St. Augustine on Peace and War (II): How Do Wars Come About?

Extract

Rome, the colossus, insatiable, brooking no rival, had meant then, as Augustine and others realised, a never- ending series of wars, some of them necessary in self-defence, others, perhaps, wars of pure aggression. But now a more appalling spectre was showing its head: the barbarian hordes. Rome had at least stood for law and equity. But these barbarian hordes simply wasted and ravaged. Augustine may well be portraying them when he asks:

‘What else is it but robbery on a huge scale to wage war first on our near neighbours, and after subduing them to attack those more remote; and so, through mere lust of power, to grind down and make subect peoples who have never done us any harm?’ So, too, when he asks again:

’ What else are kingdoms wherein there is no justice, save robberies on a large scale? Take the case of a robber- band. It is made up of men who act under some sort of leader, who have some sort of social pact among themselves and divide their booty by mutual agreement. Supposing now that, owing to the numbers who join it, this evil institution so grows that it is able to establish itself in definite localities and have a centre whence it conducts operations —why, then, it proceeds to attack cities, to subjugate other peoples, and ends by acclaiming itself a kingdom. A rise in rank ‘which was in no sense due to those robbers having laid aside their evil ambitions but simply to their ever growing impunity.’