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Grotius: Law of War and Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

George Grafton Wilson
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Extract

In the dedication of his great work, De Jure Belli ac Pads, to Louis XIII of France, Grotius addresses the king as “ everywhere known by the name Just no less than that of Louis. . . . Just, when you call back to life laws that are on the verge of burial, and with all your strength set yourself against the trend of an age which is rushing headlong to destruction; . . . when you offer no violence to souls that hold views different from your own in matter of religion; . . . when by the exercise of your authority you lighten the burden of oppressed peoples.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 1941 , pp. 205 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1941

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References

* Extract from the translation of Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pads Libri Tres published in 1925 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in commemoration of the tercentenary celebration of the publication of the original edition.

1 The words are in Book VI [VI. lxxxv]. The same thought is found in Book V [V. lxxxix], where the Athenians, who at the time of speaking were very powerful, thus address the Melians: ‘According to human standards those arrangements are accounted just which are settled when the necessity on both sides is equal; as for the rest, the more powerful do all they can, the more weak endure.’

1 In Plutarch Lysander displaying his sword says [Apothegms, Lysander, iii = 190 E]: ‘He who is master of this is in the best position to discuss questions relating to boundaries between countries.’

In the same author Caesar declares [Caesar, xxxv=725 B]: ‘The time for arms is not the time for laws.’

Similarly Seneca, On Benefits, IV. xxxviii [IV. xxxvii]: ‘At times, especially in time of war, kings make many grants with their eyes shut. One just man cannot satisfy so many passionate desires of men in arms; no one can at the same time act the part of a good man and good commander.’

2 This view-point of Pompey in relation to the Mamertines Plutarch expresses thus [Pompey, x = 623 d]: ‘Will you not stop quoting laws to us who are girt with swords?’ Curtius says in Book IX [IX. iv. 7]: ‘Even to such a degree does war reverse the laws of nature.’

1 Chrysostom, On Romans, Homily XXXI [Homily V, to chap, i, verse 31]: ‘We men have by nature a kind of fellowship with men; why not, when even wild beasts in their relation to one another have something similar?’

See also the same author, On Ephesians, chap, i [Homily I], where he explains that the seeds of virtue have been implanted in us by nature. The emperor Marcus Aurelius, a philosopher of parts, said [V. xvi]: ‘It was long ago made clear that we were born for fellowship. Is it not evident that the lower exist for the sake of the higher, and the higher for one another’s sake?’

2 There is an old proverb, ‘Dogs do not eat the flesh of dogs’. Says Juvenal [Sat. XV. 160, 163]:

Tigress with ravening tigress keeps the peace;

The wild beast spares its spotted kin.

There is a fine passage of Philo, in his commentary on the Fifth Commandment, which he who will may read in Greek. As it is somewhat long, I shall here quote it only once and in Latin [Philo, On the Ten Commandments, xxiii, in English as follows]:

‘Men, be ye at least imitators of dumb brutes. They, trained through kindness, know how to repay in turn. Dogs defend our homes; they even suffer death for their masters, if danger has suddenly come upon them. It is said that shepherd dogs go in advance of their flocks, fighting till death, if need be, that they may protect the shepherds from hurt. Of things disgraceful is not the most disgraceful this, that in return of kindness man should be outdone by a dog, the gentlest creature by the most fierce?

‘ But if we fail to draw our proper lesson from the things of earth, let us pass to the realm of winged creatures that make voyage through the air, that from them we may learn our duty. Aged storks, unable to fly, stay in their nests. Their offspring fly, so to say, over all lands and seas, seeking sustenance in all places for their parents; these, in consideration of their age, deservedly enjoy quiet, abundance, even comforts. And the younger storks console themselves for the irksomeness of their voyaging with the consciousness of their discharge of filial duty and the expectation of similar treatment on the part of their offspring, when they too have grown old. Thus they pay back, at the time when needed, the debt they owe, returning what they have received; for from others they cannot obtain sustenance either at the beginning of life, when they are small, or, when they have become old, at life’s end. From no other teacher than nature herself have they learned to care for the aged, just as they themselves were cared for when they were young.

‘Should not they who do not take care of their parents have reason to hide themselves for very shame when they hear this—they that neglect those whom alone, or above all others, they ought to help, especially when by so doing they are not really called upon to give, but merely to return what they owe? Children have as their own nothing to which their parents do not possess a prior claim; their parents have either given them what they have, or have furnished to them the means of acquisition.’

