# CHAPTER XLVIII.—_That on finding an Enemy make what seems a grave blunder, we should suspect some fraud to lurk behind._

The consul having gone to Rome to perform certain ceremonial rites, and
Fulvius being left in charge of the Roman army in Etruria, the
Etruscans, to see whether they could not circumvent the new commander,
planting an ambush not far from the Roman camp, sent forward soldiers
disguised as shepherds driving large flocks of sheep so as to pass in
sight of the Roman army. These pretended shepherds coming close to the
wall of his camp, Fulvius, marvelling at what appeared to him
unaccountable audacity, hit upon a device whereby the artifice of the
Etruscans was detected and their design defeated.

Here it seems proper to note that the captain of an army ought not to
build on what seems a manifest blunder on the part of an enemy; for as
men are unlikely to act with conspicuous want of caution, it will
commonly be found that this blunder is cover to a fraud. And yet, so
blinded are men’s minds by their eagerness for victory, that they look
only to what appears on the surface.

After defeating the Romans on the Allia, the Gauls, hastening on to
Rome, found the gates of the city left open and unguarded. But fearing
some stratagem, and being unable to believe that the Romans could be so
foolish and cowardly as to abandon their city, they waited during the
whole of that day and the following night outside the gates, without
daring to enter. In the year 1508, when the Florentines Avere engaged
in besieging Pisa, Alfonso del Mutolo, a citizen of that town,
happening to be taken prisoner, was released on his promise to procure
the surrender to the Florentines of one of the gates of the city.
Afterwards, on pretence of arranging for the execution of this
surrender, he came repeatedly to confer with those whom the Florentine
commissaries had deputed to treat with him, coming not secretly but
openly, and accompanied by other citizens of Pisa, whom he caused to
stand aside while he conversed with the Florentines. From all which
circumstances his duplicity might have been suspected, since, had he
meant to do as he had engaged, it was most unlikely that he should be
negotiating so openly. But the desire to recover possession of Pisa so
blinded the Florentines that they allowed themselves to be conducted
under his guidance to the Lucca Gate, where, through his treachery, but
to their own disgrace, they lost a large number of their men and
officers.