# 48. When an Enemy is seen to be making a Big Mistake, it should be assumed that it is but an Artifice

When the legate, Fulvius, was left with the army which the Romans had in Tuscany, the consul having gone to Rome to attend some ceremonies, the Tuscans, in order to see whether they could catch him on the hop, set an ambush near the Roman camp, and sent some soldiers, dressed as shepherds, with a largish flock, telling them to let themselves be seen by the Roman army. Thus disguised, they went right up to the palisades surrounding the camp. The legate, wondering at their presumption which did not seem to him reasonable, took steps to discover the fraud, so that the Tuscans’ plan was frustrated.

Here it is well to observe that the general of an army ought not to rely on an obvious mistake which an enemy is seen to make, for it will always be a fraud, since it is not reasonable that men should so lack caution. Yet very often the desire for victory so blinds men’s eyes that they notice only what they want to see.

The Gauls, having defeated the Romans on the Allia, came to Rome, and, finding the gates open and unguarded, waited for a whole day and night without entering, since they were afraid of a fraud and could not believe that the Romans at heart were so cowardly or so stupid as to have abandoned their homeland.

When in 1508 the Florentines were besieging Pisa, Alfonso del Mutolo, a citizen of Pisa, finding himself a prisoner in the hands of the Florentines, promised that, if they would set him free, he would place one of the gates of that city at the disposal of the Florentine army. The man was set free. He then, on the plea of arranging practical details, came several times to talk with the delegates of the commissioners. Nor did he come secretly, but openly, and in the company of Pisans whom he left outside while he was talking with the Florentines. From this it might have been conjectured that he had double dealing in mind, for, if he had been acting in accordance with his promise it was unreasonable that he should have acted so openly. But so determined were the Florentines to have Pisa that, blinded by their desire for it, they went on his instructions to the Lucca gate, and left there, to their discredit, a number of officers and men owing to the double dealing of the said Alfonso.





Book Three



[THE CONCLUDING CHAPTER]


[The Preservation of Freedom in A Republic]