not wish to be done to us, we should not do to others. But who wishes to be dealt with by ambush? Thirdly: Ambushes are always done secretly — and [are they always done] rightly? Of their kind, therefore, are all liers-in-wait, concerning whom [is] Luke 6[?]: “He who acts ill, hates the light.” Job 29[24]: “The eye of the adulterer loves the darkness.” Fourthly: Deut. 16: “Justly [pursue] what is just, [that] thou execute [it].” But to lie in ambush is to act fraudulently: to act fraudulently is to act unjustly. Fifthly: [That] which, in a matter in which one [is] not judge and prince, regards war — that [same], before a judge, regards the disputation of law among others. But in this disputation of law it is not lawful to use frauds — neither for the plaintiffs, nor for the defendants, nor for the Judge. Sixthly: If it be lawful to use ambushes in war, it will be lawful [to use] lies too. Seventhly: It will be lawful, too, to use arms and insignia and standards falsely-counterfeited. Eighthly: Likewise a new and unusual kind of arms, and order of battle-lines. Ninthly: It will be lawful, too, to rescind pacts and covenants. Tenthly: It would even be lawful to imbue darts and weapons of every kind with poison, for the destruction of the enemy: [and] to infect springs and rivers with the same. Eleventhly: It would be lawful to see to it that cooks, cup-bearers, physicians, and other domestics of that kind take off [kill] our adversary Leaders by poison. Twelfthly: It would be lawful to hire assassins, and send [them] against them. Thirteenthly: It would likewise seem permitted to stir up, by songs and magical arts, tempests and storms against the enemy — [and] to cast the illusions of ten-thousand [myriad] tricks upon them. Fourteenthly: Many and excellent men of old — even Gentiles — judged this whole kind of ambush [to be] hissed off from a war which is rightly waged. How much more ought the same mind and opinion to be ours, [we] Christians? In the Rhesus, Euripides:
οὐδεὶς ἀνὴρ εὔψυχος, ἀξιοῖ λάθρα / κτεῖναι τὸν ἐχθρόν.
[Euripides, Rhesus: “No brave man deems it worthy to kill his enemy by stealth.” Serarius’s Latin: “No man of right mind would wish to kill an enemy secretly.”]
Concerning the Tibareni, who used to reveal to the enemy, in good faith, the place, time, and hour of battle, [see] Caelius Rhodiginus (bk. 8, ch. 30). The Achaeans so greatly abhorred malicious machinations and hidden guiles, that they were unwilling to conquer even the most hostile enemies by fraud: and Polybius praises them under this name (bk. 13), and indicates the cause by which they were moved: namely, that they judged that victory [to be] neither splendid nor firm, unless one conquered — fighting openly and by agreement [ex condicto] — those who were opposing in [strength of] spirit. “Base,” says a certain [author] in Isidore (bk. 18), “[is] a victory sought by guile.” “There is no greater victory,” says Claudian (On the [Sixth] Consulate of Honorius), “than that which subdues enemies who confess [defeat] in [their] mind too.” For those who have succumbed by fraud and guile easily rise up again, reckoning themselves conquered not by virtue, but by the occasion and art of [their] adversaries. Florus (bk. 1, ch. 13): “A holy and wise man,” he says, “will know that to be a true victory which is procured with faith safe and dignity entire.” But while ambushes are being set, can faith and dignity stand safe and entire? When Alexander was persuading [him] to use the occasion of the night against Darius, Polyperchon, “Away with it,” he said. “It is not mine to seek stolen victories.” And the same [Alexander] did not deign to strike Orodes fleeing, nor, meeting him, to give a blind wound with a hurled [spear-]point; but ran against [him] face to face, and matched himself, man to man — not better by stealth, but by brave arms.
