appointed the time and place of the battle. On this principle they sent back to Pyrrhus his treacherous physician,[1] and to the Faliscans their disloyal schoolmaster.[2] Such were the characteristically Roman methods, not those of Greek subtlety and Punic craft, which hold it to be less glorious to conquer by force than by fraud. To deceive may serve for the moment; but he alone considers himself vanquished who knows that he has been so, neither by stratagem nor by chance, but by valour, array against array, in a loyal and just war.[3] (a) It is plain enough, from this language on the part of those good people, that they had not as yet accepted this fine saying, —
(c) The Achaians, says Polybius,[5] detested all manner of deceit in their wars, deeming that no victory when the courage of the enemy was not cast down. Eam vir sanctus et sapiens sciet veram esse victoriam, que salva fide et integra dignitate, parabitur,[6] says another.
Vosne velit an me regnare hera, quidve ferat fors,
Virtute experiamur.[7]
In the kingdom of Ternates, among those nations whom we so unhesitatingly[8] call Barbarians, it is the custom not to enter into war without having first proclaimed it, adding a full declaration of the means, of all kinds, that they have at
- ↑ See Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus.
- ↑ See Idem, Life of Camillus.
- ↑ See Livy, XLII, 43, for the whole story. The addition of the edition of 1595 is almost a literal translation.
- ↑ What matters it whether cunning or courage be used against an enemy? — Virgil, Æneid, II, 390.
- ↑ Montaigne did not take this remark from Polybius, but from the Politiques of Justus Lipsius, V, 17.
- ↑ A conscientious and wise man must know the only true victory to be that which is won without the violation of good faith and honour. — Florus, I, 12,6. This quotation, also, Montaigne took, not from the original, but from the same page of Lipsius.
- ↑ Let us test by valour whether all-powerful Fortune wills that you or that I shall reign, or what she brings us. — Ennius, in Cicero, De Officiis, I, 12.
- ↑ Si à pleine bouche.
