This order needs no proof, in regard of the nature of servitude, which
is inconsistent with freedom, or participation of government in a
commonwealth.

The second order "distributes citizens into youth and elders (such as
are from eighteen years of age to thirty, being accounted youth; and
such as are of thirty and upward, elders), and establishes that
the youth shall be the marching armies, and the elders the standing
garrisons of this nation."

A commonwealth, whose arms are in the hands of her
servants, had need be situated, as is elegantly said of Venice by
Contarini, out of the reach of their clutches; witness the danger run
by that of Carthage in the rebellion of Spendius and Matho. But though
a city, if one swallow makes a summer, may thus chance to be safe, yet
shall it never be great; for if Carthage or Venice acquired any fame
in their arms, it is known to have happened through the mere virtue of
their captains, and not of their orders; wherefore Israel, Lacedaemon,
and Rome entailed their arms upon the prime of their citizens, divided,
at least in Lacedaemon and Rome, into youth and elders: the youth for
the field, and the elders for defence of the territory.

The third order "distributes the citizens into horse and foot, by the
sense or valuation of their estates; they who have above L100 a year in
lands, goods, or moneys, being obliged to be of the horse, and they
who have under that sum to be of the foot. But if a man has prodigally
wasted and spent his patrimony, he is neither capable of magistracy,
office, or suffrage in the commonwealth."

Citizens are not only to defend the commonwealth, but according to their
abilities, as the Romans under Servius Tullius (regard had to their
estates), were some enrolled in the horse centuries, and others of the
foot, with arms enjoined accordingly, nor could it be otherwise in the
rest of the commonwealths, though out of historical remains, that are
so much darker, it be not so clearly probable. And the necessary
prerogative to be given by a commonwealth to estates, is in some measure
in the nature of industry, and the use of it to the public. "The Roman
people," says Julius Exuperantius, "were divided into classes, and taxed
according to the value of their estates. All that were worth the sums
appointed were employed in the wars; for they most eagerly contend
for the victory; who fight for liberty in defence of their country and
possessions. But the poorer s