But against ambushes, this [is my answer]: before I fight in the open, a twofold distinction is to be observed here. First: ambushes are either of words or of deeds. Second: the war which one party of the belligerents wages is either just or unjust. Concerning ambushes of words there is now no need [for me] to speak, because I have said something elsewhere on Judith (ch. 13, qq. 6–10), and it will again have to be said in the following ch. 9. But concerning ambushes of deeds there is one sentence: “In an unjust war it is not lawful to use ambushes; in a just [war] it is lawful.” The former part [is] clear from this, that [things] which are referred to an evil end and action are all evil: Prov. 24:15, “Lie not in wait, and seek not impiety in the house of the just.” The latter [part], which is most to be regarded here, is proved: 1. by the most clear example of this place, which the best and most holy leader of war, Joshua — nay, God himself, who prescribed to Joshua the ambush — supplies. 2. St. Augustine (q. 10): “[That] which,” he says, “God, speaking to Jesus [Joshua], commands — that he set for himself an ambush behind [him] — that is, warriors lying in wait to ambush the enemy: hence we are admonished [that] it is not unjustly done by those who wage a just war: so that a just man ought chiefly to think of nothing in these matters, except that he undertake a just war — for whom it is lawful [fas] to make war. For it is not lawful for all [men]; but when he has undertaken a just war, whether he conquer by open battle or by ambushes, is nothing to [does not affect] justice.” St. Jerome (on Ezek. 17): “As long as thou dost not aid [the enemy] and dost not enter a pact [with him], it is [a matter] of the prudence and fortitude given by God either to deceive or to defraud the adversary, howsoever thou canst.” 3. The same explanation and sentence of so great a father is approved (Gratian, 23, q. 2, ch. Dominus). 4. All the Theologians embrace the same, of whom the chief [is] St. Thomas (2a2ae, q. 40, a. 3); Abulensis (on Judg. 7, q. 30). 5. The civil law too, “on guile” [de dolo], in the Pandects — and I cited [it] (q. 6, on Judith ch. 13) — likewise all the Interpreters of law on the same law, and most copiously Cephalus (Consilium 696). There can be added the Law nihil interest (ff., On Captives), and the law non solum (Code, On Commerce and Merchants). 6. Also various other writers, as Virgil (Aeneid bk. 2), cited by St. Jerome in the place cited: “guile or virtue — who would ask in an enemy?” Quintilian (bk. 2, ch. 13): “Sometimes,” he says, “it will profit to have turned [one’s] back, by a feigned flight.” Pindar (Isthmian, Ode 4): “One ought, by trying, to break the adversary in any way whatever.” Homer (Odyssey, bk. 11): “to finish off the enemy either by guile, or with drawn sword at close quarters.” Polybius — because he had before seemed to praise the Achaeans — says (bk. 8) [that], of military deeds, those are of less praise and moment which are perpetrated openly and by force, [than] those [done] by guile and from occasion. Xenophon (On the Cavalry-Commander): ὄντως οὐδὲν κερδαλεώτερον ἐν πολέμῳ ἀπάτης [ontōs ouden kerdaleōteron en polemō apatēs], that is, “In truth nothing in war [is] more useful than guile.” Ammianus (bk. 17): with no distinction of virtue and guile, all prosperous outcomes of wars ought to be praised. Which some Italic Poet [expresses] thus:
“To conquer was ever a praiseworthy thing, / whether one conquer by fortune or by wit.”
Perhaps here too could be referred [that] which is much weightier than all these — Prov. 24:6: “With a disposition [plan] is a war entered upon (or, as it is in the Hebrew, with various thoughts): and there will be safety, where there are many counsels.” 7. There are added the examples of the most illustrious leaders, Gentiles and Christians,
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Agesilaus, in Plutarch — [with a philological note: it must be read ἀδικεῖν (“to wrong”), not ἀποπρονοούμενον, which is no word in the Greek tongue; nor ἀδίκως (“unjustly”), for even ἀδίκως πολεμίους παραλογίζεσθαι (“to outwit enemies unjustly”) is impious [ἀσεβές]; but τοὺς δὲ πολεμίους παραλογίζεσθαι (“but to outwit the enemies”), etc.] — that is: to afflict with harm [him] who has entered a treaty with us is impious; but to deceive enemies is not only just and very glorious, but also pleasant and profitable. Brasidas, in Thucydides (bk. 5): “those thefts of war have the fairest praise by which one most deceives the enemy, and profits [his] friends the most.” What [is] more celebrated than the Lacedaemonian warcraft? Yet the first [Spartans], though most pugnacious, deemed that action more worthy, and more befitting a man, which was set up by reason and mind, than that [done] by force