Sextus Iulius Frontinus, vir consularis de re militari

For when his letters written to royal friends had been intercepted, the king punished them all, and having been despoiled of his counselors, he could not prepare friends afterward. Caesar, through a certain water-carrier, when he had found out that Afranius and Petreius would move their camp at night, so that he might hinder hostile designs without the exhaustion of his own men, ordered the soldiers to shout for their gear at the very beginning of the night and ordered the mules to be driven past the adversaries' camp with clamor and to continue the sound; he wanted them to believe that Caesar was moving his camp. Scipio Africanus, to receive reinforcements with provisions, allowed Hannibal a set time, intending to help himself. Dionysius, the tyrant of the Syracusans, when a huge multitude of Africans was about to cross into Sicily to attack him, fortified castles in several places and instructed the guards to hand them over to the approaching enemy and, once they had dismissed them, to return secretly to Syracuse; the Africans, of necessity, kept the captured castles with a garrison there. Dionysius, having attacked those whom he had reduced to a number almost equal to his own, defeated them when he had drawn his men together and scattered the adversaries. Agesilaus the Lacedaemonian, when he was waging war against Tissaphernes, pretended that he was making for Caria, as if he would fight more appropriately in mountainous places against an enemy prevailing in cavalry. Because of this display of his intention, having summoned Tissaphernes into Caria, he himself broke into Lydia, where the head of the enemy's kingdom was, and having oppressed those who were acting there, he seized the royal treasure.

On suppressing the sedition of soldiers. Chap. ix.

Titus Manlius the consul, when he discovered that the soldiers in the winter quarters of Campania had conspired to kill their hosts and seize their goods, spread a rumor that they would spend the winter in the same place. And thus he freed Campania from danger by the plan of the conspirators and punished the guilty on the occasion. Lucius Sulla, when his legions of Roman citizens were raging with a pernicious sedition, restored their health by a ruse; for he ordered it to be announced that the enemy was present and that a shout be raised by those calling to arms and that the signals be sounded; the sedition was dispelled with everyone consenting against the enemy. Gnaeus Pompeius, when the senate had been slaughtered by the army in Milan, lest he stir up a tumult if he had summoned only the guilty, ordered them to come mixed with those who were outside the offense; thus, the guilty appeared with less fear of spirit because they were not segregated, and therefore did not seem to be summoned on account of the cause of the guilt; and those who had an intact conscience joined in guarding the guilty as well, so that they would not be tainted by their flight. Caesar, when certain of his legions had moved a sedition to such an extent that they seemed about to rise up in destruction, with his fear feigned, proceeded to the soldiers; and when they demanded discharge, he granted it with a threatening face, and by their repentance forced the discharged to satisfy the commander, and to perform the remaining duties with more obedience.