The opposite of a rout is a rally, in which a military unit that has routed in disorder (or is wavering on the brink of a rout) is reinstilled with fighting spirit via some means, generally the decisive (and often forceful) reimposition of command influence: the threat of the officer's pistol in modern times (and the vine staff of the Roman centurion in antiquity) reflect the ancient and pressing need to forcibly halt such battlefield panics immediately and restore discipline at all costs, including fratricidal summary execution if necessary–but also via suicidal acts of bravery or inspiring words to the same effect. History is replete with famous rallying speeches, such as Frederick the Great, exhorting his elite (but wavering) Prussian Army in the center of the Battle of Kolín in 1757 ("Scoundrels, do you wish to live forever?!") or US Army Brigadier General Norman Cota addressing his mauled units under fire on Omaha Beach ("Gentlemen, we are being killed on these beaches! Let us go "inland" and be killed!").