In regard to the extraordinary care of doves for their young, see Porphyry, On Abstaining from Animal Food, Book III; concerning the regard of the parrot-fish and lizard-fish for their kind, see Cassiodorus, [Variae,] XI. xl.

1 Marcus Aurelius, Book IX [IX xlii]: ‘Man was born to benefit others’; also [IX. ix]: ‘ It would be easier to find a thing of earth out of relation with the earth than a human being wholly cut off from human kind’. The same author in Book X [X. ii]: ‘That which has the use of reason necessarily also craves civic life.’

Nicetas of Chonae [On Isaac Angelus, III. ix]: ‘Nature has ingrained in us, and implanted in our souls, a feeling for our kin.’ Add what Augustine says, On Christian Doctrine, III. xiv.

2 Seneca, On Benefits, Book IV, chap, xviii: ‘That the warm feeling of a kindly heart is in itself desirable you may know from this, that ingratitude is something which in itself men ought to flee from, since nothing so dismembers and destroys the harmonious union of the human race as does this fault. Upon what other resource, pray tell, can we rely for safety, than mutual aid through reciprocal services? This alone it is, this interchange of kindnesses, which makes our life well equipped, and well fortified against sudden attacks.

‘Imagine ourselves as isolated individuals, what are we? The prey, the victims of brute beasts—blood most cheap, and easiest to ravage; for to all other animals strength sufficient for their own protection has been given. The beasts that are born to wander and to pass segregate lives are provided with weapons; man is girt round about with weakness. Him no strength of claws or teeth makes formidable to others. To man [deity] gave two resources, reason and society; exposed as he was to danger from all other creatures, these resources rendered him the most powerful of all. Thus he who in isolation could not be the equal of any creature, is become the master of the world.

‘ It was society which gave to man dominion over all other living creatures; man, born for the land, society transferred to a sovereignty of a different nature, bidding him exercise dominion over the sea also. Society has checked the violence of disease, has provided succour for old age, has given comfort against sorrows. It makes us brave because it can be invoked against Fortune. Take this away and you will destroy the sense of oneness in the human race, by which life is sustained. It is, in fact, taken away, if you shall cause that an ungrateful heart is not to be avoided on its own account.’

1 Porphyry, On Abstaining from Animal Food, Book III [III. xxvi]: ‘Justice consists in the abstaining from what belongs to others, and in doing no harm to those who do no harm.’

2 Ambrose treats this subject in his first book On Duties [I. xxx].

1 Hence, in the judgement of Marcus Aurelius, Book IX [IX. i]: ‘He who commits injustice is guilty of impiety.’

2 Chrysostom, On First Corinthians, xi. 3 [Homily XXVI, iii]: ‘When I say nature I mean God, for He is the creator of nature.’ Chrysippus in his third book On the Gods [Plutarch, On the Contradictions of the Stoics, ix = Morals, 1035 c]: ‘No other beginning or origin of justice can be found than in Jupiter and common nature; from that source must the beginning be traced when men undertake to treat of good and evil.’

3 Unless perhaps it would be more true to say that the Latin word for ‘right’, ius, is derived, by process of cutting down, from the word for ‘command’, iussum, forming ius, genetive iusis, just as the word for ‘bone’, os, was shortened from ossum; iusis afterwards becoming iuris, as Papirii was formed from Papisii, in regard to which see Cicero, Letters, Book IX. xxi [Ad Fam. IX. xxi. 2].

4 Hierocles, in his commentary on the Golden Verse [rather How parents should be treated, quoted by Stobaeus, Anthology, tit. lxxix. 53], calls parents ‘gods upon earth’; Philo, On the Ten Commandments [chap. XXIII], ‘Visible gods, who imitate the Unbegotten God in giving life’. Next after the relationship between God and man comes the relationship between parent and child; Jerome, epistle xcii [cxvii. 2]. Parents are the likenesses of gods; Plato, Laws, Book XI [XI. 11]. Honour is due to parents as to gods; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book IX, chap. ii.

