1.
Polybius XIII. 3 tells the same story of Roman warfare, citing it as the one remaining example of the practice formerly adhered to by the Greeks.
The ancients, as we know, were far removed from such malpractices (as treacherous dealings). For so far were they from plotting mischief against their friends, with the purpose of aggrandizing their own power, that they would not even consent to get the better of their enemies by fraud, regarding no success as brilliant or secure unless they crushed the spirit of their adversaries in open battle. For this reason they entered into a convention among themselves to use against each other neither secret missiles nor those discharged from a distance, and considered that it was only a hand-to-hand battle at close quarters which was truly decisive. Hence they preceded war by a declaration and when they intended to do battle gave notice of the fact and of the spot to which they would proceed and array their army. But at the present they say it is a sign of poor generalship to do anything openly in war. Some slight traces, however, of the ancient principles of warfare survive among the Romans. For they make declaration of war, they very seldom use ambuscades, and they fight hand-to-hand at close quarters
(tr. Paton, L.C.L.). Tacitus,
Germania, 6. 6 notes that the Germans regarded strategic retreat as honourable. For the early Roman declaration of war, cf. I. xxxii. 5-14, which suggests that the view of Livy's contemporaries that Romans had from the first been warriors is a myth due to the later successes in war. Rome's early expansion was caused by a desire for peace, and an inability to accept border raiding as a sport. Cf. also XXXI. viii. 3 and the note, XXXVI. iii. 12 and the note.