and strength. And therefore that leader among them who had conquered by force and just battle [sacrificed] only a cock; but he who could [conquer] by fraud and persuasion, [sacrificed] an ox — [choosing], namely, a lesser and a greater victim for a lesser and a greater usefulness and praise of victory. Caesar (bk. 4 On the Gallic War, and bk. 1 On the Civil War): he always preferred to accomplish the matter without a wound of his own [men], and used to say [that] “it is no less [the mark] of a Commander to conquer by counsel than by the sword.” The fierce and barbarous Franks of old — how [did] Constantine the Great [conquer them] except by craft and guile, as [is] in Panegyric V? Christian wars against the infidels and Turks — how great an abundance of that kind of ambush do they give? And whom of the Pontiffs, priests, and learned [men] has our age ever reproved [for it]? — our Belgium is the field of them, both those [ambushes] which the heretics and those which the Catholics contrive. How [was] Lier recovered? how [was] the fort of Wachtendonk recently [taken], though a little after lost again? how [was] Amiens captured? Nay, [these] are honored with the honest and splendid name of stratagem, of which Frontinus and Polyaenus are full. 8. St. Thomas brings the reason (in the cited place). In the common custom of life, no one is bound to open to another — even if he be deceived — the hidden [things] which he says or does. Therefore much less is anyone bound to open to enemies the [things] which he prepares for their destruction. But surely, in that reasoning, that antecedent can seem doubtful, if indeed another be so deceived that he thence draws a loss, and especially death. For some Philosophers denied this to be just — of whom Cicero (On Duties 3). Then, be that antecedent true, only this much will be gathered: that it is lawful to be silent and not to do something by which he [the enemy] might find out the thing which is concealed; but not to do something by which the same thing be covered, and by which he be drawn into destruction. But these differ not a little — “not to do something whence knowledge could be,” and “to do [something] whence knowledge is not, and [something] be thought to be, which is not.” And therefore, perfecting this reason of St. Thomas, Abulensis (q. 6) adds: “it is not only lawful to conceal what we do or intend, but even to feign that we do something else, that we may catch them.” But what [is] the proof of this? if there is any doubt in the antecedent of St. Thomas, how much greater in this? — for there [it is] only [a matter] of an act of business; here, of a pretending. I think indeed the thing which is said by these [men] to be true; but on account of the authority of scripture and the Fathers cited above, not on account of the force of reason — unless it be more explained and confirmed for its sake. 9. Therefore: to whom the right of a just war belongs, to him that power seems [to belong], that openly and secretly, by omitting and by acting in whatever way he can, [he may harm] the enemy by [means] which are not forbidden — by nature, by God’s [law], and by the [law] of the nations (I add, and, among Christians, by the Church’s laws). For the very word and nature of “war” imports this whole power, as its difference from “duel” shows, and the common consensus of both the wise and of somewhat more learned peoples. 10. What is mine, when it is not lawful by [ordinary] law [to reclaim it], I can either recover or protect by every non-forbidden means. 11. By the law of nature, it is lawful to look more to my own and my [family’s] advantages, safety, and life, than to others’. Therefore, that less blood be shed in war by me and mine, fewer perils be approached, fewer losses received, it is lawful to circumvent by ambushes the enemy contriving all the worst against me. 12. To a bad knot a strong wedge must be applied. But what knot [is] more knotty than a struggle over safety and life? 13. The enemy against whom a just war is waged is iniquitous and wicked, and seeks all means of destroying me — and indeed unjustly. I therefore will rightly employ against him all [means] not forbidden, for his destruction. 14. We capture wild beasts and the greatest monsters not only by open force, but even by hidden nets, pits, and javelin-throws — why not [also] those who, in the manner of beasts (from which the name “war” [bellum] is derived, rather than from some antiphrasis I-know-not-what), invade us and ours wickedly, unjustly, and criminally — [why not] pierce [these] enemies with open and hidden darts? [why not] finish [them] off by insidious and hidden war? 15. Finally, this opinion is proved from those [arguments] which have been discoursed against [it], either by [their] solution or by [their] exposition.
