waste. They
consider this the real evidence of their prowess, that their neighbors
shall be driven out of their lands and abandon them, and that no one
dare settle near them; at the same time they think that they shall be
on that account the more secure, because they have removed the
apprehension of a sudden incursion. When a state either repels war
waged against it, or wages it against another, magistrates are chosen
to preside over that war with such authority that they have power of
life and death. In peace there is no common magistrate, but the
chiefs of provinces and cantons administer justice and determine
controversies among their own people. Robberies which are committed
beyond the boundaries of each state bear no infamy, and they avow that
these are committed for the purpose of disciplining their youth and of
preventing sloth. And when any of their chiefs has said in an assembly
"that he will be their leader, let those who are willing to follow
give in their names," they who approve of both the enterprise and the
man arise and promise their assistance and are applauded by the
people; such of them as have not followed him are accounted in the
number of deserters and traitors, and confidence in all matters is
afterwards refused them. To injure guests they regard as impious; they
defend from wrong those who have come to them for any purpose
whatever, and esteem them inviolable; to them the houses of all are
open and maintenance is freely supplied.

BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.

(_By Julius Caesar._)

There was so much space left between the two lines as sufficed for the
onset of the hostile armies; but Pompey had ordered his soldiers to
await Caesar's attack, and not to advance from their position, or
suffer their line to be put into disorder. And he is said to have done
this by the advice of Caius Triarius, that the impetuosity of the
charge of Caesar's soldiers might be checked, and their line broken,
and that Pompey's troops, remaining in their ranks, might attack them
while in disorder; and he thought that the javelins would fall with
less force if the soldiers were kept in their ground, than if they met
them in their course; at the same time he trusted that Caesar's
soldiers, after running over double the usual ground, would become
weary and exhausted by the fatigue. But to me Pompey seems to have
acted without sufficient reason; for there is a certain impetuosity of
spirit and an alacrity implanted by nature