CHAPTER XXI

HOW MUCH BLAME THAT PRINCE AND REPUBLIC MERIT WHO LACK THEIR OWN ARMS

Present Princes and modern Republics, who lack their own soldiers in regard to defense and offense, ought to be ashamed of themselves and to think from the example of Tullus that such a defect exists not because of the lack of men suitable for the military, but that by their own fault they have not known how to make soldiers of their men.³ For Tullus, after Rome had been at peace forty years, did not find a man (when he succeeded to the Kingdom) who had ever been in war. None the less, planning to make war, he did not think of availing himself of the Samnites, or of the Tuscans, or of others who were accustomed to bear arms, but as a most prudent man decided to avail himself of his own people: And such was his virtu that he was able quickly to make excellent soldiers under his own government. And there is nothing more true than that [truth], if there are no soldiers where there are men, this results from the defect of the Prince, and not from any local or natural defect: of which there is a very recent example: For everyone knows that in recent times the King of England assaulted the kingdom of France, and did not take as soldiers any other than his own people: and because that Kingdom had been for more than thirty years without making war, he did not have either soldiers or a Captain who had ever fought: none the less, he did not hesitate with them to assault a Kingdom full of Captains and good armies, which had been continually under arms in the wars in Italy. All of which resulted from that King being a prudent man and that Kingdom well organized, that in time of peace did not neglect the arrangements of war. The Thebans, Pelopidas and Epaminondas, after having liberated Thebes, and rescued her from the servitude of the Spartan Empire, finding themselves in a City accustomed to servitude, and in the midst of an effeminate people, did not hesitate (so great was their virtu) to put them under arms and with them go to meet the Spartan armies in the field and conquered them: and whoever writes says, that these two in a short time showed that men of war were born not only in Lacedemonia, but in every other place where men are born, as long as there was to be found one man who should know how to train them in military service, as is seen [in the case] of Tullus who knew how to train the Romans. And Virgil could not express this thought better, and with other words shows how he adhered to that, when he said: “And Tullus made of These men soldiers”.