# 13. Which is it best to trust, a Good General with a Weak Army or a Good Army with a Weak General?

Coriolanus, being banished from Rome, went to the Volsci, where, having got together an army wherewith to avenge himself on his fellow citizens, he set out for Rome, but turned back rather out of devotion to his mother than to the Roman forces. Commenting on this incident, Livy remarks that from it we may learn that the Roman republic grew more through the virtue of her generals than through that of her soldiers for, in view of the fact that the Volsci had thus far always been beaten, they could have won on this occasion only because Coriolanus was their general. But, though Livy advances this opinion, many passages in his history show that soldiers without a general have given remarkable proof of their virtue, and that they have been better disciplined and more determined after the death of their consuls than before they got killed. It happened thus with the army the Romans had in Spain under the Scipios, for, when both these generals had been killed, its virtue was such that not only did it successfully defend itself, but it beat the enemy and thus saved this province for the republic. Hence all things considered, there are many cases in which the virtue of the soldiers alone has won the day, and many others in which the virtue of generals has had the same effect, so that, one can say that each has need of the other.

In this connection it will be well to consider first which is more to be feared: a good army badly generalled, or a good general who has poor troops. If we follow here the opinion of Caesar, neither one nor the other is worth much. For when he went to Spain against Afranius and Petreius, who had a first-class army, he showed how little esteem he had for them by remarking that ‘he was going to fight an army without a general’, thereby indicating the weakness of the generals. On the other hand, when he went to Thessaly to fight Pompey, he said: ‘I am going to meet a general without an army.’

We can now turn to the further question: whether it is easier for a good general to make a good army, or for a good army to make a good general. I submit that on this point there can be no dispute; for it is easier for many, if good, to select or make a good man of someone, than it is for one good man to do it for many. Lucullus, when he was sent against Mithradates, was wholly without experience of warfare; yet the army, which was good and had excellent officers, soon made him a good general. Again, the Romans, who were short of men, armed a number of slaves, and handed them over to Sempronius Gracchus to train, and in a short time he made of them a good army. Pelopidas and Epaminondas, as I have remarked elsewhere, when they had delivered Thebes, their fatherland, from servitude to the Spartans, in a short time made such excellent soldiers of the Theban peasants that they could not only stand up against the Spartan militia but beat it.

The arguments are evenly balanced, because, if one is good, it can make the other like it. A good army, none the less, if it lacks a good head is apt to become mutinous and dangerous, as happened with the Macedonian army after the death of Alexander, and with the veterans in the civil war. Hence I am of opinion that more confidence should be placed in a good general who has time to train his men and a chance to arm them, than in a mutinous army with a turbulent fellow it has chosen as its head. Twice the glory and praise is due, then, to those generals who have not only had an enemy to beat, but, before coming to grips with him, have had to drill their troops and make a good army of them; for in this they display a twofold virtue, which is so rare that if it were given to many to be such strict disciplinarians, they would be much less esteemed and lauded than they are.