Kitap fragments
23
The Roman praetor MarcusSee 35, 2-4. wished to get rid of the war against the Lusitani, and laying aside war altogether, to shirk— as the saying is—the men’s hall for the women’s bower, because of the recent defeat of the praetor by the Lusitani.
23
(103)
23
But those of the Ligurians who fought against Mago were unable to do anything important or great.
24
A mora consisted of nine hundred men.Plutarch, Pelop. 17, who says that other authorities reckoned it at 500 and 700 men. There were originally six morae in the Spartan army. See Xenophon, Rep. Lac. 11, 4; Hell. 6, 4, 12-17.
25
A general needs good sense and boldness; they are the most necessary qualities for dangerous and venturesome undertakings.
26
The second king of Egypt, called Philadelphus, when giving his daughter Berenice in marriage to Antiochus king of Syria, was careful to send her some Nile water, that the young bride might drink no other water.
27
I say this to point out the wisdom of the Romans, and the folly of those who despise the practice of making comparisons with the habits of foreign nations, and believe themselves competent to reform their own armies without reference to others.See 6, 25.
28
The Romans were wont to take great care not to appear to be the aggressors, or to attack their neighbours without provocation; but to be considered always to be acting in self-defence, and only to enter upon war under compulsion.This is referred by Nissen to the account of the origin of the third Punic war. See 36, 3-5.
29
When Scipio Africanus, the younger, was commissioned by, the Senate to settle the kingdoms throughout the world, and see that they were put in proper hands, he only took five slaves with him; and, on one of these dying during the journey, he wrote home to his relations to buy another and send him to take the place of the dead one.This moderation in the number of slaves was perhaps imitated from Cato. See Cato, Orationum frgm. 3. Ed. Jordan.
