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.
