This is just what the verse dictates:
Wide is the range of words, on one side and the other. (Homer)
it is indeed right to speak of everything, for and against. For example:
Hannibal won, and then he did not know how to use his victorious fortune well, (Petrarch)
Who wants to be part of this party and join our people in blaming us for not having pursued our advantage at Montcontour, or who wants to accuse the King of Spain of not having taken advantage of the opportunity he had against us at Sainct Quentin? Can they say that this mistake comes from a soul intoxicated by its good fortune and by a courage which, full and sated with this beginning of good fortune, loses the taste for more, already too impeded to digest what he has of it? He has an armful, he cannot grasp any more, unworthy that fortune should have put such good in his hands. For what profit does he feel, if nevertheless he gives his enemy a means of recovering himself? What hope can one have that he will dare to attack these rallied and recovered, and once again armed with spite and vengeance, who did not dare or know how to pursue them all broken and frightened?
While fortune lasts, terror destroys everything. (Lucan)
But in the end, what can he expect better than what he has just lost? It is not like fencing, where the number of hits wins: as long as the enemy is on his feet, it is time to start all over again; it is not victory if it does not end the war. In this skirmish where Caesar had the worst near the City of Oricum, he reproached Pompeius’ soldiers that it would have been lost, if their Captain had been able to win, and he spurred them on quite differently when it was his turn. But why not also say, on the contrary, that it is the effect of a hasty and insatiable spirit to not know how to put an end to its greed; that it is abusing God’s favors, to want to make them lose the measure he prescribed for them: and that, to throw oneself into danger after victory is to put it once again at the mercy of fortune; that one of the greatest wisdoms in military art is not to drive one’s enemy to despair.
Sylla and Marius, in the Social War, having seen the Marsians fail, and seeing yet another remnant of the troops, who out of desperation were turning back to throw themselves at them like furious beasts, did not think it advisable to wait for them. If the ardor of Monsieur de Foix had not prevailed in pursuing the remnants of the victory of Ravenna too harshly, he would not have sullied it with his death. However, the recent memory of his example still served to keep Monsieur d’Anguien from a similar mishap at Serisoles. It is dangerous to attack a man to whom you have denied any means of escape other than by arms: for necessity is a violent mistress of school:
The bites of irritated necessity are most grievous. (Porcius Latro)
He who provokes the enemy is not defeated by the throat without a cause. (Lucan)
This is why Pharax prevented the King of Lacedaemon, who had just won the day against the Mantineans, from going to face a thousand Argives, who had escaped the defeat unscathed, but let them go free so as not to test his virtue, stung and angered by misfortune. Clodomir, King of Aquitaine, after his victory pursuing Gondemar, King of Burgundy, defeated and fleeing, forced him to turn tail; but his obstinacy cost him the fruits of his victory, for he died there. Similarly, given the choice of keeping his soldiers richly and sumptuously armed, or armed only for necessity, he would favor the former party, which included Sertorius, Philopoemen, Brutus, Caesar and others, as it is always a spur of honor and glory for the soldier to see himself adorned, and an opportunity to make himself more obstinate in combat, having to save his weapons as well as his possessions and inheritance: Reason, says Xenophon, why the Asiatics in their wars lose women, concubines, with their jewels and most cherished possessions.
But it would also suggest, on the other hand, that we should rather discourage the soldier from taking care of himself, than encourage him to do so; that he will thus be doubly afraid to risk himself: besides increasing the enemy’s desire for victory through these rich spoils; and it has been noted that, at other times, this wonderfully encouraged the Romans against the Samnites. Antiochus, showing Hannibal the army he was preparing against them, pompous and magnificent in every kind of equipment, and asking him: Will the Romans be satisfied with this army? – “If they will be satisfied with it?” he replied; “truly it is mine, as greedy as they are. Licurgus forbade his men not only from being lavish in their equipment, but also from plundering their defeated enemies, wanting, he said, poverty and frugality to shine with the rest of the battle. In sieges and elsewhere, where the occasion brings us close to the enemy, we willingly give the soldiers license to brave him, disdain and insult them with all kinds of reproaches, and not without some semblance of reason: for it is no small thing to deprive them of all hope of grace and reconciliation, by representing to them that there is no longer any order to be expected from him whom they have so greatly insulted, and that the only remedy left is victory.
Whether Vitellius understood this: for, having to deal with Othon, weaker in soldierly valor, long unaccustomed to the business of war and softened by the delights of the city, he so finely goaded them at last by his stinging words, reproaching them for their pusillanimity and their regret for the ladies and festivities they had just left in Rome, which in this way gave them back their courage, something which no amount of exhortation had been able to do, and drew them into his arms, where they could not be pushed: and, truly, when insults touch a person’s heart, they can easily make the person who was going to fight for his king’s quarrel in a cowardly way, go and fight for his own with a different affection. Considering how important it is to keep an army leader, and that the aim of the enemy mainly looks at this head to which all the others are attached and depend, it seems that this advice, which we see has been taken by several great leaders, to disguise themselves on the point of the mêlée, cannot be doubted; however, the inconvenience incurred by this means is not less than that which one thinks to flee: for the captain, being unperceived by his men, the courage which they derive from his example and his presence, also comes in time to fail them, and, losing sight of his usual marks and signals, they judge him either dead, or to have escaped, despairing of the affair.
