“Gold will I none, nor price shall ye give; for I ask none;A right kingly sentiment this and worthy a scion of the Aeacidae.
Come, let us not be chaff'rers of war, but warriors embattled.
Nay; let us venture our lives, and the sword, not gold, weigh the outcome.
[p. 43] Make we the trial by valour in arms and see if Dame Fortune
Wills it that ye shall prevail or I, or what be her judgment.
Hear thou, too, this word, good Fabricius: whose valour soever
Spared hath been by the fortune of war-their freedom I grant them.
Such my resolve. I give and present them to you, my brave Romans;
Take them back to their homes; the great gods' blessings attend you.
”
[38]
But when a war is fought out for supremacy and1
when glory is the object of war, it must still not fail
to start from the same motives which I said a moment
ago were the only righteous grounds for going to
war. But those wars which have glory for their end
must be carried on with less bitterness. For we
contend, for example, with a fellow-citizen in one
way, if he is a personal enemy, in another, if he is a
rival: with the rival it is a struggle for office and
position, with the enemy for life and honour. So
with the Celtiberians and the Cimbrians we fought
as with deadly enemies, not to determine which
should be supreme, but which should survive; but
with the Latins, Sabines, Samnites, Carthaginians,
and Pyrrhus we fought for supremacy. The Carthaginians violated treaties; Hannibal was cruel; the
others were more merciful. From Pyrrhus we have
this famous speech on the exchange of prisoners:
1 Justice in war.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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