The Art of War

In order not to let my leisure pass without doing something constructive, I have decided to write what I know of the art of war for the satisfaction of those who are admirers of ancient deeds. 292

I will be grateful for your questions, because I wish to learn as much from you in what you ask as you will from me in what I answer. For often a wise questioner leads one to consider many things and to realize many others, things that would never have been realized had the question not been asked. 295

FABRIZIO: Honoring and rewarding skill, not scorning poverty, esteeming the principles and institutions of military discipline, compelling citizens to love one another, living without factions, esteeming what is public more than what is private, and other such ideas that could easily be accommodated to our times. It would not be difficult to make these principles accepted if one thought the matter through and applied it in an adequate manner, because the truth in them would appear so clearly that the simplest mind would be capable of perceiving it. He who institutes these principles is planting trees beneath whose shade one can live with greater happiness and cheer. 296

A man wishing to do something must first prepare himself with great application in order to be 296 ready, if the opportunity presents itself, to accomplish what he has set out to do. When preparations are undertaken were circumspection they are unknown to others, and there can be no accusations of negligence unless the preparer is first caught out by the occasion. If he does not act once the opportunity presents itself, it is clear that he has either not prepared or not foreseen things. 297

And yet if a republic or a kingdom is well ordered, it will never allow any of its citizens or subjects to exercise soldiery as a profession. No good man ever adopted it as a profession, because a man will never be judged good who practices a profession in which, if he wants to do well both in times of war and times of peace, he must be rapacious, cunning, and violent, and have many other qualities that can only make him bad. Nor can men- great or small-who have soldiery as a profession act otherwise, for it is one that does not feed them in times of peace. Consequently these men are compelled either to find a way to fend off peace, or to gain such advantage for themselves in times of war that they can keep feeding themselves in times of peace. Whenever men entertain either of these thoughts they cannot be good, because it is from the need to provide for themselves in times of both war and peace that soldiers turn to the robbery, Violence, and assassination that they inflict on both friends and enemies. Generals who do not want peace deceive the princes who hire them by drawing wars out; and even if peace does come, it frequently happens that the generals, deprived of their stipends and no longer able to live unencumbered by laws, raise the banner of the soldier of fortune, sacking a land without mercy. 298

Pompey and Caesar, and almost all the generals in Rome after the last Punic War, gained fame as valiant men, not as good men. Those who had lived before them, however, had acquired glory as valiant and good men, which happened because they did not take up the practice of war as their profession, while it was the profession of Pompey, Caesar, and the generals of their times. 300

A well-ordered kingdom does not grant its king absolute power, except over the army, because it is only for the army that quick decisions and hence absolute power are necessary. In other matters, the king should not be able to do anything without counsel, and those who advise him must fear that there might be a counselor close to him who desires war in times of peace because the counselor cannot live without it. 301