And, as for experience, we see it favoring sometimes one side, sometimes the other. The Pyrrhic defeat in the battle he had with the consul Levinus in Italy serves us both ways: for, in wanting to hide himself under the arms of Demogacles and giving him his own, he undoubtedly saved his life, but also risked incurring the other inconvenience, of wasting the day. Alexander, Caesar, Lucullus liked to distinguish themselves in battle with rich accouterments and weapons of a particular, gleaming color: Agis, Agesilaus and that great Gilippus, on the other hand, went to war obscurely covered and without imperial finery. At the battle of Pharsalus, one of the accusations made against Pompeius was that he had made his army stand and wait for the enemy: insofar as this (I will here borrow Plutarch’s own words, which are better than mine) weakens the violence that running imparts to the first blows, and, in any case, eliminates the suddenness of the combatants fighting each other, which has usually filled them with impetuosity and fury more than anything else, when they come to clash with stiffness, increasing their courage through shouting and running, and makes the soldiers’ heat, so to speak, cooled and frozen.
This is what he dictated for this role: But if Caesar had lost, who could not also say that, on the contrary, the strongest and stiffest stance is the one in which one stands planted without moving, and that he who is halted in his march, tightening and sparing his strength for the need, has a great advantage over he who is unsteady and has already used up half his breath in the race? besides which, the army being a body of so many diverse parts, it is impossible for it to set out in this fury of such a just movement, without altering or breaking its order, and for the most willing not to be in a struggle before his companion comes to his aid. In this vile battle of the two Persian brothers, Clearchus, a Lacedaemonian, who commanded the Greeks of Cyrus’s party, led them all beautifully to the charge without hurrying; but, about fifty paces away, he made them run, hoping by the shortness of the space to manage both their order and their breath, while giving them the advantage of impetuosity for their persons and for their weapons at a distance.
Others have resolved this dilemma in their army in this way: if the enemies are chasing you, wait for them ready to fight, if they are waiting for you ready to fight, chase them. On Emperor Charles V’s journey through Provence, King Francis was faced with the choice of either going to meet him in Italy or waiting for him in his own lands. And although he considered how much better it is to keep one’s house clean and clear of the troubles of war, so that, with all its forces, it can continually provide funds and aid when needed; that the necessity of wars always leads to plundering, which cannot be done simply on our own property, and if the countryman does not bear so gently the ravages of those of his own party as of the enemy, in such a way that seditions and disturbances can easily be kindled among us; that the license to steal and plunder, which cannot be permitted in his country, is a great support to the troubles of war, and, who has no other hope of gain than his pay, it is difficult for him to be kept in office, being a stone’s throw from his wife and retirement; that he who lays the table always incurs expenses.
Furthermore, there is more joy in attacking than in defending; and the shock of the loss of a battle in our gut is so violent that it is likely to shake the whole body, since it is not a contagious passion like that of fear, nor one that spreads so easily and quickly, and more abruptly; and that the cities that have heard the uproar of this storm at their gates, that have gathered their captains and soldiers still trembling and out of breath, it is dangerous, in the heat, that they do not throw themselves into some bad party: if it is that he chooses to recall the forces he had from beyond the mountains, and to see the enemy coming: for he can imagine, on the contrary, that being at home and among his friends, he could not fail to have planted with all convenience: the rivers, the passages, at his devotion, would lead him and food and money in complete safety and without the need for an escort; that he would have his subjects all the more affectionate, as they would be in greater danger; that having so many cities and barriers for his security, it would be up to him to give battle at the appropriate time and when it would be to his advantage; and, if he wished to temporize, that sheltered and at ease he could see his enemy languish, and be undone himself by the difficulties that would defeat him, engaged in a hostile land, where he would have nothing in front, behind, beside him, nothing to make war on him, no means of restraining or expanding his army, if disease were to set in, no place to shelter his wounded; no money, no food except at the point of a spear; no leisure to rest and catch one’s breath; no knowledge of places or countries, who knows how to defend against ambushes and surprises; and, if he were to lose a battle, no means of saving the relics.
And there was no lack of examples for either side. Scipio found it much better to go and attack his enemy’s lands in Africa than to defend his own and fight him in Italy, where he was, and from where he was able to attack him. But, on the contrary, Hannibal, in this same war, ruined himself by abandoning the conquest of a foreign country to go and defend his own. The Athenians, having left the enemy on their land to go to Sicily, had the opposite fortune; but Agathocles, King of Syracuse, had favorable fortune, having gone to Africa and left the war at home. Thus we are quite accustomed to saying with good reason that the events and outcomes depend, especially in war, for the most part, on fortune, which does not wish to be regulated and subjugated to our discourse and prudence, as these verses say:
And there is a price for those who consult ill: prudence is deceitful, Nor does fortune approve of and follow deserving causes; But wanders through all without distinction; Surely there is something else that compels and governs and rules us, and leads us into our own mortal laws. (Manilius)
But, if we look at it closely, it seems that our advice and deliberations depend on it just as much, and that fortune also engages our discourse in its turmoil and uncertainty. We reason hazardously and inconsiderately, said Timaeus in Plato, because, like us, our discourse has a great deal to do with chance.