These
things considered, a war will appear to be of a contrary nature
to that of all other reckonings, inasmuch as of this you must
never look to have a good account if you be strict in imposing
checks. Let a council of huntsmen, assembled beforehand, tell you
which way the stag shall run, where you shall cast about at the
fault, and how you shall ride to be in at the chase all the day;
but these may as well do that, as a council of war direct a
general. The hours that have painted wings, and of different
colors, are his council; he must be like the eye that makes not
the scene, but has it so soon as it changes. That in many
counsellors there is strength, is spoken of civil
administrations; as to those that are military, there is nothing
more certain than that in many counsellors there is weakness.
Joint commissions in military affairs, are like hunting your
hounds in their couples. In the Attic War Cleomenes and
Demaratus, Kings of Lacedaemon, being thus coupled, tugged one
against another; and while they should have joined against the
Persian, were the cause of the common calamity, whereupon that
commonwealth took better counsel, and made a law whereby from
henceforth there went at once but one of her kings to battle.
"'The Fidenati being in rebellion, and having slain the
colony of the Romans, four tribunes with consular power were
created by the people of Rome, whereof one being left for the
guard of the city, the other three were sent against the
Fidenati, who, through the division that happened among them,
brought nothing home but dishonor, whereupon the Romans created
the Dictator, and Livy gives his judgment in these words: "The
three tribunes with consular power were a lesson how useless in
war is the joint command of several generals; for each following
his own counsels, while they all differed in their opinions, gave
by this opportunity an advantage to the enemy.
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