Kitap 2
31
Curio, disapproving of each plan, remarked that in proportion as the one lacked spirit the other had too much of it; the one party had in view an utterly disgraceful flight, the other were thinking that they should fight even in an unfavourable position. Pray on what grounds of assurance are we confident, said he, that a camp so strongly fortified both by works and by the nature of the position can be taken by storm? Or indeed what do we gain if after sustaining serious losses we abandon the siege of the camp? As if it were not success in action that brought a commander the goodwill, and reverses that brought him the hatred, of his army! What does a change of camp imply but a discreditable flight and general despair and the estrangement of the army? For the honourable ought not to suspect that they are insufficiently trusted, nor the dishonest know that they are feared, because fear on our part increases the licence of the latter and diminishes the zeal of the former. Now if, he continues, we have full assurance of the statements that arc made about the estrangement of the army, which for my part I am confident are either altogether false or at any rate are less true than is supposed, how much better would it be for these rumours to be ignored and kept hidden than to be confirmed through our action? Is it not true that reverses of an army, like wounds of the body, should be concealed, that we may not increase the hopes of our adversaries? Why, they even add that we should set out at midnight, to give greater licence, I suppose, to those who are striving to do wrong! For misdeeds of this kind are kept in check either by shame or by fear, and to such checks night is in the highest degree unfavourable. Wherefore I am neither a man of such courage as to think that the camp should be attacked without hope of success, nor of such timidity as to be without hope, and so I think that every expedient should be tried before this, and I am confident that in the main you and I together will form a decision on the point at issue.