To the first [objection]: Only that fraud and guile repugns virtue and a good man which contains injustice. Otherwise a certain guile is good, as I showed (q. 6, in ch. 6 of Judith). But that simplicity is commended which has nothing of fraud and of exposed evil guile. But that [simplicity] which [is] imprudent, stolid, and insipid, is rejected — as St. Gregory shows (bk. 4, Epistle 31, to Maurice Augustus), who had called him [Gregory], in his letter, “simple,” that is (as he interprets [it]), “foolish.” For in Sacred Scripture, when “simplicity” is put in a good sense, it is often associated with prudence or rectitude. Whence also of blessed Job it is written: “He was a man simple and upright”; and Blessed Paul the Apostle admonishes, saying: “Be ye simple in [regard to] evil, and prudent in [regard to] good.” And Truth itself, through itself, admonishes, saying: “Be ye prudent as serpents, and simple as doves” — judging [it] very useless if either prudence be lacking to simplicity, or simplicity to prudence. That, therefore, he might make his servants learned in all things, he willed them to be both simple as doves and prudent as serpents: in so far as, in them, the astuteness of the serpent might sharpen the simplicity of the dove, and the simplicity of the dove might temper the astuteness of the serpent. On the contrary, those whose mind is quickly turned to evil, and [who] take cunning counsels unjustly, and cook up iniquity in [their] heart indeed, [but] in [their] work display I-know-not-what goodness — these are called “astute” [astuti], “crafty” [versuti], and “cunning” [callidi]. Yet there is [a place] where these three [words] are taken in a good sense, both in scripture and among the good authors of Latinity: yet never, so far as I know, [is] “veterator” [taken so] — unless it be taken simply for “veteranus” [a veteran], as the laws prescribe (Digest, On the Aedilician Edict) — so that [it is] false, [that] which Calvin said above, [namely] “that [he is] the best soldier who has, by long use, become a veterator [old hand].” For [he] who by long use has best learned the wily art, he is the worst
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as Budaeus shows. And therefore Joseph Scaliger too was warned (bk. 2 of the Minervalia) not to call, as he had begun, Catholics and men of the ancient faith “veteratores” [wily old foxes].
To the second [objection]: The law of nature is understood of the will, which, conformably to reason, does not wish this or that — as Abulensis rightly [says] (q. 6, ad 1).
To the third: All sins indeed, by a certain force of nature, dread the light, on account of the natural reproach and disgrace which follows them: yet meanwhile there are many secret [things] which, for other causes — and those good — ought to be hidden and covered. Tobit 12:7: “To hide the secret of a King is good.”
To the fourth: That fraudulent [thing] is disapproved only which [is] unjust, as [in the response] to the first. Otherwise, “they are not ambushes [in the bad sense], nor properly frauds, when they repugn neither justice nor an ordered will,” says St. Thomas in the place cited.
To the fifth: Covarruvias disputes (in his manner — neither briefly nor negligently — bk. 1 Resolutions, ch. 2) by what artifices, in a good cause, it is lawful for the defendant or the plaintiff (nay, even for the Judges themselves) to use, before the Judges. But here only this much is to be said: [that] much more is lawful to him who has a good cause than to him who has a bad [one]. Much more, therefore, in war.
To the sixth: The consequence is denied. Although Albericus Gentilis, from the flock of the Innovators, in England, grants (ch. 5, bk. 2 On War) that it is lawful to use lies against the enemy.
To the seventh: Arms and standards, made in this or that manner and color, are not of themselves, or by the common consent of men, so utterly applied to that one side or the other, that the other party could not, by good right, take the same [for itself]. It is granted, therefore, that this is lawful.
To the eighth: It is likewise granted [to be] lawful. For these are the inventions of military reason and prudence: and of old it was lawful to abandon those pitched battles which — in Cassiodorus (bk. 1 Variae, [letter] 30) — [are called] “pugna,” and stakes and arrows, spears and swords, and other [weapons] of that kind, even to our arquebuses and bombards — concerning the recent invention of which Magius (in the Miscellanea) devised six hundred [things]. A certain Muscovite, when the most praiseworthy King of Poland, Stephen, had begun to set fire to his [the Muscovite’s] wooden defenses with hurled red-hot balls, complained and raged that the right of war was violated, and the honor of arms polluted, by a new fraud — as [is] in Lipsius’s Poliorcetica (bk. 5, ch. 5).
