# CHAPTER 33 — How the Romans Gave the Commanders of Their Armies Full Discretionary Powers

I reckon that, while reading Livy’s history and wishing to derive some profit from it, it is necessary to consider all the methods of proceeding employed by the people and the Roman senate. Among other matters worthy of consideration is an examination of the kind of authority with which they sent out their consuls, dictators, and other military commanders. It is evident that such authority was extremely great, and that the senate reserved nothing for itself except the authority to start new wars and to confirm peace treaties, while leaving everything else to the will and power of the consul. For this reason, once the people and the senate had decided to wage a war, for example against the Latins, they left all the rest to the will of the consul, who could fight a battle or avoid it and besiege one city or another, just as he saw fit. These policies can be confirmed through many examples, and especially through what happened during an expedition against the Etruscans. Because after Fabius the consul had defeated them near Sutrium and then planned to pass through the Ciminian forest with his army to go into Etruria, not only did he fail to consult the senate, but he gave it no information whatsoever about his plans, even though he was about to wage a war in an unknown territory, which was risky and dangerous. The decisions taken in regard to this policy by the senate also testify to this; the senate, upon learning of the victory that Fabius had won, fearing that he would decide to march through that forest into Etruria, and deeming it unwise to attempt such a war and to run such a risk, sent two legates to make him understand that he was not to march into Etruria; the legates arrived after Fabius had already done so and won his victory, so that instead of preventing the war, they returned as emissaries to announce his conquest and the glory he had earned. Anyone who considers this approach well will see that it was very prudently employed, for if the senate had wished for a consul to proceed in war little by little according to what tasks they entrusted to him, they would have made him less diligent and slower, because he would have felt that the glory of the victory was not entirely his, but that the senate had shared in it through the advice by which he had been guided. Besides this, the senate would have been obliged to give advice on a matter about which it could not have known anything, since notwithstanding the fact that the senate was filled with men highly experienced in warfare, nevertheless, not being on the spot and not knowing the countless details that must be known in order to give good advice, they would have committed countless errors in giving it. For this reason, they wanted the consul to act on his own and for the glory to be entirely his own, his love of which they judged to be the best check and rule of thumb to make him do his best. This is a policy I most willingly note because I see that the republics of the present day, such as the Venetian and Florentine republics, understand the question differently, and if their military leaders, quartermasters, and agents have to set up a single artillery piece, they want to know about it and give advice on it. This method deserves the same praise as the others, all of which taken together have led them into the situation in which they find themselves at present. *





BOOK III