XXXIV. (149) For why, I should say, O most excellent man, do you not think it more proper to summon these men to follow you to the contest of war rather than the others, men who have acquired marriages, and houses, and vineyards, and all other kinds of possessions in abundance? For they will most cheerfully undergo dangers, even if they be altogether most formidable, for the sake of the safety of all these things. Since those men who have none of these things which have been enumerated will be very likely to exhibit indifference and inactivity in the war, as having no very important pledges at stake. (150) Or do you think that, just in proportion to the absence of any enjoyment from the possession of such things that they have hitherto felt, will be their apprehension lest they never be able to enjoy such things, and that this will give them energy? For what advantage from all the possessions that they may have acquired is left to those who have been subdued in war? But will they not be taken prisoners? Then they will immediately suffer for their absence from the field of battle; for while they are sitting at home and wallowing in luxury, it is evidently inevitable that their enemies, who are conducting all the operations of the war with energy, will, not merely without any loss, but even without the slightest exertion, make themselves masters of all that they possess. (151) But the multitude of their other allies will cheerfully encounter the contest on behalf of these things. At first sight, indeed, it seems absurd to rely upon the energies or fortune of others; and especially when it is both an individual and a common danger, involving defeat, and slavery, and utter destruction, which hangs over men’s heads, who are able of themselves to encounter the toils and perils of war, and who are not hindered by any disease, or by old age, or by any other disaster. It is rather fitting that those, whom the danger chiefly concerns, should seize their arms and stand in the front battalions and hold their shields over their allies, fighting cheerfully and with a spirit which even courts dangers.
XXXV. (152) In the next place, will they not have displayed examples, not of treachery only, but of the greatest insensibility, if they allow others to fight in their cause, while they themselves are occupied about their domestic affairs? And shall others be willing to incur contests and dangers in the cause of their safety, which they are afraid to encounter for their own? And shall others cheerfully endure scarcity of provisions, and sleeping on the ground, and other hardships of body and soul, from their desire for victory, while they, covering their houses with stucco and nonsense, no much lifeless ornament, or gathering in their harvests from their fields, and celebrating the festival of the vintage, or coming into connection, now for the first time, with virgins who have long since been betrothed to them, and sleeping with them, as if it were the most opportune reason for marriage, pass their time in such vanities? (153) It is a good thing, no doubt, to take care of one’s walls, to collect one’s revenues, to feast, to revel in wine, to contract marriages, to go courting the old and withered dames (as the proverb calls them); but these are the employments of peace, and to do all these things in the crisis of a war raging in all its freshness and vigour, (154) while neither father, nor brother, nor any relation or connection whatever shares the fatigues of the war; when this, I say, is the case, must we not say that universal cowardice has occupied the whole house? Oh, but you will say there are at all events myriads of relations who are fighting in their cause. Then, while they are encountering danger to their lives, must not those who are spending their time in luxury and delicate living appear to surpass even the worst of wild beasts in the excess of their inhumanity? (155) Again, they will say, but it is hard that others, without enduring any labour themselves, should reap the fruits of our labours. Which, then, is worst, that enemies should come into one’s inheritance while one is still alive, or that friends and relations should do so after one is dead? It is absurdity even to compare things which are so widely different; (156) and yet it is not inconsistent with reason, not only that all the property which belongs to these men who shun military service, but that even they themselves, too, may become the property of their enemies when they have obtained the mastery. So those, indeed, who die in defence of the general safety, even if they have not enjoyed as yet any advantage from those possessions which they previously had, meet with death in its most pleasant form, considering that, by their saving the others, their property goes to those whom they desired to have for their successors.
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