concluded a truce for some days, by this means giving his enemy
opportunity and leisure to recruit his forces, which was afterwards the
occasion of the king's final ruin. Yet the elder senators, mindful of
their forefathers' manners, condemned this proceeding as degenerating
from their ancient practice, which, they said, was to fight by valour,
and not by artifice, surprises, and night-encounters; neither by
pretended flight nor unexpected rallies to overcome their enemies; never
making war till having first proclaimed it, and very often assigned both
the hour and place of battle. Out of this generous principle it was that
they delivered up to Pyrrhus his treacherous physician, and to the
Etrurians their disloyal schoolmaster. This was, indeed, a procedure
truly Roman, and nothing allied to the Grecian subtlety, nor to the Punic
cunning, where it was reputed a victory of less glory to overcome by
force than by fraud. Deceit may serve for a need, but he only confesses
himself overcome who knows he is neither subdued by policy nor
misadventure, but by dint of valour, man to man, in a fair and just war.
It very well appears, by the discourse of these good old senators, that
this fine sentence was not yet received amongst them.

"Dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?"

["What matters whether by valour or by strategem we overcome the
enemy?"--Aeneid, ii. 390]

The Achaians, says Polybius, abhorred all manner of double-dealing in
war, not reputing it a victory unless where the courage of the enemy was
fairly subdued:

"Eam vir sanctus et sapiens sciet veram esse victoriam, quae, salva fide
et integra dignitate, parabitur."--["An honest and prudent man will