Book 11
19
What profit is it to our readers to describe wars and battles, the storming of cities and the enslavement of their inhabitants, if they are to know nothing of the causes which conduce to success and failure? The results of such operations merely touch the fancy: it is the tracing of the designs of the actors in such scenes that is really instructive; and above all it is the following in detail of each step that can educate the ideas of the student.
19
Ability of Hannibal. See Livy, 28, 12