our and
weapons, and to order thesame after the Greke and Romain maner.]

FABRICIO. I am certain, that to mynde to shewe wel, how an armie is
prepared, to faight a fielde, it should be necessarie to declare, how
the Grekes, and the Romaines ordeined the bandes of their armies:
Notwithstandyng, you your selves, beeyng able to rede, and to consider
these tnynges, by meanes of the auncient writers. I will passe over many
particulars: and I will onely bryng in those thynges, whiche I thinke
necessarie to imitate, mindyng at this tyme, to give to our exercise of
warre, some parte of perfection: The whiche shall make, that in one
instant, I shall shewe you, how an armie is prepared to the field, and
how it doeth incounter in the verie faight, and how it maie be exercised
in the fained. The greatest disorder, that thei make, whiche ordeine an
armie to the fielde, is in giving them onely one fronte, and to binde
them to one brunt, and to one fortune: the whiche groweth, of havyng
loste the waie, that the antiquitie used to receive one bande within an
other: bicause without this waie, thei can neither succour the formoste,
nor defende them, nor succede in the faight in their steede: the whiche
of the Romaines, was moste excellently well observed. Therefore,
purposyng to shewe this waie, I saie, how that the Romaines devided into
iii. partes every Legion, in Hastati, Prencipi, and Triarii, of which,
the Hastati wer placed in the first front, or forward of the armie, with
thorders thicke and sure, behinde whom wer the Prencipi, but placed with
their orders more thinne: after these, thei set the Triarii, and with so
moche thinnes of orders, that thei might, if nede wer, receive betwene
them the Prencipi, and the Hastati. Thei had besides these, the
Slingers, and Crosbowshoters, and the other lighte armed, the whiche
stoode not in these orders, but thei placed them in the bed of tharmie,
betwene the horses and the other bandes of footemen: therefore these
light armed, began the faight, if thei overcame (whiche happened seldom
times) thei folowed the victorie: if thei were repulced, thei retired by
the flanckes of the armie, or by the spaces ordained for soche purposes,
and thei brought them selves emong the unarmed: after the departure of
whom, the Hastati incountered with the enemie, the whiche if thei saw
themselves to be overcome, thei retired by a little and little, by the
rarenesse of thorders betwene the Prencipi, and together