1 In regard to this passage Aero, or some other ancient interpreter of Horace [Sat. I. iii. 98]: ‘The poet is writing in opposition to the teachings of the Stoics. He wishes to show that justice does not have its origin in nature but is born of expediency.’ For the opposite view see Augustine’s argument, On Christian Doctrine, Book III, chap. xiv.

1 This comparison Marcus Aurelius pertinently uses in Book IX [IX. xxiii]: ‘Every act of thine that has no relation, direct or indirect, to the common interest, rends thy life and does not suffer it to be one; such an act is not less productive of disintegration than he is who creates a dissension among a people.’ The same author, Book XI [XI. viii]: ‘A man cut off from a single fellow-man cannot but be considered as out of fellowship with the whole human race.’ In effect, as the same Antoninus says [VI. liv]: ‘What is advantageous to the swarm is advantageous to the bee.’

2 As Ovid says [Metamorphoses, VIII. 59]:

Strong is the cause when arms the cause maintain.

1 Chrysostom, On Ephesians, chap, iv [Homily IX, iii]: ‘But how does it happen, some one will say, that brigands live on terms of peace? And when? Tell me, I pray. This happens, in fact, when they are not acting as brigands; for if, in dividing up their loot, they did not observe the precepts of justice and make an equitable apportionment, you would see them engaged in strifes and battles among themselves.’

Plutarch [Pyrrhus, ix=388 a] quotes the saying of Pyrrhus, that he would leave his kingdom to that one of his children who should have the sharpest sword, declaring that this has the same implication as the verse of Euripides in the Phoenician Maidens [line 68]:

That they with gory steel the house divide.

He adds, moreover, the noble sentiment: ‘So inimical to the social order, and ruthless, is the determination to possess more than is one’s own!’

Cicero, Letters, XI. xvi [Ad Fam. IX. xvi. 3]: ‘All things are uncertain when one departs from law.’ Polybius, Book IV [IV. xxix. 4]: ‘This above all other causes breaks up the private organizations of criminals and thieves, that they cease to deal fairly with one another; in fine, that good faith among them has perished.’

2 Plutarch, Agesilaus [xxxvii = 617 D]: ‘In their conception of honour the Lacedaemonians assign the first place to the advantage of their country; they neither know nor learn any other kind of right than that which they think will advance the interests of Sparta.’

In regard to the same Lacedaemonians the Athenians declared, in Thucydides, Book V [V. cv]: ‘In relations with one another and according to their conception of civil rights they are most strict in their practice of virtue. But with respect to others, though many considerations bearing upon the subject might be brought forward, he will state the fact in a word who will say that in their view what is agreeable is honourable, what is advantageous is just.’

1 Hearing that the king of the Persians was called great, Agesilaus remarked: ‘Wherein is he greater than I, if he is not more just?’ The saying is quoted by Plutarch [Apothegms Agesilaus, lxiii = Morals, 213 c].

2 Marcus Aurelius exceedingly well remarks [VI. xliv]: ‘As Antoninus, my city and country are Rome; as a man, the world.’ Porphyry, On Abstaining from Animal Food, Book III [III. xxvii]: ‘He who is guided by reason keeps himself blameless in relation to his fellow-citizens, likewise also in relation to strangers and men in general; the more submissive to reason, the more godlike a man is.’

3 In regard to Minos there is a verse of an ancient poet:

Under the yoke of Minos all the island groaned.

On this point see Cyril, Against Julian, Book VI.

1 Thus King Alphonse, being asked whether he owed a greater debt to books or to arms, said that from books he had learned both the practice and laws of arms. Plutarch [Camillus, x = 134 b]: ‘Among good men certain laws even of war are recognized, and a victory ought not to be striven for in such a way as not to spurn an advantage arising from wicked and impious actions.’

2 Pompey well says in Appian [Civil Wars, II. viii. 51]: ‘We ought to trust in the gods and in the cause of a war which has been undertaken with the honourable and just purpose of defending the institutions of our country.’ In the same author Cassius [Civil Wars, IV. xii. 97]: ‘In wars the greatest hope lies in the justice of the cause.’ Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XV [XV. v. 3]: ‘God is with those who have right on their side.’

