Utopians hate war, regarding it as inhuman, something not practiced by any wild beasts. What is often called the glory achieved in war seems to them inglorious. Nevertheless, they train constantly in the disciplines of war, both men and women, to be ready for any exigency. The causes for which they will engage in war are: first, to defend their country; second, to defend their friend; and, third, to deliver a weak nation from oppression or tyranny.
In battle they do not seek to gain victory through great bloodshed but prefer to overcome the enemy through strategy. Once war has been declared, they circulate leaflets through the enemy’s country, offering a huge reward to anyone who kills the king or other leaders, aiming by that means to sow suspicion and dissension through the nation.
Their great treasures of gold and silver are reserved for use in wars. With it they are enabled to offer huge rewards to enemy defectors and to employ mercenaries at a handsome rate of pay. There is a race in a nearby country, the Zapoletes, who are brutish but strong, brave fighters, whom they employ to send into battle. They know that those hirelings have no principles of loyalty and could be persuaded to defect to the enemy for a promise of higher fees, but the Utopians are generally in a position to outbid their competitors, which they do readily, calculating shrewdly that a good many of the mercenaries will be killed and will not collect their pay.
The Utopians prefer not to use their own citizens in battle unless their own country is invaded, and in such an event they employ only volunteers. They encourage women who are willing to accompany their husbands and stand with them in battle. It is their policy, once engaged in open battle, to send in specially trained troops to seek out and kill or capture the commander of the enemy’s forces. If they have gained the advantage and the enemy is in retreat, they check their troops from engaging in random, disorderly pursuit, nor do they aim for wholesale slaughter, preferring to take prisoners. They themselves sometimes resort to the strategy of feigned retreat in order to ambush an unsuspecting enemy.
Their armor is stout for defense yet not excessively heavy for marching or even for swimming. In fact, part of their training is to swim in armor. For offense they use battle-axes rather than swords and bows and arrows, with which they are highly skilled, strong and accurate. Also, they are ingenious in devising special machines for warfare.
It is not their practice to destroy or plunder a captured city or to lay waste the fields of the enemy, and they observe exceptional clemency toward the defeated nation, with the exception of the leaders who instigated the war and those among the enemy who opposed the surrender. A conquered nation is obliged to pay tribute to reimburse the Utopians for their expenses in the conduct of the war either in money or in rich estates of the country.
