CHAPTER XXXIII

HOW THE ROMANS GAVE THEIR CAPTAINS OF ARMIES UNCONTROLLED COMMISSIONS

I think that (reading this history of Livius and wanting to profit) all the methods of procedure of the Roman People and Senate should be considered. And among other things that merit consideration, is to see with what authority they sent out their Consuls, Dictators, and other Captains of armies; from which it is seen that the authority was very great, as the Senate did not reserve to itself anything other than the authority to declare new wars, to confirm peace [treaties], and left everything else to the arbitration power of the Consul. For once a war was decided on by the People and the Senate (for instance against the Latins) they remitted all the rest to the discretion of the Consul, who could either make an engagement or not make it, and lay siege to this or that town as seemed proper to him. Which things are verified by many examples, and especially by that which occurred in the expedition against the Tuscans. For Fabius, the Consul, having defeated them near Sutrium, and planning afterwards to pass with the army through the Ciminian forest and go to Tuscany, not only did not counsel with the Senate, but did not even give them any notice, even though war was to be waged in a new unknown, and dangerous country. Further witness of this is given by the decisions which were made by the Senate on learning of this, who, when they had heard of the victory Fabius had won, and fearful that he might take up the proceeding of passing through the said forest into Tuscany, judging that it would not be well to attempt that [war] and run that risk, sent Legates to Fabius to make him understand he should not cross into Tuscany; but when they arrived he had already crossed over, and had obtained this victory, so that in place of being impeders of the war, they returned as messengers of the conquest and the glory that was obtained.

And whoever considers well this method will see it is most prudently employed, for if the Senate had wanted the Consul to proceed in the war from hand to hand according to that which they committed to him, they would have made him [Fabius] less circumspect and more slow; for it would not have seemed to him that the glory of the battle should be all his, but as being shared by the Senate, by whose counsels he had been governed. In addition to this the Senate would have obligated itself to want to advise on a matter that they could not have understood; for notwithstanding that there many of them who were men most expert in war, none the less not being in that place, and not knowing the infinite particulars that are necessary to be known to want to counsel well, infinite errors (by counselling) would have been made. And because of this, they wanted the Consul to make decisions by himself and that the glory should be all his, the love of which they judged should be a restraint as well as a rule in making him conduct himself well.

This part is more willingly noted by me, because I see that the Republics of present times, as the Venetian and the Florentine, have understood it otherwise, and if their Captains, Providers, or Commissioners have to place [a battery of] artillery, they want to know and counsel about it. Which system merits the same praise as [their conduct] in other things merit, which all together have brought about the conditions that are found at present.