Montaigne has often heard that cowardice is the mother of cruelty, and he has seen the fiercest people apt to cry on frivolous occasions. Alexander, tyrant of Pheres, dares not watch tragedies lest his citizens see him weep at Hecuba and Andromache, yet he causes people to be murdered every day without pity. Valour works only against resistance and stops when it sees the enemy at its mercy. Pusillanimity, having missed the first danger, takes the second part of blood and massacre, like wolves that fall upon the dying, or dogs that tear skins they dared not hunt in the field. Fathers kept degrees of revenge. We now begin at kill. Subduing an enemy outranks cutting his throat, because revenge wants to be felt. We do not fall upon a beast or a stone, because they cannot be sensible of our revenge. Bias pities the Orchomenians that Lyciscus's penitence came when no one remained to feel it. A pistol through the head saves the victim from repentance and leaves the killer to hide from officers while the dead man is at rest. Killing frustrates an offence to come. It is more fear than bravery, more care of yourself than animosity toward him.
Asinius Pollio writes a libel against Plancus and waits to publish it till he is dead, which is to bite one's thumb at a blind man. Aristotle, told someone has spoken ill of him, says let him whip me too, provided I am not there. Cowardice then invents seconds, thirds, and fourths, so witnesses must fight lest they look short of affection or courage. Montaigne's brother, the Sieur de Mattecoulom, is asked at Rome by a gentleman he barely knows to be his second. He finds himself matched with a man much better known to him, dispatches his man, then runs in because the principals still stand. What could he do less? The French king has him enlarged from Italian prisons. Put three Frenchmen into the deserts of Libya and they will not live a month together without fighting. Gentlemen go into Italy to learn to fence and spend their lives on the art before they have learned it.
A friend famed as a fencing master chooses arms that strip him of that advantage, so victory will not be credited to skill. When Montaigne was young, gentlemen avoided the reputation of good fencers as injurious, and learned in private as a trade of subtlety. Philopoemen condemns wrestling because its preparatives differ from military discipline. Laches in Plato never knew any great soldier come out of that school. Emperor Mauricius, warned by dreams that obscure Phocas shall kill him, asks his son-in-law Philip what the man is like. Told he is cowardly and timorous, the emperor immediately concludes he is a murderer and cruel. Tyrants are sanguinary from solicitude for their own safety. Faint hearts furnish no other means than exterminating those who may hurt them, even women, for fear of a scratch. The first cruelties breed fear of a just revenge, which produces a series of new cruelties. Philip of Macedon, agitated by so many murders committed by his order, resolves to seize the children of those he has slain and dispatch them daily.
Theoxena, moved by a maternal charity toward her nephews, marries Poris to keep them under her own eyes. When Philip's edict comes, she declares she would rather kill them with her own hands than deliver them. They steal away by sea after the feast of Aeneas. The wind proves contrary. The port guards pursue. She sets swords and poison before the children and tells them death is now the only means of their defence and liberty. They run upon what is next to hand and, half dead, are thrown into the sea. She clasps Poris and they follow. Tyrants then invent lingering deaths so anger can be tasted, and perplex themselves when violent pain is short and long pain is milder. All that exceeds a simple death appears to Montaigne absolute cruelty. Josephus finds crucified friends still living after three days. Mohammed cuts men through the diaphragm with one blow of a scimitar. Croesus has a favourite carded with a fuller's combs till he dies. George Sechel, bound naked three days, watches his brother Lucat drink his blood, then captors make twenty captains feed upon him. The remainder is boiled. The cruelty is still looking for a death slow enough to feel.
Coming Up in Chapter 84
Montaigne sets Cato the Censor beside the younger Cato, who killed himself: two beautiful natures, much alike. The elder wins on wars and public use. The younger wins on a cleaner virtue. Then the Censor, in extreme old age, puts himself upon Greek with a greedy appetite, which looks to Montaigne like second childhood.
