Chapter xv. complete. From “De Jure Belli et Paris.”

EQUITY, which is required, and humanity, which is praised, towards individuals, are the more requisite and praiseworthy, towards nations and parts of nations, inasmuch as the injury of kindness is greater with the number. Now as other things may be acquired in a just war, so may imperial authority over a people, and the right which the people itself has in the government: but only so far as is limited, either by the nature of a penalty arising from delict, or by the nature of some other debt. To which is to be added the reason of averting extreme danger. This last cause is commonly mixed up with others; but is, in reality, to be much regarded for its own sake, both in establishing peace and in using victory. For other things may be remitted out of compassion; but in a public danger a disregard of the danger which goes beyond the just limit is want of compassion. Isocrates tells Philip that he must master the barbarians so as to place his own territory in security.

  Sallust says of the old Romans: Our ancestors, the most religious of men, took from the vanquished nothing but the license of wrongdoing; words worthy of having been said by a Christian: and with them agrees what is also said by the same writer: Wise men bear labor in the hope of rest, and make war for the sake of peace. So Aristotle also says, and so Cicero in several places.

  To the same effect is the teaching of Christian theologians, that the end of war is to remove the hindrances to peace. Before the time of Ninus, as we before said, following Trogos, it was rather the habit to defend than to extend the boundaries of empires: every one’s rule ended with his own country; kings did not seek empire for themselves, but glory for their peoples, and, content with victory, abstained from empire. And to this point Augustine brings us back, when he says: Let them consider that it is not the part of good men to rejoice in the extent of empire; and again: It is a greater felicity to have a good neighbor at peace than to conquer a bad neighbor in war. The prophet Amos severely rebukes the Ammonites who had committed atrocities that they might enlarge their border.

  To this pattern of ancient innocence, the nearest approach was made in the prudent moderation of the old Romans. What would our empire be at this day, says Seneca, except a wholesome prudence had mixed the conquered with the conquerors? And, Our founder, Romulus, Claudius says in Tacitus, carried his wisdom so far, that most of the people with whom he had to do were, on the same day, first his enemies and then his citizens. He adds that nothing was more destructive to the Lacedæmonians and Athenians than that they treated as strangers those they conquered. So Livy says that the Roman power was increased by taking enemies into the composition of the State. There are, in history, the examples of the Sabines, Albans, Latins, and others in Italy: until at last Cæsar triumphed over the Gauls; and he who did this gave them votes. Cerialis says, in his oration to the Gauls, in Tacitus: You yourselves for the most part command our legions; you govern those provinces; nothing is kept from you or barred against you; and further, Do you then further and cultivate peace and safety which we conquerors and conquered alike hold by the same right. At last, by a very remarkable law of the Emperor Antonine, all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were made Roman citizens, as Ulpian tells us; and so, as Modestinus says, Rome was the common country of all.

  Another kind of moderated victory is to leave conquered kings or peoples the authority which they had. So Hercules professes, in Seneca, to have done to Priam; so he gave Neleus the kingdom of his father Nestor; so the Persian kings let conquered kings keep their kingdoms; so Alexander did to Porus. Seneca praises this taking from conquered kings nothing but glory. And Polybius celebrates the goodness of Antigonus, who, having Sparta in his power, left them the constitution and liberty of their forefathers; and on this account obtained great praise through all Greece.

  So the Romans allowed the Cappadocians to have what constitution they liked; so Carthage was left free; so Pompey left some conquered nations free. And Quintius, when the Etolians said that peace could not be lasting except Philip were deprived of his kingdom, told them they forgot the Roman habit of sparing the vanquished; and added that great men were mild to conquered enemies. So Zorsines is treated in Tacitus.

  Sometimes, while authority to govern is granted, provision is made for the security of the conquered. So Quintius restored Corinth to the Achæans, but with the reservation that there should be a garrison in Acrocorinthus: and that Chalcis and Demetrias should be kept till the anxiety about Antiochus was past.

  The imposition of a tribute often has reference not so much to the restitution of the expenses incurred as to the future security both of the victor and the vanquished. So Cicero says of the cities of Asia, that they owe their security to the Roman Empire, and ought to be content to pay taxes for its support, as the price of peace and ease. So Cerialis, in Tacitus, tells the Gauls that the Romans, though so often provoked, had only taken the means of keeping peace: for there is no quiet among nations without armies; no armies without pay; no pay without taxes. To this pertains what we have elsewhere said of unequal leagues, where one party gives up fleets, fortresses, etc.

