“Our greatest advantage in coping with tribes so powerful is that they do not act together in concert. Seldom is it that two or three states meet together to ward off a common danger. Thus, while they fight singly, all are conquered. - Tactitus (A.D. 56?-120?). The life of Cnaeus Julius Agricola, 30, tr. Alfred J. Church and William J. Brodribb, 1942

This comment by Tactitus is about the Conquest of Britain by the Roman general ASgricoa. It references the fact that in their Conquest of Britain, the local tribes did not tend to form large alliances in order to resist the Roman invasion. If several of you face an enemy which none of you can match singly, but which cannot match all of you communally, then the only method to resist invasion is to band together in order to resist as one order. This is, of course, obvious advice to give - so why is it so rarely followed? I imagine that we consider several possible reasons here: Miscommunication, mistrust, greed, and misevaluation. 

Miscommunication could cause an issue when, for example, we are unable to effectively act as one. Even if we recognize the threat, decide to act together, m and do act together in concert, we may still experience incredible difficulties acting together in an effective manner. This issue isn't quite one of trust or greed, but rather a pure weakness of mechanical information passage. The tribes in Britain may have had a difficult time communicating and coordinating with each other on the battlefield, or may have taken too long to come to a decision about what to do about the Roman threat. In our personal lives, this happens when we have issues communicating in a timely and clear manner. It is not just necessary to have good internal communication among the members of the alliance - it is also necessary to have good communication with your enemy. When you don't know where the enemy is wor what they are doing, who leads them or what their preferred tactics are, then you are at a disadvantage. Many times war is not decided by who has the larger army, but by who can outmaneuver who. 

Mistrust and greed are two sides of the same coin. An alliance is often only as strong as its weakest member. Because rule by committee rarely wins wars, a member of the alliance will often have to give up some amount of power and influence over the carriage of the war, and rely upon the wishes of others. As well, in battle you must trust that your fellow Fighters are going to stay and fight alongside you. In the line of scrimmage, panic spreads easily. There are great battles which have been lost, not by the army with superior force, but by the group with the superior will. It may often take only a single cohort breaking and fleeing, to cause the whole army to route. When this is done accidentally, then it is an issue of breaking a trust. When this is done on purpose, then it is an issue of greed. It is very likely that the Romans would have spent a great deal of time trying to bribe the various tribes they encountered, to show favor to one group over another, and convince certain tribes or people to fight with the Romans, because they expected to gain from it. 

Misevaluation is when we think that the danger is less than it is. I'm sure there were people among the British tribes who would have said that the Romans were going to leave soon, that they weren't the real threat, or that the Romans' would be easy to trick. As it turns out, none of these ideas were true. Haven't we all been in that situation, where we see something bad happening in the future, warn people about it, and are then ignored, only to be validated later on? We have also been in the opposite situation, ignoring advice which we definitely should have followed. This task, Of properly evaluating risk, is probably the single most important activity to be able to get right, for your life. If you can evaluate risk correctly, m then you can make an informed judgment. You can play the odds, and, most of the time, it will turn out OK. You might still make the wrong choice, but you will be able to make the right choice more often than not. If you are not able to reevaluate risk well, always thinking things are going to be worse or better than they are, then you cannot make an informed decision. And, generally speaking, there are many more ways for something to go wrong in life, than there are for things to go right. 

The lessons of this quote, for me, are that we should not hesitate to band together. In order to do that effectively, we need a communication structure, an open flow of information, a fighting style situated to our strength, and a real understanding of what we have to lose, and who we are facing across the field. It has been said that if you know yourself and you know the enemy, then you have nothing to fear from the loss of battle. While, in an alliance we have one enemy, but many allies. The greatest weakness of an alliance is susceptibility to defeat in detail, so in those situations, it is very important to pay attention to the details, and not get lost in the bigger picture. It is very easy to fall into group think, and move as a mass - your enemy is not doing this, maneuvering in this clumsy fashion. Finesse beats force. 

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