The
difficulties of his position can only be estimated when we reflect on
the nature of a campaign in many parts of Spain and the kind of
soldiers he had under him. Promptitude and decision were among his
characteristics; and in such a warfare promptitude and decision cannot
be exercised at the time when alone they are of any use, if a man is
swayed by any other considerations than those of prudence and
necessity in the hour of danger. A general who could stab one of his
own men in the heat of battle, to prevent him dispiriting the army by
news of a loss, proved that his judgment was as clear as his
determination was resolved.
Plutarch's narrative is of no value as a campaign, and his apology
must be that he was not writing a campaign, but delineating a man's
character. Drumann _Geschichte Roms_, Pompeius, p. 350, &c.) has
attempted to give a connected history of this campaign against
Sertorius, and he has probably done it as well as it can be done with
such materials as we possess. The map of Antient Spain and Portugal
published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, will
be useful for reading the sketch in Drumann. Plutarch had no good map,
and, as already observed, he was not writing a campaign. Some modern
historical writers, who have maps, seem to have made very little use
of them; and their narrative of military transactions is often us
confused as Plutarch's.
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