tain to know the nature
of places, which knowledge had Decius not possessed he could not have
decided that it would be for the advantage of the Roman army to occupy
this hill; nor could he have judged from a distance whether the hill was
accessible or no; and when he reached the summit and desired to return
to the consul, since he was surrounded on all sides by the enemy, he
never could have distinguished the path it was safe for him to take,
from those guarded by the foe. For all which reasons it was absolutely
essential that Decius should have that thorough knowledge which enabled
him by gaining possession of this hill to save the Roman army, and to
discover a path whereby, in the event of his being attacked, he and his
followers might escape.

CHAPTER XL.--_That Fraud is fair in War._

Although in all other affairs it be hateful to use fraud, in the
operations of war it is praiseworthy and glorious; so that he who gets
the better of his enemy by fraud, is as much extolled as he who prevails
by force. This appears in the judgments passed by such as have written
of the lives of great warriors, who praise Hannibal and those other
captains who have been most noted for acting in this way. But since we
may read of many instances of such frauds, I shall not cite them here.
This, however, I desire to say, that I would not have it understood that
any fraud is glorious which leads you to break your plighted word, or to
depart from covenants to which you have agreed; for though to do so may
sometimes gain you territory and power, it can never, as I have said
elsewhere, gain you glory.

The fraud, then, which I here speak of is that employed against an
enemy who places no trust in you, and is wholly directed to military
operations, such as the stratagem of Hannibal at the Lake of Thrasymene,
when he feigned flight in order to draw the Roman consul and his army
into an ambuscade; or when to escape from the hands of Fabius Maximus he
fastened lights to the horns of his oxen. Similar to the above was the
deceit practised by Pontius the Samnite commander to inveigle the Roman
army into the Caudine Forks. For after he had drawn up his forces behind
the hills, he sent out a number of his soldiers, disguised as herdsmen,
to drive great herds of cattle across the plain; who being captured by
the Romans, and interrogated as to where the Samnite army was, all of
them, as they had been taught by Pontius, agreed in saying that it had