  That the vanquished should retain their power of governing is often not only a measure of humanity, but of prudence. Numa directed that the rites of Terminus should not include blood in their celebration,—implying that to keep our own boundaries is the way to live in peace. So Florus says: It is more difficult to retain provinces than to make them; they are gained by force, they are kept by right. So Livy: It is easier to gain them one by one than to keep all. And so, the saying of Augustus in Plutarch; that ordering a great government is a greater work than acquiring it. So the embassadors of Darius to Alexander.

  This was what Calanus, and before him Œbarus, expressed by the similitude of a dried hide, which rises in one part, when you tread down another; and T. Quinctius, in Livy, by the comparison of a tortoise, which is secure against blows when gathered within its shell, but exposed and tender when it puts out any member. So Plato applies Hesiod’s half greater than the whole. And Appian notes that many peoples, which wished to be under the Roman Empire, were rejected: while others had kings set over them. At the time of Scipio Africanus, in his judgment, the possessions of Rome were so wide that it was greedy to wish for more; and happy if they lost nothing. And he altered the lustral lay which was sung on the taking of each census, and which prayed the gods to make Rome’s fortunes better and greater; so that the prayer was made to be that they might be kept ever free from harm.

  The Lacedæmonians, and at first the Athenians, claimed no authority over the cities which they conquered: only they required them to have a constitution like their own; the Lacedæmonians an aristocracy, the Athenians a democracy, as we learn from Thucydides, Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Aristotle. Of these two characters who constantly disturbed Greece, Aristocracy and Democracy, an old comedian, Heniochus, speaks as women. So Artabanus, in Tacitus, established an aristocracy at Seleucia. Whether such changes add to the victor’s security is not matter for our consideration.

  In the cases in which it is not safe to abstain from all authority over the conquered, still the portion assumed may be limited, so that some authority may be left to them, or their kings. Tacitus speaks of it as the custom of the Romans to have kings as the instruments of their rule, and calls Antiochus the richest of subject kings. So Musonius, Strabo, Lucan. So among the Jews, the sceptre remained in the Sanhedrim, even after the confiscation of Archelaus. So Evagoras of Cyprus was willing to obey the Persian king, as one king another. And after Darius was conquered, for some time Alexander offered him the condition that he should govern others and obey Alexander. We have spoken elsewhere of mixed empire. In some cases a part of the kingdom is left to the vanquished, as a part of the lands to the old possessors.

  Even when all authority is taken from the vanquished, they may be allowed to retain their own laws with regard to public and private property, their own customs and magistrates. So in Bithynia, which was a proconsular province, Apamea had the privilege of governing itself in its own way,—as we learn from Pliny: The Bithynians have their own magistrates, their own senate. So the Amiseni in Pontus, by the good office of Lucullus. The Goths left to the conquered Romans the Roman law.

  It is a part of this indulgence, to permit the use of their own religion to the conquered, except so far as they are persuaded to change. And that this is both a great boon to the conquered, and no harm to the conqueror, is proved in the oration of Agrippa to Caius, given by Philo. And both Josephus and Titus object to the rebellious Jews, that they were allowed the practice of their own religion, so far as to be authorized to exclude strangers from the temple, even on pain of death.

  But if the vanquished profess a false religion, the victor will do well to take care that the true religion be not subjected to oppression; which Constantine did when he had broken the party of Licinius; and after this, the Frank kings and others.

  The last caution is this: that even in the most absolute and despotic government, the conquered are treated with clemency, so that their utility be joined with the utility of the victor. So Cyrus told the conquered Assyrians to be of good cheer, for they had only changed their king, and would keep all their rights and property, and be protected therein. So Sallust, of the Roman treatment of those they vanquished. So Tacitus says that the Britons in his time paid their tribute readily, if no injury was added to it; they would be subjects, but not slaves.

  The Privernate embassador, when asked what peace the Romans might expect from them, answered: If you give us a good one, you will have a faithful and perpetual one; if a bad one, a short one. And the reason was added, that nobody will stay longer than he can help in a condition which he thinks bad. So Camillus said that the firmest government was that which the subjects were glad to obey. The Scythians told Alexander that between master and slave there is no friendship; even in peace, the rights of war are kept up. Hermocratus says: The glorious thing is, not to conquer, but to use victory clemently. The maxim of Tacitus is wholesome with reference to the use of victory: Those endings of wars are to be admired which are brought about by granting pardon. In the epistle of the Dictator Cæsar, we read: “Be this a new way of conquering; to protect ourselves with mercy and liberality.”