subsidize those princes and peoples who adjoin
his frontiers. States maintained on this footing may make a little
resistance on their confines; but when these are passed by the enemy no
further defence remains. Those who pursue such methods as these seem not
to perceive that they are opposed to reason and common sense. For the
heart and vital parts of the body, not the extremities, are those which
we should keep guarded, since we may live on without the latter, but
must die if the former be hurt. But the States of which I speak, leaving
the heart undefended, defend only the hands and feet. The mischief which
has thus been, and is at this day wrought in Florence is plain enough
to see. For so soon as an enemy penetrates within her frontiers, and
approaches her heart, all is over with her. And the same was witnessed a
few years ago in the case of the Venetians, whose city, had it not been
girdled by the sea, must then have found its end. In France, indeed, a
like result has not been seen so often, she being so great a kingdom
as to have few enemies mightier than herself. Nevertheless, when the
English invaded France in the year 1513, the whole kingdom tottered; and
the King himself, as well as every one else, had to own that a single
defeat might have cost him his dominions.

But with the Romans the reverse of all this took place. For the nearer
an enemy approached Rome, the more completely he found her armed for
resistance; and accordingly we see that on the occasion of Hannibal's
invasion of Italy, the Romans, after three defeats, and after the
slaughter of so many of their captains and soldiers, were still able,
not merely to withstand the invader, but even, in the end, to come off
victorious. This we may ascribe to the heart being well guarded, while
the extremities were but little heeded. For the strength of Rome rested
on the Roman people themselves, on the Latin league, on the confederate
towns of Italy, and on her colonies, from all of which sources she drew
so numerous an army, as enabled her to subdue the whole world and to
keep it in subjection.

The truth of what I say may be further seen from the question put by
Hanno the Carthaginian to the messengers sent to Carthage by Hannibal
after his victory at Cannae. For when these were vaunting the
achievements of Hannibal, they were asked by Hanno whether any one had
come forward on behalf of the Romans to propose terms of peace, and
whether any town of the Latin