恐惧得都不知怎么逃跑了。
一一昆图斯
直到他军中的一位主将曼纽尔轻推并摇晃他，才使他从恍惚中清醒过来,于是对他说:“陛下,我宁愿亲手杀死您，也不愿看到因您被俘而使国家沦亡,请跟我一起逃吧。”在使我们丧失了责任感与荣誉感之后,恐惧往往又会赐予我们置之死地而后生的勇气,以显示它的强大力量。桑普罗尼奥斯执政罗马期间，第一次与汉尼拔正式交战就以失败告终;当时,一万多名胆战心惊的士兵不知该逃往何处,惊慌失措地闯人了敌人的主力部队中。令人意想不到的是,这些求生欲极强的士兵经过奋力拼杀，竟突出了重围,并杀死了无数迦太基人,从而以一次光荣的胜利洗清了逃跑的耻辱。
我感到世界上最可怕的事情就是恐惧,它比其他任何一种情感都具有更大的威力。与庞培的朋友们在他的船上亲眼目睹了一场大屠杀相比,还有哪种痛苦更强烈、更巨大呢?尽管如此,当看到埃及的船只向他们通近时，在恐惧和惊慌中,他们忘记了一切，只知道拼命催促水手奋力划桨逃跑，直到逃至提尔,他们才从恐惧中恢复过来,也才有时间想到痛失主帅的现实,于是悲从中来,之前被威力更强大的恐惧所抑制的泪水和伤痛才得以宜泄出来。
So much does fear dread even the means of safety.
--Quintus
-till such time as Manuel, one of the principal commanders of his army, having jogged and shaked him so as to rouse him out of his trance, said to him, "Sir, if you will not follow me, I will kill you; for it is better you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire.” But fear does then manifest its utmost power when it throws us upon a valiant despair, having before deprived us of all sense both of duty and honour.In the first pitched battle the Romans lost against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of ten thousand foot, that had taken fright, seeing no other escape for their cowardice, went and threw themselves headlong upon the great battalion of the enemies, which with marvellous force and fury they charged through and through, and routed with a very great slaughter of the Carthaginians, thus purchasing an ignominious flight at the same price they might have gained a glorious victory.
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents. What afliction could be greater or more just than that of Pompey's friends, who, in his ship, were spectators of that horrible murder? Yet so it was, that the fear of the Epian vesels they saw coming o bord them, posessed them with so great alarm that it is observed they thought of nothing but calling upon the mariners to make haste, and by force of oars to escape away, till being arrived at Tyre, and delivered from fear, they had leisure to turn their thoughts to the loss of their captain, and to give vent to those tears and lamentations that the other more potent passion had till then suspended.
当时的恐惧驱走了我心中的所有勇气。
——西塞罗
许多在战斗中受伤的勇士,即使伤痕累累、血流如注，第二天依然可以参加战斗;但对于另一些心存恐惧的伤员来说，则很难指望他们可以再次面对敌人。那些富有的人，一直生活在忧虑之中,因为他们担心财产流失或遭遇不测，以致食不知味、寝不安枕;而有些穷人、奴隶或流亡者,却通常能过上轻松
愉悦的生活。许多人因忍受不了恐惧所带来的无穷无尽的煎熬而上吊、投河或跳崖自尽。这一切使我们充分意识到:恐惧比死亡更可怕。希腊人认为还有一种不同于常规的恐惧:它没有任何明显的理由,而是由上天所造成的。因此,往往整个国家、整个军队都会遭受到这种恐惧的打击。迦太基就曾被笼罩在这种恐惧之中,举国上下一片混乱,到处都是惊恐的叫喊声;居民们仿佛受控于一种声音,全都从屋内跑出来滋事谩骂,进而无缘无故地相互断打起来,就好像对方是侵犯他们的敌人一样。一切都处于混乱和暴戾之中,直到以虔诚的祷告和祭祀才平息了这恐怖的一幕。希腊人称之为潘神引起的恐惧。
Then fear drove out all intelligence from my mind.
--Cicero
Such as have been well rubbed in some skirmish, may yet, all wounded and bloody as they are, be brought on again the next day to charge; but such as have once conceived a good sound fear of the enemy, will never be made so much as to look him in the face. Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, often live as merrily as other folk. And the many people who, impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hanged or drowned themselves, or dashed themselves to pieces, give us sufficiently to understand that fear is more importunate and insupportable than death itself.
The Greeks acknowledged another kind of fear, differing from any we have spoken of yet, that surprises us without any visible cause, by an impulse from heaven, so that whole nations and whole armies have been struck with it. Such a one was that which brought so wonderful a desolation upon Carthage, where nothing was to be heard but affrighted voices and outcries; where the inhabitants were scen to sally out of their houses as to an alarm,and there to charge, wound, and kill one another, as if they had been enemies come to surprise their city. All things were in disorder and fury till, with prayers and sacrifices, they had appeased their gods; and this is that they call Panic terrors.
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