[106] Ibid. xxxi. 3.
[107] Mahabharata, Bhisma Parva, iii. 81 (pt. xii. sq. p. 6).
[108] Philo, Quod liber sit quisquis virtuti studet, p. 877.
[109] Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 258.
[110] Cicero, De officiis, i. 11.
[111] Seneca, Epistulæ, 95.
[112] Plutarch, Vita Pyrrhi, xii. 3, p. 389.
[113] Livy, i. 32.
Even in war the killing of an enemy is, under certain circumstances, prohibited either by custom or by enlightened moral opinion. Among the ancient Nahuas, who never accepted a ransom for a prisoner of war, the person of an ambassador was at all events held sacred.[114] In the ‘Book of Rewards and Punishments,’ which embodies popular Taouism, it is said, “Do not massacre the enemies who yield themselves, nor kill those who offer their submission.”[115] The Hebrews, whilst being commanded to “save alive nothing that breatheth” of the cities which the Lord had given them for an inheritance, were to deal differently with cities which were very far off from them: to kill only the men, and to take to themselves the women and the little ones.[116] The Laws of Manu lay down very humane rules for a king who fights with his foes in battle:—“Let him not strike with weapons concealed in wood, nor with such as are barbed, poisoned, or the points of which are blazing with fire. Let him not strike one who in flight has climbed on an eminence, nor a eunuch, nor one who joins the palms of his hands in supplication, nor one who flees with flying hair, nor one who sits down, nor one who says ‘I am thine’; nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat of mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is disarmed, nor one who looks on without taking part in the fight, nor one who is fighting with another foe; nor one whose weapons are broken, nor one afflicted with sorrow, nor one who has been grievously wounded, nor one who is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight; but in all these cases let him remember the duty of honourable warriors.”[117] The Mahabharata contains expressions of similar chivalrous sentiments in regard to enemies. A car-warrior should fight only with a car-warrior, a horse-man with a horse-man, a foot-soldier with a foot-soldier. “Always being led by consideration of fitness, willingness, bravery, and strength, one should strike another after having challenged him. None should strike another who is confiding or who is panic-striken. One fighting with another, one seeking refuge, one retreating, one whose weapon is broken, and one who is not clad in armour should never be struck. Charioteers, animals, men engaged in carrying weapons, those who play on drums and those who blow conchs should never be smitten.”[118] Among the Greeks, in the Homeric age, it was evidently regarded as a matter of course that, on the fall of a city, all the men were slain, and the women and children carried off as slaves;[119] but in historic times such a treatment of a vanquished foe grew rarer, and seems, under ordinary circumstances, to have been disapproved of.[120] The rulers of this land, says the messenger in the ‘Heraclidæ,’ do not approve of slaying enemies who have been taken alive in battle.[121] In Rome the customs of war underwent a similar change. In ancient days the normal fate of a captive was death, in later times he was generally reduced to slavery; but many thousands of captives were condemned to the gladiatorial shows, and the vanquished general was commonly slain in the Mamertine prison.[122] On the other hand, nations or armies that voluntarily submitted to Rome were habitually treated with great leniency. Cicero says:—“When we obtain the victory we must preserve those enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war; for example, our forefathers received, even as members of their state, the Tuscans, the Aequi, the Volscians, the Sabines, and the Hernici, but utterly destroyed Carthage and Numantia…. And, while we are bound to exercise consideration toward those whom we have conquered by force, so those should be received into our protection who throw themselves upon the honour of our general, and lay down their arms, even though the battering rams should have struck their walls.”[123]
[114] Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 426, 412.