When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. 199 If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength. 200

Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain. 201

Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue. 202

Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays. 203