this
distinction. Either you have your country strongly defended, as the
Romans had and the Swiss have theirs, or, like the Carthaginians of old
and the King of France and the Italians at the present day, you have it
undefended. In the latter case you must keep the enemy at a distance
from your country, for as your strength lies not in men but in money,
whenever the supply of money is cut off you are undone, and nothing so
soon cuts off this supply as a war of invasion. Of which we have example
in the Carthaginians, who, while their country was free from invasion,
were able by means of their great revenues to carry on war in Italy
against the Romans, but when they were invaded could not defend
themselves even against Agathocles. The Florentines, in like manner,
could make no head against Castruccio, lord of Lucca, when he attacked
them in their own country; and to obtain protection, were compelled
to yield themselves up to King Robert of Naples. And yet, after
Castruccio's death, these same Florentines were bold enough to attack
the Duke of Milan in his own country, and strong enough to strip him
of his dominions. Such valour did they display in distant wars, such
weakness in those that were near.

But when a country is armed as Rome was and Switzerland now is, the
closer you press it, the harder it is to subdue; because such States can
assemble a stronger force to resist attack than for attacking others.
Nor does the great authority of Hannibal move me in this instance, since
resentment and his own advantage might lead him to speak as he spoke
to Antiochus. For had the Romans suffered in Gaul, and within the same
space of time, those three defeats at the hands of Hannibal which they
suffered in Italy, it must have made an end of them; since they could
not have turned the remnants of their armies to account as they did in
Italy, not having the same opportunity for repairing their strength; nor
could they have met their enemy with such numerous armies. For we never
find them sending forth a force of more than fifty thousand men for
the invasion of any province; whereas, in defending their own country
against the inroad of the Gauls at the end of the first Carthaginian
war, we hear of them bringing some eighteen hundred thousand men into
the field; and their failure to vanquish the Gauls in Lombardy as they
had vanquished those in Tuscany arose from their inability to lead a
great force so far against a numerous enemy, o