One of the earliest mitigations of the horrors of war, particularly in its incidence upon private individuals, was the custom of sparing the inhabitants of a surrendered city in their persons and property, instead of subjecting them to the rapine and pillage which usually followed a capture by storm. Even the Mosaic Code made this exception in the midst of its barbarities, although the doomed cities of Canaan were excluded from the benefits of the exception. Both the general savagery and the one humane departure from it are well exemplified by verses ten to sixteen of the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy:

1. 10. When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.

2. 11. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee,,then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

3. 12. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.

4. 13. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword;

5. 14. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.

6. 15. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

7. 16. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.