of the old Romans should select for imitation the most trifling
pursuits. This leads to a conversation on the decline of military
discipline and on the best means of restoring it. The institution
of the Florentine militia is ably defended; and several
improvements are suggested in the details.

The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that time, regarded as the
best soldiers in Europe. The Swiss battalion consisted of
pikemen, and bore a close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. The
Spaniards, like the soldiers of Rome, were armed with the sword
and the shield. The victories of Flamininus and Aemilius over the
Macedonian kings seem to prove the superiority of the weapons
used by the legions. The same experiment had been recently tried
with the same result at the battle of Ravenna, one of those
tremendous days into which human folly and wickedness compress
the whole devastation of a famine or a plague. In that memorable
conflict, the infantry of Arragon, the old companions of
Gonsalvo, deserted by all their allies, hewed a passage through
the thickest of the imperial pikes, and effected an unbroken
retreat, in the face of the gendarmerie of De Foix, and the
renowned artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or rather Machiavelli,
proposes to combine the two systems, to arm the foremost lines
with the pike for the purpose of repulsing cavalry, and those in
the rear with the sword, as being a weapon better adapted for
every other purpose. Throughout the work, the author expresses
the highest admiration of the military science of the ancient
Romans, and the greatest contempt for the maxims which had been
in vogue amongst the Italian commanders of the preceding
generation. He prefers infantry to cavalry, and fortified camps
to fortified towns. He is inclined to substitute rapid movements