He gave instructions that in war, when they had put the enemy to flight and had gained a victory, they should continue the pursuit only far enough to make their success assured, and then return immediately; for he said that it was neither a noble trait nor a Greek trait to slay those who had yielded, and this policy was not only honourable and magnanimous, but useful as well; for the opposing army, knowing that they customarily spared those who surrendered, but made away with those who resisted, would regard it as more profitable to flee than to stay. 1
1 Cf. Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxii. (54 A); Thucydides, v. 73; Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 16. 3.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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