CHAPTER XXVI.: contempt and insults engender hatred against those who indulge in them, without being of any advantage to them.

I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you. This was seen in the case of the Veienti, of whom we have spoken in the preceding chapter, who added insulting words against the Romans to the injuries of war, which no prudent captain should permit his soldiers to indulge in, for they inflame and excite the enemy to revenge, and in no way impede his attacking you (as has been said), so that they are in fact so many weapons that will be turned against you. A striking instance of this occurred in Asia, when Gabades, commander of the Persians, having for a long time besieged Amida and becoming weary of the siege, resolved to abandon it; and having already broken up his camp, the inhabitants of the place came upon the walls, and, inflated with the thought of victory, assailed his army with every kind of insult, vilifying them and accusing and reproaching them for their cowardice and poltroonery. Gabades, irritated by this, changed his mind and resumed the siege, and his indignation at these insults so stimulated his efforts, that he took the city in a few days, and gave it up to sack and pillage. The same thing happened to the Veienti, who, not content with making war upon the Romans, outraged them with insulting words, advancing up to the very stockade of their camp to fling insults at them, thus irritating the Romans more by their words than their arms; so that the soldiers, who at first had fought unwillingly, now constrained the Consuls to bring on a battle, in which they made the Veienti suffer the penalties of their insolence. It is the duty, therefore, of every good general of an army, or chief of a republic, to use all proper means to prevent such insults and reproaches from being indulged in by citizens or soldiers, either amongst themselves

or against the enemy; for if used against an enemy they give rise to the above-described inconveniences, and between the soldiers and the citizens it is even worse, unless they are promptly put a stop to, as has ever been done by prudent rulers. The Roman legion that had been left at Capua, having conspired against the Capuans, (as we shall relate in its place,) and this conspiracy having given rise to a sedition which was quelled by Valerius Corvinus, one of the stipulations of the convention that was concluded with them provided the severest penalties against whoever should at any time reproach the soldiers with this selection. Tiberius Gracchus, who in the war with Hannibal had been called to the command of a certain number of slaves, who had been armed because of the scarcity of freemen, ordered amongst the first things that the penalty of death should be inflicted upon whoever reproached any of them with their former servitude; so dangerous did the Romans esteem it to treat men with contempt, or to reproach them with any previous disgrace, because nothing is more irritating and calculated to excite greater indignation than such reproaches, whether founded upon truth or not; “for harsh sarcasms, even if they have but the least truth in them, leave their bitterness rankling in the memory.”