22.39
" L.
Aemilius, if you were like your colleague or, if you had a colleague like
yourself -and I would that it were so -my address would be simply a waste
of words. For if you were both good consuls, you would, without any
suggestions from me, do everything that the interests of the State or your
own sense of honour demanded; if you were both alike bad, you would
neither listen to anything I had to say, nor take any advice which I might
offer. As it is, when I look at your colleague and consider what sort of a man
you are, I shall address my remarks to you. I can see that your merits as a
man and a citizen will effect nothing if one half of the commonwealth is
crippled and evil counsels possess the same force and authority as good
ones. You are mistaken, L. Paulus, if you imagine that you will have less
difficulty with C. Terentius than with Hannibal; I rather think the former will
prove a more dangerous enemy than the latter. With the one you will only
have to contend in the field, the opposition of the other you will have to
meet everywhere and always. Against Hannibal and his legions you will have
your cavalry and infantry, when Varro is in command he will use your own
men against you. I do not want to bring ill luck on you by mentioning the
ill-starred Flaminius, but this I must say that it was only after he was consul
and had entered upon his province and taken up his command that he began
to play the madman, but this man was insane before he stood for the
consulship and afterwards while canvassing for it, and now that he is consul,
before he has seen the camp or the enemy he is madder than ever. If he raises
such storms amongst peaceful civilians as he did just now by bragging about
battles and battlefields, what will he do, think you, when he is talking to
armed men -and those young men -where words at once lead to action.
And yet if he carries out his threat and brings on an action at once, either I
am utterly ignorant of military science, of the nature of this war, of the
enemy with whom we are dealing, or else some place or other will be
rendered more notorious by our defeat than even Trasumennus. As we are
alone, this is hardly a time for boasting, and I would rather be thought to
have gone too far in despising glory than in seeking it, but as a matter of
fact, the only rational method of carrying on war against Hannibal is the one
which I have followed. This is not only taught us by experience -experience
the teacher of fools -but by reasoning which has been and will continue to
be unchanged as long as the conditions remain the same. We are carrying on
war in Italy, in our own country on our own soil, everywhere round us are
citizens and allies, they are helping us with men, horses, supplies, and they
will continue to do so, for they have proved their loyalty thus far to us in our
adversity; and time and circumstance are making us more efficient, more
circumspect, more self-reliant. Hannibal, on the other hand, is in a foreign
and hostile land, far from his home and country, confronted everywhere by
opposition and danger; nowhere by land or sea can he find peace; no cities
admit him within their gates, no fortified towns; nowhere does he see
anything which he can call his own, he has to live on each day's pillage: he
has hardly a third of the army with which he crossed the Ebro; he has lost
more by famine than by the sword, and even the few he has cannot get
enough to support life. Do you doubt then, that if we sit still we shall get the
better of a man who is growing weaker day by day, who has neither supplies
nor reinforcements nor money? How long has he been sitting before the
walls of Gereonium, a poor fortress in Apulia, as though they were the walls
of Carthage? But I will not sound my own praises even before you. See how
the late consuls, Cn. Servilius and Atilius, fooled him. This, L. Paulus, is the
only safe course to adopt, and it is one which your fellow citizens will do
more to make difficult and dangerous for you than the enemy will. For your
own soldiers will want the same thing as the enemy; Varro though he is a
Roman consul will desire just what Hannibal the Carthaginian commander
desires. You must hold your own single-handed against both generals. And
you will hold your own if you stand your ground firmly against public gossip
and private slander, if you remain unmoved by false misrepresentations and
your colleague's idle boasting. It is said that truth is far too often eclipsed but
never totally extinguished. The man who scorns false glory will possess the
true. Let them call you a coward because you are cautious, a laggard
because you are deliberate, unsoldierly because you are a skilful general. I
would rather have you give a clever enemy cause for fear than earn the
praise of foolish compatriots. Hannibal will only feel contempt for a man
who runs all risks, he will be afraid of one who never takes a rash step. I do
not advise you to do nothing, but I do advise you to be guided in what you
do by common sense and reason and not by chance. Never lose control of
your forces and yourself; be always prepared, always on the alert; never fail
to seize an opportunity favourable to yourself, and never give a favourable
opportunity to the enemy. The man who is not in a hurry will always see his
way clearly; haste blunders on blindly."
