The Anatomy of Melancholy

Alexander grieved because there were no more worlds for him to conquer, and some admire him for it: “It seems a spirited and kingly utterance”; he spoke like a prince. But, as wise Seneca rebukes him, it was “a most unjust and foolish utterance”; he spoke like a mad fool. And I apply to them all the judgement that Seneca passes on Alexander and his father Philip: “They were no less a plague to humanity than a flood or a conflagration, by which,” and so on. They did as much harm to human beings as fire and water, those merciless elements when they rage.

More lamentable still, they persuade men that this hellish way of life is holy. They promise heaven to those who risk their lives “in a holy war”, and say that through these bloody wars—as the Persians, Greeks, and Romans told their people long ago, and the Turks tell theirs now, to encourage them to fight, “so that they may fall miserably”—if they die on the battlefield, they go straight to heaven and will be canonized as saints. What a diabolical invention! They will be entered in the chronicles “as a perpetual memorial of the event,” so that they are remembered for ever.

Yet in truth, as some hold, it would be much better to suppress such brutal histories, since wars are God’s scourge for sin, with which he punishes human perversity and folly. For “they contribute nothing to moral education”; they do nothing to improve conduct or teach a good life. Nevertheless, people insist on it, and so they place the mark of divinity on the cruellest and most destructive plague of humanity. They worship such men with grand titles, ranks, statues, and portraits; honour, applaud, and richly reward them for their good service. There is no greater glory, they say, than to die in battle.

Thus Ennius praises Scipio Africanus. Mars, Hercules, and I do not know how many others in ancient times were made gods and reached heaven by this route, though they were really bloody butchers, wicked destroyers and disturbers of the world, monstrous prodigies, hellhounds, deadly plagues, devourers, public executioners of humankind, as Lactantius truly demonstrates, and Cyprian in his address to Donatus. Such men were reckless in war and rushed headlong to their deaths, like the Celts described by Nicolaus of Damascus, whose courage was so absurd “that they thought it disgraceful to get out of the way of a falling wall”—a disgrace to run from a rotten wall about to fall on their heads. Anyone who will not rush onto a sword’s point, or who tries to avoid a cannon shot, is a base coward, they say, and no brave man.