Procopius has a number of passages of similar import. One is in the speech of Belisarius, after he had started on his expedition to Africa [Vandalic War, I. xii. 21]: ‘Bravery is not going to give the victory, unless it has justice as a fellow-soldier.’ Another is in the speech of the same general before the battle not far from Carthage [I. xii. 19]. A third is in the address of the Lombards to the Herulians, where the following words, as corrected by me, are found [Gothic War, II. xiv]: ‘We call to witness God, the slightest manifestation of whose power is equal to all human strength. He, as may well be believed, making account of the causes of war, will give to each side the outcome of battle which each deserves.’ This saying was soon afterward confirmed by a wonderful occurrence.

In the same author Totila thus addresses the Goths [Gothic War, III. viii]: ‘It cannot, it cannot happen, I say, that they who resort to violence and injustice can win renown in fighting; but as the life of each is, such the fortune of war that falls to his lot.’ Soon after the taking of Rome Totila made another speech bearing on the same point [Gothic War, III. xxi].

Agathias, Book II [Histories, II. i]: ‘Injustice and forgetfulness of God are to be shunned always, and are harmful, above all, in war and in time of battle.’ This statement he else-where proves by the notable illustrations of Darius, Xerxes, and the Athenians in Sicily [Histories, II. v]. See also the speech of Crispinus to the people of Aquileia, in Herodian, Book VIII [Histories, VIII. vi].

In Thucydides, Book VII [VII. xviii], we find the Lacedaemonians reckoning the disasters which they had suffered in Pylus and elsewhere as due to themselves, because they had refused a settlement by arbitration which had been offered them. But as afterward the Athenians, having committed many wicked deeds, refused arbitration, a hope of greater success in their operations revived in the Lacedaemonians.

1 Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh [chap, xvi]: ‘The sword which has become blood-stained honourably in war, and has thus been employed in man-killing of a better sort.’

1 To these add the work of John of Cartagena, published at Rome in 1609.

1 The same Euripides represents Hermione as saying to Andromache [Andromache, 243]:

Not under laws barbaric do men live

In this our city;

and Andromache as answering [ibid., 244]:

What there is base, here too not blameless is.

2 Why should not one avail himself of the testimony of the philosophers, when Alexander Severus constantly read Cicero On the Commonwealth and On Duties? [Lampridius, Alexander Severus, xxx. 2.]

1 The words are those of Lactantius, Divine Institutes, Book VI, chap, ix [VII. vii. 4].

Justin, First Apology [Second Apology, chap, xiii]: ‘Not because the teachings of Plato are altogether different from the teachings of Christ, but because they do not completely harmonize, as the teachings of others do not—for example, those of the Stoics, the poets, and the writers of history. For each one of these spoke rightly in part, in accordance with the reason which had been implanted in him, perceiving what was consistent therewith.’

Tertullian [On the Soul, xx]: ‘Seneca often on our side’; but the same writer also warns us [An Answer to the Jews, ix] that the entire body of spiritual teachings was to be found in no man save Christ alone.

Augustine, Letters, ccii [xci. 3]: “The rules of conduct which Cicero and other philosophers recommend are being taught and learned in the churches that are increasing all over the world.’ On this point, if time is available, consult the same Augustine in regard to the Platonists, who, he says, with changes in regard to a few matters can be Christians; Letters, lvi [cxviii. 21]; On the True Religion, chap, iii, and Confessions, Book VII, chap, ix, and Book VIII, chap. ii.

2 Lactantius treats this subject at length in the Institutes, Book VI, chaps, xv, xvi, xvii. Says Cassiodorus [De Amicitia, chapter entitled Quod affectus sine consensu non multum prosit vel obsit]:’ It is advantageous or harmful to be moved not by feelings, but in accordance with feelings.’

1 Agathias, Book V, in a speech of Belisarius [Histories, V. xviii]: ‘Of the emotions of the soul those ought in every case to be seized in which there is found, pure and unmixed, an impulse in harmony with the requirements of duty and worthy to be chosen. Those emotions, however, which have a trend and inclination toward evil, are not to be utilized in all cases, but only so far as they contribute to our advantage. That good judgement is a blessing pure and unmixed no one would deny. In anger the element of energy is praiseworthy, but what exceeds the proper limit is to be avoided, as involving disadvantage.’

1 This was perceived by Cassian [Cassiodorus] as shown by his Institute of Holy Writ [Preface].

1 [The English translation, of course, follows Grotius’ Latin version, which sometimes differs from the original Greek.]