the other course is disgraceful to the king. For their king,
they say, can incur no disgrace by any resolve he may take, whether it
turn out well or ill; and whether it succeed or fail, all maintain that
he has acted as a king should.

CHAPTER XLII.--_That Promises made on Compulsion are not to be
observed._

When, after being subjected to this disgrace, the consuls returned to
Rome with their disarmed legions, Spurius Posthumius, himself one of the
consuls, was the first to contend in the senate that the terms made in
the Caudine Valley were not to be observed. For he argued that the Roman
people were not bound by them, though he himself doubtless was, together
with all the others who had promised peace; wherefore, if the people
desired to set themselves free from every engagement, he and all the
rest who had given this promise must be made over as prisoners into the
hands of the Samnites. And so steadfastly did he hold to this opinion,
that the senate were content to adopt it, and sending him and the rest
as prisoners back to Samnium, protested to the Samnites that the peace
was not binding. And so kind was Fortune to Posthumius on this occasion,
that the Samnites would not keep him as a prisoner, and that on his
return to Rome, notwithstanding his defeat, he was held in higher honour
by the Romans than the victorious Pontius by his countrymen.

Here two points are to be noted; first, that glory may be won by any
action; for although, commonly, it follow upon victory, it may also
follow on defeat, if this defeat be seen to have happened through no
fault of yours, or if, directly after, you perform some valiant action
which cancels it. The other point to be noted is that there is no
disgrace in not observing promises wrung from you by force; for promises
thus extorted when they affect the public welfare will always be broken
so soon as the pressure under which they were made is withdrawn, and
that, too, without shame on the part of him who breaks them; of which we
read many instances in history, and find them constantly occurring at
the present day. Nay, as between princes, not only are such compulsory
promises broken when the force which extorted them is removed, but all
other promises as well, are in like manner disregarded when the causes
which led to them no longer operate.

Whether this is a thing to be commended or no, and whether such
methods ought or ought not to be followed by princes, has already been