to harm you. For
foot-soldiers, in approaching an enemy, can with more ease escape the
fire of his artillery than in ancient times they could have avoided
a charge of elephants or of scythed chariots, or any other of those
strange contrivances which had to be encountered by the Romans, and
against which they always devised some remedy. And, certainly, as
against artillery, their remedy would have been easier, by as much as
the time during which artillery can do hurt is shorter than the time
during which elephants and chariots could. For by these you were thrown
into disorder after battle joined, whereas artillery harasses you only
before you engage; a danger which infantry can easily escape, either by
advancing so as to be covered by the inequalities of the ground, or by
lying down while the firing continues; nay, we find from experience that
even these precautions may be dispensed with, especially as against
great artillery, which can hardly be levelled with such precision that
its fire shall not either pass over your head from the range being too
high, or fall short from its being too low.

So soon, however, as the engagement is begun, it is perfectly clear that
neither small nor great artillery can harm you any longer; since, if the
enemy have his artillerymen in front, you take them; if in rear, they
will injure him before they injure you; and if in flank, they can never
fire so effectively as to prevent your closing, with the result already
explained. Nor does this admit of much dispute, since we have proof of
it in the case of the Swiss at Novara, in the year 1513, when, with
neither guns nor cavalry, they advanced against the French army, who had
fortified themselves with artillery behind entrenchments, and routed
them without suffering the slightest check from their fire. In
further explanation whereof it is to be noted, that to work artillery
effectively it should be protected by walls, by ditches, or by
earth-works; and that whenever, from being left without such protection
it has to be defended by men, as happens in pitched battles and
engagements in the open field, it is either taken or otherwise becomes
useless. Nor can it be employed on the flank of an army, save in the
manner in which the ancients made use of their warlike engines, which
they moved out from their columns that they might be worked without
inconvenience, but withdrew within them when driven back by cavalry or
other troops. He who looks for