To the ninth: The consequence is denied. “It is clear,” says St. Ambrose (bk. 1 On Duties, ch. 29), “that even in war faith and justice ought to be kept, nor can there be any honor if faith be violated.” And likewise (bk. 3, ch. 10). “Many [things],” says Seneca (bk. 5 On Benefits, ch. 21), “have no law, nor [legal] action.” But the custom of human life, stronger than every law, gives access. No law commands that the secrets of friends not be uttered: no law [commands one] to keep faith even with an enemy. Yet I will complain of him who has not kept [secret] a secret conversation, and I will be indignant at a faith given and not kept. Because, although Seneca then thought [it was] against no civil law, yet it was against the natural [law]; and, because usually an oath [sacramentum], which [is] by no means to be violated, is wont to be interposed, [it is] against the divine [law]. Truly Silius: “By far the best [is] that [man] of warfare, to whom [it is] the last and the first [concern] to protect [his own].”
Faith amid wars. Jurisconsults indeed sharply dispute whether faith pledged [i.e. pacts] must be kept with robbers and criminals: and not a few deny [it], as Zasius, Alciatus, Bodin; yet no one asserts [that faith is] not to be kept with enemies. And even that very [man] who, otherwise, opened a window to fraud, simulation, and all impiety for very many most unhappy [readers] — Machiavelli (bk. 3 On the Republic [Discourses], ch. 40) — when he had taught [that], in warlike affairs, guile and fraud can be employed with great glory (which, taken generally about warlike [matters], [is] false; about warlike just [matters], true), added (fol. 607): “That fraud which is done, in a military matter, by breaking faith [and] by not keeping a pact, [is] by no means glorious.”
To the tenth, and the two following arguments: These arguments — and [those] similar to it — are insidious [captious]; the same [which] the impious proposed to CHRIST the Lord (Matt. 22:17): “is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” Yet because it is one thing to give counsel about a certain man, in a certain case and time, another to seek the truth generally, I say, first, [that] here only, as in the whole question, it is asked whether it be lawful — to him who wages war not in any way [whatever], but in a just manner and [with a just] cause — to take off, if he can, the unjust adversary and his soldiers by poison. Secondly: It is one thing whether it be lawful to do this, another whether it befit this or that [person]: “All things [are] lawful for me,” says the Apostle (1 Cor. 6:12), “but not all things are expedient.” And again (ch. 10:23): “All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.” Whence the Law semper (ff., On the Rules of Law): “not only what is lawful is to be regarded, but also what is honorable.” Thirdly: I see two opinions of the Jurisconsults. One, of Baldus and the older [jurists], who judge [that] to one waging war justly there is the right and power of scattering poisons among the enemy, if indeed there be occasion, and of taking them off by these. “It is lawful,” says he (bk. 2, Consilium 188), “to kill an enemy by poison, as Vegetius teaches.” Concerning this Vegetius indeed — whether, and where, he teaches this — I do not trouble [myself]; but that is Baldus’s opinion. The other [opinion], of the more recent [jurists], and indeed of very few — namely, of two Gentili brothers: Alberico (On the Right of War, ch. 6) and Scipio (in the annotations on bk. 2 of the Solymeis of Torquato Tasso); and these fight indeed with a multitude of reasons (for that one [Scipio] brings forward 20), but which have more of noise than of substance. Fourthly: I think, nevertheless, universally speaking, [that] this is lawful in a just war: yet often — out of regard for [the customs] of wars, of enemies, of usage, of glory, and other similar [things] — one ought not to descend to this last degree of ambush. The former part of the posited conclusion is proved by the [above] reasons, and by the dissolution of all the recentiores’ reasons: from which [dissolution] there is light for the latter part too.
