Cyropaedia: The Education of Cyrus. Xenophon
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and caltrops? And why did you never meet the lion or the bear or the leopard in fair fight on equal terms, but were always trying to steal some advantage over them? Can you deny that all that was craft and deceit and fraud and greed?"
(29) "Why, of course," answered the young man, "in dealing with animals, but with human beings it was different; if I was ever suspected of a wish to cheat another, I was punished, I know, with many stripes."
"True," said the father, "and for the matter of that we did not permit you to draw bow or hurl javelin against human beings; we taught you merely to aim at a mark. But why did we teach you that? Not so that you might injure your friends, either then or now, but that in war you might have the skill to make the bodies of living men your targets. So also we taught you the arts of deceit and craft and greed and covetousness, not among men it is true, but among beasts; we did not mean you ever to turn these accomplishments against your friends, but in war we wished you to be something better than raw recruits."
(30) "But, father," Cyrus answered, "if to do men good and to do men harm were both of them things we ought to learn, surely it would have been better to teach them in actual practice?"
(31) Then the father said, "My son, we are told that in the days of our forefathers there was such a teacher once. This man did actually teach his boys righteousness in the way you suggest, to lie and not to lie, to cheat and not to cheat, to calumniate and not to calumniate, to be grasping and not grasping. He drew the distinction between our duty to friends and our duty to enemies; and he went further still; he taught men that it was just and right to deceive even a friend for his own good, or steal his property. (32) And with this he must needs teach his pupils to practise on one another what he taught them, just as the people of Hellas, we are told, teach lads in the wrestling-school to fence and to feint, and train them by their practice with one another. Now some of his scholars showed such excellent aptitudes for deception and overreaching, and perhaps no lack of taste for common money-making, that they did not even spare their friends, but used their arts on them. (33) And so an unwritten law was framed by which we still abide, bidding us teach our children as we teach our servants, simply and solely not to lie, and not to cheat, and not to covert, and if they did otherwise to punish them, hoping to make them humane and law-abiding citizens. (34) But when they came to manhood, as you have come, then, it seemed, the risk was over, and it would be time to teach them what is lawful against our enemies. For at your age we do not believe you will break out into savagery against your fellows with whom you have been knit together since childhood in ties of friendship and respect. In the same way we do not talk to the young about the mysteries of love, for if lightness were added to desire, their passion might sweep them beyond all bounds."
(35) "Then in heaven's name, father," said Cyrus, "remember that your son is but a backward scholar and a late learner in this lore of selfishness, and teach me all you can that may help me to overreach the foe."
"Well," said the father, "you must plot and you must plan, whatever the size of his force and your own, to catch his men in disorder when yours are all arrayed, unarmed when yours are armed, asleep when yours are awake, or you must wait till he is visible to you and you invisible to him, or till he is labouring over heavy ground and you are in your fortress and can give him welcome there."
(36) "But how," asked Cyrus, "can I catch him in all these blunders?"
"Simply because both you and he are bound to be often in some such case; both of you must take your meals sometime; both of you must sleep; your men must scatter in the morning to satisfy the needs of nature, and, for better for worse, whatever the roads are like, you will be forced to make use of them. All these necessities you must lay to heart, and wherever you are weaker, there you must be most on your guard, and wherever your foe is most assailable, there you must press the attack."
(37) Then Cyrus asked, "And are these the only cases where one can apply the great principle of greed, or are there others?"
"Oh, yes, there are many more; indeed in these simple cases any general will be sure to keep good watch, knowing how necessary it is. But your true cheat and prince of swindlers is he who can lure the enemy on and throw him off his guard, suffer himself to be pursued and get the pursuers into disorder, lead the foe into difficult ground and then attack him there. (38) Indeed, as an ardent student, you must not confine yourself to the lessons you have learnt; you must show yourself a creator and discoverer, you must invent stratagems against the foe; just as a real musician is not content with the mere elements of his art, but sets himself to compose new themes. And if in music it is the novel melody, the flower-like freshness, that wins popularity, still more in military matters it is the newest contrivance that stands the highest, for the simple reason that such will give you the best chance of outwitting your opponent. (39) And yet, my son, I must say that if you did no more than apply against human beings the devices you learnt to use against the smallest game, you would have made considerable progress in this art of overreaching. Do you not think so yourself? Why, to snare birds you would get up by night in the depth of winter and tramp off in the cold; your nets were laid before the creatures were astir, and your tracks completely covered and you actually had birds of your own, trained to serve you and decoy their kith and kin, while you yourself lay in some hiding-place, seeing yet unseen, and you had learnt by long practice to jerk in the net before the birds could fly away. (40) Or you might be out after hares, and for a hare you had two breeds of dogs, one to track her out by scent, because she feeds in the dusk and takes to her form by day, and another to cut off her escape and run her down, because she is so swift. And even if she escaped these, she did not escape you; you had all her runs by heart and knew all her hiding-places, and there you would spread your nets, so that they were scarcely to be seen, and the very haste of her flight would fling her into the snare. And to make sure of her you had men placed on the spot to keep a look-out, and pounce on her at once. And there were you at her heels, shouting and scaring her out of her wits, so that she was caught from sheer terror, and there lay your men, as you had taught them, silent and motionless in their ambuscade. (41) I say, therefore, that if you chose to act like this against human beings, you would soon have no enemies left to fight, or I am much mistaken. And even if, as well may be, the necessity should arise for you to do battle on equal terms in open field, even so, my son, there will still be power in those arts which you have studied so long and which teach you to out-villain villainy. And among them I include all that has served to train the bodies and fire the courage of your men, all that has made them adepts in every craft of war. One thing you must ever bear in mind: if you wish your men to follow you, remember that they expect you to plan for them. (42) Hence you must never know a careless mood; if it be night, you must consider what your troops shall do when it is day; if day, how the night had best be spent. (43) For the rest, you do not need me to tell you now how you should draw up your troops or conduct your march by day or night, along broad roads or narrow lanes, over hills or level ground, or how you should encamp and post your pickets, or advance into battle or retreat before the foe, or march past a hostile city, or attack a fortress or retire from it, or cross a river or pass through a defile, or guard against a charge of cavalry or an attack from lancers or archers, or what you should do if the enemy comes into sight when you are marching in column and how you are to take up position against him, or how deploy into action if you are in line and he takes you in flank or rear, and how you are to learn all you can about his movements, while keeping your own as secret as may be; these are matters on which you need no further word of mine; all that I know about them you have heard a hundred times, and I am sure you have not neglected any other authority on whom you thought you could rely. You know all their theories, and you must apply them now, I take it, according to circumstances and your need. (44) But," he added, "there is one lesson that I would fain impress on you, and it is the greatest of them all. Observe the sacrifices and pay heed to the omens; when they are against you, never risk your army or yourself, for you must remember that men undertake enterprises on the strength of probability alone and without any real knowledge as to what will bring them happiness. (45) You may learn this from all life and all history. How often have cities allowed themselves to be persuaded into war, and that by advisers who were thought the wisest of men, and then been utterly destroyed by those whom they attacked! How often have statesmen helped to raise a city or a leader to power, and then suffered the worst at the hands of those whom they exalted! And many who could have treated others as friends and equals, giving and receiving kindnesses, have chosen to use them as slaves,