that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain
above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But
although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the
army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of
its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into
one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union
would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable;
and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme
minuteness or the excessive weight of its springs. To illustrate this
observation, we need only reflect, that there is no superiority of
natural strength, artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could
enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small district,
would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were a weak defence
against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a hundred thousand
well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions
of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike
terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of
an immense capital.

The Praetorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and
cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted to the
last-mentioned number They derived their institution from Augustus. That
crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might color, but that arms alone could
maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually formed this powerful
body of guards, in constant readiness to protect his person, to awe
the senate, and either to prevent or to crush the first motions of
rebellion. He distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and
superior privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once
have alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were
stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed in the
adjacent towns of Italy. But after fifty years of peace and servitude,
Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever rivetted the
fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of relieving Italy from
the heavy burden of military quarters, and of introducing a stricter
discipline among the guards, he assembled them at Rome, in a permanent
camp, which was f