ce. For if an unfamiliar adversary inspire terror even in a
veteran army, how much greater must be the terror which any army will
inspire in the minds of untrained men. And yet we often find all these
difficulties overcome by the supreme prudence of a great captain like
the Roman Gracchus or the Theban Epaminondas, of whom I have before
spoken, who with untried troops defeated the most practised veterans.
And the method they are said to have followed was to train their men for
some months in mimic warfare, so as to accustom them to discipline and
obedience, after which they employed them with complete confidence on
actual service.
No man, therefore, of warlike genius, need despair of creating a good
army if only he have the men; for the prince who has many subjects and
yet lacks soldiers, has only to thank his own inertness and want of
foresight, and must not complain of the cowardice of his people.
CHAPTER XXXIX.--_That a Captain should have good knowledge of Places._
Among other qualifications essential in a good captain is a knowledge,
both general and particular, of places and countries, for without such
knowledge it is impossible for him to carry out any enterprise in the
best way. And while practice is needed for perfection in every art, in
this it is needed in the highest degree. Such practice, or particular
knowledge as it may be termed, is sooner acquired in the chase than
in any other exercise; and, accordingly, we find it said by ancient
historians that those heroes who, in their day, ruled the world, were
bred in the woods and trained to the chase; for this exercise not merely
gives the knowledge I speak of, but teaches countless other lessons
needful in war. And Xenophon in his life of Cyrus tells us, that Cyrus,
on his expedition against the King of Armenia, when assigning to each
of his followers the part he was to perform, reminded them that the
enterprise on which they were engaged, differed little from one of those
hunting expeditions on which they had gone so often in his company;
likening those who were to lie in ambush in the mountains, to the men
sent to spread the toils on the hill-tops; and those who were to overrun
the plain, to the beaters whose business it is to start the game from
its lair that it may be driven into the toils. Now, this is related
to show how, in the opinion of Xenophon, the chase is a mimic
representation of war, and therefore to be esteemed by the great as
useful a
|