ching the cause of this, many are content to believe that such
is their nature, which, indeed, I take to be true; but we are not,
therefore, to assume that the natural temper which makes them brave at
the outset, may not be so trained and regulated as to keep them brave to
the end. And, to prove this, I say, that armies are of three kinds.
In one of these you have discipline with bravery and valour as its
consequence. Such was the Roman army, which is shown by all historians
to have maintained excellent discipline as the result of constant
military training. And because in a well-disciplined army none must do
anything save by rule, we find that in the Roman army, from which as it
conquered the world all others should take example, none either eat, or
slept, or bought, or sold, or did anything else, whether in his military
or in his private capacity, without orders from the consul. Those armies
which do otherwise are not true armies, and if ever they have any
success, it is owing to the fury and impetuosity of their onset and not
to trained and steady valour. But of this impetuosity and fury, trained
valour, when occasion requires, will make use; nor will any danger
daunt it or cause it to lose heart, its courage being kept alive by its
discipline, and its confidence fed by the hope of victory which never
fails it while that discipline is maintained.

But the contrary happens with armies of the second sort, those, namely,
which have impetuosity without discipline, as was the case with the
Gauls whose courage in a protracted conflict gradually wore away; so
that unless they succeeded in their first attack, the impetuosity to
which they trusted, having no support from disciplined valour, soon
cooled; when, as they had nothing else to depend on, their efforts
ceased. The Romans, on the other hand, being less disquieted in danger
by reason of their perfect discipline, and never losing hope, fought
steadily and stubbornly to the last, and with the same courage at the
end as at the outset; nay, growing heated by the conflict, only became
the fiercer the longer it was continued.

In armies of the third sort both natural spirit and trained valour are
wanting; and to this class belong the Italian armies of our own times,
of which it may be affirmed that they are absolutely worthless, never
obtaining a victory, save when, by some accident, the enemy they
encounter takes to flight. But since we have daily proofs of this
absence of