The first reason [of the Gentili]: Some Barbarians have sometimes used poison. Answer: Not whatever men — even Barbarians — do is straightway evil. The second: Poisons bring death at once by a light touch. Answer: So much the more quickly is the foul evil of war ended; a bridle is put on injustice; the blood of the just-defending party is spared. The third: The contest of arms is [thereby] taken away. Answer: This very [thing] is sought by all ambushes — that there be an end to fighting with arms. The fourth: Wounds are doubled by poisons. Answer: 1. It is not always so, nor properly. 2. It is lawful to inflict several blows on someone, that the defender of an unjust cause may fall more surely and quickly. The fifth: Animals do not do this. Answer: 1. That is true, because brutes do not act by wit. 2. Many [animals] even
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even pour out poison too, as serpents [and] snakes. The sixth: Injury is done to the natures of things. Answer: [It is] no greater injury than when we use wood, iron, or other usual [weapons] for the slaughter of enemies. The seventh: This [poison] is infamous. Answer: When [it is] for the sake of justice and the public advantage, against an iniquitous [enemy], and [an enemy] scarcely — or not even scarcely — to be overcome otherwise, there is no cause of infamy. Yet if any such [infamy] be feared, let one abstain — as I was saying in the second place. The eighth: It is against God, as Florus says. Answer: [Only] if the war be not just. The ninth: It is against the customs of the ancestors, as Valerius says (bk. 6, ch. 5), [and] Livy (bk. 42). Answer: 1. Nearly the same could be said of other ambushes. 2. The Romans did not use [it], because they could overcome their [enemies] conveniently otherwise. 3. Others did use [it], as Solon, the wise-man of Greece (in Pausanias, last bk.; Frontinus, bk. 3); and the Amphictyons (in Polyaenus, bk. 6); others [too] — although, on account of the great occasion of sin given, [they] displease [me] who are said to have sent prostitutes infected with that impure disease into the camp of the Gauls, so that thence the “French disease” [morbus Gallicus] was named (in Fallopius, in the preface to [his] book on this disease, and Guicciardini, bk. 19). The tenth: It is [the way] of robbers. Answer: To lay ambushes is [the way] of robbers too; but robbers do it unjustly. The eleventh: It is not warlike, because clandestine. Answer: So the whole kind of ambush would not be warlike. The twelfth: It is a crime of treachery. Answer: In him, sometimes, who gives the poison — not in him who, waging a just war, sees to its being given. But of this afterward. The thirteenth: It is against honor and innocence. Answer: So it is, if it be done without a just cause of war. The fourteenth: Physicians forbid anyone to give poison from among their own [drugs]. Answer: Rightly, because it is theirs [physicians’] to cure, not to kill: and, through some one poisoner, the whole nation of physicians is ill spoken of. The fifteenth: Philosophers and other Writers deny [that poison] is to be given. Answer: And I indeed would wish [it] given to no one — just as [I would wish there were] no ambushes, nor war, nor any cause of war. But yet, when just arms are taken up, I have not seen even one author who precisely accuses that [as] a crime, but only [one who warns of] a certain manner, time, [and] caution. Then, to these authors, other authors can be opposed. The sixteenth: The adulterer and others [are] to be killed by iron [the sword], not by poison (law 8, ff. [Digest], On Punishments). Answer: When, in the tribunals, some one punishment is imposed on the guilty, not on that account are all the others — as if never granted in another kind [of case] — condemned. The seventeenth: Those who interpret that law feel thus. Answer: As to the sixteenth. The eighteenth: War is a contest by force. Therefore it ought not to be waged by poisons. Answer: [I answer, thirdly:] Force [vis] is indeed sometimes distinguished from poison, as [in] ff. (law 1, On the Silanian Senate-decree): yet often it [poison] is contained under the very name of “force.” 2. The consequence too is denied, because so very many good ambushes would [thus] be rejected. The nineteenth: War ought to be [waged] by those [means] by which human force can resist. Answer: Poisons can indeed be resisted by prudence and diligence, lest they be taken; 2. if they be already taken, by antidotes. But if the venom has already insinuated itself to the heart, it cannot be resisted by force indeed — but neither [can] a lethal blow, a running-through, [or] a piercing [be resisted]. The twentieth: By poison, sometimes not [only] the harmful [guilty] are taken off, but the innocent too — as if wells and rivers be corrupted by poison. Answer: 1. A circumstance of this kind can sometimes make [it] unlawful which would otherwise be lawful. 2. Justly, sometimes, in warlike slaughter, the innocent are laid low along with the guilty — as [was] said of the little children of Jericho (ch. 6), and [as is] that noted [saying]: “Whatever [madness] the Kings rave, the Achaeans are scourged” [Horace, Epistles 1.2.14].
