example of those wise nations be imitated, who,
inhabiting most fruitful and delightful countries, and such as were
likely to rear a listless and effeminate race, unfit for all manly
exercises, in order to obviate the mischief wrought by the amenity and
relaxing influence of the soil and climate, subjected all who were to
serve as soldiers to the severest training; whence it came that better
soldiers were raised in these countries than in others by nature rugged
and barren. Such, of old, was the kingdom of the Egyptians, which,
though of all lands the most bountiful, yet, by the severe training
which its laws enforced, produced most valiant soldiers, who, had their
names not been lost in antiquity, might be thought to deserve more
praise than Alexander the Great and many besides, whose memory is still
fresh in men's minds. And even in recent times, any one contemplating
the kingdom of the Soldan, and the military order of the Mamelukes
before they were destroyed by Selim the Grand Turk, must have seen how
carefully they trained their soldiers in every kind of warlike exercise;
showing thereby how much they dreaded that indolence to which their
genial soil and climate might have disposed them, unless neutralized by
strenuous laws. I say, then, that it is a prudent choice to found your
city in a fertile region when the effects of that fertility are duly
balanced by the restraint of the laws.

When Alexander the Great thought to add to his renown by founding a
city, Dinocrates the architect came and showed him how he might build it
on Mount Athos, which not only offered a strong position, but could be
handled that the city built there might present a semblance of the human
form, which would be a thing strange and striking, and worthy of so
great a monarch. But on Alexander asking how the inhabitants were to
live, Dinocrates answered that he had not thought of that. Whereupon,
Alexander laughed, and leaving Mount Athos as it stood, built
Alexandria; where, the fruitfulness of the soil, and the vicinity of the
Nile and the sea, might attract many to take up their abode.

To him, therefore, who inquires into the origin of Rome, if he assign
its beginning to AEneas, it will seem to be of those cities which were
founded by strangers if to Romulus, then of those founded by the natives
of the country. But in whichever class we place it, it will be seen to
have had its beginning in freedom, and not in subjection to another
State.