To the eleventh [objection]: It is sometimes lawful to use the ready service of certain [men], even if they themselves act ill — for example, of usurers, deserters, and the like. But whether anyone can solicit them to [administer] poisons depends on that question [treated] a little before: whether it be ever just to administer poison? For if there is a just cause, one can invite and lead over whomsoever to it, then use their service for that which is otherwise lawful. But just as there were sometimes [men] who wished to attack the enemy only in open battle, never by ambush (as is said in argument 14), so there was also a spirit so generous in some, that they did not suffer themselves to be either authors or accomplices of poison — [men] among whom [this] is especially celebrated, both in others and truly in Seneca (Epistle 121) and Claudian (On the Gildonic War), who [writes]:
“Fabricius sent back to the King the harmful poisons which [a servant] had promised to mix for [his] master, the fraud being laid bare — [the King] whom he assails in [open] war; and he refused a war to be waged through the wickedness of a servant.”
To the twelfth: as to the eleventh. To the thirteenth: All magic [is] utterly forbidden, because it repugns entirely the natural, divine, and human law. [It is] unworthy of Christians — although some of them are written to have used it (Bodin, bk. 1 Demonomania), [and] to have sent forth that voice: “If I cannot bend the gods above, I will move Acheron” [Virgil, Aen. 7.312]. Away with the Argonauts, the Zoroastrians, and others, concerning whom [see] Plutarch (in the Politics), Diodorus (bk. 60), Arnobius (Against the Nations, bk. 1), Eusebius (bk. 1 Life of Constantine), Zonaras (vol. 3). To the fourteenth: As in nearly all arts, so once — especially in the battles of the human race throughout the world — there was greater simplicity and rudeness. In these [battles] there was a great zeal for the ostentation of bodily strength, and to this they referred nearly everything (as today certain barbarians and rude [peoples] refer [it]) — that it might appear which [side] be more robust, more enduring, more spirited. And therefore of old they used to fix the place for a future battle, and likewise the time, and almost the manner — witness Livy (bk. 42), Polybius (bk. 13), Plutarch (in Pyrrhus and others). The old Florentines, lest they should seem to attack the enemy by ambush, were wont, for a whole month before they led out their forces against him, to ring assiduously a certain bell, which they called “Martinella,” that there might be a continuous sound by night and by day — as Michel Lord de Montaigne notes (in his own Miscellanies [Essays], bk. 1, ch. 5), where he also relates [that] the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ternate not only declared war to their enemies, but announced all their forces, arms, and manners of fighting. But because the end of wars is not [the ostentation] of bodily strength, nor of wealth, of power, nor the skill of arms, nor the audacity of spirits, but the defense of justice, men gradually judged [it] better to tend to this [end] with the least loss of their own, and [judged] that the concealment of their counsels, and good guiles, could sometimes be employed. And so there was a departure from that old simplicity of wars — which, however, there were some who more approved and more loved, moved by various and diverse causes, of which there is now no need to speak. And I indeed would altogether wish [that men] would withdraw
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from all wars: [that] all men whatsoever would protect a holy peace among themselves, and a Christian concord of souls. But because that is not [so], and, will-they nill-they, wars are horrid, it must further be seen in what manner they can be rightly waged — according to God’s nature, and [according to] the laws, both political and Ecclesiastical, of the commonwealth — [and] what in them [is] lawful or unlawful. To the authors and examples, therefore, brought forward in that argument 14, are objected [other] authors and examples (concerning which before) — others, although some of them regard private enemies and enmities (concerning which nothing here). Among which, rightly, a certain Wise-man in Stobaeus (Sermon 1): μηδενὶ ἐπιβουλεύσαιμι, ἐπιβουλευόμενος δ᾽ ἄνευ ἀνάγκης τοῦ τι ἀνδραγαθῆσαι, ἀπαθὴς διαφύγοιμι [that is: “May I plot against no one; and, [when] plotted against, without the necessity of doing some [aggressive] brave deed, may I escape unharmed”]. But if someone should plot against me, would that I might escape without any perturbation, short of the necessity of perpetrating anything which is indeed wicked and incurable. And these [things it seemed good] to discuss a little more copiously about the whole [matter] of warlike ambushes, once [for all]: because both in the scriptures that question recurs again and again, and [because] it is of interest to know [that] the right of them belongs to none but just warriors.